The Poems of Catullus by Gaius Valerius Catullus - April 24, 1980

The spearhead of a new poetic movement in the late republic, Catullus wrote verse whose direct and passionate language often cloaked a complex personality and a gift for synthesizing the earlier traditions of Roman poetry, and in particular for introducing a startlingly powerful force into the recently developed love epigram. A master of colloquial language and of grandeur heightened by realism, and a poet with astute psychological perception, he was above all a lyricist and one whose unique style is captured will in this translation by Peter Whigham, who also wrote the introduction.