AliCorbin reviewed The poems of Catullus by Gaius Valerius Catullus (The world's classics)
Review of 'Catullus' on 'Goodreads'
2 stars
I started this book because I wanted to translate some Latin poetry, and I'd read some bits of Catullus in my textbook that were quite sweet.
Unfortunately, those sweet bits are few and far apart among his poems. In the vast majority of his work he is simply nasty. He viciously skewers people without mercy and often drops into obscenity. There were many times when, after parsing out and understanding the Latin, I was at a loss of how to restate it in English. Because I couldn't bring myself to write down the English words that were needed to do this. Hell, in many cases I didn't even know the English equivalents.
I started this book because I wanted to translate some Latin poetry, and I'd read some bits of Catullus in my textbook that were quite sweet.
Unfortunately, those sweet bits are few and far apart among his poems. In the vast majority of his work he is simply nasty. He viciously skewers people without mercy and often drops into obscenity. There were many times when, after parsing out and understanding the Latin, I was at a loss of how to restate it in English. Because I couldn't bring myself to write down the English words that were needed to do this. Hell, in many cases I didn't even know the English equivalents.
