This work is a dual book project involving a new translation of Catallus together with the author's own book of poems, versions and translations.

Comprehensive coverage, accessible to students and non-specialists, of one of the most popular poets of classical antiquity.

Catullus tells the story of the poet Gaius Valerius Catullus and his awe-inspiring poetry, set against the background of years of unrest, violence and death in ancient Rome.

Catullus, who lived from about 84 to 54 BC, was one of ancient Rome's most gifted, versatile and passionate poets. Living at a time of radical social change at the end of the Roman Republic, he belonged to a group of young poets who embraced Hellenistic forms to forge a new literary style, the so-called 'neoterics'. This comprehensive edition includes the complete, unabridged and unbowdlerised poems and is the definitive student edition of Catullus' work. The extensive introduction covers topics including the role of Catullus' literary paramour Lesbia, the few biographical certainties known about Catullus' life and other figures from the contemporary political scene. In addition to this, there is a brief overview of the poems' textual history, discussion of Catullus' style across the collection and linguistic discussions of morphology, vocabulary, syntax and metre. The commentary notes include individual introductions and bibliographies to each poem, as well as line by line notes which translate difficult phrases and gloss obscure words. In addition to this, more detailed explanations of poetic, structural and contextual points are also provided.

Balmer examines the art of classical translation from the perspective of the practitioner. From translating classical texts, to her poetry collections inspired by classical literature, she discusses her own relationship with ancient literature and uncovers the various strategies and approaches she has employed in their transformations into English.

Going beyond exclusively national perspectives, this volume considers the reception of the ancient Greek poet Sappho and her first Latin translator, Catullus, as a literary pair who transmit poetic culture across the world from the early 20th century to the present. Sappho's and Catullus' reception has shaped a transnational network of poets and intellectuals, helping to define ideas of origins, gender, sexuality and national identities. This book shows that across time and cultures translations and rewritings of Sappho and Catullus articulate modernist poetics of myth and fragmentation, forms of confessionalism and post-modern pastiche. The inquiry focuses on Italian and North American poetry as two central yet understudied hubs of Sappho's and Catullus' modern reception, also linked by a rich mutual intellectual exchange: key case-studies include Giovanni Pascoli, Ezra Pound, H.D., Salvatore Quasimodo, Robert Lowell, Rosita Copioli and Anne Carson, and cover a wide range of unpublished archival material. Texts are analysed and compared through reception and translation theories and inserted within the current debate on the Classics as World Literature, demonstrating how sustained transnational poetic discourse employs the ancient pair to expand notions of literary origins and redefine poetry's relationship to human existence.

In a time when millions travel around the planet; some by choice, some driven by economic or political exile, translation of the written and spoken word is of ever increasing importance. This guide presents readers with an accessible and engaging introduction to the valuable position translation holds within literature and society. Leading translation theorist, Susan Bassnett traces the history of translation, examining the ways translation is currently utilised as a burgeoning interdisciplinary activity and considers more recent research into developing technologies and new media forms. Translation displays the importance of translation across disciplines, and is essential reading for students and scholars of translation, literary studies, globalisation studies, and ancient and modern languages.