Catullus' brilliantly pungent, spare sketches of a great civilisation beset by civil war and social unrest portray a turbulent and magnificent period of the Roman Republic. Catullus was a genius of the lyric and the epigram, a master of both love poems and lampoons. His talent was to depict life and society in the golden days of the Roman Republic, with wit and elegiac tones to awaken a sense of love, loss and time passing - 'But ours is one brief day of light/Before the long last, everlasting night'. Born in Verona, Catullus belonged to a wealthy and influential family. He was a fashionable youth and his early writing was often about love, but already showed his trademark style of brevity and wit so successful in later works of sharp social commentary. Over a 20-year period he wrote continuously and became widely popular. At this time many great Romans were emerging centre stage - inspirational leaders like Caesar, Pompey and Crassus, learned men and orators like Cicero. The great slave revolt under Spartacus shook Rome's confidence but was put down without mercy. Catullus moved to Rome, where he entertained in the style of fashionable and wealthy young men, holding dinner parties and having love affairs. His famous poems to 'Lesbia' refer to Ciodia, a married woman with whom he conducted a long but unsatisfactory affair, and are widely held to be his greatest work. Following the ultimate failure of this love Catullus wrote little more and died in obscure circumstances around the time of Caesar's invasion of Britain. He whose poems had been so popular during his lifetime was soon forgotten. Indeed his entire body of work would have been lost to us, most destroyed with the libraries of Alexandria, had not a single book containing 100 poems, just over 2000 lines, been rediscovered in the 14th century.
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Review
'Aubrey Burl's introduction to this entralling and occasionally capricious book ...' -- New Humanist, January 1, 2004
'Since there aren't any facts, he supplies their absence with conjecture, much of it quite convincing.' -- Guardian, January 24, 2004
'Since there aren't any facts, he supplies their absence with conjecture, much of it quite convincing.' -- Guardian, January 24, 2004
About the Author
Aubrey Burl has published books on prehistoric stone circles, a history of the Albigensian Crusade, and two biographies, one of an eighteenth-century pirate, Bartholomew Roberts, and another about the medieval French poet, Francois Villon. Married, he lives in Birmingham surrounded by books.
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2.7 out of 5 stars
3 reviews
18 of 18 people found the following review helpful
1.0 out of 5 stars
Written on Napkins
31 Dec 2006
By John McKnight
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
This is a very disappointing work. Even given the paucity of biographical data on Catullus, a good "life and times" work could have been written about this poet at the nexus of some of the most intense political and sexual intrigue ever.
This is not that book. It reads like it was written one paragraph a day: it's repetitive, meandering, unstructured, and riddled with generalities, unsubstantiated "everybody knows" opinions in lieu of scholarship and a few outright whoppers of historical errors.
I've never gone to the trouble of posting a bad review before, but this book is so dreadful that I feel obligated to post a warning to others.
The author's approach to the sexuality at the heart of Catullus's work is equally muddled, occasionally viewing sexuality from the Roman perspective but often veering off into the perjorative language of a bookish, sexist erotophobia.
This is not that book. It reads like it was written one paragraph a day: it's repetitive, meandering, unstructured, and riddled with generalities, unsubstantiated "everybody knows" opinions in lieu of scholarship and a few outright whoppers of historical errors.
I've never gone to the trouble of posting a bad review before, but this book is so dreadful that I feel obligated to post a warning to others.
The author's approach to the sexuality at the heart of Catullus's work is equally muddled, occasionally viewing sexuality from the Roman perspective but often veering off into the perjorative language of a bookish, sexist erotophobia.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars
Elusive Catullus
29 Aug 2005
By Nicholas A. Salerno
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
Given how little we know about Catullus, it is amazing that Burl has yet managed to produce a book-length study about the famous Roman poet. More the fool I for purchasing the book and expecting to find out something, anything new about Catullus. What I found instead was a hodgepodge of well-established facts and well-known gossip about virtually anyone who may have known or been influenced by Catullus. There's little new here, and Burl's undistinguished style does nothing to redeem that little. Not even the translations are new, having been first published in 1985.
3 of 6 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Well Written Book
16 May 2008
By Danny G.
- Published on Amazon.com
Format:Hardcover
I have never heard of the poet Catullus before coming across this book. It is well written and quite interesting, unlike many scholarly works that are as dry as burnt toast! The previous reviewer must have been expecting a book on poetry! Sorry! But this is a book on ancient history, with poet Catullus as the focal point!
The bottom line: Ancient Rome was an incredibly violent place, run by many unscrupulous and depraved individuals. Never ending murder, assassination and incredible brutality were the norm. It's a pleasure to learn that least one individual, the poet Catullus, could rise above the unending fray!
The bottom line: Ancient Rome was an incredibly violent place, run by many unscrupulous and depraved individuals. Never ending murder, assassination and incredible brutality were the norm. It's a pleasure to learn that least one individual, the poet Catullus, could rise above the unending fray!
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2.7 out of 5 stars
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