Catullus in Context

This class considers the work of Catullus in the context of the history of Latin personal poetry.A master of multiple genres and meters, Catullus wrote poems ranging in length from two to 408 lines and in topic from love to political invective to mythological narrative and beyond. Of profound influence on subsequent Latin poetry, Catullus was also part of a vibrant literary scene in mid-first-century BCE Rome, of whose productions (with the exception of Lucretius) only fragments survive. We will read Catullus in tandem with his predecessors, his contemporaries (including notably the so-called Neoterics), and his immediate successors, in order to gain a sense of his significance and place within the development of Latin literature. The class is open to graduate students, as well as to advanced postbaccalaureate and
undergraduate students with the permission of the instructor.