Catullus, Gaius Valerius

Catullus, Gaius Valerius

(born c. 84, Verona, Cisalpine Gaul—died c. 54 BC, Rome) Roman poet. Few facts about his life are certain. Of 116 extant poems, 25 portray an intense and unhappy affair with a married woman (“Lesbia”); others reflect an affair with the youth Juventius; still others are outbursts of contempt for Julius Caesar and other personages. He displayed remarkable versatility in assorted poetic forms, and his conversational rhythms carry an immediacy unrivaled by any other classical poet. His expressions of love and hatred represent perhaps the finest lyric poetry of ancient Rome.

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Catullus, Gaius Valerius 

Born circa 87 B.C.; died circa 54 B.C. Roman lyric poet. Native of Verona.

Catullus belonged to the Neoterics, a literary group that derived its inspiration from Alexandrian poetry. Writing during the final crisis of the Roman Republic, Catullus turned from the world he could not accept to an ideal world of poetry, friendship, and love. His literary legacy consists of 116 works, including lyric verse, epigrams, epyllia, epistles, and epithalamiums. His work influenced the development of Roman and, much later, European lyric poetry.

WORKS

Catullus. Edited by M. Schuster and W. Eisenhut. Leipzig, 1958. In Russian translation:
Kniga liriki. Translated and with an introduction by A. Piotrovskii. Leningrad, 1929.
Valerii Katull. Moscow, 1963.

REFERENCE

Tronskii, I. M. Istoriia antichnoi literatury, 3rd ed. Leningrad, 1957.