When I asked my Latin teacher about Latin prosody, she quoted a line from this poem.
Two years ago I made another stab at reading Catullus in Latin. I struggled with this poem a bit, and then I went back to watching the film Cleopatra. In the film Julius Caesar quoted that line (in Latin) from the poem I had just studied. I liked that coincidence.
I live in Southern California, and I don't know Spanish. I yearn to learn French, but I feel I need to focus my linguistic studies on Latin for at least a few years. Perhaps then I will attempt to learn either Spanish or French.
I hadn't understood why Catullus became the subject here, but then a few days ago I read an essay by Guy Davenport on Zukofsky, and that certainly cleared THAT up...
ReplyDeleteI still don't have _A_ , and after reading Davenport, I'm not sure I'm up to it?
Just now I recall reading an essay by Bob Black, of all people, who gushed over a new translation of Catullus. I'm pretty sure it's in his book _Friendly Fire_.
Thanks for your comment. I decided to slowly work through the translations of Catullus Louis and his wife did. Did you read the Davenport essay on Zukofsky in The Geography of the Imagination? I read all but about two pages of that essay in the free sample on Amazon (twice), and I loved it. Pete Fairchild (a Davenport enthusiast) recommended Davenport's writing of Zukofsky to me.
ReplyDeleteI feel certain you can handle "A", and I suspect you will enjoy it. Who knows? Who can tell what we time-binding primates will enjoy? It just struck me that the pleasure I took in Chico Marx's puns in seventh grade helped prepare me to enjoy Zukofsky's puns. I have taken great pleasure in reading Zukofsky from time to time.
I used to love Bob Black's essays. "What would Harpo say?"
Yes: I read the dauntingly fine essay by Davenport in _Geography of the Imagination_, which I found used for $3 somewhere, a, like, TOTAL score.
DeleteIf I were to go searching for a translation of Catullus, whose do you recommend?