Catullus: A Selection of Poems

This is the OCR-endorsed publication from Bloomsbury for the Latin AS and A-Level (Group 3) prescription of Catullus’ poems 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 17, 40, 70, 76, 85, 88, 89, 91 and 107, and the A-Level (Group 4) prescription of poems 1, 34, 62 and 64 lines 124-264, giving full Latin text, commentary and vocabulary, with a detailed introduction that also covers the prescribed poems to be read in English for A Level.

The poetry of Catullus is some of the most accessible and vivid literature ever composed. Yeats described his poems as ones which ‘young men, tossing on their beds/ rhymed out in love’s despair/ to flatter beauty’s ignorant ear’ and this selection reveals a writer baring his feelings on the page in lines of unforgettable force. He is rude and crude when he wants to be, but also elegant and wistful, sometimes in the same poem. Above all, he recreates what it was to be a young poet in the heady world of the Roman republic.

Resources are available on the Companion Website.