Re: XY in DosBox (XP)

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from Michael Norman  on Wed, 31 Mar
2004 14:18:06 -0500

> You've moved me to pull some collections off the shelf.

The best English translations, or at any rate the closest to the spirit of
Catullus (and probably not on anybody's shelf), are by a guy (from Brooklyn)
with the unlikely name of Carl Sesar. Published around 1973 or so, and had a
very short life in print (can't remember the publisher -- "Mason and Something"
or "Something and Mason", I think). Abebooks is a likely source -- or a
library. Simply riveting. Other translations are stilted academic and
bowdlerized, almost without exception. Catullus is, without a doubt, very
problematic for any translator, because he marries an unmatched perfection of
formal poetics with quotidien, often gutter, events and ideas. Most
translators, understandably (because their discipline requires them to show
their own appreciation and full comprehension of the poetic achievement), tend
to go for the perfection, but at the terrible expense of the actual sense.
Probably no poet has ever been able to deliver insult with such devastating,
and hilarious, effect. A young bisexual guy with a huge libido, no
inhibitions, and yet a deeply moving sensitivity. No wonder his words are
found as graffiti on the walls of first century BC Roman cities. (If I wasn't
absolutely certain that it would make our subscribers blush, I'd quote him at
length.)

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Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
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