In the following essay, Quinn explores Catullus's poems that focus upon political and social commentary: those poems which, in the main, "establish a norm (if one can speak of a norm in connexion with a segment of society whose habits are often so abnormal), set against which the Lesbia affair stands out in sharp contrast, without any more needing to be said."
Wiseman on understanding Catullus's poetry: … Why] should we expect his design to be immediately apparent to us? Just because he was capable of writing individual poems of such direct simplicity that they still speak to us face to face after two millenia, it does not follow that he was always simple, much less that his tastes and attitudes necessarily coincide with ours.
Below, Small examines Catullus's most ambitious work, "Poem 64," and draws critical conclusions about the poet and his view of the role of poetry as a vehicle of self-expression, self-understanding, artistic immortality, and power "to celebrate whatever may merit praise …, to punish the wicked, to expose the inept, to defend the helpless and to retaliate upon the ungrateful."
Below, Quinn examines the features of what he terms "the Catullan movement" in classical Roman literature, focusing upon the poetry of youth and reaction, meter and structure, and the language of Catullus and the poetae novi.
In the following essay, Fitzgerald develops "an erotics of Catullus's poetry, and especially the polymetrics, because of the fact that these poems are performances that take place in the context of a still self-conscious and developing conception of sophisticated, urban social behavior."
In the following chapters from his Catullus, Tibullus, and Propertius, Davies offers a discursive reading of Catullus's most notable poems among the poet's epithalamia and alexandrines.
In the following essay, Havelock places Catullus within the context of his time, explaining the poetic tradition of which he was a part and his influence upon the Roman poetry of the classical age.
Below, Ferguson provides an overview of the Lesbia poems, the elegies, and four long poems; two marriage-hymns ("Poem 61" and "Poem 62'), "Attis" ("Poem 63,"), and "Poem 64."'
In the following excerpt from his 1979 introduction to his edition of Catullus's poetry, Martin speaks of Catullus as one whose poetry was unique in its day and notably influential in modern times. Martin adds that Catullus's observations and concerns resonate readily within the contemporary mind
In the essay below, Raphael and McLeish provide a portrait in miniature of Catullus's life and enduring accomplishment, piecing together a likely outline of the poet's life and that of Lesbia using such sources as are available.
