Catullus: A Textual Reappraisal - Tapa dura

Trappes-Lomaxs book is intended for serious students of Catullus who... will benefit from the authors discussion of passages that invite commentary.'--Helena Dettmer, University of Iowa"New England Classical Journal" (01/01/0001) Trappes-Lomaxs bold reappraisal is a must-read for any Catullan scholar, and will also be of interest to any textual scholar. The writing is clear and engaging...'--Craig Maynes, Memorial University of Newfoundland"Mouseion" (01/01/2009)

The poems of Catullus have notoriously been subjected to numerous accidental corruptions. This work represents a radical reappraisal of his text. It recommends some 600 changes to the Oxford Text of "R.A.B. Mynors"; many of these proposals are easily accessible elsewhere, but many are either original or else more or less forgotten. It is suggested here that Catullus' text was also subjected to significant deliberate change, much of it probably dating back to classical antiquity. These changes consist in part of around 70 interpolated lines, often designed to explain or paraphrase what Catullus had written, and in part of modernisations designed to adapt a Republican poet, the near contemporary of Cicero and Lucretius, to the poetical norms of the early Empire. Students of Catullus will certainly wish to take account of the arguments here advanced, even where they find themselves in disagreement with the conclusions.