A Log Cabin Out of Stone: - Dartmouth College

Chapter 2
Up until now, I have been working with theoretical issues involved in translation.
I needed a link between the broader translation theories and the specific issues involved
in translating a specific poet. In this chapter I will examine different approaches to
translating Classical poets. I have chosen three poems of Catullus and have taken one
conservative translation and compared it to another, more aggressive translation. After
analyzing the more liberal translations of Catullus, it became apparent that translation
involves a certain history of literary reception. The population for which the translation
is written is very present throughout. David Slavitt had this type of approach to
translating. The poem’s meaning changes throughout the generations, and the way we
present the poems artistically also changes.
Catullus is a particularly informative poet to work with for a few reasons. The
first and most obvious reason is that Catullus wrote in the same language as Horace and
wrote the same genre. Their poems are short and were written around the same time-
maybe twenty years apart. Scholars suggest Horace’s epodes were written between 41
and 31 BCE 1 while Catullus’s poetry was written throughout his life between 84 and 54
BCE. 2 Catullus’s poems are often invective, which is the subject matter that Horace
chose for the epodes. Furthermore, Catullus’s poems express powerful emotions
connected with personal friendships or love affairs, two themes very important in
Horace’s epodes. The last reason, and maybe the most important, is that many translators
have attempted to work with Catullus and because of that, there is a wide assortment of
translations available that illustrate different theoretical approaches.
1 Cary, 438.
2 Cary, 175.
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