Translating Catullus

This seminar considers my forthcoming translation of the poems of the Roman poet Catullus (Penguin Classics 2026) – a bilingual edition with parallel Latin and English. I will set out my main goals in tackling the Catullan collection: to offer a modern translation accessible to students, scholars and general readers alike; to match Catullus’s metrical variety and stylistic exuberance effectively in English; and to keep his obscenity as forceful in English as it is in Latin while not connecting it too neatly with modern cultural constructions of sexuality and gender. As I describe my strategies for meeting each of these goals, I will read from and elucidate my translation of several key poems, such as 6, 16, 32, 51, 60, 63, 64, 93, 94, 101, paying special attention to how careful handling of meter, style and obscenity is crucial when rendering Catullan invective. My overarching translation approach, which walks a careful line between ‘foreignisation’ and ‘domestication’, is one of constant negotiation between Catullus’s world and my own – one that I hope gives readers a clear view into an unfamiliar and distant time while also allowing them to see and to contemplate their own a bit more clearly.

Image credit: Book-cover image supplied by the author for 8 May 2026