Catullan Provocations

This text argues that Catullus challenges us to think about the nature of lyric in new ways. It shows how Catullus's poetry reflects the conditions of its own consumption as it explores the terms and possibilities of the poet's license. Reading the poetry in relation to the drama of position played out between poet, poem and reader, the author produces a fresh interpretation of almost all of Catullus's oeuvre. Running through the book is an analysis of the ideological stakes behind the construction of the author Catullus in 20th-century scholarship and of the agenda governing the interpreter's position in relation to Catullus.