Catullus and the Poetics of Roman Manhood

This literary study of the first-century BCE Roman poet Catullus uses two sets of comparative models to offer a new understanding of his poems. The first consists of cultural anthropological accounts of male social interaction in the premodern Mediterranean, and the second, the postmodern poetics of such twentieth-century poets as Louis Zukofsky, which are characterized by simultaneous juxtaposition, a "collage" aesthetic, and self-allusive play. The book will be of interest to students of comparative literature and gender studies as well as to classicists.