A Cockney Catullus: The Reception of Catullus in Romantic Britain, 1795-1821 (Classical Presences)

Catullus, one of the most Hellenizing, scandalous, and emotionally expressive of the Roman poets, burst onto the British cultural scene during the Romantic era. It was not until this socially, politically, and culturally explosive epoch, with its mania for all things Greek, that Catullus' work was first fully translated into English and played a key role in the countercultural and commercially driven classicism of the time. Previously marginalized on the traditional eighteenth-century curriculum as a charming but debauched minor love poet, Catullus was discovered as a major poetic voice in the late Georgian era by reformist emulators--especially in the so-called Cockney School--and won widespread respect. In this volume, Henry Stead pioneers a new way of understanding the key role Catullus played in shaping Romanticism by examining major literary engagements with Catullus, from John Nott of Bristol's pioneering book-length bilingual edition (1795), to George Lamb's polished verse translation (1821). He identifies the influence of Catullus' poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt, Canning, Brougham, and Gifford, demonstrating the degree of its cultural penetration. Cover 1 A Cockney Catullus: The Reception of Catullus in Romantic Britain, 1795–1821 4 Copyright 5 Acknowledgements 6 Contents 8 List of Illustrations 10 List of Abbreviations 12 Select Editions and Translations of Catullus Available in Romantic-era Britain 14 Introduction 18 CATULLUS THE GREEK 25 THE LAKE SCHOOL RESPONSE TO EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY CLASSICISM 28 EARLY COCKNEY CASTALIA 31 THE RELIGIOUS OBJECTION TO CLASSICISM 32 A COCKNEY ANSWER TO A ‘CLASSICAL MISTAKE’ 34 COCKNEY CLASSICISM 37 AN EROTIC TURN 39 SCHOLARLY INTERACTIONS 42 LITERARY ENGAGEMENTS 47 1: Catullus Unchained: The Translations of John Nott and George Lamb 50 1.1. CATULLUS IN BRITAIN: THE SEVENTEENTH AND EARLIER EIGHTEENTH CENTURIES 51 1.2. AN EDUCATIONAL TURN 57 1.3. THE VICES OF CATULLUS 60 1.4. BEASTLY CATULLUS 64 1.5. PIONEERS AND SETTLERS 66 1.6. ‘ACQUAINTED ONLY BY HALVES’ 74 1.7. NOVI CATULLI, WARMTH, AND BILE 77 1.8. PEDICABO ET IRRUMABO—EXPURGATING A SATIRICAL MENACE 79 1.9. TRANSLATION AS MURDER, ABSOLUTE MURDER 82 1.10. ’TIS MEET—MITIS 85 1.11. UNFASHIONABLE RHYMES 87 1.12. DR NOTT’S TRIANGULATION 88 1.13. LAMB READING NOTT READING CATULLUS 90 1.14. ODIOUS PARTS (POEMS 97 AND 98) 91 1.15. FORMAL TRANSLATION 96 1.16. SAME-SEX LOVE 1: JUVENTIUS, OR ‘DEAREST MAID OF MY SOUL’ 98 1.17. SAME-SEX LOVE 2: POEM 61 AND THE CONCUBINUS 100 1.17.1 The Mystery of Catullus’ Beard 101 1.17.2. Lamb’s Flatting-Mill 107 1.18. SPREADING THE WORD 110 2: Catullus 64 in Translation and Allusion 116 2.1. TRANSLATING 64: C. A. ELTON AND FRANK SAYERS 118 The Sound of an Embroidered Wave 125 Ariadne Waking 128 Like a Raving Stone 132 The Ethics of Restoration 135 2.2. SYMBOLIC ALLUSION: T. L. PEACOCK, LEIGH HUNT, AND KEATS 139 ‘Noxious Race of Heroes’ 144 Thomas Love Peacock’s Rhododaphne 147 Catullus in Rhododaphne 152 Peacock’s Symbols and Allegory 155 Poem 64 in Keats’s Endymion 158 Hunt and Poem 64 162 3: Non-Cockney Responses to Catullus 170 3.1. W. S. LANDOR, WORDSWORTH, THOMAS MOORE, AND LORD BYRON 170 Trouble at Trinity: Catullus Goes to Oxford 171 Wordsworth’s Catullus in The Morning Post 182 When is a Sparrow not a Sparrow? 185 Wordsworth’s Increasingly Foreign Catullus 189 ‘Leprous all over’: The Case of Thomas Moore 194 Catullan Footnotes 196 Catullus in The Poetical Works of Thomas Little 198 Byron and Catullus 203 Byron’s Classical Scholarship 206 Well Versed in Ellenics 214 Byron, Thyrza, and Catullus 216 3.2. AN ANTI-JACOBIN CATULLUS 222 Horace and Lydia, or Fox and Tooke 225 Catullus in the Crown and Anchor Tavern 227 Catullus Returns from the Îles Saint-Marcouf 233 4: Catullus the Reformer: Leigh Hunt’s Reception 240 4.1. CATULLUS AT THE FEAST OF POETS 244 Catullus the Sound Homester 246 Sirmio in The Examiner 249 My Dear Brougham, Part 1 254 Translating Françoise Noël 257 Catullus Spreads Cheer 261 My Dear Brougham, Part 2 264 4.2. CATULLUS AMID THE FOLIAGE 270 The Nuptial Song of Charlotte and Leopold 271 Poem 63: Atys, the Enthusiast 274 Velluti, Atys, and Hunt 282 5: Keats’s Catullan Samphire 286 5.1. EDUCATING KEATS 288 5.2. KEATS AND LATIN 291 5.3. KEATS AND CATULLUS 296 Kissing and Dead Pets Zone 296 ‘Think’ 298 The Bacchus and Ariadne Zone 300 Mediations 310 Isabella and the Realms of Gold 313 5.4. SONIC ALLUSION AND A DIRECT BOND? 315 5.5. WRITING IN WATER 317 Conclusion 320 APPENDIX: Some Poems by W. S. Landor, T. Moore, Byron, the editors of the Anti-Jacobin, and Leigh Hunt 324 Walter Savage Landor 324 Thomas Moore 329 Lord Byron 330 Anti-Jacobin 331 Leigh Hunt 333 Select Bibliography 334 Editions Containing the Poems of Catullus 334 Modern Language Translations of Catullus 334 Editions and Translations of Other Greek and Roman Authors 335 Romantic Periodicals 335 Selected Primary Sources 336 Selected Secondary Sources 339 Archives 347 Internet 347 General Index 348 Index of Catullus’ Poems 356 La 4e de couverture indique : "Catullus, one the most Hellenizing, scandalous, and emotionally expressive of the Roman poets, burst onto the British cultural scene during the Romantic era. It was not until this socially, politically, and culturally explosive epoch, with its mania for all things Greek, that Catullus' work was first fully translated into English and played a key role in the countercultural and commercially driven classicism of the time. Previously marginalized on the traditional eighteenth-century curriculum as a charming but debauched minor love poet, Catullus was discovered as a major poetic voice in the late Georgian era by reformist emulators-especially in the so-called Cockney School-and won widespread respect. In this volume, Stead pioneers a new way of understanding the key role Catullus played in shaping Romanticism by examining major literary engagements with Catullus, from John Nott of Bristol's pioneering book-length bilingual edition (1795), to George Lamb's polished verse translation (1821). He identifies the influence of Catullus' poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt, Canning, Brougham, and Gifford, demonstrating the degree of its cultural penetration." "Catullus, one the most Hellenizing, scandalous, and emotionally expressive of the Roman poets, burst onto the British cultural scene during the Romantic era. It was not until this socially, politically, and culturally explosive epoch, with its mania for all things Greek, that Catullus' work was first fully translated into English and played a key role in the countercultural and commercially driven classicism of the time. Previously marginalized on the traditional eighteenth-century curriculum as a charming but debauched minor love poet, Catullus was discovered as a major poetic voice in the late Georgian era by reformist emulators-especially in the so-called Cockney School-and won widespread respect. In this volume, Stead pioneers a new way of understanding the key role Catullus played in shaping Romanticism by examining major literary engagements with Catullus, from John Nott of Bristol's pioneering book-length bilingual edition (1795), to George Lamb's polished verse translation (1821). He identifies the influence of Catullus' poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt, Canning, Brougham, and Gifford, demonstrating the degree of its cultural penetration."-- Provided by publisher A Cockney Catullus traces the reception history of the Roman poet Catullus in Romantic-era Britain, identifying the influence of his poetry in the work of numerous Romantic-era literary and political figures, including Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Hunt, Canning, Brougham, and Gifford.