The Poems of Catullus: A Dual-Language Edition with Parallel Text

I hate and love. How do I do this, you might ask. I don't know but I feel it and am tortured.

A Penguin Classic

Award-winning translator Stephanie McCarter presents a dual-language translation of the surviving poems of Catullus (84-54 BCE), the Roman poet and punk, the lover and the hater, the hedonist and the wretch, famous for contradictions on friendship, love, and sex, and infamous for obscene diatribes against enemies. Catullus wrote only a single book of poetry, but in it lies some of the most raw and forceful depictions human emotion to be produced in the ancient world. Catullus's lyricism is as tender as it is violent, equally capable of capturing fleeting romance, heartbroken despondence, and exuberant rage. Tailored to a broad audience, McCarter's translation conveys the nuances of sexuality and gender in ancient Rome and meticulously mirrors Catullus's poetic variety. This edition, which includes facing Latin text as well as a general introduction, suggestions for further reading, and endnotes, showcases the complexities of a poet who shaped the Western poetic tradition.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Author: Gaius Valerius Catullus
Publisher: Penguin Classics
Published: 07/14/2026
Pages: 320
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.50lbs
Size: 7.70h x 5.00w x 0.70d
ISBN: 9780143136378

About the Author
Gaius Valerius Catullus lived and wrote during the first-century BCE, a time of political crisis that would mark the end of the Roman Republic. Little is known of his life beyond the enticing biographical scraps found in his poetry. A native of Verona, he offers us an enticing glimpse into the political and cultural life of his time, writing with astonishing frankness about his most famous contemporaries while devoting himself to leisure, poetry, friendship, and love.

Stephanie McCarter (translator and introducer) is a professor of Classics at the University of the South in Sewanee, TN. A specialist in the translation of Latin poetry, she won the 2023 Harold Morton Landon Translation Award from the Academy of American Poets for her edition of Ovid's Metamorphoses. She has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the Loeb Classical Library Foundation.