Description
In 1925, the socialist, feminist, labour reporter, and poet Miriam Allen deFord (1888-1975) published her translation, The Life and Poems of Catullus, for the widely popular, inexpensive, and working-class oriented publishing series, the Little Blue Books. While not amassing the same sales numbers as a few of the other translations for the series – including some of deFord’s – The Life and Poems of Catullus constitutes a unique engagement with the poetry of Catullus. This paper will use close reading of a selection of deFord’s translations to analyse how she takes the poetry of Catullus – which she laments “has been hidden from many modern lovers of poetry, partly by feeble and frightened translation, partly by the complexity and rapidity of his Latin, partly by mere neglect” – and, through her translation, makes the poems accessible, engaging, and ideologically charged.Given that The Life and Poems of Catullus was created and published for an explicitly working-class audience and deFord’s leftist leanings, her translations are infused with ideological nuances and authorial interventions which guide the unfamiliar reader through parts of the Catullan corpus to show them the inherent – and sometimes ideologically motivated – relatability of Catullus’ “fair passions and bountiful pities and loves without stain” to all readers, not solely those with the wealth and means to study classical texts formally. deFord’s publisher, Emanuel Haldeman-Julius, summed this up perfectly in a letter after the book’s publication: “Our readers, who are a little timid about the ancients (particularly the poets) will not shrink from your Catullus. The notes are useful, and your running comment puts one into the spirit of the thing.” Moreover, deFord’s edition is influenced by the historical context in which she lived, leading to unwanted ‘Bowdlerization’ as she had to navigate the minefield of early 20th-century American censorship when it came to discussions of sex, sexuality, and same-sex relationships. This paper represents a significant and relatively unexplored area of Catullan reception – working-class and ideological reception.
| Period | 8 May 2025 |
|---|---|
| Event title | Amour et poésie : Catulle au prisme de la réception |
| Event type | Conference |
| Location | Lausanne, SwitzerlandShow on map |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Classical Reception
- American History
- American Literature
- Socialism
- Marxism
- Latin poetry
- Catullus
- Literature