Customer Reviews

Writing Passion: A Catullus Reader

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This is an exceptional book for students learning to read Latin poetry. We have just about finished it in my AP course, and the students have found the vocabulary and grammar notes placed on the same page with the text extremely helpful. It also includes a glossary in the back as well as an extra copy of each poem without notes. This is extremely helpful for studying. Professor Ancona has created a text that is truly classroom friendly.

I have been learning Latin for a couple of years on my own with an aim to take the AP exam before returning to school. Catullus has always been one of my favorites, having been introduced to him fairly early on (Wheelock's Latin gives you the unaltered "Kisses" poem as an exercise somewhere around the middle of the book). Since I had read the same group of three or four poems again and again and again in my first couple of years of Latin and after reading "Catullus and His World," I was more than ready to sink my teeth into some more Catullus. This book offered a great opportunity.

The notes are convenient and helpful without depriving you of the chance to decipher the grammar for yourself. Here, however, I'll make one suggestion to the reader: if you're a more advanced student, I would suggest reading the copies in the back without the notes, and only reference them if you need to. Intermediate students, on the other hand, should breathe in the notes as they are quite informative. The poems themselves are interesting, well-selected, and well-printed. The only real deficit is one of quantity; I'd love to see something like this for the entire corpus, if anyone has a mind to put together such a volume.