Mediterraneans: A Quarterly Review. Number 1, Summer 1991 (review)

Book Reviews 115 but also of Mediterranean literature generally. The editor of this volume deserves congratula­ tions for having put together a work that is likely tobeamajorreferencepointinthestudyofCretan literature, and to help find a more comfortable space for it within the study of Greek literature. Paul Sant Cassia University of Durham References Baxandall, M. (1972): Painting and Experience in fifteenth century Italy. Oxford: University Press. Bryson,N. (1983): VisionandPainting. TheLogicofthe Gaze. London: Macmillan Burke, P. (1978): Popular Culture in early modern Europe. London Herzfeld, M. (1982): Ours OnceMore: Folklore, Ideol­ ogy and the Making of Modern Greece. Austin: University of Texas Press. Ong, W. J. (1982): Orality and Literacy. London ThePoems ofCatullus. A new translation by Guy Lee (The World’s Classics series, Oxford, Uni­ versity Press, 1991, xxviii & 195, ISBN 0-19282850 -9, paperback, £4.99). As Lee himself says in this edition (xxiv), there have been at least sixteen English translations of Catullus since 1945; consequently one must ask whetherthesetranslationshavebeengoodenough, or whether the language has changed so much in a relatively short period to warrant another trans­ lation. There certainly is no big gap of time since George Goold’s translation of Catullus, which Lee recommends as the most reliable of the six­ teen. His ownversion, however, ismeanttobe ‘as reliable but even more compressed’. The phenomenon ofso many similar attempts upon a translation, or even a study, of an author, maybe explainedeitherby thefactthat theauthor is rich and popular, or by the fact that today there are very many scholars working on similar stud­ ies, often unaware of it. Consequently, a non-Classicist, looking for a recent version of Catullus inEnglish, willbe atalosschoosingone, and may even argue that he is free to interpret a poet in his own way, since there is no standard English version of Catullus. Guy Lee’s translation is here produced with a facingedition, afewnotes, andageneralintroduc­ tion under the following headings: The Text, The Collection, CatullustheEpigrammatist, Catullus’ Life and Poetry, The Translation, andA Chronol­ ogy. The introduction, even if it does not show thoroughscholarlyreferences,isveryinformative for students both at High School and University. Here one is referred to Catullus* intention of structuring his poems in three libelli (xiii-xiv), judging from the usual length of a papyrus roll fitting one booklet. Each section has similar amounts of lines, references to Callimachus and invocations to different Muses. It is difficult to understand, however, how the metre of Book II (the long poems) can be exclusively called the hexameter. The introduction also refers to bio­ graphical information on Catullus in Suetonius andApuleius,JeromeandMartial,andtoCatullus’ influence on Vergil throughpietas. Thisedition’sintroductionalsoincludesavery useful chronological table which puts Catullus andhis circleoffriends and poets within Caesar’s era. It corrects Jerome’s dates of Catullus’ birth and death, which Lee postpones by three years. Lee takes great care to translate accurately Catullus (xxv: ‘details are takencare of’), despite the fact that he renders Catullus into a verse translation. However,hedoesnot adviseothers to do this (xxv), and quite rightly since a good translation must not be compromised by restric­ tionsduetometrical elements. There arehowever, some details in his translation one can disagree with which it would be pedantic to outline here. Overall however, considering the problem of producing an accurate verse translation, Lee’s translation is, on the whole, not only reliable, but also beautiful. Finally, Lee’s edition ends with short notes/ summaries, an appendix on the variant readings, another appendix onthe metres used by Catullus, and, finally, a Select Bibliography divided into Edi-tions and Commentaries, Translations, and Studies. Horatio C. R. Vella University of Malta Mediterraneans. A Quarterly Review. Number 1, Summer 1991. Manchester: Didsbury Press, 272pp. ISSN0961-530X-05 £6.99/$15.00/Ff85. This is a wonderful quarterly review that is likely 116 Book Reviews toappeal topeopleboth outsidetheAcademy and withinit.BomoutofanideabyDrKenBrown, an anthropologist at the University of Manchester who has conducted fieldwork in the Moroccan city of Sale, and in joint editorship with Robert Waterhouse, Mediterraneans groups together ar­ ticles on a wide variety of topics: the arts, litera­ ture, poetry, politics and contemporary affairs. This first number is a banquet of the most varied of dishes with the most unexpected of tastes, and the editors have assembled their material...