Sappho and Catullus in Twentieth-Century Italian and North American Poetry

Description

Going beyond exclusively national perspectives, this volume considers for the first time the reception of the ancient Greek poet Sappho and her first Latin translator, Catullus, as a literary pair who transmit poetic culture across the world from the early 20th century to the present. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen Sappho and Catullus gaining prime positions in literary culture, with a vigorous industry of translations and rewritings of their poetry and biographies driving their intertwined fortune. A slow yet powerful fire, Sappho’s and Catullus’ reception has shaped a transnational network of poets and intellectuals, helping to define ideas of origins, gender, sexuality and national identities. This book shows that across time and cultures translations and rewritings of Sappho and Catullus articulate modernist poetics of myth and fragmentation, forms of confessionalism and post-modern pastiche. A sustained transnational poetic discourse employs the ancient pair to expand notions of literary origins and redefine poetry’s relationship to human existence. The inquiry focuses on Italian and North American poetry as two central yet understudied hubs of Sappho’s and Catullus’ modern reception, also linked by a rich mutual intellectual exchange. Grounded in textual criticism, the analysis combines translation, reception, gender and thing theories to tackle the multifaceted question of the reception of Sappho and Catullus, while positioning the two ancient poets within World Literature. Key case-studies include Giovanni Pascoli, Ezra Pound, H.D., Salvatore Quasimodo, Robert Lowell, Louis Zukofsky, Guido Ceronetti, Rosita Copioli and Anne Carson, and comprise a wide range of unpublished archival material. Cover page Halftitle page Series page Title page Copyright page Epigraph Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: The Slow Fire World reception/world authors From Italy to North America and Back Who? What? When? And Why? 1 Mythical Rewritings Sappho and Catullus at the origins: Pascoli’s poetic laboratory (1877–84) 2 Modernist Rites Sappho and Catullus Imagistes Sappho and Catullus beyond Imagism 3 Classical Hermeticism Tradition and translation towards a lyric absolute Sappho as a lyric abstraction: Poetic voice in Lirici greci Quasimodo’s elegiac Catullus Lirici greci ’s reception 4 The Self and the Object Rewriting the self with Catullus: Lowell’s Life Studies Sappho through a prism Objectivist Catullus: The Zukofskys’ translations 5 Body vs Soul Ceronetti’s anti-establishment Catullus Copioli’s spiritual eroticism 6 Postmodern Sappho and Catullus Triangulating eros (Un)Knowing Sappho and Catullus: Men in the Off Hours (2000) Floating with Sappho Giving thanatos back to eros: Catullus in Nox (2010) Epilogue Notes List of Manuscripts Audio-visual Material Works Cited Index