Translation as Muse: Poetic Translation in Catullus's Rome by Elizabeth Marie Young

190 PHOENIX Egyptian boat-building techniques from four late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century models in the collection of the Musée National de la Marine in Paris. Christian Gaubert and Nessim Henry Henein (285–298) offer a detailed account of a traditional fishing boat used on Lake Manzala, the zahreyya. This boat’s unusual design dates to the late nineteenth century and incorporates an oversized lateen sail that is similarly characteristic of a related boat, the lokkafa, pairs of which are used to trawl with a large seine net in Lake Borollos. The volume’s front cover is illustrated with a lovely photograph of the lokkafa and in the final chapter Raymond Collet and Patrice Pomey (299–312) give an account of the craft and its construction, drawing on information collected in the course of making a documentary film about the fishermen of Lake Borollos. The volume includes a brief introduction by the editor explaining its genesis and concludes with abstracts helpfully translated into English (or French) and Arabic. Lamentably , there are no indexes. University of Toronto Ephraim Lytle Translation as Muse: Poetic Translation in Catullus's Rome. By Elizabeth Marie Young. Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press. 2015. Pp. 288. TRANSLATION AS MUSE: POETIC TRANSLATION IN CATULLUS’S ROME presents an engaging and original argument about Catullus as translator and the literary-historical context of his translation. As such, this book will be of interest to a variety of audiences, including scholars and students of Catullus, translation practice and theory, Hellenization, and the cultural milieu of the middle of the first century b.c.e. in Rome. In her discussion of “translation,” Young includes everything from individual words and poems to genres and culture as a whole. Countering some modern notions of translation being of lesser value than “original” work, she argues that for the Romans, who “proudly proclaimed themselves a nation of translators,” “translation was . . . the preeminent act of literary creation” (2). Young’s book is divided into six chapters with an Introduction and an Epilogue. Her “Introduction: Finding Catullus in Translation” is an excellent overview of some of the basics of literary translation theory as well as of the aims of the book. Citing McElduff and Bettini, Young situates herself among those in classics examining translation as a cultural practice and not just a linguistic one.1 More particularly, Young argues that Catullus’ practice of translation runs counter to what noted translation theorist Lawrence Venuti has called the invisibility of the translator in the Anglo-American tradition (3, n. 15).2 For Young, “translation permeates Catullus’s oeuvre” and he “flaunts its use” (3). Young expects this to come as a surprise to the reader, because Catullus’ “translations” are usually thought to be limited to two poems, 51 (from Sappho) and 66 (from Callimachus); however, she develops a persuasive argument to support her interpretation. She addresses the fact that there were many Latin terms for translating, including exprimere, vertere, and reddere, indicating that the Romans had a multi-faceted view of translation. In addition, 1 S. McElduff, Roman Theories of Translation: Surpassing the Source (New York 2013) and M. Bettini, Vertere: Un’antropologia della traduzione nella cultura antica (Torino 2012). 2 L. Venuti, The Translator’s Invisibility: A History of Translation (London 1995). BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 191 she calls attention to the power relations involved in translation, including rivalry with the author of the model text as well as rivalry with potential fellow translators. Rendering a faithful translation was not typically the goal. In Chapter One, “The Task of Translation in Catullus 64,” Young argues that Poem 64, the mini-epic poem concerning the marriage of Peleus and Thetis with its embedded narrative of Theseus and Ariadne, is an act of generic translation. By writing a Latin epyllion, Catullus is translating or transporting a Greek genre into Latin. Young (39 with n. 48) utilizes Venuti’s notion of the “ ‘release’ of a ‘domestic remainder,’ a set of deviations from the source that respond to the target culture’s concerns and ideals”3 to explain the Roman preoccupations in this “Greakish” (to use her term derived from “Greek and freakish”) poem. The purple tapestry central...

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