Catullus

Gaius Valerius Catullus lived and wrote in the late Roman Republic, somewhere around 84 to 54 BC. He belonged to the neoteric movement, a group of younger poets breaking from stiff traditional forms. What set him apart was the subject matter: his verses were intensely personal, often sexual, unguarded in ways Roman poetry wasn't supposed to be. The work survived, and it never stopped being read. Classrooms kept returning to it, drawn by the teachable Latin and repelled and fascinated in equal measure by the content. His poems remain in print because they're useful and because they still feel u…