This observation brings us back to the issues raised in our discussion of how Catullus is presented to contemporary secondary school students in the United States. Clearly he appears in varying guises, depending on the particular poems selected to represent his body of work: there is no standard Catullus canon. Not only does the Catullus of the British OLR differ from that of the American AP syllabus, but the image of Catullus projected by the AP has been modified in certain respects over the past several decades.
But which Catullus is presented? Is it legitimate to short-change the richness and diversity of this corpus by reducing Catullus to ‘‘the Lesbia poet,’’ or by failing to disclose the sexually suggestive connotations of Catullus’ erotic language in such canonical Lesbia poems as 2 and 3?23 Might a brief study, by mature secondary schoolers, of Catullus as ‘‘the Juventius poet’’ enrich their appreciation of his Lesbia poems? In view of the difficulties encountered by the London Examinations Board, how might such a study be conducted without giving offense to students and teachers, parents and administrators? Questions of this kind suggest that additional, more subtle instructional strategies may be needed if more of Catullus’ sexually explicit poems, especially those about homoerotic desire and activity, are to be read and appreciated by secondary school students in the United States and elsewhere.
Catullus’ undisputed popularity, in these different guises, in secondary school classrooms throughout the Anglophone world thus raises another, abiding question: about literary proprietorship. Whose Catullus? From our survey and correspondence, and the experiences that prompted us to conduct this survey and engage in this correspondence, it is clear that the answer to this question is being determined on a daily basis and in constantly changing fashion: by students and teachers, administrators and textbook writers, and Catullan scholars alike.
World History
