Does anyone have Thomson’s most recently updated version of Catullus? I have the 1978 version, but have been told that since there have been serious updates. What substantial changes does Thomson offer to the manuscript theory of Catullus? Thanks a million.
Chris
Consider all of the following with a large grain of salt. I have never used the 1978 edition, and have only used the 1997 one on rare occasions. That won’t stop me from trying to comment on this anyway.
I believe the most obvious and important change is that the 1997 edition includes a substantial commentary. The commentary is very extensive, and I felt from my limited use that it was especially solid with regard to sound effects in the poems as well as discussions of Catullus’s Hellenistic predecessors.
The text itself has apparently undergone updates in some 50 or 60 places (there is a list of the changes somewhere in the new edition). Most of these are fairly minor (i.e., they won’t turn the sense of a poem on its head), but I believe they are generally considered improvements. At all events, everyone seems in agreement that Thomson’s text is substantially better than Mynors’ OCT.
I’m sorry that I can’t provide you with more detail, but perhaps this gives you a bit of an idea. You may wish to consult the reviews that were inevitably published by some of the major Classics journals around the time of the book’s publication.
Thanks Didymus. I’m working on a paper “resolving” some disputed passages in Catullus. Just as long as the apparatus is secure (that is, V doesn’t change), I can forego commentary. I have the Mynors’ text also. The 1978 version is substantially better than it, in my opinion. I can only imagine how much better the 1997 version would be.
You wouldn’t happen to be able to scan and send a list of the updates, would you? Hopefully a library soon will send one my way, but I have a deadline to meet, and waiting, as we all know, is the hardest part.
Thanks a million again.
Chris
Luckily, I found a preview of it on GoogleBooks here. It lists the corrections to the text, but I’m still unsure if it’s based on his own judgement or on a manuscript…
Again, as I don’t have the book in front of me, I can’t say for sure. Again, that won’t stop me from guessing.
I would be shocked if the new edition incorporated any manuscript updates at all; if it did, I imagine it would merely be the attribution of a modern conjecture to a particularly obscure manuscript. From my limited understanding, there are only three manuscripts of any real value for constituting the text, and two of them have been acknowledged as preeminent for well over 100 years. I can’t imagine under any circumstances that our understanding of the presumed archetype has changed. I think all that remains is emendation – which may in fact be a considerable task.
I shall urge caution again with all my remarks, as they are only my best guesses and not based on looking at Thomson (much less manuscripts!) myself.