Why is it that the poets of the world have been, by and large, so painfully bland compared with Catullus and Heine? Why so lacking in that bitter, sarcasm without which I cannot conceive of beauty or true innocence of heart. In my mind, Heine and Catullus between them divide nearly all responsibility for all of the poetry I think divine. And I think this precisely because they are the only poets of life I know, the only poets of a bloody, hateful, lustful, loving life. They are men of this world and yet one imagines few men could have found the ways of men so painfully inadequate. Few men seem so admirable, so desperately striving for a perfection of character that humanity will perhaps never attain.
If you don’t know Heine, you should start with one of my favorite poems of all time, called Im Der Fremde:
Ich hatte einst ein schönes Vaterland.
Der Eichenbaum
Wuchs dort so hoch, die Veilchen nickten sanft.
Es war ein Traum.Das küßte mich auf deutsch und sprach auf deutsch
(Man glaubt es kaum
Wie gut es klang) das Wort: “Ich liebe dich!”
Es war ein Traum.1
Any reading of Catullus simply should always begin with poem 87 because it is built around precisely the sort of last minute reversal of tone that chraracterizes the most beautiful works.
Nulla potest mulier tantum se dicere amatam
Vere, quantum a me Lesbia amata mea est.
Nulla fides ullo fuit umquam foedere tanta,
Quanta in amore tuo ex parte reperta mea est.2