What are the longer poems in Catullus’s collection about?

The longer poems in Catullus’s collection, which range from 48 to 408 lines, consist of eight distinct compositions that significantly influenced writers of the Augustan Age. These works cover a variety of themes and forms:

• Marriage and Myth: The collection includes two charming marriage hymns and a romantic narrative in hexameters detailing the marriage of Peleus and the sea goddess Thetis.
• Cult and Ritual: There is one frenzied cult hymn focused on the theme of emasculation.
• Elegiac Pieces: Four poems are written in the elegiac meter, including:
  • An epistle that introduces a translation of a work by the Alexandrian poet Callimachus.
  • A pasquinade, or scurrilous conversation, between the poet and a door.
  • A soliloquy addressed to a friend, written as an encomium (a poem of praise).1