Essays that aim to draw attention to Sappho's importance as a poet and to offer a sense of the lively debate and competiting critical positions within Sappho studies.
Reading Sappho considers Sappho's poetry as a powerful, influential voice in the Western cultural tradition. Essays are divided into four sections: "Language and Literary Context," "Homer and Oral Tradition", "Ritual and Social Context", and "Women's Erotics". Contributors focus on literary history, mythic traditions, cultural studies, performance studies, recent work in feminist theory, and more. A legendary literary figure, Sappho has attracted readers, critics, and biographers ever since she composed poems on the island of Lesbos at the close of the seventh century B.C. Bringing together some of the best recent criticism on the subject, this volume, together with Re-Reading Sappho, represents the first anthology of Sappho scholarship, drawing attention to Sappho's importance as a poet and reflecting the diversity of critical approaches in classical and literary scholarship during the last several decades.
Scholar, historian, novelist, and professor of classics at the University of Texas (Austin), Peter Green recreates the life and times of the Greek lyric poet Sappho. The surviving fragments of Sappho's poetry reveal a mature woman of unflinching honesty. Sappho and her daily life on the island of ancient Lesbos are brought vividly to life via Green's extraordinary talent. This work was first published in 1965.
Presents a Sappho by a poet and translator that treats the fragments as aesthetic wholes, complete in their fragmentariness, and which is also, as the translator puts it: 'ever mindful of performative qualities, quality of voice, changes of voice...'
Born around 630BC on the Greek island of Lesbos, Sappho is now regarded as the greatest lyrical poet of ancient Greece, ironic and passionate, capturing the troubled depths of love. Her work survives only in fragments, yet her influence extends throughout Western literature, fuelled by the speculations and romances which have gathered around her name, her story and her sexuality.This remarkable anthology brilliantly displays the way different periods have taken up Sappho's haunting story bringing together many different kinds of work. We see her image change, re-created in Ovid's poetry and Boccaccio's tales, in translations by Pope, Rossetti and Swinburne, Baudelaire, in the modern versions of Eavan Boland, Ruth Padel and Jeanette Winterson.
By combining the ancient mysteries of Sappho with the contemporary wizardry of one of our most fearless and original poets, If Not, Winter provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia. Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to have composed, only one poem has survived complete. The rest are fragments. In this miraculous new translation, acclaimed poet and classicist Anne Carson presents all of Sappho’s fragments, in Greek and in English, as if on the ragged scraps of papyrus that preserve them, inviting a thrill of discovery and conjecture that can be described only as electric—or, to use Sappho’s words, as “thin fire . . . racing under skin.” "Sappho's verse has been elevated to new heights in [this] gorgeous translation." --The New York Times "Carson is in many ways [Sappho's] ideal translator....Her command of language is hones to a perfect edge and her approach to the text, respectful yet imaginative, results in verse that lets Sappho shine forth." --Los Angeles Times
An abandoned town named for the classical lesbian leads to questions about history and settlement. Driving along the Pacific Coast Highway, you come to a road sign: Entering Sappho. Nothing remains of the town, just trash at the side of the highway and thick, wet bush. Can Sappho’s breathless eroticism tell us anything about settlement—about why we’re here in front of this sign? Mixing historical documents, oral histories, and experimental translations of the original lesbian poet’s works, this book combines documentary and speculation, surveying a century in reverse. This town is one of many with a classical name. Take it as a symbol: perhaps in a place that no longer exists, another kind of future might be possible.
In this translation of the Greek poetess's work, Barnstone remains faithful to the words of the fragments, only very judiciously filling in a word or phrase in cases where the meaning is obvious.
A detailed up-to-date survey of the most important woman writer from Greco-Roman antiquity. Examines the nature and context of her poetic achievement, the transmission, loss and rediscovery of her poetry, and the reception of that poetry in cultures far removed from ancient Greece, including Latin America, India, China, and Japan.