Dimensions
151 x 221 x 30mm
Sappho is the greatest of the Greek lyric poets - and one of the very few women poets of the ancient world whom we know by name. Her incomparable songs of love, heartache, and desire have enthralled readers for more than two millennia. Though her extant work consists of a collection of fragments and only a handful of complete poems, her mystique endures as she is discovered anew by each generation, inspiring new efforts at bringing the spirit of her poetry faithfully into English.
In the past, translators have taken two approaches to Sappho's work: either literally translating the fragments of her poetry that exist, or taking liberties by "filling in the gaps," imagining what might be missing. Willis Barnstone has taken a middle path, in which he remains faithful to the words of the fragments, only very judiciously filling in a word or phrase in cases where the meaning is obvious. In his unique approach he aims for a fine balance between the literal and underlying meanings of the text. It is a method that he has written about extensively, and that has been the guiding principle behind his much-praised translations of poets as diverse as Rainer Maria Rilke, Jorge Luis Borges, Antonio Machado, and St. John of the Cross, as well as his recent translations from the Bible.
'Sappho: Poems' includes the translator's essay placing the poet in her historic and artistic context, and a foreword by the Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Carolyn Kizer.
