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Sweetbitter love : poems of Sappho / translated by Willis Barnstone ; with epilogue and metrical guide by William E. McCulloh.

By: Contributor(s): Material type: TextTextLanguage: English, Greek, Ancient (to 1453) Original language: Greek, Ancient (to 1453) Publication details: Boston : Shambhala ; [New York] : Distributed by Random House, 2006.Edition: 1st edDescription: xlix, 316 p. ; 23 cmISBN:
  • 1590301757 (acidfree paper)
  • 9781590301753 (acid-free paper)
Uniform titles:
  • Works. English & Greek. 2005
Subject(s):
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library NonFiction 884.01 S241 Available 33111005156928
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Sappho is the greatest lyric poet of antiquity. Plato, a century after her death, referred to her as "the Tenth Muse," and Longinos, in his first-century treatise "On the Sublime," uses her verse to exemplify that transcendent quality in literature. In Sappho's lyrics we hear for the first time in the West the words of an individual woman of her own world: her apprehension of sun and orchards; the troubles and summits of love, desire, and friendship. Her poems combine an impression of intimate self-involvement with an almost modern sense of detachment.

Though time has reduced the nine volumes of her work to a handful of complete poems and a collection of fragments, each word and phrase that survives is poignantly significant. The clarity of her voice, its absolute candor, its amazing fresh authority--whether in addressing a goddess, dancers before a night altar, the moon and stars, a sweet apple or mountain hyacinth, a lamb or cricket, a lover or companion--are qualities that compel us today as in antiquity.

Willis Barnstone has given us a close and beautiful lyrical version. His translation, with the original Greek on facing pages, includes a dozen hitherto unintelligible fragments that have been brought vibrantly back to life by him, as well as Sappho's newly discovered poem from the Cologne papyrus in its complete form. It also contains the translator's essay placing the poet in her historic and artistic context; a glossary; extensive notes; an epilogue and metrical guide by William E. McCulloh, Professor Emeritus of Classics at Kenyon College; and a special section of testimonia : appreciations of Sappho in the words of her ancient admirers.

Translated from the Ancient Greek.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 310-314) and index.

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