Sappho: Poems. This item is unavailable.Sappho: Poems

This edition reintroduces Sappho to the modern reader, providing a vivid, contemporary translation, which captures the spareness and the intensity of Sappho’s line. The wondrous Mary Barnard translation was based, unfortunately, on the 1928 Loeb edition by J. M. Edmonds, who filled in many of Sappho’s fragment with his own Greek lines. In Professor Barnstone’s brilliant translation, Sappho’s work is presented as we have inherited it, in its darkly antiromantic idiom that rejects sentimentality and “prettiness.”

Willis Barnstone is one of the most noted translators of today. He has translated numerous texts, including The Cosmic Fragments of Heraclitus, Greek Lyric Poetry, the Old Testament’s erotic book The Song of Songs, and a literary translation of the New Testament. He is also the author of New and Selected Poems (1997), Moonbook & Sunbook (1998) and other books of poetry.

Sappho (630 – c. 570 BC) was an Archaic Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, written to be sung while accompanied by a lyre. In ancient times, Sappho was widely regarded as one of the greatest lyric poets and was given names such as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess."