This second, expanded edition of Josephine Balmer's classic
translation of the Greek poet Sappho has new, recently-discovered
fragments, including the Brothers Poem, the Kypris Song and the
Cologne Fragment. In a new essay on these additions she discusses
the issues raised in the translating - and in some cases
retranslating - of these fragmentary and ever-shifting texts. Poems
& Fragments is now the only complete, readily-available
translation in English of Sappho's surviving work. Sappho was one
of the greatest poets in classical literature. Her lyric poetry is
among the finest ever written, and although little of her work has
survived and little is known about her, she is regarded not just as
one of the greatest women poets, but often as the greatest woman
poet in world literature. She lived on the island of Lesbos around
600 BC, and even in her lifetime, her work was widely known and
admired in the Greek world. Plato called her 'the tenth muse', and
she was a major influence on other poets, from Horace and Catullus
to more recent lyric poets. Yet in later centuries, speculation
about her sexuality has tended to diminish her poetic reputation.
One medieval pope considered her so subversive that her poems were
burned. Some of her poems were written for the women she loved, but
her circle of women friends and admirers was not unlike Socrates'
circle of followers. She may have been a lesbian in the modern
sense, or she may not, but to call her a lesbian poet is an
over-simplification. What remains is her poetry, or the fragments
which have survived of it, and her intense, sensuous, highly
accomplished love poems are among the finest in any language. First
published in 1984 and revised in 1992, Josephine Balmer's edition
brings together all the extant poems and fragments of Sappho. In a
comprehensive introduction, she discusses Sappho's poetry, its
historical background and critical reputation, as well as aspects
of contemporary Greek society, sexuality and women.
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