The Poetry of Sappho [Paperback]

Jim Powell (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 6, 2007 | ISBN-10: 0195326725 | ISBN-13: 978-0195326727

Today, thousands of years after her birth, in lands remote from her native island of Lesbos and in languages that did not exist when she wrote her poetry in Aeolic Greek, Sappho remains an important name among lovers of poetry and poets alike,. Celebrated throughout antiquity as the supreme Greek poet of love and of the personal lyric, noted especially for her limpid fusion of formal poise, lucid insight, and incandescent passion, today her poetry is also prized for its uniquely vivid participation in a living paganism. Collected in an edition of nine scrolls by scholars in the second century BC, Sappho's poetry largely disappeared when the Fourth Crusade sacked Constantinople in 1204. All that remained was one poem and a handful of quoted passages . A century ago papyrus fragments recovered in Egypt added a half dozen important texts to Sappho's surviving works. In 2004 a new complete poem was deciphered and published. By far the most significant discovery in a hundred years, it offers a new and tellingly different example of Sappho's poetic art and reveals another side of the poet, thinking about aging and about the transmission of culture from one generation to the next. Jim Powell's translations represent a unique combination of poetic mastery in English verse and a deep schlolarly engagement with Sappho's ancient Greek. They are incomparably faithful to the literal sense of the Greek poems and, simultaneously, to their forms, preserving the original meters and stanzas while exactly replicating the dramatic action of their sequences of disclosure and the passionate momentum of their sentences. Powell's translations have often been anthologized and selected for use in textbooks, winning recognition among discerning readers as by far the best versions in English.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Jim Powell is an independent scholar and translator
--This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Paperback: 80 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (September 6, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195326725
• ISBN-13: 978-0195326727
• Product Dimensions: 6.8 x 5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 0.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,219,339 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Lombardo's only Rival!, May 1, 2009

By 

Ryan Kouroukis "In 1882 Richard Wagner said: ... - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Poetry of Sappho (Paperback)

This new translation hits the arrow on the bullseye!

Jim Powell has created Sappho anew, in these fresh and vibrant translations. The print is the most aesthetically pleasing I've come across!

This little palm size collection contains every major poem and fragment of Sappho's (except the one word etc. un-intelligible fragments). It also contains the newly discovered complete poem of LP 58.

I prefer these complete renderings than many of the other complete ones I've compared them to: Anne Carson, Paul Roche, Willis Barnstone, David Campbell, Martin West and Mary Barnard.

As much as I love Powell's translations and edition, there is none (in my opinion) that supercedes the versions of Stanley Lombardo (on Hackett).

I always think that it's important to have at least two different editions in order to compare, and this new mini oxford edition does just that much much more!