The Complete Poems of Sappho
Shambhala Publications Inc (Publisher)
Will be published approx. on 10. November 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
256 pages
978-1-64547-574-3 (ISBN)
Description
A vivid, contemporary translation of the greatest Greek love poet—with a wealth of materials for understanding her work—by a prize-winning poet and translator
Sappho’s thrilling lyric verse has been unremittingly popular for more than 2,600 years—certainly a record for poetry of any kind—and love for her art only increases as time goes on. Though her extant work consists only of a collection of fragments and a handful of complete poems, her mystique endures to be discovered anew by each generation, and to inspire new efforts at bringing the spirit of her Greek words faithfully into English.
In the past, translators have taken two basic approaches to Sappho: either very literally translating only the words in the fragments, or taking the liberty of reconstructing the missing parts. Willis Barnstone has taken a middle course, 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. This edition includes extensive notes and a special section of “Testimonia”: appreciations of Sappho in the words of ancient writers from Plato to Plutarch. Also included are a glossary of all the figures mentioned in the poems, and suggestions for further reading.
Sappho’s thrilling lyric verse has been unremittingly popular for more than 2,600 years—certainly a record for poetry of any kind—and love for her art only increases as time goes on. Though her extant work consists only of a collection of fragments and a handful of complete poems, her mystique endures to be discovered anew by each generation, and to inspire new efforts at bringing the spirit of her Greek words faithfully into English.
In the past, translators have taken two basic approaches to Sappho: either very literally translating only the words in the fragments, or taking the liberty of reconstructing the missing parts. Willis Barnstone has taken a middle course, 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. This edition includes extensive notes and a special section of “Testimonia”: appreciations of Sappho in the words of ancient writers from Plato to Plutarch. Also included are a glossary of all the figures mentioned in the poems, and suggestions for further reading.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
Boston
United States
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Dimensions
Height: 216 mm
Width: 140 mm
Weight
367 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-64547-574-3 (9781645475743)
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Other editions
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Person
Born in Lewiston, Maine, Willis Barnstone was educated at Bowdoin, Columbia, the Sorbonne, and Yale. He taught in Greece at the end of the Civil War (1949–51), and in Buenos Aires during the Dirty War. During the Cultural Revolution he went to China where he was later a Fulbright Professor at Beijing Foreign Studies University (1984–85). Former O'Connor Professor of Greek at Colgate University, he is Distinguished Professor of Comparative Literature and Spanish at Indiana University.
A Guggenheim Fellow, his awards include a National Endowment for the Arts award, a National Endowment for the Humanities award and four Pulitzer Prize nominations for poetry. His work—which includes Modern European Poetry—(Bantam, 1967), The Other Bible (HarperCollins, 1984) and Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice (Yale, 1993)—has appeared in, Harper's, New York Review of Books, Paris Review Poetry, the New Yorker, and the Times Literary Supplement.
A Guggenheim Fellow, his awards include a National Endowment for the Arts award, a National Endowment for the Humanities award and four Pulitzer Prize nominations for poetry. His work—which includes Modern European Poetry—(Bantam, 1967), The Other Bible (HarperCollins, 1984) and Poetics of Translation: History, Theory, Practice (Yale, 1993)—has appeared in, Harper's, New York Review of Books, Paris Review Poetry, the New Yorker, and the Times Literary Supplement.