The Love Songs of Sappho (Literary Classics)

Rating:
Summary: Greatest lyric poet of Greece
Review: Sappho was the greatest lyric poet of Greece, and any modern reader of her poetry can easily see why. Although she admittedly suffers in translation, one must learn to ignore the frustration caused by the occasional awkward translation. One must also try to ignore the fragmentary nature of her poems. There was once a definitive edition which consisted of nine books, but it was burned in hte Middle Ages because of the lesbian love poems. The poems we have now are just papyrus fragments or quotations. However, even in English, even with only a few extant pieces, Sappho's poetry is vibrant and beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Greatest lyric poet of Greece
Review: Sappho was the greatest lyric poet of Greece, and any modern reader of her poetry can easily see why. Although she admittedly suffers in translation, one must learn to ignore the frustration caused by the occasional awkward translation. One must also try to ignore the fragmentary nature of her poems. There was once a definitive edition which consisted of nine books, but it was burned in hte Middle Ages because of the lesbian love poems. The poems we have now are just papyrus fragments or quotations. However, even in English, even with only a few extant pieces, Sappho's poetry is vibrant and beautiful.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and well-researched.
Review: The fragments themselves are quite beautiful, but I found the commentary much more interesting. Since so little is known about the subject, the translator provides notes along with each fragment that lets the reader know from where the fragment came. The commentary also includes citations from many writers of Greek lyric poetry. The result is not a work that gives one man's perspective of Sappho but a work that says: "here -- this is what scholars today say about Sappho and her native Greece." The book also includes an interesting essay by the translator, cute sketches, and a glossary of people and places.