|
| 
 enlarge | Author: Sappho
Creator: Willis Barnstone
Publisher: Green Integer
Category: Book
List Price: $10.95
Buy New: $7.69
You Save: $3.26 (30%)
(as of 9/6/10 07:10 PDT - Details)
New (13) Used (13) from $7.40
Rating:  4 reviews
Sales Rank: 554031
Media: Paperback
Pages: 144
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.1
Dimensions (in): 6 x 4.3 x 0.4
ISBN: 189229513X
Dewey Decimal Number: 884.01
EAN: 9781892295132
ASIN: 189229513X
Publication Date: September 15, 1999
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
| |
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
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. Barnstone has translated numerous texts, including The Cosmic Fragments of Heraclitus, Greek Lyric Poetry, 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.
|
| Customer Reviews:
Achingly Beautiful November 27, 1998
kim (riothag@juno.com) (Dallas, Texas)
30 out of 32 found this review helpful
"To Eros: You crush me." The tenderness and splendor of Sappho's poetry has never been so lusciously rendered as in this translation. Every little word sings with love and warmth. Thank you, Willis Barnstone, for omitting the cumbersone ellipses and brackets of translations past. Now we can enjoy Sappho's passion undisturbed.
Elegant in its simplicity February 13, 2000
Timothy R. Smith (USA)
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
This polished translation brilliantly reflects those spare but sparkling lines from the winsome poet of a lonely isle and heart. I find it still superb after many readings. Highly recommended.
A translation. April 12, 2005
Jan Dierckx (Belgium, Turnhout)
6 out of 7 found this review helpful
More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos west off the coast what is present Turkey. (Due to political upheavel she went two times in exile, the second time to Sicily for a short time ).
Sappho takes a special place among the poets of Antiquity. She was already famous in her own time. Plato said that she was the tenth Muse and someone called her poetry " as refreshing as a morning breeze ". Her poems are vivid and she needs only a few words to describe essential human feelings. She calls solitude for instance " this icy numbness of being alone ".
( Nice to know: from Sappho's poems remain about 500 lines. All Tragedies by Aeschylus have a total of 8144 lines. Conclusion: What's left of Sappho's poems is next to nothing. )
" Wedding of Andromache " is one of the most vivid descriptions in the poetry of Antiquity. It gives an almost journalistic account of the homecoming of Hector and Andromache. A fragment of Barnstone's translation:
" ...
and all set out for Troy
in a confusion of sweet-voiced flutes, citharas,
and small crashing cymbals
and young girls sang a loud heavenly song
..."
Sappho excels also in describing landscapes and nature ( something you don't find often in Ancient literature ). A fragment of " Aphrodite of the flowers ",
"...
Here ice water babbles through the apple branches
and roses leave shadow on the ground
..."
This translation was published in 1998 but as a work of art in itself, it's by no means outdated.
great little book October 27, 2007
Nota Bene
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Although I am not an expert, I am a scholar, and I found this book of poems by Sappho who lived in 700 BC Greece a pleasure to read. I liked the design and layout, and the translation is geared to today's readers.
|
Certain content that appears on this site comes from Amazon Services LLC. This content is provided ‘as is’ and is subject to change or removal at any time.
Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
