Greek Lyric Poetry

"A magnificent achievement, better, more animated, buoyant and richly articulated than any other version I know."—Anthony Hecht This collection of classical lyric poems, translated by Sherod Santos, answers Dante Gabriel Rosetti's mandate that "The only true motive for putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh nation…with one more possession of beauty." And indeed, the reader finds here the plenty of the gods in poems of freshness, vigor, excitement, strength, and...
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"A magnificent achievement, better, more animated, buoyant and richly articulated than any other version I know."—Anthony Hecht This collection of classical lyric poems, translated by Sherod Santos, answers Dante Gabriel Rosetti's mandate that "The only true motive for putting poetry into a fresh language must be to endow a fresh nation…with one more possession of beauty." And indeed, the reader finds here the plenty of the gods in poems of freshness, vigor, excitement, strength, and tenderness. Arranged into four periods—Classical, Hellenic, Roman, and Early Byzantine—Greek Lyric Poetry features works by such ancient masters as Xenophanes, Callimachus, Plato, Sappho, and Simonides. These translations are addressed to the general reader as well to poets and lovers of poetry who may be curious about the marvelous slips and reconfigurations that occur when a poet in the present communes with poets in the past.