Books by Sappho
Women's Wit and Wisdom: A Book of Quotations (Dover Thrift Editions)
by Sappho, Queen Elizabeth I, Harriet Tubman, Susan B. Anthony, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Erma Bombeck, Oprah Winfrey
"Blessed is the man who, having nothing to say, abstains from giving us wordy evidence of the fact," said Mary Ann Evans, a.k.a. George Eliot. "In nine cases out of ten, a woman had better show more affection than she feels," opined Jane Austen. "When a girl marries, she exchanges the attentions of many men for the inattention of one," observed Helen Rowland. These are just a few of more than 400 memorable quotes in this volume, expressed over the past 2,500 years by female poets, novelists, historical figures, celebrities, entertainers, and others.
Covering a broad range of topics — men, women, love and romance, marriage, family, human nature, aging, the quest for gender equality, work and occupations, joy and sorrow, nature, the environment, and more — the quotations are divided into subject categories and arranged chronologically by the author's date of birth. Where possible, sources and dates are cited for each quote.
Browse through these pages and immerse yourself in snippets of worldly wisdom from the poignant ("The loneliest woman in the world is a woman without a close woman friend" — Toni Morrison) to the despairing ("Old age is woman's hell" — Ninon de Lenclos) to the politically astute ("Do not tell secrets to those whose faith and silence you have not already tested" — Queen Elizabeth I) to the humorous ("Flops are a part of life's menu, and I've never been a girl to miss out on any of the courses" — Rosalind Russell).
You'll also find food for thought from Sappho, Madame de Stael, Harriet Tubman, Margaret Sanger, Eleanor Roosevelt, Helen Keller, Erma Bombeck, Oprah Winfrey, Gloria Steinem, and Hillary Rodham Clinton, among others. Brimming with timeless observations, humor, and wisdom, this practical and entertaining little volume will be indispensable to public speakers and a delight to general readers.
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The Love Songs of Sappho (Literary Classics)
by Sappho
Called the "Tenth Muse" by the ancients, Greece's greatest female lyric poet Sappho (ca. 610-580 b.c.e.) spent the majority of her life on the famed island of Lesbos. Passionate and breathtaking, Sappho's poems survive only in fragments following religious conspiracies to silence her. Sappho penned immortal verse on the intense power of the female libido; on the themes of romance, love, yearning, heartbreak, and personal relationships with women. This work retains the standard numerical order of the fragments and has been arranged in six sections. Distinguished poet and lecturer Paul Roche's translation of The Love Songs of Sappho is enhanced with his brilliant essay, "Portrait of Sappho," as well as a lucid historical introduction by celebrated feminist and classicist Page duBois.
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Sweetbitter Love: Poems of Sappho
by Sappho
Sappho is the greatest lyric poet of antiquity. Plato, a century after her death, referred to her as “the Tenth Muse,” and Longinos, in his first-century treatise “On the Sublime,” uses her verse to exemplify that transcendent quality in literature. In Sappho’s lyrics we hear for the first time in the West the words of an individual woman of her own world: her apprehension of sun and orchards; the troubles and summits of love, desire, and friendship. Her poems combine an impression of intimate self-involvement with an almost modern sense of detachment.
Though time has reduced the nine volumes of her work to a handful of complete poems and a collection of fragments, each word and phrase that survives is poignantly significant. The clarity of her voice, its absolute candor, its amazing fresh authority—whether in addressing a goddess, dancers before a night altar, the moon and stars, a sweet apple or mountain hyacinth, a lamb or cricket, a lover or companion—are qualities that compel us today as in antiquity.
Willis Barnstone has given us a close and beautiful lyrical version. His translation, with the original Greek on facing pages, includes a dozen hitherto unintelligible fragments that have been brought vibrantly back to life by him, as well as Sappho’s newly discovered poem from the Cologne papyrus in its complete form. It also contains the translator’s essay placing the poet in her historic and artistic context; a glossary; extensive notes; an epilogue and metrical guide by William E. McCulloh, Professor Emeritus of Classics at Kenyon College; and a special section of testimonia: appreciations of Sappho in the words of her ancient admirers.
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Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments (Penguin Classics)
by Sappho
More or less 150 years after Homer's Iliad, Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos, west off the coast of what is present Turkey. Little remains today of her writings, which are said to have filled nine papyrus rolls in the great library at Alexandria some 500 years after her death. The surviving texts consist of a lamentably small and fragmented body of lyric poetry—among them poems of invocation, desire, spite, celebration, resignation and remembrance—that nevertheless enables us to hear the living voice of the poet Plato called the tenth Muse. This is a new translation of her surviving poetry.
For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
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If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho (English and Greek Edition)
by Sappho
A bilingual edition of the work of the Greek poet Sappho, in a new translation by Anne Carson.
Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos from about 630 b.c. She was a musical genius who devoted her life to composing and performing songs. Of the nine books of lyrics Sappho is said to have composed, none of the music is extant and only one poem has survived complete. All the rest are fragments. In If Not, Winter Carson presents all of Sappho’s fragments in Greek and in English. Brackets and space give the reader a sense of what is absent as well as what is present on the papyrus. Carson’s translation illuminates Sappho’s reflections on love, desire, marriage, exile, cushions, bees, old age, shame, time, chickpeas and many other aspects of the human situation.
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If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
by Sappho
In this "gorgeous translation" (The New York Times), one of our most fearless and original poets provides a tantalizing window onto the genius of a woman whose lyric power spans millennia.
Of the nine books of lyrics the ancient Greek poet Sappho is said to have composed, only one poem has survived complete. The rest are fragments. In this miraculous new translation, acclaimed poet and classicist Anne Carson presents all of Sappho’s fragments, in Greek and in English, as if on the ragged scraps of papyrus that preserve them, inviting a thrill of discovery and conjecture that can be described only as electric—or, to use Sappho’s words, as “thin fire ... racing under skin.”
"Carson is in many ways [Sappho's] ideal translator.... Her command of language is hones to a perfect edge and her approach to the text, respectful yet imaginative, results in verse that lets Sappho shine forth." —Los Angeles Times
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Sappho A New Translation
by Sappho
These hundred poems and fragments constitute virtually all of Sappho that survives and effectively bring to life the woman whom the Greeks consider to be their greatest lyric poet. Mary Barnard's translations are lean, incisive, direct—the best ever published. She has rendered the beloved poet's verses, long the bane of translators, more authentically than anyone else in English.
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Sappho: A New Translation of the Complete Works
by Sappho
Sappho, the earliest and most famous Greek woman poet, sang her songs around 600 BCE on the island of Lesbos. Of the little that survives from the approximately nine papyrus scrolls collected in antiquity, all is translated here: substantial poems, fragments, single words - and, notably, five stanzas of a poem that came to light in 2014. Also included are new additions to five fragments from the latest discovery, and a nearly complete poem published in 2004. The power of Sappho’s poetry - her direct style, rich imagery, and passion - is apparent even in these remnants. Diane Rayor’s translations of Greek poetry are graceful and poetic, modern in diction yet faithful to the originals. The full range of Sappho’s voice is heard in these poems about desire, friendship, rivalry, family, and "passion for the light of life". In the introduction and notes, internationally respected Sappho scholar André Lardinois presents plausible reconstructions of Sappho’s life and work, the importance of the recent discoveries in understanding the performance of her songs, and the story of how these fragments survived.
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Sappho
by Sappho
These hundred poems and fragments constitute virtually all of Sappho that survives and effectively bring to life the woman whom the Greeks consider to be their greatest lyric poet. Mary Barnard's translations are lean, incisive, direct―the best ever published. She has rendered the beloved poet's verses, long the bane of translators, more authentically than anyone else in English.
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Wild Nights Heart Wisdom from Five Women Poets
by Emily Dickinson, Edna St. Vincent Millay, Sappho, Sara Teasdale, Amy Lowell
"A lovely collection of poetry." — Book Scrounger
In this soul-stirring collection of timeless verse, five legendary female poets address life's pains and sorrows as well as its joys and renewals. The poems appeal to the heart, providing companionship on the rugged path that all must tread. The roster features writers from ancient to modern times: Sappho, Emily Dickinson, Amy Lowell, Sara Teasdale, and Edna St. Vincent Millay.
As instapoets continue to make poetry more accessible and popular, they build on the tradition of intimate, confessional works built by earlier generations. No one is more prominent at this heritage than the mysterious, evocative fragments of Sappho, which inspired an earlier generation of female poets to let loose their own talent. From idiosyncratic Dickinson to the passionate, Pulitzer Prize–winning Lowell, the romanticism of Teasdale, and the intense art of St. Vincent Millay — yet another Pulitzer winner — these writers were early trailblazers in speaking their emotional truth through their craft.
This handsome volume features original illustrations by Claire Whitmore, a Foreword by poet and novelist Lisa Locascio, and brief biographies of all five poets.
"The foreword is amazing. A lovely little anthology with some beautiful poetry by some very talented women." — From the Inside
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