The Lesbian Lyre : Reclaiming Sappho for the 21st century / Jeffrey M. Duban.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Duban, Jeffrey M., 1949- author.

Contributor:

Tom Farinholt and Blair Edlow Memorial Book Fund.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Sappho--Criticism and interpretation.

Sappho.

Women and literature--Greece.

Women and literature.

Criticism and interpretation.

Greece.

Greek poetry--Translations into English.

Greek poetry.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

Translations.

Physical Description:

795 pages ; 23 cm

Place of Publication:

West Hoathly, Sussex : Clairview Books, 2016.

Summary:

Hailed by Plato as the "Tenth Muse" of ancient Greek poetry, Sappho is inarguably antiquity's greatest lyric poet. Born over 2,600 years ago on the Greek island of Lesbos, and writing amorously of women and men alike, she is the namesake lesbian. What's left of her writing, and what we know of her, is fragmentary. Shrouded in mystery, she is nonetheless repeatedly translated and discussed - no, appropriated - by all. Sappho has most recently undergone a variety of treatments by agenda-driven scholars and so-called poet-translators with little or no knowledge of Greek. Classicist-translator Jeffrey Duban debunks the postmodernist scholarship by which Sappho is interpreted today and offers translations reflecting the charm and elegant simplicity of the originals. Duban provides a reader-friendly overview of Sappho's times and themes, exploring her eroticism and Greek homosexuality overall. He introduces us to Sappho's highly cultured island home, to its lyre-accompanied musical legends, and to the fabled beauty of Lesbian women. Not least, he emphasizes the proximity of Lesbos to Troy, making the translation and enjoyment of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey a further focus.More than anything else, argues Duban, it is free verse and its rampant legacy - and no two persons more than Walt Whitman and Ezra Pound - that bear responsibility for the ruin of today's classics in translation, to say nothing of poetry in the twentieth century. Beyond matters of reflection for classicists, Duban provides a far-ranging beginner's guide to classical literature, with forays into Spenser and Milton, and into the colonial impulse of Virgil, Spenser, and the West at large.

Contents:

Acknowledgments, Abbreviations, Guide to Pronunciation, Preface

Part I. Greek Lyric, Greek Epic, and Old Testament; the Quarrel of Ancients and Moderns

Greekless Translators, Theorizing Scholars

Selected Lyric Poets of Antiquity: Archilochus, Alcman, Anacreon & Ibycus

Sappho: Antiquity's Poetess and Ours

Sappho's Eroticism

The Loves of Men, Gods, and Primordial Forces

Lesbos, Troy and Environs; the Principal Greek Genres and Dialects

Part II. Sappho and the "Lyric Nine," An Anesthetic for Lyric Translation

The Aesthetic of English-Language Prosody in the Translation of Classical Verse

Translatability: Achieving Charm and Distinction in Translation

Translation as the Profession of Ignorance: Mary Barnard, Willis Barnstone, and Others

Translations Compared

Part III. Translations: Sappho, Alcman, Anacreon, Archilochus, Ibycus

Part IV. Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid: The Epic Cycle in Progress

Cosmic Preservation and the Heroism of Heracles

Self-Perpetuation and the Heroism at Troy

Imperishable Fame and the Evolution of Greek Epic

Imperishable Fame Denied: Sappho's "Wedding of Hector and Andromache"

Cataclysm Averted: Homer's Separation of Helen and Achilles

Part V. Homeric and Sapphic Meter, Metric Formulae and Oral Composition, the Origins of Rhyming Poetry, Milton on Blank Verse

Accentuation, Sound, and Word Order in Ancient Greek Poetry

Part VI. Growing Latin from Greek Roots, Rome's Imperial Vision and Its Aftermath

Part VII. Equal to the Gods: Poetic Sublimity, Inner Collapse

Equal to a God: Form and Content in Convulsive Union

Frenzied Emotion, Expressive Control: Form and Content Bound

Modernism Wins Out: Form and Content Abandoned

"Freedom, Freedom, Prison to the Free": The Obfuscatory Unfettered

Sappho Unbound and Boundaryless - Theorized, Personalized, Politicized

Boundaries, Artistic Fit, and What "Art" Means and Does

Part VII. Not Making it New (or Better): Recent Iliads and Aeneids

So Old It's New (and Better): The Smith/Miller Hexametric Iliad

On Leaving Well Enough Alone: Rejecting Lattimore for R. Fitzgerald

Pope's Iliad and E. FitzGerald's Rubaiyat; Pope on Chapman's Iliad

Versions and Perversions of Homer: R. Fitzgerald, Fagles, and Logue

Exra Pound: Damage to Sextus Propertius

Addendum, Notes, Bibliography, Index.

Notes:

Color maps on lining papers.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 729-760) and index.

Local Notes:

Acquired for the Penn Libraries with assistance from the Tom Farinholt and Blair Edlow Memorial Book Fund.

ISBN:

9781905570799

1905570791

OCLC:

958069981

Publisher Number:

99969788850