Full Description
SHORTLISTED FOR THE LONDON HELLENIC PRIZE
LONGLISTED FOR THE ANGLO-HELLENIC LEAGUE RUNCIMAN AWARD
'Inspired and enlightening ... here is a work of staggering ambition, exceptional accomplishment, and surprisingly pleasant reading ... an excellent gift for anyone interested in classical literature' A. E. Stallings, Telegraph
'Read cover to cover, The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse offers the reader an unprecedented and shockingly complete grasp of the most influential lyric corpus in the Western world. This is not a book one should simply 'check out'. This is a book to own and treasure all one's life, shelved beside one's preferred Homer, Virgil, Dante, and Collected Shakespeare. This book is one of the major literary events of this decade' Elijah Perseus Blumov, Literary Matters
'An extraordinary feat ... Over and over, I was impressed both by Childers's technical abilities and his vivid way of evoking the multiple voices in this rich tradition' Emily Wilson, translator of the Odyssey and the Iliad
'Where does the lyric begin? One answer - a capacious and generous one - is given by Christopher Childers's anthology, in which translations of both Greek and Latin lyric poetry are offered in large servings, with extensive and ambitious commentary ... bold and worthwhile ... readable and learned' Peter McDonald, TLS
'An extraordinary achievement, in scope, scale and skill' Richard Jenkyns, author of Classical Literature
The poems in this lively, wide-ranging and richly enjoyable anthology are the work of priestesses and warriors; of philosophers and statesmen; of teenage girls, concerned for their birthday celebrations; of drunkards and brawlers; of grumpy old men, and chic young things. Their authors write - or sing - about hopes, fears, loves, losses, triumphs and humiliations. Every one of them lived and died between 1,900 and 2,800 years ago.
The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse is a volume without precedent. It brings together the best of two traditions normally treated in isolation, and in doing so tells a captivating story about how literature and book-culture emerged from an oral society in which memory and learning were transmitted through song. The classical vision of lyric poetry as understood by the greatest ancient poets - Sappho and Horace, Bacchylides and Catullus - mingles and interacts with our expansive modern vision of the lyric as the brief, personal, emotional poetry of a human soul laid bare.
Anyone looking for a picture of what ancient poets were up to when they were simply singing to the gods, or to their friends, or otherwise opening little verbal windows into their life and times can find it here. It is a volume full of fire and life: an undertaking of astonishing reach, and an accomplishment magisterial in its scope.
Contents
Note on Lyric
Translator's Preface
Note on Meters
Note on the Text(s)
Acknowledgments
THE ARCHAIC PERIOD
Archilochus
Semonides of Amorgos
Callinus
Tyrtaeus
Mimnermus
Alcman
Sappho
Alcaeus
Solon
Theognis and the Theognidea
Phocylides
Demodocus
Stesichorus
Geryon
Helen
The Theban Saga
The Sack of Troy
Ibycus
Anacreon
Xenophanes
Hipponax
Simonides
Lyrics
Elegies
Epigrams
Pindar
Olympian Odes
Pythian Odes
Fragments from Other Genres
Bacchylides
THE CLASSICAL PERIOD
Timocreon of Rhodes
Ion of Chios
Praxilla
Corinna
Timotheus
Ariphron of Sicyon
Philoxenus
'Plato'
Aristotle
Aristonous of Corinth
Philodamus of Scarphea
Hermolochus
Anonymous Classical Lyric
Folk Songs
Scolia
POST-CLASSICAL GREEK LYRIC
Callimachus
The Aetia
The Iambi
The Hymns
Epigrams
Theocritus
The Greek Anthology
Epigrams from the Garland of Meleager
Philetas of Samos
Erinna
Anyte
Asclepiades
Leonidas of Tarentum
Phalaecus
Nossis
Heraclitus of Halicarnassus
Posidippus of Pella
Hedylus
Rhianus
Dioscorides
Mnasalces
Theodoridas
Alcaeus of Messene
Theaetetus
Diotimus
Tymnes
Pancrates
Phanias
Anipater of Sidon
Anonymous
Meleager
Epigrams from the Garland of Philip
Philodemus
Crinagoras
Erucius
Zonas
Antipater of Thessalonica
Apollonides
Marcus Argentarius
Bianor
Antiphilus of Byzantium
Automedon
Evenus
Maccius
Antiphanes of Macedonia
Philip of Thessalonica
Anacreontea
LATIN LYRIC
Catullus
Polymetric Poems
Longer Poems
Elegies and Epigrams
Virgil
Tibullus
Propertius
Sulpicia
The 'Sulpicia Elegist'
Sulpicia
Horace
Epodes
Odes
Ovid
Amores
Tristia
Letters from Pontus
Statius
Martial
Afterword: What is Lyric?
Abbreviations
Notes
Index of Genres
Index of Poets
Index of First Lines
Thematic Index
