Poems and Fragments

Stanley Lombardo is Professor of Classics, University of Kansas. His previous translations include Hesiod's Works & Days and Theogony (1993), and Homer's Iliad (1997) and Odyssey (2000), all published by Hackett.Pamela Gordon is Associate Professor of Classics, University of Kansas.

The four sections of this book [Introduction, Translator's Note, translations, Notes on Ancient Sources] work remarkably well together, presenting the fragments of Sappho according to 'the idea of the isolated message' (xvii). The dominant and characteristic interest shared by both Lombardo as translator and Gordon as introducer is their concerted effort to validate 'fragments as esthetic wholes' (xxvi). Lombardo's translations are pleasantly distinct from those of any other I am aware of both for their sonorous but straightforward rendering in modern spoken American English . . . [an edition] better both for its clear translations, and for the breadth and depth of the critical Introduction. Lombardo's strategy as translator is to convey not only the Greek by means of English, but also the experience of reading 'Sappho as a pure, received text' (xxvi) by means of direct, plain presentation of the poem . . . A unique and welcome contribution to the diversity of English translations available. --Travis Feldman, The Bryn Mawr Classical Review