Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation

Book Overview

Successfully integrating elegance and a close fidelity to the Greek, these new translations aim to provide Greekless students with as close a sense as possible of how the Greeks themselves thought and... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0872202917
• ISBN13: 9780872202917
• Release Date: March 1996
• Publisher: Hackett Publishing Company
• Length: 280 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.4" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

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This review relates to the volume -Greek Lyric: An Anthology in Translation-, Translated with an Introductionand Notes by Andrew M. Miller, ISBN: 0872202917, HackettPublishing Company,1996. 258 pp.) Though many of these lyrics and fragments have beenpublished in other editions, by other translators --and each has its glories -- this edition is very wellformatted, pleasing, and very accessible to the eye andmind. Each poet is preceded by a short piece ofbackground, then the poems are numbered, spaced, andlisted (with interspersed, but unobtrusive notes inthe text). The scope and purpose of the volume is stated byMiller in his "Preface": "This anthology of translationsis drawn from the little that remains of the lyric poetryin the Greek world during the seventh, sixth, and fifthcenturies B.C. Following ample precedent, it includesnot only monody and choral lyric but also short poemsand fragments in the elegiac and iambic meters, eventhough the latter do not fit the etymological definitionof lyric as -- 'poetry composed to be sung to the lyre.'" The poets included in this volume are: Archilochus,Tyrtaeus, Callinus, Semonides, Mimnermus, Alcman, Alcaeus,Sappho, Solon, Stesichorus, Theognis, Ibycus, Anacreon,Hipponax, Xenophanes, Simonides, Corinna, Pindar, andBacchylides. Since the poems still remaining by Pindarand Bacchylides are more numerous than those of many ofthe other poets, Miller says that his selection foreach of the two latter poets has been made with anattempt to choose examples which best show "varietyof scale and treatment." For Pindar, the selection is:Olympian 1, 2, 12, 13, and 14; Pythian 1, 3, 8, and10; Nemean 5, 10; Isthmian 5, 6, and 7; Paean 4,Dithyramb 2, Partheneion 2, Enkomions for Theoxenos,Thrasyboulos, and Xenophon, and Threnos 7. ForBacchylides, the selection is: Odes 2, 3, 5, 6, 11,13; Dithyrambs 17, 18; and an Enkomion for Alexandros.As example of Miller's translations, here is anexcerpt from Bacchylides' Dithyramb 18: "Theseus":He is a boy, on manhood's very verge;the sports of Ares are what his mind is fixed on, warand battle with brazen din; and what he seeks is splendor-lovingAthens. -- Robert Kilgore.