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By
Guy Davenport (introduced by) and
Burton Raffel (trans)
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Bibliographic Detail
Publisher
Modern Library
Publication date
October 11, 2005
Pages
112
Binding
Paperback
Edition
Reprint
Book category
Adult Non-Fiction
ISBN-13
9780812969627
ISBN-10
0812969626
Dimensions
0.25 by 5.25 by 8 in.
Weight
0.25 lbs.
Original list price
$11.95
Amazon.com says people who bought this book also bought:
Oedipus the King | Philoctetes | The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet | Aias
Oedipus the King | Philoctetes | The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet | Aias
Summaries and Reviews
Summary
Edited by an award-winning translator and poet, a collection of works from ancient Greece is an introduction to the genre for English-language readers and offers insight into how period writers regarded love, war, domestic life, vice, and friendship. Reprint.
Amazon.com description: Product Description: âFor there is indeed something we can call the spirit of ancient Greeceâa carefully tuned voice that speaks out of the grave with astonishing clarity and grace , a distinctive voice that, taken as a whole, is like no other voice that has ever sung on this earth.â
âBURTON RAFFEL, from his Preface
For centuries, the poetry of Homer, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Sappho, and Archilochus has served as one of our primary means of connecting with the wholly vanished world of ancient Greece. But the works of numerous other great and prolific poetsâAlkaios, Meleager, and Simonides, to name a fewâare rarely translated into English , and are largely unknown to modern readers. In Pure Pagan, award-winning translator Burton Raffel brings these and many other wise and witty ancient Greek writers to an English-speaking audience for the first time, in full poetic flower. Their humorous and philosophical ruminations create a vivid portrait of everyday life in ancient Greece âand they are phenomenally lovely as well.
In short, sharp bursts of song, these two-thousand-year-old poems speak about the timeless matters of everyday life:
Wine (Wine is the medicine / To call for, the best medicine / To drink deep, deep)
History (Not us: no. / It began with our fathers, / Iâve heard).
Movers and shakers (If a man shakes loose stones / To make a wall with / Stones may fall on his head / Instead)
Old age (Old age is a debt we like to be owed / Not one we like to collect)
Frankness (Speak / As you please / And hear what can never / Please).
There are also wonderful epigrams (Take what you have while you have it: youâll lose it soon enough. / A single summer turns a kid into a shaggy goat) and epitaphs (Here I lie, beneath this stone, the famous woman who untied her belt for only one man).
The entrancing beauty, humor, and piercing clarity of these poems will draw readers into the Greeksâ journeys to foreign lands, their bacchanalian parties and ferocious battles, as well as into the more intimate settings of their kitchens and bedrooms. The poetry of Pure Pagan reveals the ancient Greeksâ dreams, their sense of humor, sorrows, triumphs, and their most deeply held values, fleshing out our understanding of and appreciation for this fascinating civilization and its artistic legacy.
From the Hardcover edition.
âBURTON RAFFEL, from his Preface
For centuries, the poetry of Homer, Aristophanes, Sophocles, Sappho, and Archilochus has served as one of our primary means of connecting with the wholly vanished world of ancient Greece. But the works of numerous other great and prolific poetsâAlkaios, Meleager, and Simonides, to name a fewâare rarely translated into English , and are largely unknown to modern readers. In Pure Pagan, award-winning translator Burton Raffel brings these and many other wise and witty ancient Greek writers to an English-speaking audience for the first time, in full poetic flower. Their humorous and philosophical ruminations create a vivid portrait of everyday life in ancient Greece âand they are phenomenally lovely as well.
In short, sharp bursts of song, these two-thousand-year-old poems speak about the timeless matters of everyday life:
Wine (Wine is the medicine / To call for, the best medicine / To drink deep, deep)
History (Not us: no. / It began with our fathers, / Iâve heard).
Movers and shakers (If a man shakes loose stones / To make a wall with / Stones may fall on his head / Instead)
Old age (Old age is a debt we like to be owed / Not one we like to collect)
Frankness (Speak / As you please / And hear what can never / Please).
There are also wonderful epigrams (Take what you have while you have it: youâll lose it soon enough. / A single summer turns a kid into a shaggy goat) and epitaphs (Here I lie, beneath this stone, the famous woman who untied her belt for only one man).
The entrancing beauty, humor, and piercing clarity of these poems will draw readers into the Greeksâ journeys to foreign lands, their bacchanalian parties and ferocious battles, as well as into the more intimate settings of their kitchens and bedrooms. The poetry of Pure Pagan reveals the ancient Greeksâ dreams, their sense of humor, sorrows, triumphs, and their most deeply held values, fleshing out our understanding of and appreciation for this fascinating civilization and its artistic legacy.
From the Hardcover edition.
Editions
Hardcover
from Modern Library (July 1, 2004)
9780679642978 | details & prices | 81 pages | 5.50 × 8.25 × 0.50 in. | 0.64 lbs | List price $17.95
About: A collection of works from ancient Greece is an introduction to the genre for English-language readers and offers insight into how period writers regarded love, war, domestic life, vice, and friendship.
About: A collection of works from ancient Greece is an introduction to the genre for English-language readers and offers insight into how period writers regarded love, war, domestic life, vice, and friendship.
Paperback
The price comparison is for this edition
Reprint edition from Modern Library (October 11, 2005)
9780812969627 | details & prices | 112 pages | 5.25 × 8.00 × 0.25 in. | 0.25 lbs | List price $11.95
About: Edited by an award-winning translator and poet, a collection of works from ancient Greece is an introduction to the genre for English-language readers and offers insight into how period writers regarded love, war, domestic life, vice, and friendship.
About: Edited by an award-winning translator and poet, a collection of works from ancient Greece is an introduction to the genre for English-language readers and offers insight into how period writers regarded love, war, domestic life, vice, and friendship.
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