Lee Edelman would, in his iconic 2004 book No Future, argue that because queerness cannot produce the patriarchal ideal of a Child, it is fundamentally defined by a drive towards death. Each line may be brief, but together they are infinite.Ĭarson points out that Sappho associates desire with death, an idea that-interestingly enough-is also a function of queer theory in later times. I particularly loved her choice to end on the brief verses, page after page of lines with no context beyond. I also appreciated Carson’s commentary on 16, 55, 94, and 98. Her insights on poem 137’s use of the extremely loaded term aidos (shame), and poem 142’s use of the term hetairai (friend) to connote an intimate relationship with a woman, each deepen the meaning of the poem. Through this translation, Anne Carson attempts to convey the best of her work, through both presentation-sometimes the spacing makes the poem, as with verse 26-and wording, as she discusses in her final notes of the book.įor me, half the appeal of this edition was the work put into translation notes by Carson. Believed to have written 8 or 9 books, her lover Megara, daughter Kleis, and enemy Andromeda all appear within these texts. Sappho (c.630-c.570BCE), one of Ancient Greece’s Nine Lyric Poets, is an absolutely gorgeous poet and writer, one who’s been the subject of much academic discourse. Yet if you had a desire for good or beautiful thingsĪnd your tongue were not concocting some evil to sayīut rather you would speak about what is just
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