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The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse
Newly translated according to a scheme of staggering ambition, an anthology unlike any now availableComposed between the early-agricultural 'song culture' of 800 BCE, when praise poems and dirges mingled in a world peopled with gods and monsters, and the time of Imperial Rome, the corpus of Greek and Latin lyric poetry is as densely rich in formal interrelation and allusion as anything we know in English verse. Poets like the Greek Callimachus and the Roman Horace self-consciously modelled themselves on earlier bards - Sappho and Mimnermus, Pindar and Alcaeus - and produced poetry thick with references and resonances from the work of their exemplars. Yet, as a rule, for the reader in English translation, much of this fascinating interplay is inaccessible. One translator approaches a given poet in one way; another translator approaches the next poet in another. We receive the part, but lose the whole.In an undertaking of astonishing ambition, Chris Childers has sought to remedy this situation by translating the most representative and significant poems from both languages in a single volume, and according to consistent principles of translation. No other book now available so much as attempts this. A decade in the making, The Penguin Book of Greek and Latin Lyric Verse gives us back the full complexity and play of two immortal traditions as we have never seen them before.
1008 pages, Hardcover
Published March 28, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
October 12, 2024
7/10
Have read a fair amount of these authors already from the Oxford World Classic edition of Greek Lyric Poetry, and I'll be getting to most of the Romans soon in my own time. But this feels like a pretty definitive collection of Lyric in both the ancient and modern definition of the word, not to mention the fact that bringing together the poets of Ancient Greece and Rome for the first(?) time really helps illuminuate the continuities and innovations of the form across both civilisations.
Have read a fair amount of these authors already from the Oxford World Classic edition of Greek Lyric Poetry, and I'll be getting to most of the Romans soon in my own time. But this feels like a pretty definitive collection of Lyric in both the ancient and modern definition of the word, not to mention the fact that bringing together the poets of Ancient Greece and Rome for the first(?) time really helps illuminuate the continuities and innovations of the form across both civilisations.
May 16, 2024
Precioso. Rebosante de tesoros, especialmente en la sección griega que, por fortuna, es la más amplia.
April 24, 2025
Ten years in the making, this is an almost unbelievable amount of work from a translator across 2 different languages and a period of approaching a thousand years. Was it time well spent?
For me there are two talking points in particular:
1. The decision to write rhyming verse. I think I follow, and I respect, the logic of his reasons for this: that classical poetry was a matter of very definite technique, as opposed to free verse, and that the way to represent this in English is by rhyme. Nevertheless it is odd to attempt to represent non-rhyming poetry (which classical poetry is) by rhyme. And that leads onto:
2. Childers is an American. Nothing wrong with that in itself, in spite of current world events, but it comes as a surprise for a Penguin publication and it definitely affects the translation. You can hear the American accent at times, which for a British reader is an unwanted distraction; American spelling is adhered to; and the rhyme amplifies it. There are quite a few which might just about work in a North Carolina accent, but certainly not in my Manchester one.
And, let's be honest, there are a few that just don't work at all; just as there are times when the rhymes jingle-jangle mechanically so as to remind you why art poetry has mostly abandoned them. Childers diction, too, is at times too anachronistically colloquial - the god Pan 'jitterbugging'? Of course all English words post-date the classical era, but it is important not to draw attention to the fact by invoking specifically modern pop-cultural phenomena.
As for the selection of poetry itself, I am only beginning to come to grips with it. But many pieces are sniggering and smutty. They prove, perhaps, that the ancients had sex and a sense of fun, but they don't do a lot to demonstrate the higher feelings. So far I have only read one that I would consider poetic in the fullest sense, and that the shortest:
You watch the stars, my star. Were I the wide
heavens, then I would watch you, starry-eyed.
...but as I say it is early days in exploring this massive book.
The 400 pages of notes are excessive by any standard. I also don't like the use of BCE/CE instead of BC/AD - a nonsensical modern academic convention. But reservations aside, you have to applaud the translator's intention and achievement in at least attempting to present this material in the form of *proper poetry*.
For me there are two talking points in particular:
1. The decision to write rhyming verse. I think I follow, and I respect, the logic of his reasons for this: that classical poetry was a matter of very definite technique, as opposed to free verse, and that the way to represent this in English is by rhyme. Nevertheless it is odd to attempt to represent non-rhyming poetry (which classical poetry is) by rhyme. And that leads onto:
2. Childers is an American. Nothing wrong with that in itself, in spite of current world events, but it comes as a surprise for a Penguin publication and it definitely affects the translation. You can hear the American accent at times, which for a British reader is an unwanted distraction; American spelling is adhered to; and the rhyme amplifies it. There are quite a few which might just about work in a North Carolina accent, but certainly not in my Manchester one.
And, let's be honest, there are a few that just don't work at all; just as there are times when the rhymes jingle-jangle mechanically so as to remind you why art poetry has mostly abandoned them. Childers diction, too, is at times too anachronistically colloquial - the god Pan 'jitterbugging'? Of course all English words post-date the classical era, but it is important not to draw attention to the fact by invoking specifically modern pop-cultural phenomena.
As for the selection of poetry itself, I am only beginning to come to grips with it. But many pieces are sniggering and smutty. They prove, perhaps, that the ancients had sex and a sense of fun, but they don't do a lot to demonstrate the higher feelings. So far I have only read one that I would consider poetic in the fullest sense, and that the shortest:
You watch the stars, my star. Were I the wide
heavens, then I would watch you, starry-eyed.
...but as I say it is early days in exploring this massive book.
The 400 pages of notes are excessive by any standard. I also don't like the use of BCE/CE instead of BC/AD - a nonsensical modern academic convention. But reservations aside, you have to applaud the translator's intention and achievement in at least attempting to present this material in the form of *proper poetry*.
April 4, 2025
Liked some translations more than others. Translations of Sappho were excellent, some of the best I've read.
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews