Sappho's Gift: The Poet and Her Community

Newly available in English, the latest volume from accomplished literary critic Franco Ferrari offers extraordinary new insight into the life and works of Sappho, one of the most individualistic and evocative poets of antiquity. Important for those who are new to Sappho and the complex textual history of her work, this volume also offers fresh readings that will be of interest to scholars who are well familiar with the poems.

Sappho's Gift: The Poet and Her Community examines the fragmentary evidence regarding the poems, largely drawn from papyri. It also considers the iconographical representations of Sappho, the types of poems and their occasions, her audience, and her literary and cultural milieu. Greek text and translations are provided for the major poems, together with brief critical apparatus.

Franco Ferrari weighs information from many ancient sources regarding Sappho's circle, island life both political and personal, the poet's immediate family, her contemporary Alcaeus, and the kind of life that well-to-do girls and women might expect. Surprising insights in all these areas and more result from the author's sophisticated judgment of scraps of information across many centuries. The Sappho Franco Ferrari reveals to us is three-dimensional, a poet and writer, a lover of song and dance and parties, and a vibrant woman always considering the happiness and growth of the young women around her.

Benjamin AcostauHughes is Professor of Greek and Latin at the Ohio State University. His publications include Polyeideia:The Iambi of Callimachus and the Archaic Iambic Tradition (Berkeley 2002) and Arlon's Lyre: Archaic Lyric into Hellenistic Poetry (Princeton 2009). He is coauthor, with Susan Stephens, of Callimachus in Context: from Plato to Ovid (Cambridge, forthcoming).

Lucia Prauscello is Lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge and Fellow of Trinity Hall. She is the author of Singing Alexandria: Music between Practice and Textual Transmission (Leiden 2006). She has variously published on archaic and Hellenistic poetry, drama, novel, performance criticism, and the sociology of ancient music.

Franco Ferrari, formerly Professor of Greek Philology at the Scuola Normale Superiore at Pisa, teaches Greek literature at the University of L'Aquila. His interests range from Homer to Attic tragedy and comedy, from lyric poetry to the Hellenistic epigram, from Xenophon to the Life of Aesop. He has published many articles on classical topics and is the author of several books, including Ricerche sul testo di Sofocle (Pisa 1983) , Oralita ed espressione: ricognizioni omeriche (Pisa 1986), La porta dei canti (Bologna 1993), L'alfabeto delle Muse (Bologna 1995), and Lafonte del cipresso bianco. Racconto e sapienza dal]' Odissea alle famine misteriche (Turin 2007). He has also prepared a critical edition of the Elephantine Songs (Studi Classici e Orientali 1988) and of the Life of Aesop (Milan 1997) and has translated into Italian many Greek authors and texts including the Odyssey, Pindar's Olympian Odes, Xenophon, and the surviving plays of New Comedy. His version of Sappho's songs (Milan 1987) won the 1988 Latina Prize.