THOMAS McEVILLEY has published many scholarly monographs and articles on both classical and modern philology, philosophy, religion, and art, including THE SHAPE OF ANCIENT THOUGHT: COMPARATIVE STUDIES IN GREEK AND INDIAN PHILOSOPHIES (2002) and THE TRIUMPH OF ANTI-ART: CONCEPTUAL AND PERFORMANCE ART IN THE FORMATION OF POSTMODERNISM (2005).

SAPPHO
by THOMAS McEVILLEY

Paperback original, $28 USD
464 pages, first edition
ISBN-10: 0-88214-574-6
ISBN-13: 978-0-88214-574-7
SUBJECT: Classics/Poetry

This volume on the Lesbian poet Sappho represents many years of work and includes two major unpublished new studies: "The Garden of the Graces: The Survival of Bronze Age Religious Motifs into the Modern Lyric Poem," and "The Clear-Voiced Song-Loving Lyre: Recent Explorations in Sapphic Studies."

... she shines out among the Lydian wives
like the rosy-fingered moon
when the sun has set,

outshining all the stars,
and it sheds its light on the salt sea
and the flowery fields alike,

and the fair dew is poured out,
and there bloom the roses
and tender chervils and blossomy honey-lotuses,

and, wandering far off,
she yearns for gentle Atthis
and her delicate breast is weighed down with desire,

her heart with grief ...

(Fragment 96)