Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics

Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics is a book of poetry by Canadian poet Bliss Carman. It was first printed in 1904 in Boston by L.C. Page. Carman's cousin, and fellow Canadian poet, Charles G.D. Roberts wrote an introductory essay, "The Poetry of Sappho." Sappho was an Ancient Greek poet from the island of Lesbos, who was included in the Greek canon of nine lyric poets. Most of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her reputation has endured, supported by the surviving fragments of some of her poems. Carman's method, as Roberts saw it, "apparently, has been to imagine each lost lyric as discovered, and then to translate it; for the indefinable flavor of the translation is maintained throughout, though accompanied by the fluidity and freedom of purely original work." It was a daunting task, as Roberts admits: "It is as if a sculptor of to-day were to set himself, with reverence, and trained craftsmanship, and studious familiarity with the spirit, technique, and atmosphere of his subject, to restore some statues of Polyclitus or Praxiteles of which he had but a broken arm, a foot, a knee, a finger upon which to build." Yet, on the whole, Carman succeeded.