You may not have heard of Anne Carson before she received the Nobel Prize for Literature on Thursday. But if you’ve ever come across a verse from Sappho, the grande dame of ancient Greek literature, you may have read it in a translation of Carson’s 2002 collection, Otherwise, winter. I first discovered Carson’s work when I read his interpretation of a poem that means more to me than almost any other in the world: Sappho’s poem known simply as “Fragment 31.” It is one of the most precious treasures of Western literature.
Sappho is one of those artists who deserves every moment of her formidable reputation. Much of his work has been preserved only partially, in the form of quotations or on scraps of torn and rotting papyrus. We can read “Fragment 31” today because it was quoted incompletely, but at length, by the literary critic Longinus. In its surviving form it has four short stanzas, plus an extra line to imply that there were once more. But even these brief words demonstrate why some ancient readers called Sappho “the 10th muse,” counting her among the mythical goddesses of song and literature.
Gn entert
