Carson explains her thought process in an Introduction to the collection: “Brackets are an aesthetic gesture toward the papyrological event rather than an accurate record of it… I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you allow it. This is fairly typical formatting in poetry translations, but she has also made the radical decision to use brackets to signify the missing words and sections – to define the negative space within Sappho’s poems. On the left hand page is the original Greek. Carson’s 2002 translations, collected in the book titled If Not, Winter, are interesting in a variety of ways – not least being how she presents the verses.

and tantalize us with what they do and do not reveal.Īnne Carson seems to understand that part of the attraction of Sappho is the mystery which surrounds her.

These surviving pieces are beautiful even in (and sometimes because of) their incomplete state…. Enough to say that what do exist are fragments of the original poems preserved on bits of decaying papyrus. There are reasons for this and scholars who are more qualified to speak on the subject than I am. 630-570 B.C., the earliest woman to have her work was translated into English? She was much admired in antiquity, the woman whom Plato called “the tenth muse”, but notwithstanding the immensity of her reputation very little of her work has survived intact. Publisher: Vintage Books/Random House, New York (2002) Title: If Not, Winter – Fragments of Sappho

If not winter anne carson