Abstract
This essay discusses the history and practice of translation of Greek lyric poetry in the West. It explores how editors, translators, scholars and readers have engaged with the Greek lyric tradition and how poets especially have found inspiration in constantly revising and rewriting the poems of Sappho and Pindar, Anacreon and Bacchylides, and the rest for new audiences and new needs.
There is comparatively little of it, but the influence of Greek lyric poetry on Western literature has been immense. One particularly famous poem – Sappho…