Sappho

by Charles Doria

Overview

Description of Sappho, The Tenth Muse,
For Barnes & Noble

Sappho, The Tenth Muse, depicts through visual text the life, loves and qualities of the great poet of Lesbos. She was so revered by her contemporaries that she was given the accolade of "The Tenth Muse." She served as an inspiration for later generations, particularly such poets as Corinna, Aeschylus, Catullus, Sulpicia and Ovid. This story is told of Solon, the lawgiver and founder of Athenian democracy. One day he asked he secretary, who was known to have a golden voice, to sing a certain ode of Sappho's. After he finished, Solon remarked, "Now I can die happy having at last heard Sappho performed as she should be." Sappho's story is presented through avatars or stand-ins. Chief among them is Alice Liddell, the heroine of Lewis Carroll's Alice books, but also according to many the victim of Charles Dodson's pedophilia. So she is shown here in full shimmering glory and dire mournful hues. Hypatia, the great Alexandrian scientist and inventor, is another. She was murdered c. 420 CE by a mob of xxxtian lynchsters, who grabbed her on the way to teach at Alexandria's Great Library. They stripped her naked, tied her on the altar of a nearby church and sacrificed her as a witch to placate the Prince of Peace. Then we meet Sailor Moon and her karass who fight to protect women from the malign male forces of the Negaverse and promote the welfare and safety of women everywhere. Other avatars: Daphne who was turned into a laurel tree, witches throughout history, H.D., the modern Sappho; and her translator, Mary Bernard, H.D.'s protégée and still the best modern translator. A well-rounded profile of one of history's most revered and beloved but also most controversial and despised figures.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781663550118
Publisher:	Barnes & Noble Press
Publication date:	08/13/2020
Pages:	334
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.00(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Charles Doria

I was born in Cleveland, Ohio, on April 18, 1938.

I received a BA in Classics and Comparative Literature in 1960 from Adalbert College, an MA in Classics from Harvard in 1964, and a PhD in Comparative Literature and English from SUNY/Buffalo in 1968.

I lived in Rome from 1960-61, Vienna from 1965-66, London in the summers from 1966-70 and from 1971-72. I moved to New York in 1976 where I worked as a copy editor for a medical magazine. Then I spent five unhappy years as an adjunct professor at CUNY/La Guardia, CUNY/Staten Island, LIU/Brooklyn and Rutgers/Mason Gross School of the Arts. In 1987, I become a fulltime staff translator for a Wall-Street area language company. I retired in 2012 and moved to Boca Raton, Florida, where I currently reside.

I edited the following magazines: Audit/Poetry (1962-65) and Assembling Press (1983-87).

Books of Poetry Published:
Short (Assembling Press 1981), Short r (Assembling Press 1983), Game of Europe (Ohio UP/ Swallow Press, 1984), Baghdad Bones (Willis Locker & Owens, 1992),100 (Xpress 2001), Linguae (Xpress 2003), and 1/0 (Xpress 2004), Back Home (Archae Editions (2020).

Translations:
Origins: Creation Stories from the Ancient Mediterranean, Charles Doria, editor and contributor, et al. (Doubleday/AMS Press (1967), The Tenth Muse: Classical Drama in Translation, Charles Doria, editor and contributor (Ohio UP 1985), Big Jewish Book, Charles Doria, contributor (Doubleday 1988), Russian Samizdat Art, Charles Doria editor and contributor (Willis Locker & Owens, 1990).

Visual Books Appearing Shortly:
Pythagoras Mirror, Ares, Bursa, Odeon, Rubaiyat, Ars Nova, Sappho