From Library Journal
The lyric poetry of antiquity is often as important to modern poets as it is to translators and classical scholars. Mulroy is a professor of classics (Univ. of Wisconsin, Milwaukee), and Carson (classics, McGill Univ.; The Beauty of the Husband) and the late William Matthews (After All: Last Poems) are well-regarded poets. Following Pound's dictum to "make it new," Mulroy and Matthews translate Catullus and Horace into modern American idiom, striving where possible to find cultural equivalents rather than literal translations. At the same time, they try to be true to the shifting tones and rhythms of their originals. The results are fluent, giving some sense of the contemporaneousness that Catullus and Horace would have evoked in their audiences. Carson's translation follows Sappho's diction and form much more closely and includes the Greek original on the facing page. Much of what survives of Sappho are fragments, often just a stray word, phrase, or even a few letters. Like many modern poets, Carson deploys these on the blank page, letting their suggestiveness fill the gaps and create whole lyrics in the imagination of the readers. All three translators aim for a general audience, though Mulroy and Carson also include notes and introductions of value to the more scholarly reader. All three books are recommended for both public and academic libraries. T.L. Cooksey, Armstrong Atlantic State Univ., Savannah, GA Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Book Description
A fresh new translation of the Satires of Horace by the poet William Matthews. Stanley Plumly writes, "What is special about Matthews’s Horatian Satires is the immediacy of the idiom, the sense of discovery of the actual moment, the quickness of the turn of the line. If we are fools, wisdom and wise words are our only chance. Horace’s words, in Matthews’ hands, become alive, just-written, and immortal again because they are so new."

Language Notes
Text: English (translation)
Original Language: Latin

About the Author
WILLIAM MATTHEWS, the author of a dozen books of poetry, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Time & Money in 1995 and, in 1997, the Ruth Lilly Award of the Modern Poetry Association. Along with contemporary French and Bulgarian poetry, Matthews translated the epigrams of Martial (The Mortal City, Ohio Review Books) and Aeschylus’s Prometheus Unbound (Penn Greek Drama Series). He was born in Cincinnati and educated at Yale and the University of North Carolina. At the time of his death in 1997 he was Professor of English and Director of the Creative Writing Program at the College of the City University of New York.

SYNOPSIS

These fresh, colloquial translations of the Satires revel in their wit and humor. Matthews makes Horace sound at once contemporary and timeless; the language is entertaining, fast-paced, and sly, poking fun at human nature and its foibles. This classic work bursts into new life in the hands of one of our wittiest, most erudite contemporary poets.

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal