This is a longer 30 minute piece about Sappho. Mostly it’s about the history of the reception of her works, mixed with recitation of translations. The interviewer (what is her accent?) chats with West about the recent discovery, he provides his own OHT translation, and then reads half of it in Greek. I am pleased to hear that he aims at the reconstructed pronunciation.
I don’t know how much longer this url will work, since I suspect it’ll be replaced by the next show on Sunday. Requires RealPlayer: Sappho Tenth Muse.
Thanks for the link, that was fun. A question: the first woman she talks with mentions that the Alexandrian library had her works in 9 books (which I’ve heard before), and then she says that some of the poems were as long as 1300 lines. Is that true? Or did she mean to say that some of the books were that long? And if it is true, is that exceptional, or comparable to accounts of other poems and poets? Do we know if Pindar’s lost songs, for instance, ever reached this length?
