Burton RaffelBesprekingen

34 short stories written after WWII, great authors

This is a straightforward introduction to the art of poetry. Burton Raffel, a noted poet and translator, discusses the meaning, structure, and techniques of poetry. The generous use of examples from the best of poetry is used to demonstrate the specifics of poetics.

These are Greek lyrics translated by one of my favorite poet-translators, Burton Raffel. The poets included in this anthology provide a glimpse into archaic Greek culture through their poetry. Among them are the very obscure to the somewhat less obscure, with a few familiar names like Plato. There are poems and fragments of poems for everyone's taste. I enjoyed making connections with my own life and our twenty-first century culture. It was also interesting to see the influence that these ancient poets had on some of our greatest modern poets. Overall it is a beautiful selection of poetry.

An OK collection. Though I can't comment with regards to their fidelity to the originals, the translations themselves read well. Lacks any notes to explain the poems context, and strangely organizes them in alphabetical order by poet, rather than the in my mind more sensible chronological.

I always thought I didn't like poetry until I read Edna St. Vincent Millay's Renascence. After that, I picked this book up at a bargain sale. Rather than a chronological progression of poems, each chapter takes a different aspect of a poem, such as imagery or rhythm, and explains them in detail, using poems as an illustration. Of course it's a little bit like reading a text book at times, but I think it greatly increased my ability to appreciate poetry in general.

My teacher (F. Robinson) thought Raffel a poor translator of Old English.

Interesting for historical value more than to be read as "literature"

Translating and interpreting