Harvard University Press - POETRY

Latin Poetry

Sun, 31 May 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Jacopo Sannazaro
Translated by Michael C. J. Putnam
Jacopo Sannazaro (1456–1530) is most famous for having written, in Italian, the first pastoral romance in European literature, the Arcadia (1504). But after this early work, Sannazaro devoted himself entirely to Latin poetry modeled on his beloved Vergil. In addition to his epic The Virgin Birth (1526), which earned him the title of “the Christian Vergil,” he also composed Piscatory Eclogues, an innovative adaption of the eclogue form. This volume contains the first complete English translation of all of Sannazaro’s poetry in Latin, accompanied by extensive notes.
Hardcover May 2009

The Songs and Sonets of John Donne

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 00:00:00 EDT

John Donne
Edited by Theodore Redpath
There is perhaps no superior edition of Donne’s Songs and Sonets than Theodore Redpath’s wonderful annotated volume. Out of print for a decade, the book is reprinted here in its second, revised edition. The book’s twofold origin is evident on every page of Redpath’s limpid commentary: it arises partly out of a life of scholarship and partly from Redpath’s experiences and concerns as a teacher.
Paperback April 2009

The Late Tang

Tue, 31 Mar 2009 00:00:00 EDT

Stephen Owen
In this continuation of the literary history of the Tang, Stephen Owen analyzes the redirection of poetry that followed the deaths of the major poets of the High and Mid-Tang and the rejection of their poetic styles. Poets had always drawn on past poetry, but in the Late Tang, the poetic past was beginning to assume the form it would have for the next millennium; it was becoming a repertoire of styles, genres, and the voices of past poets--a repertoire that would endure.
Paperback March 2009

Argonautica

Sat, 31 Jan 2009 00:00:00 EST

Apollonius Rhodius
Edited and translated by William H. Race
Argonautica, composed in the 3rd century BCE, is the epic retelling of Jason’s quest for the golden fleece. It greatly influenced Roman authors such as Catullus, Virgil, and Ovid, and was imitated by Valerius Flaccus. This new edition of the first volume in the Loeb Classical Library offers a fresh translation and improved text.
Hardcover January 2009

Baldo, Volume 2, Books XIII-XXV

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

Teofilo Folengo
Translated by Ann E. Mullaney
Folengo (1491–1544) was born in Mantua and joined the Benedictine order, but became a runaway monk and a satirist of monasticism. In 1517 he published, under the pseudonym Merlin Cocaio, the first version of his macaronic narrative poem Baldo. This edition provides the first English translation of this hilarious send-up of ancient epic and Renaissance chivalric romance.
Hardcover December 2008

Poems

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 00:00:00 EST

Cristoforo Landino
Edited and translated by Mary P. Chatfield
Cristoforo Landino (1424–1498) was one of the great scholar-poets of the Renaissance. His most substantial work of poetry was his Three Books on Xandra. Also included in this volume is the Carmina Varia, a collection whose centerpiece is a group of elegies directed to the Venetian humanist Bernardo Bembo.
Hardcover December 2008

Zeus in the Odyssey

Sun, 30 Nov 2008 00:00:00 EST

J. Marks
This book makes the case that the plot of the Odyssey is represented within the narrative as a plan of Zeus, Dios boulê, that serves as a guide for the performing poet and as a hermeneutic for the audience. The “Zeus-centric” reading proposed here offers fresh perspectives on the tenor of interactions among the Odyssey’s characters.
Paperback November 2008