After Callimachus

Book excerpt: "This is a collection of free translations from the ancient Greek poet Callimachus, whose surviving work includes the Aitia, a narrative elegy; the Iambi, short poems on occasional themes; and the Hecale, a small-scale epic. The poet and critic Stephanie Burt has written contemporary adaptations of what she calls "Callimachus's lyric, epigrammatic, and narrative genius for our times." These are not literal translations for students of Greek, but instead free translations intended to bring poetry of classical antiquity into modern verse. Considered a major poet in Greek and European readings but not yet in English, Callimachus is remembered for a few sayings, among them 'mega biblion, mega kakon': a big, or long, or great book (an epic, for example) is a great evil, or a big, bad thing. Burt's intention is to make Callimachus' 'miniaturist, irony-loving, anti-macho sensibility' more accessible to Anglophone readers, with the advantage that Callimachus 'speaks without centuries of great English poets who have already adapted him'"--