This project aims to fulfil one of the most pressing needs in the discipline of Classics – a new critical edition of Sappho, as well as of her Lesbian contemporary, Alcaeus, containing all the fragments and testimonia of these two poets known today. The scale and complexity of the edition, which will be aimed at the widest possible range of readers, goes well beyond anything previously attempted for these poets, or for any ancient Greek lyric poet.
This edition will provide a new, fully up-to-date text, apparatus criticus, translation, introduction, and detailed commentary. In its introduction it will explicitly reflect on the place of editing within the reception history of these poets, particularly Sappho; while acknowledging the progress which classical philology has made over the centuries in its approach to these texts, it will consider the necessarily contingent nature of any editorial presentation of a fragmentary corpus, and the impact which such presentations have had on the reception of Sappho (including the reception of her sexuality) in literature, art, and other media from antiquity to the present.
The critical edition, itself in two volumes, will be accompanied by a short monograph on Sappho which will take the new edition as its point of departure, offering a highly accessible analysis of this fascinating poet based on the very latest scholarship.