Anne Carson and the Beauty of the Unsaid

You may not have heard of Anne Carson before she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature on Thursday. But if you’ve ever come across any verse by Sappho, the grande dame of ancient Greek literature, you may well have read it in a translation from Carson’s 2002 collection, If Not, Winter. I first encountered Carson’s work when I read her rendition of a poem that means more to me than almost any other in the world—the Sappho poem known simply as “Fragment 31.” It’s among Western literature’s most valuable treasures.

Sappho is one of those artists who deserves every bit of her awesome reputation. Much of her work was preserved only partially, in quotations or on torn and decayed slips of papyrus. We can read “Fragment 31” today because it was quoted incompletely, but at length, by the literary critic Longinus. In its surviving form, it has four short stanzas, plus an extra line to hint that there once was more. But even those brief words demonstrate why some ancient readers called Sappho “The 10th Muse,” numbering her among the mythical goddesses of song and literature.