A fine-tuning of Sappho was necessary, after new papyrus acquisitions have integrated the poetess’ corpus, dated glorious editions and updated a critical debate that introduced new views in the study of ancient poetry and forced to rethink the productive dynamics, performative occasions, contexts and social functions, literary dimension of archaic Greek lyric.
Therefore, Camillo Neri does not limit himself to update previous works since Sappho is in the singular position of object a) of good, although partial, critical editions, but without translation and commentary, b) of good translations, but without critical text and often without commentary, c) of good commentaries, but without critical text and/or translation.
The introduction addresses all the issues related to Sappho: biography, contexts and functions of her poetry, metre, language and style, tradition, history of her centuries-old fortune. The text proposes the first complete collection of all the fragments and all the testimonia, with an extensive critical apparatus, Italian translation, perpetual commentary.
Finally, the book contains a conspectus metrorum, a large array of indices (verborum, sources, locorum and nominum et notabilium) and a rich and updated bibliography.