The First Poets: Lives of the Ancient Greek Poets

A dazzling literary exploration by acclaimed poet and critic Michael Schmidt, The First Poets brings to life for the general reader the great Greek poets who gave our poetic tradition its first bearings and whose works have had an enduring influence on our literature and our imagination.

Starting with the legendary and possibly mythical Orpheus and with Homer, Schmidt conjures a host of our literary forebears. From Hipponax, "the dirty old man of poetry," to Theocritus, the father of pastoral; from Sappho, who threw herself from a cliff for love, to Hesiod, who claimed a visit from the Muses-the stories in The First Poets masterfully merge fact and conjecture into animated and compelling portraits of these ancestors of our culture.

Author: Michael Schmidt
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 03/14/2006
Pages: 448
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 0.71lbs
Size: 8.00h x 5.42w x 0.97d
ISBN: 9780375725258

Review Citation(s):
New York Times 04/30/2006 pg. 24

About the Author
Michael Schmidt is the editor of PN Review, and editorial and managing director of Carcanet Press. He lives in Manchester, England, where he is the director of the Writing School at Manchester Metropolitan University.