The definitive modern translation of Sappho. Carson presents every surviving fragment with the gaps marked as brackets, making the incompleteness itself a form of meaning. Reading "[ ] / [ ] / [ ] desire" is to feel both what Sappho wrote and what time has destroyed. Carson's decision to present the fragments as fragments transformed translation into an original act of poetics. The most beautiful translation of the 20th century.

The case for it, the case against, and the rest of the canon open with Pro.