Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Carson, Anne - Carol Moldaw (review date spring 2003)

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Carol Moldaw (review date spring 2003)

SOURCE: Moldaw, Carol. Review of If Not, Winter, translated by Anne Carson. Antioch Review 61, no. 2 (spring 2003): 374.

[In the following review, Moldaw praises Carson's translations in If Not, Winter, arguing that Carson succeeds in “giving us a Sappho whose voice dazzles like an iceskater's blade.”]

Without knowing the original language in which a poem is written, one can judge a translation of it only against other translations and against one's sense—formed by hearsay, by intuition, by default—of how the poet should sound. A poet's voice is like a fingerprint, and the ability of voice to maintain its individuality in translation, as the layers of its language are peeled away, is a mystery, a miracle. Enacting that miracle, Carson's new translation of Sappho [If Not, Winter] must be considered the definitive edition of Sappho for our age, both in its inclusive breadth...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. Guy Davenport (review date spring 1987)
   2. Barbara K. Gold (review date fall 1990)
   3. Judith Kitchen (review date fall 1993)
   4. Alexander M. Forbes (review date spring 1995)
   5. Brain Evenson (review date fall 1995)
   6. Sandra M. Gilbert (review date August 1996)
   7. Adam Phillips (review date fall 1996)
   8. Elisabeth Frost (review date November 1996)
   9. Richard Holinger (review date winter 1997)
   10. Gail Wronsky (review date spring 1997)
   11. Jeff Hamilton (review date summer-fall 1997)
   12. Nicole Cooley (review date fall 1998)
   13. Bernard Knox (review date 19 November 1998)
   14. Sharon Wahl (review date spring 1999)
   15. Jed Rasula (review date summer-autumn 1999)
   16. Robert Lamberton (review date winter 2000)
   17. Phoebe Pettingell (review date March-April 2000)
   18. Stanley Corngold (review date April 2000)
   19. Anne Carson and Stephen Burt (interview date 3 April 2000)
   20. Ian Rae (essay date autumn 2000)
   21. Elizabeth Lowry (review date 5 October 2000)
   22. Harriet Zinnes (essay date February 2001)
   23. Anne Carson and Mary Gannon (interview date March-April 2001)
   24. Josephine Balmer (review date 25 May 2001)
   25. David C. Ward (essay date May-June 2001)
   26. Ian Rae (review date summer 2001)
   27. John Burt (review date autumn 2001)
   28. Chris Jennings (essay date fall 2001)
   29. Priscilla Long (review date October 2001)
   30. David Baker (review date spring 2002)
   31. Roger Gilbert (essay date spring 2002)
   32. Peter Green (review date 7 October 2002)
   33. Alan Jacobs (review date March-April 2003)
   34. Carol Moldaw (review date spring 2003)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright