Editing Bliss Carman (section)

===''Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics''===
{{Main|Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics}}
[[File:sappho.png|thumb|First edition of ''Sappho'', 1904.]]
There were no such problems with Carman's next book. Perhaps because of the underlying concept, ''[[#Sappho|Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics]]'' (1904) has a structure and unity that helps make it what has been called Carman's "finest volume of poetry".<ref name="DCB"/>

[[Sappho]] was an [[Ancient Greece|Ancient Greek]] poet from the island of [[Lesbos]], who was included in the Greek [[Western canon|canon]] of [[nine lyric poets]]. Most of her poetry, which was well-known and greatly admired throughout antiquity, has been lost, but her reputation has endured, supported by the surviving fragments of some of her poems.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sappho|website=Poets.org|publisher=Academy of American Poets|location=New York|url=https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poet/sappho|access-date=September 24, 2015}}</ref>

Carman's method, as Charles G.D. Roberts saw it in his Introduction to the book, "apparently, has been to imagine each lost lyric as discovered, and then to translate it; for the indefinable flavor of the translation is maintained throughout, though accompanied by the fluidity and freedom of purely original work". It was a daunting task, as Roberts admits: "It is as if a sculptor of to-day were to set himself, with reverence, and trained craftsmanship, and studious familiarity with the spirit, technique, and atmosphere of his subject, to restore some statues of [[Polykleitos|Polyclitus]] or [[Praxiteles]] of which he had but a broken arm, a foot, a knee, a finger upon which to build."<ref>{{cite web|first=Bliss|last=Carman|title=Introduction by Charles G.D. Roberts|work=Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics|publisher=Canadian Poetry Press|url=http://www.uwo.ca/english/canadianpoetry/confederation/Bliss%20Carman/sappho/introduction.htm|access-date=March 24, 2011}}</ref> Yet, on the whole, Carman succeeded.

"Written more or less contemporaneously with the love poems in ''Songs of the Sea Children'', the Sappho reconstructions continue the amorous theme from a feminine point of view. Nevertheless, the feelings ascribed to Sappho are pure Carman in their sensitive and elegiac melancholy."<ref name="adams"/>

Virtually all of the lyrics are of high quality; some often-quoted are XXIII ("I loved thee, Atthis, in the long ago,"), LIV ("How soon will all my lovely days be over"), LXXIV ("If death be good"), LXXXII ("Over the roofs the honey-coloured moon").{{citation needed|date=April 2016}}

"Next to ''Low Tide on Grand Pré'', ''Sappho: One Hundred Lyrics'' seems to be the collection that continues to find the most favour among Carman's critics. D.M.R. Bentley, for example, calls it 'undoubtedly one of the most attractive, engaging and satisfying works of any of the Confederation poets.'"<ref name="adams"/> Bentley argued that "the brief, crisp lyrics of the ''Sappho'' volume almost certainly contributed to the aesthetic and practice of [[Imagism]].<ref name=bentley1>{{cite journal|first=D.M.R.|last=Bentley|url=http://www.canadianpoetry.ca/cpjrn/vol14/bentley.htm|title=Preface: Minor Poets of a Superior Order|journal=Canadian Poetry: Studies/Documents/Reviews |publisher=Canadian Poetry Press|volume=14|date=Spring–Summer 1984|access-date=April 16, 2011}}</ref>