THE FIRST POETS
The First Poets: lives of the ancient Greek poets
Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 2004; Head of Zeus, 2016
Knopf (Doubleday), 2006 pb
The First Poets brings to life the great Greek poets who gave the Western poetic tradition its first bearings and whose works have had an enduring influence on our literature and imagination.
Starting with the legendary Orpheus and the possibly mythical 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 to provide animated and compelling portraits of our cultural ancestors.
‘Every poet should buy a copy of this book to keep on their bookshelves. And, when the occasion arises, they should throw it at the cynic who may try to ignore or demean them’
– Independent
‘Exhilarating. […] It’s hard to be temperate about Michael Schmidt’s loving, informed and deeply engaging survey. […] It would be difficult to imagine a better introduction to its subject.
– Washington Post
‘Ancient Greece is the fountainhead of Western culture and politics. As Michael Schmidt demonstrates in The First Poets, the evolution from aristocratic rule to democracy in Greece was accompanied by the emergence of a strongly individualistic lyric poetry. While the Hebrew Bible, the other major source of Western literature, expresses a God-centered view of the universe, Greek literature gradually freed itself from the sacred to focus on the uniquely human voice. […] Whenever he is front and center, Schmidt himself is a fascinating guide who wins the reader’s trust.’
– Camille Paglia, New York Times