Writing a cohesive report on an anthology is difficult. While these collections typically feature a group of works linked either by a common tongue, culture, or era, the fact remains that each author is an entity unto themselves. Therefore, a commentary runs the risk of either saying too much or too little. If each writer received a substantial treatment the work would swell to an unseemly mass and be unreadable. Yet, any attempts, for the sake of brevity, to brush over (or worse, combine) the works of multiple authors would not do them justice. This is the issue that faces me when writing about Greek Lyric, a poetry anthology translated by Andrew Miller.

I entertained a few approaches before writing what you are now reading. The first was an analysis of the work of the editor and translator. However, given my current understanding of ancient literature I am not remotely qualified to undertake any criticism of this sort. Still more importantly, that was not my motivation for reading the collection. I wanted to grow in my understanding of the Greeks, not critique modern scholarship. My second solution was to pull three poets from the collection and give them a full analysis. While this approach was more in keeping with my aspiration, it still missed the mark. I would come to know the individuals more intimately, but not the Greeks.

A thematic approach seemed best to me. I selected a recurrent topic that arose as a kind of through line from the anthology. In this way an issue important to the culture, as evidenced by its repetition on the lips of its poets, will be analyzed. Likewise, I will be innocent of poor taste in my selection of excerpts since the theme will act as a razor determining relevance Therefore, Solon's political musings and most of Pindar's intricate odes will not be topics of my report. Instead I will restrict the discussion to the chosen topic: life's brevity.