Germaine Greer

In her annual poetry lecture at Hay, the formidable Shakespeare scholar and poetry publisher analyses Sappho's Phaentai moi and its Latin version, Catullus's Beatus ille - 'We'll look at the original and the Latin, quickly, and then at English versions. This is the quintessential love poem?: every love poem written in Europe is descended, however distantly, from Sappho's ur-statement of love-longing.'