[Lit] Guy Davenport

I've been thinking about Guy Davenport's translation of Archilochos' fragments for the last few months, and now they're both dead. I knew Davenport was a scholar of Joyce and Pound, and loved him for that, but I most associated him with the Classics. And nude pre-pubescent Danish boys. And a sort of Southern alter-literature, with Davenport and Jonathan Williams as the axes.

Philippe and I played a game the other day: Does true genius exist — separate from hard work that is — and had we any personal knowledge of someone contemporary possessing such a numen? We agreed that Mozart could not possibly have been merely bright and hard-working ..... but as for any contemporaries, we were both stumped. Since that conversation, I have thought of the dancer Mark Morris, who thrills me as much as Mozart. I should have thought of Davenport as well. He talks to me when my mind is quiet.

Here's Fragment 43 from Archilochos:
Be bold! That's one way
Of getting through life