Sarah Ruden
American poet and author (born 1962)
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sarah Elizabeth Ruden is an American writer, classics scholar, and translator. She is a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania. She has been described as 'One of our leading interpreters of ancient literature'.[1] Her publications include poetry, essays, and popularizations of Biblical philology, religious criticism and interpretation.[2][3]
Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, M.A.
Harvard University, Ph.D. (Classical Philology)
Sarah Ruden | |
|---|---|
| Alma mater | University of Michigan B.A. Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars, M.A. Harvard University, Ph.D. (Classical Philology) |
| Awards | 1996 Central News Agency Literary Award for book of poems, Other Places |
| Website | SarahRuden.com |
Early life and education
Sarah Ruden was born in Ohio in 1962 and raised in the United Methodist Church.[4][5] She holds an M.A. from the Johns Hopkins Writing Seminars and a Ph.D. in Classical Philology from Harvard University.[6] Her doctoral thesis was Toward a typology of humor in the Satyricon of Petronius, and was awarded in 1993.[7]
Career
In addition to her academic appointments, Ruden has worked as a medical editor, a contributor to American periodicals,[8] and a stringer for the South African investigative magazine Noseweek.[9]
Ruden became an activist Quaker during her ten years spent in post-apartheid South Africa, where she was a tutor for the South African Education and Environment Project.[10][11] Both before and after her return to the United States in 2005, Ruden has engaged in ecumenical outreach and published a number of articles and essays, in both liberal and conservative publications.[12][13]
In 2008, Ruden became the first woman to publish a full translation of the Aeneid into English.[14] She was a lecturer in Classics at the University of Cape Town. In 2016, she was awarded a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete her translation of The Confessions of Augustine (2017).[15]
Ruden is an advocate for the popularization of ancient texts.[16] She has been a visiting scholar at the University of Pennsylvania since 2018.[17]
Awards
In 2010, Ruden was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to fund her translation of the Oresteia of Aeschylus.[18] She won a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to complete her translation of The Confessions of Augustine in 2016.[19] Her translation of the Gospels was funded in part by a Robert B. Silvers Grant for Work in Progress in 2019.[20]
Personal life
Selected publications
Books
Poetry
- I Am the Arrow. The Life & Art of Sylvia Plath in Six Poems (Library of America, 2025)
- Other Places. William Waterman Publications. 1995. (Awarded the 1996 Central News Agency Literary Award)[27]
Translations
- The Gospels. A New Translation (Modern Library, 2023)[28]
- Petronius (2000). The Satyricon of Petronius: A New Translation with Topical Commentaries (trans.). Hackett. ISBN 9780872205109.[29]
- Aristophanes (2003). Aristophanes: Lysistrata, Translated, with Notes and Topical Commentaries (trans.). Hackett.[30]
- Homer (2005). The Homeric Hymns (trans.). Hackett.[31]
- Virgil (2008). The Aeneid: Vergil (trans.). Yale Univ. Press.[32][33] Revised and expanded (Yale Univ. Press, 2021).
- Apuleius (2012). The Golden Ass (trans.). Yale Univ. Press.[34]
- Aeschylus (2016). The Oresteia, in The Greek Plays (ed. Mary Lefkowitz and James Romm). Modern Library.
- Augustine (2017). Confessions (trans.). Modern Library.[35]
- Plato (2015). Hippias Minor or The Art of Cunning: A new translation of Plato’s most controversial dialogue (trans.). With introduction and artwork by Paul Chan; essay by Richard Fletcher. Badlands Unlimited and the DESTE Foundation for Contemporary Art.[36]
- Anonymous (2021). The Gospels (trans.) Modern Library.[37]
Biblical interpretation
- Paul Among the People: The Apostle Reinterpreted and Reimagined in His Own Time. Image. 2011.[38]
- The Face of Water: A Translator on Beauty and Meaning in the Bible. Pantheon. 2017.[39]
