World Literature Program

Dr. Kathleen Rettig, Sappho

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Dr. Kathleen Rettig's

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY FOR THE STUDY OF WOMEN'S LITERATURE

SAPPHO

 

Barnstone, Willis, trans. Sappho and the Greek Lyric Poets. New York: Schocken, 1988. Call number: PA 3622 B3S26 1988. Reviewer: Kathleen Rettig

Barnstone defines lyric and choral ode and classifies Sappho's poems as lyric, solo song, or monody. His definition of monody is well detailed and makes it easy for a reader to understand how Sappho and even modern poets' works fit this category.

Barnstone explains how so much of Greek love poetry is about homosexual love. Women often did not have the opportunity to establish emotional partnerships with their men. Marriage was often a political arrangement or an arrangement made so the couple could have the necessary children. He, then, downplays the physical aspect of the relationship and emphasizes the emotional attachment.

Barnstone is careful to explain, with Sappho's biographical material, that much is speculation. She was born about 630 B.C. on the island of Lesbos. Her family may have contributed significantly to the world of politics. Both her mother and her daughter were named Kleis and she had either two or three brothers. These are the sketchy details most biographers agree on. Part of the reason for the conflicting beliefs regarding Saphho's biography is that she was the subject of at least six Attic comedies. Some conclude that there must have been two Sapphos, one a poet, the other a prostitute. From these Attic plays stem the myth that Sappho met her death when she threw herself from the cliffs out of desperation from a failed love for a ferryman.

Regardless of the details of Sappho's life, enough of Sappho's poetry has survived for modern readers to appreciate her contributions to Greek poetry. The introduction to our Norton anthology mentions that many of Sappho's poems were preserved in fragments by the Egyptians. What they fail to add is that they were preserved because the poems were cut in strips and used to wrap their mummies. So, many of these poems survive in fragments that consist of columns of single letters, syllables, or words.

Sappho's contribution to Greek literature include the following technical innovations:

1. the use of the the pectis (a harp) to accompany her poems

2. the Mixolydian mode

3. the Sapphic stanza (imitated by numerous poets, including Horace and Catullus).

Sappho's poetry was well-known and often quoted well into Roman times.

In Christian times, Sappho's poetry did not fare so well. The Church declared her whorish and her poetry immoral and licentious. Saint Gregory (c. 380 AD) ordered her poems to be burned. Pope Gregory VII (1073) ordered her poems to be burned publicly. Yet her work was so highly regarded by the poets that they were preserved in part because she was so widely quoted.

Our text includes three of Sappho's best known poems, in part because they are the most complete.

"Throned in splendor, deathless, O Aphrodite" is a prayer to Aphrodite to intercede and "set [her] free from doubt and sorrow." The woman Sappho desires has not returned her love. Sappho calls on Aphrodite to descend with her chariot drawn by sparrows as she did before, and repair her 'tortured heart" by smiling on her and assuring her that her love will return her love even if unwillingly. The beauty of this poem lies in both the craft--Richard Lattimore successfully imitates the Sapphic stanza--and the comfortable conversational tone.

"Like the very gods in my sight is he" depicts sappho again in despair because the object of her love is directing her attention elsewhere. She describes the man sitting next to her love as a god, yet he seems godlike primarily because he is the object of her attentions, because he can see her and hear her soft, sweet voice and her laughter. The first half of the poem, then, reveals her jealousy of the man who is receiving the attentions and love of the woman Sappho desires. The second part of the poem echoes the first in the negative. While the man who can feel, see, and hear the woman is elevated to a god, she who can not is left near death. She is unable to speak, unable to feel, unable to hear, unable to see. She becomes so physically ill, that she believes she is close to death. Her agony reduces her (to death, to anniliation) in proportion to the way in which love elevates the man (to the stature of a god).

Bowra, C.M. Greek Lyric Poetry: From Alcman to Simonides. Oxford: Clarendon, 1961. Call Number: PA 3019 B6. Reviewer: Kathleen Rettig

Bowra gives a detailed discussion of the differences and similarities of the lyric and the monody. He includes a short account of the development of music, explaining how various poets personalized the musical accompaniment for their poems. Bowra classifies the ancient Greek lyric poets giving a sense of each of their contributions to the canon.

Bowra's chapter on Sappho is over sixty pages. This was the single most helpful source of those I consulted. He treats the three poems included in the Norton anthology with more depth than any of the others and his enthusiasm for Sappho's genius is catching.

Davenport, Guy, trans. and intro. Archilochus, Sappho, Alkman: Three Lyric Poets of the Seventh Century B.C.. Berkeley: U of California P, 1980. Call Number: PA 3622 D38 1984. Reviewer: Kathleen Rettig

Davenport also believes the physical aspect of love must be downplayed to understand Sappho. In keeping with what is believed to have been love of the kind Sappho writes, Lucius Apuleius writes: "The educated love; others breed." This love was spiritual, not biological; passionate, but intellectual.

Davenport includes the gaps in Sappho's poetry. Readers can get a better understanding of just how much of her poetry is the guesswork of most translators.

Duban, Jeffrey M. Ancient and Modern Images of Sappho: Translations and Studies in Archaic Greek Love Lyric. New York: UP of America, 1983. Call Number: PA 3624 L7A52 1983. Reviewer: Kathleen Rettig

Duban includes a very helpful bibliography. He stars the items he believes essential for an introduction to Greek poetry.

He includes a lengthy preface comparing various translations of Sappho's poetry. Using the first stanza of her poem to Aphrodite he compares Guy davenport, Richard Lattimore, F. Lasserre, D.A. Campbell, Willis Barnstone, P. Roche, S.Q. Groden, M. Barnard, and C.M. Bowra. He gives a very thorough explation of considerations for using metrics and rhyme when translating Greek poetry into English.

Duban buys into the suicide leap from the Leucadian cliffs in a big way. He explains using excerpts from Sappho's poetry and Ovid, that the leap was supposed to act as a cure for love if the person survived. He explains how this leap had become an annual even in honor of Apollo. "Flapping birds and feathers were attached to the victim to break the fall, and a large crowd waited in boats below to rescue him (34)."

He includes copious notes to each of Sappho's poems.

Lesky, Albin. A History of Greek Literature, trans. James Willis and Cornelis de Heer. New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1957/8. Call Number: PA 3057 L413 1966. Reviewer: Kathleen Rettig

Lesky begins his coverage of Greek literature with a discussion of Homer's The Iliad and The Odyssey. While he discusses Sappho's poetry, even giving attention to the three best known (those that appear in the Norton), the strength of this work lies in his integrative discussion of Greek authors and literature through the centuries.

Lesky convincingly puts her relationship with the young women of Lesbos in perspective. Sappho and the women would meet to sing and dance. There was nothing immoral about their gatherings and Sappho's poetry is the best support for understanding this. To take the bawdy incidences depicted in Greek comedy as a basis for sappho's life is to reduce her biography to the absurd. To remember her for the technical inventions of her metrics and verse, her acute observations of herself and the women surrounding her is to give Sappho the credit as a poet she well deserves.

Rayor, Diane J. trans and intro. Sappho's Lyre: Archaic Lyric and Women Poets of Ancient Greece. Berkeley: U of California P, 1991. Call Number: ?? Reviewer: Kathleen Rettig

Diane J. Rayor provides a translation of eight archaic lyric poets and nine women poets from a later era. Her introduction provides an excellent explanation of lyric poetry, explaining why some poets are included as lyric poets and others (i.e. Archilochus, who fits a contemporary definition of lyric poet) are not. She explains some of the misconceptions regarding Sappho's biography and poetry and provides insightful comparisons between the conventions and styles of these poets.

 

last updated: 8/5/2003