Biography EssayThe greatest importance of Sappho in literary history has been her contribution toward the definition of the lyric genre. While her early date and her gender guaranteed her a position o...
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Sappho (ca. 625-570 BC), a Greek lyric poet, was the greatest female poet of antiquity. Her vivid, emotional manner of writing influenced poets through the ages, and her special quality of intimacy ha...
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The greatest importance of Sappho in literary history has been her contribution toward the definition of the lyric genre. While her early date and her gender guaranteed her a position of major signifi...
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In the following essay, Nelson-McDermott reevaluates Carman's collection, Sappho Poems. He explains that previous critics have tended to discuss the Sappho poems in terms of Carman's &#x...
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In the following essay, Gregory explores the poetry of Sappho in terms of its influence on Hilda Doolittle, characterizing the Greek poet's work as “the timeless matter of ephemeral feel...
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In the following essay, Heikkilä traces Homeric parallels—sometimes recast in erotic contexts—in Sappho's second fragment.
Introduction
The relationship of Sappho's ...
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In the following essay, Miller applies a Bakhtinian theory of lyric dialogism to Sappho's fragment number “31” and Catullus's translation of this poem, in order to suggest ...
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In the following essay, Peterson notes the literary influence of Sappho's poetry on Alfred, Lord Tennyson and, more broadly, on the “feminine” tradition in nineteenth-century Engl...
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In the following essay, Lardinois questions modern historical reconstructions of Sappho as either a school-mistress or a symposiast, claiming instead that the historical evidence is most consistent wi...
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In the following excerpt from her monograph containing feminist, materialist, and historicist approaches to Sappho, Dubois uses the example of Sappho's fragmentary poem no. “31” t...
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In the following excerpts, Snyder examines how Sappho's lyric poetry recontextualizes the patriarchal and heterosexual world of the Homeric epic, also surveying several of her lesser-known poet...
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In the following essay, Sider discusses multiple poetic meanings of the term “ôra” in the Sapphic fragment designated as 168B Voight.
Δέδυχ...
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In the following essay, DeJean probes Ovid's fictionalization of Sappho in his Heroides as an abandoned woman who kills herself because of unrequited love.
… [In] the Heroides, … ...
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In the following essay, DeJean concentrates on Sappho's resistance to the objectifying male erotic gaze in favor of a poetic vision that reflects feminine desire.
«Within [the logic that...
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In the following essay, Warren details the influence of translated Sapphic poetry on such writers as Catullus, Charles Baudelaire, and Algernon Charles Swinburne, with a principal focus on Sappho�...
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In the following essay, Zonana highlights poet Algernon Charles Swinburne's identification with Sappho and her apotheosis as the “Tenth Muse.”
In an important early poem, “...
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In the following essay, O'Higgins explicates the Sappho poem referred to as “Phainetai moi” (fragment no. “31”) in the context of a verse response by Catullus.
Sapph...
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In the following essay, Rayor explores some of the difficulties associated with translating Sappho's fragmentary poetic texts.
Since ancient poetry so often survives only in fragments, it would...
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In the following excerpt, Bevington explores Elizabethan dramatist John Lyly's version of the Sappho myth—derived from Ovid—in his 1584 play Sappho and Phao.
[John Lyly, in his dr...
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In the following essay, Gregory reveals how H.D. evokes the erotic lyricism of Sappho and the elemental power and imagery of the sea in the poems of her Sea Garden.
A familiar shade has haunted the fe...
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Sappho
Sappho
Sappho
