Catharsis

Catharsis is an ancient Greek device that suggests the purging or release of unwanted emotions, often through the use of poetry or drama. In Sappho's poem, the speaker uses the heartache of love to describe the array of emotions that the lover's abandonment has created. The poem easily describes the grief of the speaker through phrases such as "demented heart" and "aching pain." The use of "demented" implies a loss of mind, a derangement of the speaker's faculties that reveal the depth of her anguish. Sappho uses the language of poetry to express the emotions of rejected love, and in her descriptions of grief and heartache the reader is also able to acknowledge the universality of abandonment and love lost. The hopeful ending also suggests to the reader the possibility of resolution and a happy ending for all love affairs.

Hymn

Sappho's poem is generally titled the "Hymn...