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L + R: Sappho - Coggle Diagram
L + R: Sappho
Scholarly views
Leftkowitz
- Women poets are emotionally disturbed meaning their poems are psychological outpourings
- These outpourings are not intellectual but instead ingenuous and concerned with their inner emotional lives alone
Freeman and Norton
- Sappho is attacking the idea that women are a commodity to their future husband and should stay chaste
- Brided virginity is a form of masculine oppression on younger women
- Sappho displaying women as sexually liberal prior to marriage is reducing their value as a commodity in the eyes of the man
Burnett
- The circularity of Sapphic love
Wilson
- Poem designed to give comfort in a way that could be perceived as maternal if it not be for the lingering over erotic details
Bennett
- Sappho openly writes about lesbian love, it can't have been shunned and suppressed during the period of her writing
Wilamowitz
- Provided the idea of the theasos that Sappho was supposedly writing in and running
Burkett
- Worship of Aphrodite finds its most personal and complete expressions in the poems of sappho
Themes
Topoi
Topoi are reoccurring features within literature and there are quite a few within Sappho
- The pain of Love
- The fertility of nature
- Youth as beauty
- Relationships with the gods
- Nature as a metaphor for sex
- A shift of narrator or focus within a poem
Types of Poem
Epithalamia
- Performed by a chorus or group of people and were performances as weddings or religious ceremonies
Monody's
- One person performing the poetry
- Associated with intimate and personal poetry
Context
Sappho
- Very wealthy and she would have been involved with only Aristocratic women in her Theasos
- Not a feminist, mocks and undermines women that are a lot less wealthy than her
- Apart of a theasos which is an institution that teaches women how to be good wives in marriage
- Lack of religious and social sanctions for Sappho suggests lesbian love was accepted
- Sappho herself was Aristocratic
- Writing during a period of strife in Lesbos where no family held power
Important fragments
Loeb 1, Sappho Please for Aphrodites help
- Kletic poem addressed to the goddess Aphrodite Burkett
- Aphrodite is placed on a pedostool by Sappho, she loves and respects her
- "Release me from this great distress" + "Whom Sappho is hurting you now" : Topos of love being depicted as painful
- "Whom do you want me to bring back to you this time" : Burnett, represents the circularity of Sapphic love
- Sappho appropriates love with war, Love is as dangerous as war itself
Loeb 15, message to her brother
- Sappho has a brother (Charaxus) who was a merchant who traded abroad in Egypt where he met a prostitute who he fell in love with (Doricha)
- Sapphos brother has returned to Egypt to Doricha because of his love for her
- Sappho is not happy about this, calling on Aphrodite to punish Doricha probably because of her status
- Sappho not a feminist, She shows prejudices to those in lower classes and actually only favours aristocratic women
- Resembles again Sappho's view of love as a weapon
Loeb 16, Sapphos view of love
- Believes the most beautiful sight in the world is the one that you love and not things like infantry or a fleet of ships (homeric)
- Priamel, list of metaphorical comparisons made prior to the real subject of the poem is revealed
- Shows how powerful love is through her mentioning of Helen, She left Menelaus "excellent of all men" because of love
- Mirrors achilles' words to Odysseus in the underworld, She would rather see her lovely walk and her gleaming face than all the chariots+soildiers+men
- Leftkowitz, Women psychologically disturbed, this is an outpouring of Sapphos inner thoughts
105a, just like a sweet apple
- Important Loeb as Sappho appears as a more maternal figure here, Wilson
- Reasuring tone from Sappho towards one of her students that hasn't been chosen for marriage yet
- Tells her they didn't completely miss her
Loeb 17, Sappho calls upon gods and goddesses, in particular Hera
- Kletic poem
- Calls upon Hera first even prior to zeus, shows her importance to Sappho, She's the goddess of marriage and childbirth
- Sapphos relationship with Hera is Clear
Loeb 22, Abanthis and Gonglya
- Sappho is instructing Abanthis on what to do with Gonglya, tells him to take up his lyre and sing to her through poetry just like Sappho herself does
- Holy queen, Aphrodite, very good relationship
- Burnett, Circularity of Sapphic love
Loab 24a, thinking back on a memory
- Very short and straightforward lobe showing Sappho thinking back on love
- She often idealises memories taking them from their specific context
- Most likely referring to a love affair she had in her theasos
- Topos of youth being beauty "when we were young", she's no longer held by beautiful love now she's older
Loeb 49, Atthis
- Another short example of Sapphos jealousy and immaturity and the circularity of her love
- Her love is superficial and flimsy: Immature
loeb 31, Sappho speaks of a husband with her previous student
- Sappho talks about her previous student and lover with her husband (the point of the Theasos)
- Girls perceived to be happy with her match "charming laughter" very rare
- Sappho on the other hand is very upset and melodramatic "I think I'm on the point of death"
- Topos of Love being being painful relevant
Loeb 39, Embroidered sandals
- Sappho is materialistic and snobbish
- Link to the farm girl poem, Sappho has a materialistic view of love
Loeb 57, What farm girl
- Sappho maintains the hierarchical structure of ancient Greece
- She's not a feminist, she shows prejudice towards other women in lower classes
- Her views of love appear narrow due to her socio-economic constraints and prejudice
Loeb 94, I want to die
- Most likely the student to Sappho, she does not want to leave Sappho, very smitten and in love
- Shows the strong relationships Sappho was building within these theasos' with the girls
- Juxtaposition of Loeb 31, Sappho appears professional and tells the girls to go: A role reversal
- Burnett, Circularity of love
- Topos, Nature and beauty+sex, Uses numerous natural things to describe their love "Flowers, wreaths, violets and roses"
- Contradicts fifth century Athens, the opinion of women was to be locked away however Sappho here says "There was no sacred space from which we stayed away"
- Sexuality portrayed differently to societal standard 100 years later
Loeb 96, girl in Sardis
- Speaks of one of her students who has most likely been married of to an Aristocrat somewhere in Lydia recollecting her times at the Theasos
- Topos, nature and beauty, she is beutiful
- She wants to return to Lesbos, the longing consumes her soul
- Supports the idea that the women are free within Sapphos theasos until they are suppressed by their husbands, Freeman + Norton