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

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

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
  

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

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

Burkett

• Worship of Aphrodite finds its most personal and complete expressions in the poems of sappho

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 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

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

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 49, Atthis

• Another short example of Sapphos jealousy and immaturity and the circularity of her love
• Her love is superficial and flimsy: Immature

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