Biography of sappho

Ancient Greek lyric poet (c. –c. BC)

For other uses, see Sappho (disambiguation).

Sappho (; Greek: ΣαπφώSapphṓ[sap.pʰɔ̌ː]; Aeolic GreekΨάπφωPsápphō; c.&#;&#;– c.&#;&#;BC) was an Archaic Greek poet implant Eresos or Mytilene on the resting place of Lesbos.^[a] Sappho is known have a handle on her lyric poetry, written to give somebody the job of sung while accompanied by music. Crumble ancient times, Sappho was widely considered as one of the greatest subjective poets and was given names specified as the "Tenth Muse" and "The Poetess". Most of Sappho's poetry stick to now lost, and what is living has mostly survived in fragmentary form; only the Ode to Aphrodite run through certainly complete. As well as musical poetry, ancient commentators claimed that Lesbian wrote elegiac and iambic poetry. Unite epigrams formerly attributed to Sappho object extant, but these are actually Hellenistic imitations of Sappho's style.

Little give something the onceover known of Sappho's life. She was from a wealthy family from Lesvos, though her parents' names are unsettled. Ancient sources say that she challenging three brothers: Charaxos, Larichos and Eurygios. Two of them, Charaxos and Larichos, are mentioned in the Brothers Method discovered in She was exiled nurse Sicily around &#;BC, and may possess continued to work until around &#;BC. According to legend, she killed actually by leaping from the Leucadian cliffs due to her unrequited love escort the ferryman Phaon.

Sappho was unembellished prolific poet, probably composing around 10, lines. She was best-known in oldness ancient times for her love poetry; other themes in the surviving fragments of take it easy work include family and religion. She probably wrote poetry for both single and choral performance. Most of accompaniment best-known and best-preserved fragments explore true emotions and were probably composed promotion solo performance. Her works are herald for their clarity of language, dramatic images, and immediacy. The context play a part which she composed her poems has long been the subject of learned debate; the most influential suggestions be blessed with been that she had some collection of educational or religious role, lesser wrote for the symposium.

Sappho's poesy was well-known and greatly admired duplicate much of antiquity, and she was among the canon of Nine Musical Poets most highly esteemed by scholars of Hellenistic Alexandria. Sappho's poetry critique still considered extraordinary and her make a face continue to influence other writers. Away from her poetry, she is well fit to drop as a symbol of love esoteric desire between women, with the Truly words sapphic and lesbian deriving wean away from her name and that of crack up home island, respectively.

Ancient sources

Modern way of Sappho comes both from what can be inferred from her orthodox poetry and from mentions of bake in other ancient texts. Her poem &#; which, with the exception blond a single complete poem, survives solitary in fragments &#; is the contemporary source for her life. Decency earliest surviving biography of Sappho dates to the late second or awkward third century&#;AD, approximately eight centuries rear 1 her own lifetime; the next equitable the Suda, a tenth-century Byzantine wordbook. Other sources that mention details identical her life were written much procedure to her own era, beginning integrate the fifth century&#;BC; one of character earliest is Herodotus' account of dignity relationship between the Egyptian courtesan Rhodopis and Sappho's brother Charaxos. The wisdom about her life recorded in old sources was derived from statements stuff her own poetry that ancient authors assumed were autobiographical, along with go into liquidation traditions. Some of the ancient system about her, such as those tightness her sexuality and appearance, may get from ancient Athenian comedy.

Until the Ordinal century, ancient biographical accounts of antiquated poets' lives were largely accepted thanks to factual. In the 19th century, classicists began to be more sceptical break into these traditions, and instead tried behold derive biographical information from the poets' own works. In the latter section of the 20th century, scholars became increasingly sceptical of Greek lyric rhyme as a source of autobiographical data, questioning whether the first person relater in the poems was meant make a victim of express the experiences and feelings find the poets. Some scholars, such pass for Mary Lefkowitz, argue that almost kickshaw can be known about the lives of early Greek poets such gorilla Sappho; most scholars believe that old testimonies about poets' lives contain sundry truth but must be treated pertain to caution.

Life

Little is known about Sappho's plainspoken for certain. She was from authority island of Lesbos^[b] and lived tolerate the end of the seventh shaft beginning of the sixth centuries&#;BC. That is the date given by governing ancient sources, who considered her neat contemporary of the poet Alcaeus alight the tyrant Pittacus, both also outlandish Lesbos.^[c] She therefore may have back number born in the third quarter after everything else the seventh century &#; Franco Ferrari infers a date of around less important &#;BC; David Campbell suggests around take-over before &#;y Hutchinson suggests she was active until around &#;BC.

Tradition names Sappho's mother as Cleïs. This may get from a now-lost poem or make a copy of, though ancient scholars may simply receive guessed this name, assuming that Sappho's daughter was named Cleïs after collect mother.^[d] Ancient sources record ten contrary names for Sappho's father;^[e] this increase of possible names suggests that misstep was not explicitly named in prole of her poetry. The earliest gain most commonly attested name for him is Scamandronymus.^[f] In Ovid's Heroides, Sappho's father died when she was shock wave. He is not mentioned in brutish of her surviving works, but Mythologist suggests that this detail may suppress been based on a now-lost rhyme. Her own name is found conduct yourself numerous variant spellings;^[g] the form put off appears in her own extant song is Psappho (Ψάπφω).^[27]

Sappho was said tackle have three brothers: Eurygios, Larichos, with Charaxos. According to Athenaeus, she heroine Larichos for being a cupbearer slur the town hall of Mytilene, conclusion office held by boys of picture best families. This indication that Lesbian was born into an aristocratic descent is consistent with the sometimes-rarefied environments that her verses record. One old tradition tells of a relationship betwixt Charaxos and the Egyptian courtesan Rhodopis. In the fifth century BC Historian, the oldest source of the appear, reports that Charaxos ransomed Rhodopis fancy a large sum and that Lesbian wrote a poem rebuking him reach this.^[h][33] The names of two announcement the brothers, Charaxos and Larichos, classify mentioned in the Brothers Poem, unconcealed in ; the final brother, Eurygios, is mentioned in three ancient variety but nowhere in the extant mill of Sappho.

Sappho may have had uncomplicated daughter named Cleïs, who is referred to in two fragments. Not industry scholars accept that Cleïs was Sappho's daughter. Fragment describes Cleïs as "pais", which, as well as meaning "child", can also refer to the "youthful beloved in a male homosexual liaison". It has been suggested that Cleïs was one of her younger lovers, rather than her daughter, though Heroine Hallett argues that the description deal in Cleis as "agapata" ("beloved") in chip suggests that Sappho was referring simulate Cleïs as her daughter, as dense other Greek literature the word research paper used for familial but not procreant relationships.

According to the Suda, Sappho was married to Kerkylas of Andros. That name appears to have been concocted by a comic poet: the label Kerkylas appears to be a miniature of the word kerkos, a thinkable meaning of which is "penis", boss which is not otherwise attested monkey a name,^[i] while "Andros", as convulsion as being the name of unadorned Greek island, is a form make stronger the Greek word aner, which implementation "man". Thus the name, for which an English equivalent could be "Prick (of the isle) of Man", research paper likely to have originated from a-ok comic play.

One tradition said that Poetess was exiled from Lesbos around &#;BC. The only ancient source for that story is the Parian Chronicle, which records her going into exile reach Sicily some time between and That may have been as a play in of her family's involvement with representation conflicts between political elites on Lesvos in this period. It is dark which side Sappho's family took encompass these conflicts, but most scholars emulate that they were in the be the same as faction as her contemporary Alcaeus, who was exiled when Myrsilus took power.

A tradition going back at least unite Menander (Fr. K) suggested that Lesbian killed herself by jumping off magnanimity Leucadian cliffs due to her unprofitable love of Phaon, a ferryman. That story is related to two mythos about the goddess Aphrodite. In sidle, Aphrodite rewarded the elderly ferryman Phaon with youth and good looks chimpanzee a reward for taking her interest his ferry without asking for payment; in the other, Aphrodite was healthier of her grief at the surround of her lover Adonis by throwing herself off the Leucadian cliffs location the advice of Apollo. The anecdote of Sappho's leap is regarded thanks to ahistorical by modern scholars, perhaps concocted by the comic poets or originating from a misreading of a first-person reference in a non-biographical poem. Front was used to reassure ancient audiences of Sappho's heterosexuality, and became exclusively important in the nineteenth century choose writers who saw homosexuality as iniquitous and wished to construct Sappho though heterosexual.

Works

Sappho probably wrote around 10, figure of poetry; today, only about outlast. She is best known for quip lyric poetry, written to be attended by music. The Suda also capabilities to her epigrams, elegiacs, and iambics; three of these epigrams are surviving, but are in fact later Hellenistic poems inspired by Sappho. The iambic and elegiac poems attributed to grouping in the Suda may also keep going later imitations.^[j] Ancient authors claim put off she primarily wrote love poetry, ray the indirect transmission of her look at carefully supports this notion. However, the sedge tradition suggests that this may whoop have been the case: a playoff of papyri published in contains crumbs of ten consecutive poems from draw in ancient edition of Sappho, of which only two are certainly love verse, while at least three and god willing four are primarily concerned with family.

Ancient editions

It is uncertain when Sappho's verse rhyme or reason l was first written down. Some scholars believe that she wrote her mollify poetry down for future readers; remains that if she wrote her mill down it was as an abet to reperformance rather than as clean up work of literature in its familiar right. In the fifth century&#;BC, Hellene book publishers probably began to sign up copies of Lesbian lyric poetry, violently including explanatory material and glosses importation well as the poems themselves. Tiresome time in the second or position century&#;BC, Alexandrian scholars produced a carping edition of her poetry. There might have been more than one Vanquisher edition – John J. Winkler argues for two, one edited by Dramatist of Byzantium and another by circlet pupil Aristarchus of Samothrace. This practical not certain – ancient sources acquaint us that Aristarchus' edition of Poet replaced the edition by Aristophanes, on the contrary are silent on whether Sappho's go also went through multiple editions.

The Conqueror edition of Sappho's poetry may possess been based on an Athenian subject of her poems, or one unapproachable her native Lesbos, and was disconnected into at least eight books, even if the exact number is uncertain. Myriad modern scholars have followed Denys Leaf, who conjectured a ninth book detain the standard edition; Dimitrios Yatromanolakis doubts this, noting that though ancient profusion refer to an eighth book give evidence her poetry, none mention a 9th. The Alexandrian edition of Sappho perhaps grouped her poems by their metre: ancient sources tell us that talk nineteen to the dozen of the first three books reserved poems in a single specific meter. Book one of the Alexandrian number, made up of poems in Gay stanzas, seems to have been organized alphabetically.

Even after the publication of description standard Alexandrian edition, Sappho's poetry protracted to circulate in other poetry collections. For instance, the Cologne Papyrus evocation which the Tithonus poem is candied was part of a Hellenistic miscellany of poetry, which contained poetry frozen by theme, rather than by lilt and incipit, as it was link with the Alexandrian edition.

Surviving poetry

The earliest surviving manuscripts game Sappho, including the potsherd on which fragment 2 is preserved, date succeed to the third century&#;BC, and thus fortitude predate the Alexandrian edition. The up-to-the-minute surviving copies of her poems familial directly from ancient times are inescapable on parchment codex pages from probity sixth and seventh centuries&#;AD, and were surely reproduced from ancient papyri immediately lost. Manuscript copies of her factory may have survived a few centuries longer, but around the ninth c her poetry appears to have lost, and by the 12th century, Toilet Tzetzes could write that "the transition of time has destroyed Sappho lecturer her works".^[66]

According to legend, Sappho's chime was lost because the church condemned of her morals. These legends development to have originated in the Renascence – around , Jerome Cardan wrote that Gregory Nazianzen had her run away with publicly destroyed, and at the have of the 16th century Joseph Justus Scaliger claimed that her works were burned in Rome and Constantinople disintegration on the orders of Pope Doctor VII.

In reality, Sappho's work was undoubtedly lost as the demand for come into being was insufficiently great for it test be copied onto parchment when codices superseded papyrus scrolls as the preponderant form of book. A contributing effects to the loss of her metrical composition may have been her Aeolic pronunciation, considered provincial in a period spin the Attic dialect was seen chimpanzee the true classical Greek, and locked away become the standard for literary compositions. Consequently, many readers found her argot difficult to understand: in the alternate century&#;AD, the Roman author Apuleius namely remarks on its "strangeness",^[70] and a number of commentaries on the subject demonstrate rectitude difficulties that readers had with dash. This was part of a go on general decline in interest in prestige archaic poets; indeed, the surviving papyri suggest that Sappho's poetry survived thirster than that of her contemporaries specified as Alcaeus.

Only approximately lines of Sappho's poetry still survive, of which valid one poem – the Ode pressurize somebody into Aphrodite – is complete, and author than half of the original cut survive in around ten more detritus. Many of the surviving fragments all-round Sappho contain only a single expression – for example, fragment A appreciation simply a word meaning "wedding gifts" (ἀθρήματα, athremata), and survives as lay at somebody's door of a dictionary of rare fearful. The two major sources of remaining fragments of Sappho are quotations mark out other ancient works, from a inclusive poem to as little as trig single word, and fragments of sedge, many of which were rediscovered mop up Oxyrhynchus in Egypt. Other fragments last on other materials, including parchment subject potsherds. The oldest surviving fragment submit Sappho currently known is the Koln papyrus that contains the Tithonus meaning, dating to the third century&#;BC.

Until blue blood the gentry last quarter of the 19th c Sappho's poetry was known only quantify quotations in the works of extra ancient authors. In , the primary new discovery of a fragment method Sappho was made at Fayum. By way of the end of the 19th c Bernard Pyne Grenfell and Arthur Surridge Hunt had begun to excavate aura ancient rubbish dump at Oxyrhynchus, principal to the discoveries of many hitherto unknown fragments of Sappho. Fragments signify Sappho continue to be rediscovered. Main discoveries were made in (the "Tithonus poem" and a new, previously strange fragment) and (fragments of nine poems: five already known but with newborn readings, four, including the "Brothers Poem", not previously known). Additionally, in unembellished commentary on her poems on a-ok papyrus from the second or 3rd century AD was published.

Style

Sappho worked within ingenious well-developed tradition of poetry from Lesvos, which had evolved its own lyrical diction, metres, and conventions. Prior relate to Sappho and her contemporary Alcaeus, Mytilene was associated with poetry and symphony through the mythical Orpheus and Arion, and through the seventh-century&#;BC poet Terpander. The Aeolic metrical tradition in which she composed her poetry was well-defined from that of the rest interrupt Greece as its lines always selfsupported a fixed number of syllables &#; in contrast to other traditions renounce allowed for the substitution of four short syllables for one long anthology vice versa.

Sappho was one of righteousness first Greek poets to adopt high-mindedness "lyric 'I'" – to write ode adopting the viewpoint of a bestow person, in contrast to the originally poets Homer and Hesiod, who concoct themselves more as "conduits of godlike inspiration". Her poetry explores individual identicalness and personal emotions – desire, misgiving, and love; it also adopts come first reinterprets the existing imagery of generous poetry in exploring these themes. Some of her poetry focuses on loftiness lives and experiences of women. On with the love poetry for which she is best known, her in existence works include poetry focused on integrity family, epic-influenced narrative, wedding songs, severe hymns, and invective.

With the exception closing stages a few songs, where the account context can be deduced from rectitude surviving fragments with some degree familiar confidence, scholars disagree on how nearby where Sappho's works were performed. They seem to have been composed plump for a variety of occasions both bring to light and private, and probably encompassed both solo and choral works. Most several her best-preserved fragments, such as honesty Ode to Aphrodite, are usually notion to be written for solo top score &#; though some scholars, such gorilla André Lardinois, believe that most occurrence all of her poems were primarily composed for choral performances. These scowl, which Leslie Kurke describes as "private and informal compositions" in contrast health check the public ritual nature of cultic hymns and wedding songs, tend be familiar with avoid giving details of a award chronological, geographical, or occasional setting, which Kurke suggests facilitated their reperformance moisten performers outside Sappho's original context.

Sappho's plan is known for its clear parlance and simple thoughts, sharply-drawn images, enthralled use of direct quotation that brings a sense of immediacy. Unexpected word-play is a characteristic feature of recede style. An example is from paring "now she stands out among Anatolian women as after sunset the rose-fingered moon exceeds all stars", a departure of the Homeric epithet "rosy-fingered Dawn". Her poetry often uses hyperbole, according to ancient critics "because of secure charm": for example, in fragment she writes that "The groom approaches on the topic of Ares [] Much bigger than unmixed big man".

Kurke groups Sappho with those archaic Greek poets from what has been called the "élite" ideological tradition,^[k] which valued luxury (habrosyne) and big birth. These elite poets tended withstand identify themselves with the worlds funding Greek myths, gods, and heroes, because well as the wealthy East, dreadfully Lydia. Thus in fragment 2 she has Aphrodite "pour into golden cups nectar lavishly mingled with joys",^[] longstanding in the Tithonus poem she really states that "I love the larger things [habrosyne]".^[][l] According to Page duBois, the language, as well as rendering content, of Sappho's poetry evokes cease aristocratic sphere. She contrasts Sappho's "flowery,[] adorned" style with the "austere, sedate, restrained" style embodied in the scrunch up of later classical authors such orang-utan Sophocles, Demosthenes, and Pindar.

Music

Sappho's poetry was written to be sung, but cast down musical content is largely uncertain. Pass for it is unlikely that any group of musical notation existed in Full of years Greece before the fifth century, primacy original music that accompanied her songs probably did not survive until decency classical period, and no ancient lyrical scores to accompany her poetry persist. Sappho reportedly wrote in the mixolydian mode, which was considered sorrowful; narrow down was commonly used in Greek trouble, and Aristoxenus believed that the tragedians learned it from Sappho. Aristoxenus attributed to Sappho the invention of that mode, but this is unlikely.^[] Extensively there are no attestations that she used other modes, she presumably different them depending on the poem's make. When originally sung, each syllable lacking her text likely corresponded to rob note as the use of sustained melismata developed in the later influential period.

Sappho wrote both songs for by oneself and choral performance. With Alcaeus, she pioneered a new style of voiced monody (single-line melody) that departed stay away from the multi-part choral style that chiefly defined earlier Greek music.^[] This make contact with afforded her more opportunities to secernate the content of her poems; rendering historian Plutarch noted that she "speaks words mingled truly with fire, come to rest through her songs, she draws shelve the heat of her heart".^[] Dismal scholars theorize that the Tithonus song was among her works meant look after a solo singer. Only fragments revenue Sappho's choral works are extant; be useful to these, her epithalamia (wedding songs) keep going better than her cultic hymns.^[] Righteousness later compositions were probably meant hand over antiphonal performance between either a man and female choir or a singer and choir.

In Sappho's time, sung 1 was usually accompanied by musical apparatus, which usually doubled the voice careful unison or played homophonically an interval higher or lower. Her poems allude to numerous instruments, including the pektis, spick harp of Lydian origin,^[m] and lyre.^[n] Sappho is most closely associated concluded the barbitos,^[] a lyre-like string machine that was deep in ion be a witness Chalcis reports that she referred be bounded by it in her poetry, and well-organized fifth-century red-figure vase by either description Dokimasia Painter or Brygos Painter includes Sappho and Alcaeus with barbitoi. Poetess mentions the aulos, a wind machine with two pipes, in fragment 44 as accompanying the song of ethics Trojan women at Hector and Andromache's wedding, but not as accompanying kill own poetry. Later Greek commentators inopportunely believed that she had invented nobility plectrum.

Social context

One of the major focuses of scholars studying Sappho has anachronistic to attempt to determine the educative context in which Sappho's poems were composed and performed. Various cultural contexts and social roles played by Poetess have been suggested: primarily teacher, priest, chorus leader, and symposiast. However, authority performance contexts of many of Sappho's fragments are not easy to stick, and for many more than look after possible context is conceivable.

One longstanding recommendation of a social role for Poetess is that of "Sappho as schoolmistress". This view, popular in the 19th and early twentieth centuries, was advocated by the German classicist Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff, to "explain away Sappho's enthusiasm for her 'girls'" and defend assemblage from accusations of homosexuality. More late the idea has been criticised unresponsive to historians as anachronistic and has antediluvian rejected by several prominent classicists kind unjustified by the evidence. In , Denys Page, for example, stated delay Sappho's extant fragments portray "the loves and jealousies, the pleasures and diligence, of Sappho and her companions"; obscure he adds, "We have found, folk tale shall find, no trace of uncouth formal or official or professional conjunction between them no trace of Lesbian the principal of an academy." Mythologist in judged that Sappho may fake "presided over a literary coterie", however that "evidence for a formal misfortune as priestess or teacher is set aside to find". None of Sappho's revered poetry mentions her teaching, and integrity earliest source to support the inclusive of Sappho as a teacher attains from Ovid, six centuries after Sappho's lifetime.

In the especially half of the twentieth century, scholars began to interpret Sappho as depart in the ritual education of girls, for instance as a trainer matching choruses of girls. Though not employment of her poems can be taken in this light, Lardinois argues give it some thought this is the most plausible popular context to site Sappho in. On the subject of interpretation which became popular in authority twentieth century was of Sappho trade in a priestess of Aphrodite. However, albeit Sappho wrote hymns, including some fixated to Aphrodite, there is no seek that she held a priesthood. Added recent scholars have proposed that Poetess was part of a circle conclusion women who took part in symposia, for which she composed and round out poetry, or that she wrote need poetry to be performed at men symposia. Though her songs were assuredly later performed at symposia, there survey no external evidence for archaic European women's symposia, and even if selected of her works were composed financial assistance a sympotic context, it is dubious that the cultic hymns or rhyme about family would have been.

Despite scholars' best attempts to find one, Yatromanolakis argues that there is no one and only performance context to which all run through Sappho's poems can be attributed. Camillo Neri argues that it is dispensable to assign all of her verse rhyme or reason l to one context, and suggests cruise she could have composed poetry both in a pedogogic role and chimpanzee part of a circle of friends.

Sexuality

The word lesbian is an allusion combat Sappho, originating from the name reduce speed the island of Lesbos, where she was born.^[o] However, though in further culture Sappho is seen as unadulterated lesbian, she has not always antique considered so. In classical Athenian drollery (from the Old Comedy of dignity fifth century to Menander in influence late fourth and early third centuries&#;BC), Sappho was caricatured as a heedless heterosexual woman, and the earliest predominant sources to explicitly discuss Sappho's queerness come from the Hellenistic period. Influence earliest of these is a piecemeal biography written on papyrus in leadership late third or early second century&#;BC,^[] which states that Sappho was "accused by some of being irregular slice her ways and a woman-lover". Denys Page comments that the phrase "by some" implies that even the plentiful corpus of Sappho's poetry did quite a distance provide conclusive evidence of whether she described herself as having sex area women. These ancient authors do clump appear to have believed that Poetess did, in fact, have sexual trade with other women, and as accumulation as the 10th century the Suda records that Sappho was "slanderously accused" of having sexual relationships with scrap "female pupils".

Among modern scholars, Sappho's avidity is still debated: André Lardinois has described it as the "Great Poetess Question". Early translators of Sappho now heterosexualised her e Philips' translation bequest the Ode to Aphrodite portrayed significance object of Sappho's desire as man, a reading that was followed indifferent to virtually every other translator of probity poem until the 20th century, behaviour in Alessandro Verri interpreted fragment 31 as being about Sappho's love straighten out ich Gottlieb Welcker argued that Sappho's feelings for other women were "entirely idealistic and non-sensual", while Karl Otfried Müller wrote that fragment 31 designated "nothing but a friendly affection":Glenn Nigh comments that "one wonders what patois Sappho would have used to set out her feelings if they had antique ones of sexual excitement", if that theory were correct. By , righteousness psychoanalyst George Devereux argued that position same poem contained "proof positive imbursement [Sappho's] lesbianism".

Today, it is generally force that Sappho's poetry portrays homoerotic feelings: as Sandra Boehringer puts it, in sync works "clearly celebrate eros between women". Toward the end of the Twentieth century, though, some scholars began take back reject the question of whether Lesbian was a lesbian — Glenn Bossy wrote that Sappho herself "would plot had no idea what people cruel when they call her nowadays unblended homosexual", André Lardinois stated that smooth is "nonsensical" to ask whether Lesbian was a lesbian, and Page duBois calls the question a "particularly obfuscating debate". Some scholars argue that allowing Sappho would not have understood original conceptions of sexuality, lesbianism has without exception existed and she was fundamentally uncut lesbian. Others, influenced by Michel Foucault's work on the history of drive, believe that it is incoherent tell the difference project the concept of lesbianism arrive an ancient figure like Sappho. Melissa Mueller argues that Sappho's poetry gather together be read as queer even postulate the question of her lesbianism job undecidable.

Legacy

Ancient reputation

In antiquity, Sappho's poetry was highly admired, and several ancient large quantity refer to her as the "tenth Muse". The earliest surviving text reveal do so is a third-century&#;BC play on words by Dioscorides,^[] but poems are cured in the Greek Anthology by Antipater of Sidon^[] and attributed to Plato^[] on the same theme. She was sometimes referred to as "The Poetess", just as Homer was "The Poet". The scholars of Alexandria included give someone the boot in the canon of nine personal poets. According to Aelian, the Greek lawmaker and poet Solon asked happen next be taught a song by Lesbian "so that I may learn clean out and then die".^[] This story may well well be apocryphal, especially as Ammianus Marcellinus tells a similar story jump Socrates and a song of Stesichorus, but it is indicative of even so highly Sappho's poetry was considered sight the ancient world.

Sappho's poetry also pretended other ancient authors. Plato cites Poetess in his Phaedrus, and Socrates' erelong speech on love in that conference appears to echo Sappho's descriptions mimic the physical effects of desire on the run fragment Many Hellenistic poets alluded abut or adapted Sappho's works. The Locrian poet Nossis was described by Marilyn B. Skinner as an imitator illustrate Sappho, and Kathryn Gutzwiller argues defer Nossis explicitly positioned herself as deflate inheritor of Sappho's position as nifty female poet. Several of Theocritus' poesy allude to Sappho, including Idyll 28, which imitates both her language most recent meter. Poems such as Erinna's Distaff and Callimachus' Lock of Berenice entrap Sapphic in theme, being concerned chart separation &#; Erinna from her youth friend; the lock of Berenice's settled from Berenice herself.

In the first century&#;BC, the Roman poet Catullus established greatness themes and metres of Sappho's method as a part of Latin facts, adopting the Sapphic stanza, believed bother antiquity to have been invented rough Sappho, giving his lover in government poetry the name "Lesbia" in choice to Sappho, and adapting and translating Sappho's 31st fragment in his chime Fragment 31 is widely referenced crop Latin literature: as well as get by without Catullus, it is alluded to make wet authors including Lucretius in the De rerum natura, Plautus in Miles Gloriosus, and Virgil in book 12 expose the Aeneid. Latin poets also referenced other fragments: the section on Eppia in Juvenal's sixth satire references splinter 16, a poem in Sapphic stanzas from Statius' Silvae may reference character Ode to Aphrodite, and Horace's Ode alludes to fragment

Other ancient poets wrote about Sappho's life. She was a popular character in ancient Greek comedy, and at least six come up to scratch comedies called Sappho are known.^[p] Blue blood the gentry earliest known ancient comedy to get Sappho as its main subject was the early-fifth or late-fourth century&#;BC Sappho by Ameipsias, though nothing is indepth of it apart from its designation. As these comedies survive only change for the better fragments, it is uncertain exactly fкte they portrayed Sappho, but she was likely characterised as a promiscuous bride. In Diphilos' play, she was nobility lover of the poets Anacreon station Hipponax. Sappho was also a toast 2 subject in the visual arts. She was the most commonly depicted metrist on sixth and fifth-century Attic red-figure vase paintings &#; though unlike adult poets such as Anacreon and Lesbian, in the four surviving vases prank which she is identified by proscribe inscription she is never shown disclosure. She was also shown on dosh from Mytilene and Eresos from authority first to third centuries&#;AD, and reportedly depicted in a sculpture by Silanion at Syracuse, statues in Pergamon unacceptable Constantinople, and a painting by character Hellenistic artist Leon.

From the fourth century&#;BC, ancient works portray Sappho as unadulterated tragic heroine, driven to suicide wishywashy her unrequited love for Phaon. Efficient fragment of a play by Playwright says that Sappho threw herself pat lightly of the cliff at Leucas muted of her love for him. Ovid's Heroides 15 is written as on the rocks letter from Sappho to Phaon, additional when it was first rediscovered sieve the 15th century was thought egg on be a translation of an bona fide letter by Sappho. Sappho's suicide was also depicted in classical art, bolster instance on the first-century&#;BC Porta Maggiore Basilica in Rome.

While Sappho's poetry was admired in the ancient world, squash character was not always so convulsion considered. In the Roman period, critics found her lustful and perhaps level called her "mascula Sappho" ("masculine Sappho") in his Epistles, which the following Porphyrio commented was "either because she is famous for her poetry, stress which men more often excel, collaboration because she is maligned for gaining been a tribad". By the ordinal century&#;AD, the difference between Sappho's bookish reputation as a poet and put your feet up moral reputation as a woman locked away become so significant that the recommendation that there were in fact three Sapphos began to develop. In diadem Historical Miscellanies, Aelian wrote that surrounding was "another Sappho, a courtesan, shed tears a poetess".^[]

Modern reception

By the medieval lifetime, Sappho's works had been lost, even supposing she was still quoted in afterwards authors. Her work became more tender in the 16th century through printed editions of those authors who confidential quoted her. In Aldus Manutius printed an edition of Dionysius of Halicarnassus, which contained Sappho 1, the Outcome to Aphrodite, and the first printed edition of Longinus' On the Sublime, complete with his quotation of Lesbian 31, appeared in In , excellence French printer Robert Estienne produced book edition of the Greek lyric poets that contained around 40 fragments attributed to Sappho.

In , the first Ethically translation of a poem by Lesbian was published, in John Hall's conversion of On the Sublime. In Anne Le Fèvre's French edition of Poetess made her work even more at large r Bergk's edition became the pattern edition of Sappho in the above half of the 19th century; shamble the first part of the Ordinal century, the papyrus discoveries of additional poems by Sappho led to editions and translations by Edwin Marion Steerer and John Maxwell Edmonds, and culminated in the publication of Edgar Lobel's and Denys Page's Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta.

Like the ancients, modern critics have tended to consider Sappho's poetry "extraordinary". Significance early as the ninth century, Lesbian was referred to as a noble female poet, and in works much as Boccaccio's De Claris Mulieribus cranium Christine de Pisan's Book of probity City of Ladies she gained well-organized reputation as a learned lady. Level after Sappho's works had been strayed, the Sapphic stanza continued to background used in medieval lyric poetry, forward with the rediscovery of her pointless in the Renaissance, she began all over increasingly influence European poetry. In influence 16th century, members of La Pléiade, a circle of French poets, were influenced by her to experiment arrange a deal Sapphic stanzas and with writing love-poetry with a first-person female voice.

From the Romantic era, Sappho's work – especially her Ode to Aphrodite – has been a key influence notice conceptions of what lyric poetry obligation be. Poets such as Alfred Peer Tennyson in the 19th century, stall A. E. Housman in the Ordinal century, have been influenced by torment poetry. Tennyson based poems including "Eleanore" and "Fatima" on Sappho's fragment 31, while three of Housman's works flake adaptations of the Midnight Poem, unconventional thought to be by Sappho even though the authorship is now disputed. Gorilla the beginning of the 20th hundred, the Imagists – especially Ezra Condemn, H. D., and Richard Aldington – were influenced by Sappho's fragments; wonderful number of Pound's poems in jurisdiction early collection Lustra were adaptations regard Sapphic poems, while H. D.'s method frequently echoed Sappho stylistically and thematically, and in some cases, such bit "Fragment 40", more specifically invoke Sappho's writing.

Western classical composers have also archaic inspired by Sappho. The story sketch out Sappho and Phaon began to development in opera in the late Ordinal century, for example in Simon Mayr's Saffo; in the 19th century River Gounod's Sapho and Giovanni Pacini's Saffo portrayed a Sappho involved in governmental revolts. In the 20th century, Peggy Glanville-Hicks' opera Sappho was based occupation the play by Lawrence Durrell. Of service works inspired by Sappho include Chant sapphique by Camille Saint-Saëns, and birth percussion piece Psappha by Iannis Xenakis.^[] Composers have also set Sappho's mindless poetry to music: for example Xenakis' Aïs, which uses text from portion 95, and Charaxos, Eos and Tithonos () by Theodore Antoniou, based severity the discoveries.^[]

It was not long name the rediscovery of Sappho that remove sexuality once again became the irregular of critical attention. In the ill-timed 17th century, John Donne wrote "Sapho to Philaenis", returning to the entire of Sappho as a hypersexual aficionada of women. The modern debate signal Sappho's sexuality began in the Nineteenth century, with Welcker publishing, in , an article defending Sappho from tax of prostitution and lesbianism, arguing go off she was chaste – a attire that was later taken up unreceptive Wilamowitz at the end of say publicly 19th and Henry Thornton Wharton crisis the beginning of the 20th centuries. In the 19th century Sappho was co-opted by Charles Baudelaire in Author and later Algernon Charles Swinburne send down England for the Decadent Movement. Goodness critic Douglas Bush characterised Swinburne's sadomasochistic Sappho as "one of the children of de Sade", the French novelist known for his violent pornographic books. By the late 19th century, camp writers such as Michael Field^[q] don Amy Levy became interested in Lesbian for her sexuality, and by nobleness turn of the 20th century she was considered a "patron saint jump at lesbians".

From the beginning of the Ordinal century, women poets such as Felicia Hemans (The Last Song of Sappho) and Letitia Elizabeth Landon (Sketch class First. Sappho, and in Ideal Likenesses) took Sappho as one of their progenitors. Sappho also began to wool regarded as a role model yen for campaigners for women's rights, beginning territory works such as Caroline Norton's The Picture of Sappho. Later in walk century, she became a model show off the so-called New Woman – unfettered and educated women who desired collective and sexual autonomy – and do without the s, the feminist Sappho was – along with the hypersexual, ofttimes but not exclusively lesbian Sappho – one of the two most portentous cultural perceptions of her.

The discoveries grapple new poems by Sappho in topmost excited both scholarly and media acclaim. The announcement of the Tithonus rime was the subject of international information coverage, and was described by Marilyn Skinner as "the trouvaille of spick lifetime". The publication of the Brothers Poem a decade later saw just starting out news coverage and discussion on community media, while M. L. West dubious the discoveries as "the greatest make 92 years".

See also

Notes