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Roman copy of Sappho's Bust, Musei Capitolini
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Sappho is the first female writer in
Europe. She is the Homer for female writers.
All women writers have been
described as “the daughters of Sappho” in a book of Margaret Williamson Sappho’s Immortal Daughters*.
But
who is Sappho? You’ve definitely heard of her, especially in relation to female
homoeroticism, but do you feel you have a clear image of this poet?
Sappho
lived in the small island of Lesbos in the 6th century B.C in a
world of aristocrats, where the term “lesbian” meant a woman from Lesbos. She
also lived in a world where women were not confined in attics and didn’t have
to convict themselves in order to write—as female authorship is described in Gubar
and Gilbert’s book The Madwoman in the
Attic. She was a poet, a female poet who was respected by the community of
Lesbos as she was asked to write wedding songs (epithalamia) and hymns for the gods.
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| Sappho reading to her companions, Attic Vase 435 BC. |
Many
said that she probably didn’t exist. Some said that the cloud of mystery
surrounding her makes studying her life even more difficult. Through the
centuries we acquired a twisted image of this woman. She became legend; Ovid even
includes her letter in his work Heroides where
famous mythological women address their lovers (Her. Ep.XV). Sappho is the only historical person included in this
fictitious letters collection of Ovid. So, we infer that even in antiquity (1st
century BC) she was already legend.
But
what can we really know about her? What facts do we have regarding Sappho? Well,
for starters she wrote some poems. Poems about love, life, death, beauty,
travels, fears, solitude, separation, religion and old age. And her poems are
not very different from the poems of other lyric poets, like her
fellow-islander Alcaeus or Anacreon.
Secondly,
we know that she talks about some women in her poetry. Women who are in love
with other women. Women who desire and women who are desired. She also shows
how the loved one desires and therefore disrupts the usual “male gaze”
objectification problems we encounter in other love poems.
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Sappho and Alcaeus, Attic red-figure vase by Brygos painter c470 BC
Interestingly Sappho is depicted here like all other poets and not as a legendary figure. |
Now,
as far as the hot question regarding Sappho is concerned—i.e. was she a
homosexual? —the only safe answer is: we cannot know. We cannot know with
certainty whether Sappho was a homosexual as we would define today a woman who
falls in love with women. In addition, we cannot know whether Sappho had
homoerotic relationships since there is no historic evidence about her life,
only legends and poetry which are not to be trusted completely. Also we cannot
safely assume that through her poetry she served a more public purpose: i.e. we
cannot know if she really had homoerotic relationships in an institutionalized way
like male aristocrats had in early ancient Greek societies.
We
could say though with certainty, that the idea of homosexuality that we have
today is quite modern—a 19th century concept according to Foucault.
So strictly speaking, Sappho was not gay. As far as the question of the
institutionalization of homoerotic relationships is concerned, we have to have
in mind the differences between male and female homoeroticism. Men used
homoeroticism as an initiation rite; the boy had to be passive and receptive of
the older man’s authority and political wisdom in early aristocratic Greek
societies. Women, on the other hand, cannot physically have a submissive-
assertive homoerotic experience because there is no penetration in their
homoerotic practices. Hence, female homoerotic relationships were completely
different from the ones of men and could not serve the same purposes—if they
ever served a purpose.
Then,
the only fact that we have is that the poetry of a respected female poet of
Lesbos refers to female homoerotic desire. So it could be inferred that
homoeroticism or homoerotic desire was acceptable in a certain-- unknown to
us-- context. (Many scholars have tried to reconstruct this context, but I’m
afraid there is hardly any evidence to prove that the women in Sappho’s poetry existed).
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| Sappho and Alcaeus by Lawrence Alma-Tadema |
So,
having that cleared up, let’s proceed to the more interesting stuff, Sappho’s
poetry. I particularly like the fact that Sappho keeps it simple in her poetry.
She does not describe the loved one. There is no reference to the desired woman’s
appearance or characteristics. And there is no fragmentation of the body—you
know that usual practice of male poets to talk about beautiful eyes or luscious
legs. On the contrary, Sappho describes the effect the loved one’s presence
has. She mentions “her lovely step” or the sound of her laughter. Beautiful,
translucent moments of perfection and love fill her poetry with the magical
sensation of the presence of a special loved one.
For
example, in the famous fragment 16, the poetic voice talks about how “whatever
one desires” is the best for that person. The subjectivity of human taste is
the central idea of the fragment as a philosophical approach of life. The
following extract describes the young Anactoria but not in terms a male author
would describe someone beautiful or desired.
And I recall Anactoria, whose sweet step[…]
Or that flicker of
light on her face,
I’d rather see than
Lydian chariots
Or the armed ranks of
the hoplites.
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| And here is Eros, the little mischief maker |
Another
prominent subject of her poetry—if not the most important one-- is Eros. Eros,
the personification of love has a central place in Sapphic poetry. But love not
as romantic “lovey-dovey”-I-will-love-you-forever love we have in mind. No
sighs or letters or poems of the Romantics can be found in ancient Greek
thought. Love for the ancient Greeks as Eros was serious business. It was
violent, like the wind. Eros in philosophy is the desire to live, to learn (See
Plato Symposium 203b-204c).
Here
is what Sappho says on Eros:
Love shook my heart,
Like the wind on the mountain
Troubling the oak-trees.
It’s
like the violent wind or like a serpent that no one can escape from as she
writes:
Eros,
again now, the loosener of limbs troubles me,
Bittersweet,
sly, uncontrollable serpent….
I
cannot think of a better description of falling in love and being nonsensical
than Sappho’s poems. In fragment 31 she describes erotic desire as a disease
and in the famous fragment 1—the prayer to Aphrodite—she talks about the
torment one goes through when their love is unrequited.
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| Sappho painted by John William Godward |
So, my point is that even
though we can know very little on Sappho and her life, we can know the basics
which are the most important. No poet has been so sensitive towards the nature
of love and life—at least before her. And we should be grateful we still have
these beautiful poems to read. Summing up, I hope I answered the question “Who
is Sappho?”. Sappho is a poet. She could be described as a poet of love. A
Lesbian poet if you like, or rather a poet from Lesbos.
*Sappho's Immortal Daughters by Margaret Williamson can be found
http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674789135.
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