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LoebPoetess |
Content:
- Sappho: A Poetic Legacy
- Sappho's Secret Society
- Early Life and Exile
- A Literary Salon
- Sappho's Poetry
- Lesbian Love and Cultural Influence
- Literary and Cultural Impact
Sappho: A Poetic Legacy
Sapho, the poetess whose true Aeolic name was Psappha ("bright", "clear"), was known as the "tenth Muse" by her contemporaries. Plato himself is said to have penned the couplet: "Nine Muses on Mount Helicon there are; / But now behold, there's one more from Lesbos, Sappho!"
Sappho's Secret Society
Sappho presided over a secretive female coterie devoted to the Muses and Aphrodite. The house where they met was known as the "House of the Muses" or the "House of Light and Joy." It is said travelers seeking healing, comfort, and inspiration flocked to the island of Lesbos.
Early Life and Exile
Sappho was born on the island of Lesbos in the Aegean Sea, near the coast of Asia Minor, in the early 6th century BCE. Little is known about her life, but her name, like that of her homeland, became synonymous with love between women. She married a wealthy merchant named Cercolas and had a daughter named Cleis. She participated in an uprising against the tyrant Pittacus and was exiled to Sicily, where she lived for a time. It is believed that she spent most of her life on Lesbos.
A Literary Salon
In the 6th century BCE, it was customary for upper-class women on Lesbos to form informal societies where they composed and recited poetry. Sappho led one of these groups, a kind of ancient bohemian salon, and inspired a cult-like following. Admirers traveled from distant lands to hear her sing. She wrote in the Aeolic dialect, using various metrical rhythms, one of which, the Sapphic, is named after her.
Sappho's Poetry
Sappho's lyrics, simple yet passionate, are closer to folk poetry than to high literature. Her themes include love and longing, the tender communion between female friends, and the beauty of young women. The names of her beloved companions - Attis, Anactoria, Gongyla, Mnasidica - have echoed through the ages. While no complete poem by her survives, we have the luxury of enjoying exquisite fragments, the longest of which consists of twenty-eight stanzas.
Lesbian Love and Cultural Influence
Though evidence of Sappho's lesbianism in her surviving poems is elusive, the ancient writers, who had access to a much more complete corpus of her work, often described her in terms that would now be recognized as lesbian. Maximus of Tyre, for example, likened her relationships with young women to Socrates' homosexual relationships with his male disciples.
Literary and Cultural Impact
By the 9th century CE, only fragmentary quotations of Sappho's work remained, yet her name and her muse lived on. She was anathema to homophobes. A generation after her death, the Greek poet Anacreon wrote of an evil spreading from Lesbos - the supposedly unnatural sexual relations between women. In the 18th century, Marie Antoinette was accused of presiding over a "sect of moral monsters who called themselves Sapphists and boasted of imitating her."
Yet, the ideal of a poetic and passionate female-female society persisted. One of the greatest literary hoaxes of the 19th century was "The Songs of Bilitis," a collection of erotic lesbian poems supposedly translated from ancient Greek and written by Sappho. "This little book of love in antiquity," wrote the author, Pierre Louÿs, "is dedicated to young women of the future." The work, even after being exposed as a hoax, resonated deeply with a generation of women coming to terms with their lesbian identity.
In the 1920s, the American poet Natalie Barney and her lover, Renée Vivien, traveled to Lesbos hoping to establish a Sapphic-inspired school of poetry. In the 1950s, American lesbians, seeking a name for their nascent organization, christened their society "Daughters of Bilitis" after one of Sappho's most famous followers. In 1972, Sidney Abbott and Bernice Love published the landmark lesbian feminist book, "Sappho Was a Right-On Woman."
It is no exaggeration to say that Sappho stands at the head of an extraordinary lineage, her presence felt throughout the past 2,500 years. She is the enigmatic muse who presides over the history of lesbianism.
