Sappho

-
Sappho , the female poet who stands at the head of the lyric tradition in Europe, has been a major figure of identification, of desire, of influence, of adulation, and of opprobrium in British women's writing, though little remains of her texts. All of her estimated 12,000 lines of verse has been lost except a handful of complete poems and many fragments, either quotations of her work by other writers, or scraps deciphered from papyri used to wrap mummies in ancient Egypt. This mutilated body of work amounts to somewhere around seven hundred intelligible lines.
  • BirthName: Psappho
    Snyder, Jane. The Woman and the Lyre: Women Writers in Classical Greece and Rome. Southern Illinois University Press, 1989.
    3
    The name took this form in her native Aiolic Greek, Sappho in Attic Greek; various other forms included Sapho (sometimes formerly used in English).
    Burn, Andrew R. et al. “Introduction”. Lyrics in the Original Greek, translated by. Willis Barnstone, New York University Press, 1965, p. xvii - xxxi.
    xviii

Circular portrait from a fresco in ancient Pompeii, popularly identified as Sappho though it probably portrays a high-society Pompeian lady. She is clad in blue, green, and purple, with a gold net over her short, curly hair, and large gold hoop earrings. She holds a wax tablet and a stylus ready for writing. bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbNaples National Archaeological Museum.

Milestones

Early 6th century BC

The date and cause of Sappho 's death are unknown.
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

Early 6th century BC

Around this time Sappho composed nine books of verse amounting to probably around 12,000 lines; the surviving fragments have made her a major figure of identification in British women's writing.
Burn, Andrew R. et al. “Introduction”. Lyrics in the Original Greek, translated by. Willis Barnstone, New York University Press, 1965, p. xvii - xxxi.
xx
Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford, 1990.

About 612 BC

Sappho was probably born in the late seventh century BC (Archaic period), possibly at Eresus if not at Mytilene, in either case on the Greek island of Lesbos, close to the coast of Asia.
The facts of her life, if not riskily deduced from her poems, come from sources written well after her death. Translator Willis Barnstone provides a series of biographical Testimonia, quoting the ancient sources.
Sappho, and Andrew R. Burn. Lyrics in the Original Greek. Translator Barnstone, Willis, New York University Press, 1965.
161-6
Burn, Andrew R. et al. “Introduction”. Lyrics in the Original Greek, translated by. Willis Barnstone, New York University Press, 1965, p. xvii - xxxi.
xviii

Biography

Birth

About 612 BC

Sappho was probably born in the late seventh century BC (Archaic period), possibly at Eresus if not at Mytilene, in either case on the Greek island of Lesbos, close to the coast of Asia.
The facts of her life, if not riskily deduced from her poems, come from sources written well after her death. Translator Willis Barnstone provides a series of biographical Testimonia, quoting the ancient sources.
Sappho, and Andrew R. Burn. Lyrics in the Original Greek. Translator Barnstone, Willis, New York University Press, 1965.
161-6
Burn, Andrew R. et al. “Introduction”. Lyrics in the Original Greek, translated by. Willis Barnstone, New York University Press, 1965, p. xvii - xxxi.
xviii

Please click on login button to check your access and/or enter your credentials. Alternatively if you don’t have access, please click on “Subscribe”.

Log inSubscribe