Women’s Writing in the British Isles from the Beginnings to the Present
Sappho
-
Standard Name: Sappho
Birth Name: Sappho
Used Form: Sapho
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.
The leading topics of these poems are love-relationships and women. The opening poem, A Pastoral, from the Song of Solomon, is erotic in tone. It ends: For Love's as strong as Death, and pow'rful...
Reception
Charlotte Lennox
The Gentleman's Magazine published two poems about this volume, one in June 1749 and one in November 1750. One calls the author Britain's Sappho
.
Gentleman’s Magazine. Various publishers.
19: 278; 20: 518
With the second piece the GM...
Textual Production
Sarah Lewis
The American Sarah Lewis
published her play Sappho
, A Tragedy in Five Acts (which was reviewed in England and France, as well as the United States).
At least two sources, American Women...
Author summary
Sarah Lewis
Sarah Anna Lewis
was a mid-nineteenth-century American poet who is today better known for her association with Edgar Allan Poe
than for her writings. She began her career with frequent periodical publications, then published four...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Sarah Lewis
The Last Hour of Sappho, in which the poet kills herself for love of Phaon, is a precursor to Lewis's five-act tragedy about Sappho, which was published a quarter-century or more later. SL
sets...
Textual Features
Marie Belloc Lowndes
In her reviewing capacity she was able to comment on several texts central to the European tradition of women's writing. She called Marie de Lafayette
's La Princesse de Cleves (re-issued as part of an...
Textual Features
Judith Cowper Madan
The poem in its later version, headed with a quotation from Virgil
, opens: Unequal, how shall I the search begin, / Or paint with artless hand the awful scene?
Concanen, Matthew, editor. The Flower-Piece. Walthoe.
JCM
reaped a good deal of praise during her lifetime, but most of it must have been of questionable value to her as a poet. Pope
's To Erinna is typical in casting her as...
It was in urgent need of renovations which proved costly and exhausting. In time order was imposed: a bust of Sappho
was set up, Millay's extensive book collection was shelved, and her even more extensive...
Literary responses
Edna St Vincent Millay
William Marion Reedy
, who read this collection in proof, thought it splendid work—all shot through with brightness; the air of the open world in it too.
Milford, Nancy. Savage Beauty: The Life of Edna St. Vincent Millay. Random House.
Her format here has stories or groups of stories introduced and ended with a poem. Topics range from ancient to contemporary, from sexuality to politics. The first poem has Phaedra
telling her sister Ariadne
about...
Textual Production
Lady Mary Wortley Montagu
Each issue of To the Imitator was priced at sixpence. One appeared through a trade publisher, James Roberts
, and one through a mercury, Anne Dodd
. Both these were pamphlet-producers who offered...
Theme or Topic Treated in Text
Elizabeth Moody
She has a sharp eye for gender issues, including those surrounding domestic work. The Housewife's Prayer is addressed to Economy, a name which might be loosely translated as balancing the budget, and ends with the...
Literary responses
Sarah Wentworth Morton
During her lifetime SWM
was seen as standing at the head of a national tradition of women's writing: in 1791 she was flattered with the honorific titles of both the Sappho
and the Elizabeth Montagu
