 |
|||||||||||||||||||||||
 |
|
|
|
|||||
|
 |
 |
Biography of SapphoName: SapphoBirth Date: c. 625 B.C. Death Date: 570 B.C. Place of Birth: Lesbos Nationality: Greek Gender: Female Occupations: poet Sappho Sappho (ca. 625-570 BC), a Greek lyric poet, was the greatest female poet of antiquity. Her vivid, emotional manner of writing influenced poets through the ages, and her special quality of intimacy has great appeal to modern poetic tastes.The poetry of Sappho epitomizes a style of writing evolved during the 7th and 6th centuries BC At that time the main thrust of Greek poetry turned away from the epic form, which was concerned mainly with telling the stories of heroes and gods, utilizing the traditional and highly formulaic dactylic hexameter. The poets of the 7th and 6th centuries wrote choral songs, which were sung and danced by a choir, and solo songs, in which the poet was accompanied by a lyre or flutelike instrument. Doubtless these types of composition had existed side by side with the epic tradition, but after 700 BC poets refined the techniques of the choral and solo …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…dialect, using ordinary vocabulary; her thoughts are expressed simply and unrhetorically but with exquisite care. Her grace and charm together with her technical skill in handling language and meter are most fully realized in the several longer fragments which have survived. One poem, "He appears to me like a god," a masterpiece of erotic lyric poetry, was closely imitated by the Roman poet Catullus over 500 years later and suggests the esteem in which the ancients held Sappho. Plato called her "the tenth Muse." Further Reading An excellent modern translation of Sappho with Greek text and notes is Willis Barnstone, Sappho (1965). The best general account in English of Sappho's life and poetry is Sir Cecil M. Bowra, Greek Lyric Poetry from Alcam to Simonides (1936; rev. ed. 1961). A more detailed analysis of Sappho's works is Denys L. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus: An Introduction to the Study of Ancient Lesbian Poetry (1955; rev. ed. 1959). |