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Sappho: Poetry
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In Mytilene, Sappho was the central figure of a female literary group. It ... formed the audience for her poetry. With her friends Sappho may have performed religious rituals and worshipped the goddess of love, Aphrodite, but her surviving poetry doesn't refer to any systematic religious philosophizing. When antique philosophers examined the laws of nature and the outside world, Sappho was interested in the inner world, her own feelings. and the Mytilineans honored Sappho although she was a woman." Sappho's lyrics were more personal than in the widely read or recited Homeric epic. And her poems were really read - old Greek vases, some of which date to the 5th century, provide the proof.
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[One] famous contribution of Sappho was the verse form Sapphics, which requires that each stanza be 4 lines long with the first three lines required to contain 11 syllables, and the last line only 5 syllables. Having inspired many future Greek poets, Sappho’s contribution to the world of poetry has been immense. Her work is refreshingly unique due to the simplicity with which she portrays intense emotions. A true gem in the crown of poetry, Sappho’s work will continue to inspire as long as poets exist.
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Given the fame that her work has enjoyed, it is somewhat surprising to learn that only one of Sappho's poems is available in its entirety--all of the rest exist as fragments of her original work. At one time, there were perhaps nine complete volumes of her poetry, but over the centuries, from neglect, natural disasters, and possibly some censorship by close-minded scholars, her work was lost. Late in the 19th century... manuscripts dating back to the eighth century AD were discovered in the Nile Valley, and some of these manuscripts proved to contained Sappho's work. Excavations that followed in ancient Egyptian refuse heaps unearthed a quantity of papyruses from the first century BC to the 10th century AD. Here, strips of papyrus--some containing her poetry--were found in number. These strips had been used to wrap mummies, stuff sacred animals, and wrap coffins.
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Fragment 102 has its speaker address a "sweet mother", sometimes taken as an indication that Sappho began to write poetry while her mother was still alive.[7] The name of Sappho's father is widely given as Scamandronymus. Herodotus[8] and Claudius Aelianus[9] have Scamandronymus. P. Oxy. 1800 fr. 1 has Scamander or Scamandronymus. The Suda offers a plethora of possibilities: Simon, Eumenus, Eerigyius, Ecrytus, Semus, Camon, Etarchus, or Scamandronymus. He is not referred to in any of the surviving fragments.
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Sappho was born on Lesbos to a noble family. She lived most of her life in the city of Mytilene, with the exception of her family's brief exile in Sicily shortly after 600 B.C. She married a wealthy man in Mytilene, and they had a daughter names Cleis. Sappho ... headed a thiasos, or an academy of unmarried women. As was the custom at the time, wealthy families sent their daughters to live at these schools where they were taught proper social graces, composition, singing, and poetry recitation. Much of Sappho's poetry was composed in this community, and she used many of her students as subjects.
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All these might be just theories, but the one fact about Sappho is that she was a very talented poet. Her work was appreciated immensely by the community and even long after her death, she lives through her work. She is believed to have taught her poetry to a group of young women and later grew so attached to them that she composed bridal odes for each one of them, when they left to get married. This fact led to the birth of the theory of Sappho being a lesbian as poet Anacreon, commented that Sappho was a lesbian whose feelings towards these women were sexual. This ... led to the formation of words such as “lesbianism” or “sapphism”, indicating homosexuality in women.
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