For two and a half thousand years, poets and readers have been inspired by the writing of Sappho, and the myths that surround her 20010730
Margaret Reynolds is a writer, academic, critic and broadcaster. Her critical edition of Elizabeth Barrett Browning's Aurora Leigh won the British Academy's Rose Mary Crawshay prize. Other books include The Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories, The Sappho Companion, Victorian Women Poets- An Anthology (with Angela Leighton) and a series of study guides on contemporary writers, Vintage Living Texts. She is Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London and a Life Member of Clare Hall, Cambridge. She is the presenter of BBC Radio 4's long running 'Adventures in Poetry'.
Hailing from the island of Lesbos, which has subsequently lent its name in her honor to a good cause, the Greek poet Sappho, who lived in the 7th century B.C., has inspired centuries of admiration for her transcendent poems, which have only survived in fragments. A British teacher, critic and broadcaster with a wide range of cultural references at her disposal, Reynolds makes this reader's guide to Sappho's world and work a delightfully erudite one. She offers a selection of sapphic fragments in the original Greek, with thought-provoking contrasting translations from a plethora of (often male) writers, ranging from 18th century Englishmen like Tobias Smollett and John Addison, through 19th century efforts by John Addington Symonds and Alfred Lord Tennyson, to more modern versions by William Carlos Williams and Guy Davenport. Following the works are 14 chapters of excerpts from literary endeavors inspired by Sappho ("The Sapphic Sublime," "Daughter of de Sade," "Modernist Sappho," "Swingers and Sisters"), from ancient writers like Catullus and Ovid to the medieval works of Boccaccio and Christine de Pisan, right up to Sexing the Cherry by Jeanette Winterson. Reynolds explains that English speakers pronounce the poet's name with "soft sibilants and faded f's" but "if you hear a native speaker say her name, she comes across spitting and popping hard p's. Ppppsappoppo. We have eased off her name, made her docile and sliding, where she is really difficult, diffuse, many-syllabled, many-minded, vigorous and hard." This lively book, scholarly, yet blessedly minus any footnotes, is sure to give a wider view of this primary writer, and provide easier access to a forbiddingly remote land and work. (June) Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
The name Sappho conjures endless stories and images, few of which have any basis in a truth that is impossible to know. She lived in the early sixth century B.C.E. on the island of Lesbos, off the coast of present-day Turkey. Beyond that, little is known of her except the fragments of her surviving poetry. Her reputation has varied according to time and place, from lesbian lover to a woman who jumped off a cliff in hopes of reviving her male lover's ardor; from the "Learned Lady" of the Middle Ages to the "Wanton" of the 18th century; from the "Daughter of de Sade" to the "New Woman" in the 1900s. With accompanying explanation and historical background, Reynolds (coeditor, Victorian Women Poets) gathers works in which the image of Sappho is present. Beginning with 30 fragments of Sappho's own poetry, she continues, in roughly chronological order, to show manifestations of Sappho in excerpts from various literatures. An excellent example of the transformative power of literature and imagination, this volume is recommended for academic and public libraries. Katherine Kaigler-Koenig, Ellis Sch., Pittsburgh Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.
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