Sappho - September 2026

NOTES (STARTER):

Reccuring themes of love and desire in Sappho poetry:

The power of love is strong enough to cause war and conflict, you should fight for what you love and believe in.

Love is so powerful it can cause disruption and distress to one soul.

Love is inescapebale and confusing. ‘mountain’ its big and vast, hard to escape, ‘love shook my soul’ it took her by surprise

She often references to nature because of the way she views nature.

Love is natural and is going to happen regardless of what you try to do or what your aim is.


CLASS NOTES:

  • We have seen how she uses a hymn to the gods to suggest desire (Poem 1)

  • Another literary topos is the use of the concept of the ‘lovers gaze’ which hints that all there is to do is look at your lover and admire them.

  • She has used a wide variety of topos to discuss peoples feelings and its usually on love and how they are loved or love.

  • She commonly tried to comment on love and desire in her poetry no matter what the subject is, even when not about her or anything positive it always links back to love, this could suggest that she is lovesick or wants love deeply.

  • Her literature revolves around the all-consuiming nature of love.

  • It sometimes effects all the senses.

  • Can lead to yearning after the death of someone you love deeply.

  • They cant live a normal life without them so they are completely consumed by their love.

  • Sometimes she needs help from the gods, that's how much she craves the idea of love.

  • Described as more important than battle or than war.


Catullus 51 Vs Sappho 31

  • Catullus paraphrases basically what Sappho writes:

Catullus: ‘The equal of a god that man appears’ while Sappho: ‘He seems to me equal to a god’.

Catullus: ‘My tongue grows heavy underneath my skin’ while Sappho: ‘My tongue breaks and, immediately’.

  • He uses the same annotations and meanings:


Sex in Sappho:

Notes:

She often explores erotic thoughts indirectly, through allusion or metaphor

She does leave a certain amount to the imagination

Sappho discusses a number of her inner sexual thoughts ths way.

  • Exploration of a woman's sex life. (25a)

  • The nervousness felt after losing ones virginity. (110, 111)

  • And the anxiety felt by those who are in their sexual prime concerned that they would soon loose their beauty and sacredness. (105a and 105c)


Modern reader shouldn't confuse intimacy with sexual innuendo however, sapphos relationships with those she talks about are not always sexual.


Scholarship:

Calame - believed that sapphos group was mainly about preparing young girls for their future and it wasn't romantical.

Hallett - She helped the girls become good wives and prepared them for the future,

Synder -

Parker -


How can sappho read and write?

  • Women tend to focus on domestic things such as preparing to manage the household or to have children.

Why is she singing about women?

  • Isnt the expectation that she should be marrying a man?


Revision:
All poems we covered in class.

Connection with: how Sappho uses nature, how she exposes love and desire, how she describes sex, Homeric parallels


How clear is sapphos definition of love? (20 marks)

  • BBC - what can we learn from the ancient greek poet Sappho?

Sappho views on marriage:

  • Leauthadian leap

  • Ovid tells the story of her leaping to her death for the ferryman Phaon.

  • We cant completely trust this, but we also know he has no reason to lie like that for no reason - so it suggests that it is reliable.


Her opinions on marriage based on her poetry:

She thinks it pretty much beautiful based on the way she describes it, she makes it sound like something joyful and enjoyable but she doesn't seem to commit fully herself. - “May they sing of your delights” or “Intricate garlands… placed around your lovely neck”

It seems she was quite infatuated by the idea of marriage and may have been willing to marry if not for her not finding ‘the one'.

However she also does seem to have some sort of grudge or personal disdain towards it becasue it seemed to have been the reason for the person/or people she wanted to get married to, to leave her, for example in 31 and 94, she speaks beautifully of the women which could symbolise how she feels about them romantically, but then also when speaking about them getting married to someone else its quite the switch up in tone and wording, for example - in 31- “The man who sits facing you… hearing your sweet voice… close to him” she seems both reminicient and upset that the man Is the one that gets to experience it for the rest of their lives and not her. In poem 94 - she says she wants to die because the person she loves is getting married and leaving her.

  • Most of her poetry was likely commissioned for weddings or celebrations and this can be infered due to her reference to ‘ The big day' which she often references.

  • It was a point of anxiety for young girls at the time, they are stuck with their husbands for the rest of their lives. They will lose a certain amount of freedom along with their virginity. It symbolises a coming of age.

  • Sappho is employed and embraces the wedding part, she is aware some girls feel anxiety and tries to ease that stress by portraying and treating men in a different way, joking or mocking them to help alleviate stress.

  • She mostly would be performing to men so these poems are less likely to have been empowering the women or girls listening to the poem.

  • Its unclear if she was married or if she even wanted to get married because she never mentions it, there are ideas that she liked the idea of marriage but maybe not the institution itself.

Scholarship-

Karen Schoenbachler: her attraction to women was very clearly shown and demonstrated.