Someone will remember us I say …….even in another time

December 9, 2020 9:53 AM

What We Know about Sappho - Judith Schalansky in The Paris Review
posted by Chrysopoeia (12 comments total)

More than i knew before ...
posted by dragonian at 11:05 AM on December 9, 2020

Thank you sincerely for posting, a regular rabbit warren of trails to follow now...
posted by sophrontic at 11:50 AM on December 9, 2020

Natalie Haynes on Sappho. (BBC audio.)
posted by Paul Slade at 12:01 PM on December 9, 2020

Not surprisingly, there are lots of previous posts about Sappho on the blue. Thanks for adding this, Chrysopoeia!
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul at 12:02 PM on December 9, 2020

Great piece, and introduced me to a new author, Judith Schalansky!
posted by Saxon Kane at 12:12 PM on December 9, 2020

This is truly a gift-- thank you so much.

Not surprisingly, there are lots of previous posts about Sappho on the blue.

And among the earlier ones I spy the names of Zurishaddai, languagehat and moss, all of whom were most erudite on the topic of Sappho. Thankfully, languagehat and moss are still with us, albeit not often enough, but Zurishaddai's long absence has so diminished the quality of our conversations.
posted by y2karl at 12:52 PM on December 9, 2020

This is amazing. Bought the book, and can't wait to dig in!
posted by SNACKeR at 1:04 PM on December 9, 2020

Sappho must have returned from exile and founded a women’s circle in Mytilene, which may have been a cultish community set up to honor Aphrodite, a symposium of fellow females bearing an erotic attachment to one another, or a marriage preparation school for daughters of noble birth: no one knows for sure.

Sappho founded...
a) a church
b) an orgy
c) a finishing school
d) all of the above
posted by betweenthebars at 1:22 PM on December 9, 2020 [6 favorites]

Schalansky's piece makes an interesting contrast with the two essays by Daniel Mendelsohn: 'In Search of Sappho' (2003) and 'Girl, Interrupted' (2015; previously). Mendelsohn is distinctly unimpressed by the romantic cult of the fragment:

We may not know a great deal about Sappho, but we do know that she wrote whole poems, not fragments. The resemblance between the shattered state of the Sapphic texts and the shattered state of the broken hearts that are sometimes described in those texts is purely coincidental. The use of such resemblance as an element in the criticism of Sappho's work is, ultimately, as sentimental as any of the theories advanced by the Victorian critics of yore.

Compare Schalansky:

It is as if, in the places where the singing has faded away and the words are missing, where the papyrus scrolls are rotten and torn, dots had appeared, first singly, then in pairs, and soon in the vague pattern of a rhythmic triad—the notation of a silent lament.

Both of these strike me as valid readerly responses (even though I admit I'm more in tune with Mendelsohn's scepticism, and I think it helps to put the two passages side by side). More surprising to me is Schalansky's certainty that 'Sappho’s words, where decipherable, are as unambiguous and clear as words possibly can be'. From what little I know of the critical literature on Sappho, I don't think many classicists would agree with her about the transparent meaning of the texts.
posted by verstegan at 2:51 PM on December 9, 2020 [4 favorites]

As far as we know, no woman has ever described herself as a tribade.

The lesbian punk band Tribe 8 was named after the sexual practice of tribadism, a term which which derives from tribade.
posted by larrybob at 6:31 PM on December 9, 2020 [3 favorites]

Kenneth Rexroth's "Classics Revisited" essay on Sappho.
posted by Bureau of Public Secrets at 10:40 AM on December 10, 2020 [2 favorites]

Here are 34 different translations of Sappho's greatest surviving poem, ranging from Sir Philip Sydney (late 16th century) through Byron and Tennyson and William Carlos Williams to numerous modern versions.
posted by Bureau of Public Secrets at 10:56 AM on December 10, 2020 [6 favorites]