-
http://www.sappho.com/poetry/index_historical.html
Lesbian Poetry
Historical Poetry
Contemporary Poetry
Resources for Poets and Readers
Lesbian Poetry FAQ
Isle of Lesbos: Poetry : Historical
Historical Lesbian Poetry
On these pages you'll find poetry celebrating love between women. Not all poets on the page are lesbians or bisexual women (especially not the men!) and in some cases the orientation of the author is still being disputed by biographers. Please read the poet biographies and consult reference material for more detail as to why a particular poet's work is included in this collection.
Poets are listed in chronological order of birth
Lesbian-Interest Poetry by Women
Sappho, circa 630 BC
Katherine Fowler Philips, 1631-1664
Aphra Behn, 1640-1689
Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz, 1648-1695
Anna Seward, 1747-1809
Wu Tsao, 19th Century
Emily Dickinson, 1830-1886
Christina Rossetti, 1830-1894
Matilda Betham-Edwards, 1836-1919
"Michael Field" (aka Katherine Bradley, 1848-1914 & Edith Cooper) 1862-1913
Katharine Lee Bates, 1859-1929
Charlotte Mew, 1879-1928
Amy Lowell, 1874-1925
Gertrude Stein, 1874-1946
Renee Vivien, 1877-1909
Angelina Weld Grimke, 1880-1958
Marie-Madeleine (aka Baronness Von Puttkamer) 1881- 1944
Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892-1950
Elsa Gidlow, 1898-1986
Lesbian-Interest Poetry by Men
Edmund Waller, 1606-1687
William Wordsworth, 1770-1850
Samuel Taylor Coleridge, 1772-1834
Paul Verlaine, 1844-1896
Pierre Louys, 1870-1925
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Poetry | Classical Art | Vintage Images | Letters & Journals | Quotations | About
© 1995 - 2004, Alix North
All Rights Reserved
This is an archive site sponsored by The Small Business Operative
_________________________________________________
http://www.malaspina.com/site/person_1018.asp
The word lesbian itself derives from her, being derived from the name of the island from which she came. (She is also the origin of its much rarer synonym sapphic, derived from her name.) Due to its homosexual content--and because of its explicit eroticism--her work was disapproved of by the Christian church......
萨福的同性恋在西方；叶嘉莹后来指出的那个雌雄同体说，就是概指东西方了。所以如果研究萨福，就是研究性别文学的开始，就是研究颠覆男性文学的开始，也是研究男性之所以“不是”开始。
其实不光是男性，女性也非纯粹女性，除了女权主义者们标准内的女性。
到了电脑四代，在虚拟文化里，男办女装抑或相反，也就屡见不鲜了，然后再克隆一家活，就都是萨福了。
以上是老萨的一些资料。把莱斯波斯一段摘录出来。省事的同志们可以知道，从她住的那个岛迄今，已经发展出现在无数的同性恋网站了。也许和阿姆斯特丹的性商店一样多了。
近来看看贡斯当，他的基本观点是，因为人少，所以古代的自由是全民参政，现在人多，就全民参私了——亨亭顿，也是怕美国的少数族裔之膨胀，带来米国中心之覆灭——可见萨福那时候，也是幸亏写诗歌者少，就成了第十。
现在如过江之鲫，就是莱斯伯斯，也无法幸免了。所以，我们对待萨福的崇仰，变成了绝对主义的事情了。
悲乎？乐乎？
Sappho (c. 625 BC-)
Sappho was an ancient Greek poet, from the city of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, which was a cultural centre in the 7th century BC. Today the island is known as Mytilene. She was born sometime between 630 BC and 612 BC It was said that she was small and dark. Sappho was married to a wealthy merchant, and they had a daughter named Cleis. She became very famous in her day for her poetry -- so much so that the city of Syracuse built a statue to honor her when she visited. Her family was politically active, which caused Sappho to travel a great deal. She was also noted during her life as the headmistress of a sort of Greek finishing school for girls. Most likely the objects of her poetry were her students. She was a lyric poet who developed her own particular meter, known as sapphic meter, and she was credited for leading an aesthetic movement away from classical themes of gods, to the themes of individual human experience. The Greeks were so enamoured of her poetry that they referred to her as the "tenth Muse". Sappho wrote mainly love poems, of which only fragments survive, save a single complete poem, Fragment 1, Hymn to Aphrodite (see below). Given her reputation in the ancient world, since only fragments of her work remain, the world lost a valuable treasure in her work. Some of her love poems were addressed to women, from which she developed a reputation for lesbianism. The word lesbian itself derives from her, being derived from the name of the island from which she came. (She is also the origin of its much rarer synonym sapphic, derived from her name.) Due to its homosexual content--and because of its explicit eroticism--her work was disapproved of by the Christian church, which is arguably the main reason why most of it has not survived, due to a combination of neglecting to copy it and undoubtedly in some cases purposeful destruction. While in the modern period this content is well known, in ancient and Medieval times she was more famous for (according to legend) throwing herself off a cliff due to unrequited love for a male sailor. However, this legend has no substantiation in Greek history, and it is generally believed that the legend was a fiction created by the Christian church to misdirect attention away from the overtones of her writing. [The material above is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Sappho..]
Alternate Biography
Greek poetess, was a native of Lesbos, contemporary with Alcaeus, Stesichorus and Pittacus, in fact, with the culminating period of Aeolic poetry. One of her brothers, Charaxus, fell in love with a courtesan named Doricha upon whom he squandered his property. Sappho wrote an ode, in which she severely satirized and rebuked him. Another brother, Larichus, was public cup-bearer at Mytilene - a position for which it was necessary to be well born, It is said that she had a daughter, named after her grandmother Cleis, and she had some personal acquaintance with Alcaeus. He addressed her in an ode of which a fragment is preserved: Violetweaving (or dark-haired), pure, sweet-smiling Sappho, I wish to say somewhat, but shame hinders me; and she answered in another ode: Hadst thou had desire of aught good or fair, shame would not have touched thine eyes, but thou wouldst have spoken thereof openly. The story of her love for the disdainful Phaon, and her leap into the sea from the Leucadian promontory, together with that of her flight from Mytilene to Sicily, has no confirmation; we are not even told whether she died of the leap or not. Critics again are agreed that Suidas was simply gulled by the comic poets when he tells of her husband, Cercolas of Andros. Both the aspersions which these poets cast on her character and the embellishments with which they garnished her life passed for centuries as undoubted history. Six comedies entitled Sappho and two Phaon, were produced by the Middle Comedy; but, when we consider, for example, the way in which Socrates was caricatured by Aristophanes, we are justified in putting no faith whatever in such authority. We may conclude that Sappho was not utterly vicious, though by no means a paragon of virtue. All ancient tradition and the character of her extant fragments show that her morality was what has ever since been known as "Lesbian."
At Lesbos she was head of a great poetic school, for poetry in that age and place was cultivated as assiduously and apparently as successfully by women as by men. Her most famous pupils were Erinna of Telos and Damophyla of Pamphylia. In Antiquity her fame rivalled that of Homer. She was called "the poetess," he "the poet." Different writers style her "the tenth Muse," "the flower of the Graces," "a miracle," "the beautiful," the last epithet referring to her writings, not her person, which is said to have been small and dark.
Her poems were arranged in nine books, on what principle is uncertain; she is said to have sung them to the Mixo-Lydian mode, which she herself invented. The perfection and finish of every line, the correspondence of sense and sound, the incomparable command over all the most delicate resources of verse, and the exquisite symmetry of the complete odes.which are extant, raise her into the very first rank of technical poetry at once, while her painting of passion, which caused Longinus to quote the ode to Anactoria as an example of the sublime, has never been since surpassed, and only approached by Catullus and in the Vita Nuova. Her fragments also bear witness to a profound feeling for the beauty of nature. The ancients also attributed to her a considerable power in satire, but in hexameter verse they considered her inferior to her pupil Erinna.
Fragment 1, Hymn to Aphrodite
Shimmering-throned immortal Aphrodite,
Daughter of Zeus, Enchantress, I implore thee,
Spare me, O queen, this agony and anguish,
Crush not my spirit
Whenever before thou has hearkened to me--
To my voice calling to thee in the distance,
And heeding, thou hast come, leaving thy father's
Golden dominions,
With chariot yoked to thy fleet-winged coursers,
Fluttering swift pinions over earth's darkness,
And bringing thee through the infinite, gliding
Downwards from heaven,
Then, soon they arrived and thou, blessed goddess,
With divine contenance smiling, didst ask me
What new woe had befallen me now and why,
Thus I had called the.
What in my mad heart was my greatest desire,
Who was it now that must feel my allurements,
Who was the fair one that must be persuaded,
Who wronged thee Sappho?
For if now she flees, quickly she shall follow
And if she spurns gifts, soon shall she offer them
Yea, if she knows not love, soon shall she feel it
Even reluctant.
Come then, I pray, grant me surcease from sorrow,
Drive away care, I beseech thee, O goddess
Fulfil for me what I yearn to accomplish,
Be thou my ally.
[Alternative biography adapted from the Encyclopedia Britannica (1911).]
The Great Books: Sappho
This web page is part of a biographical database on Great Ideas. These are living ideas that have shaped, defined and directed world culture for over 2,500 years. By definition the Great Ideas are radical. As such they are sometimes misread, or distorted by popular simplifications. Understanding a Great Idea demands personal engagement. Our selection of Great Ideas is drawn from literature and philosophy, science, art, music, theatre, and cinema. We also include biographies of pivotal historical and religious figures, as well as contributions from women and other historically under-represented minorities. The result is an integrated multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary database built upon the framework of a Great Books Core List developed by Mortimer Adler (1902-2001) nearly 50 years ago.
Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Sappho. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Sappho. Post Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books © 1995-2003.
Browse: Books
Books from Amazon: Sappho
Books from Alibris: Sappho
Related Music Links
Ancient Music
Related Literature Links
Ancient Literature
Library Catalogs
Library of Congress: Sappho
Library of Canada: Sappho
COPAC UK: Sappho
Search Other Library Catalogs: Sappho
Original Great Books Research Links
Research Links - Literature: Sappho
Research Links - Music: Sappho
Best Choice: Books
Sappho: A New Translation
If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
The Love Songs of Sappho
bb
