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If not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho- Study Guide Background: Sappho was a Greek lyric poet, born on the island of Lesbos. It is suggested that she coined the term ‘Lesbian’. She was a musician, and her poetry was composed to be sung to the lyre. She addresses her lyre in one of her poems (fr. 118) and frequently mentions music, songs and singing. Her songs were written down during or soon after her lifetime and existed on papyrus rolls by the end of the fifth century BC. Of the nine books of lyrics that Sappho is said to have composed, one poem has survived, and all the rest are in fragments. The Ancients referred to her as the first, and only, mortal Muse.

The Text- Writing Style, Marks and Lacks: Sappho’s fragments represent many of the characteristics of lyric poetry- Genders are indeterminate, for example- “He says, she says” replaced by “says”. There’s often a certain confusion about who’s the subject and who’s the object. The brackets are a very important and bewildering part of Sappho’s fragments. In the introduction, Anne Carson says that [ or ] indicates destroyed papyrus or the presence of letters not quite legible somewhere in the line. Her attitude towards the brackets and purposes for using it are interesting. She says, “Brackets are an aesthetic gesture toward the papyrological event rather an accurate record of it. I emphasize the distinction between brackets and no brackets because it will affect your reading experience, if you allow it. Even though you are approaching Sappho in translation, that is no reason you should miss the drama of trying to read a papyrus torn in half or riddled with holes or smaller than postage a postage stamp- brackets imply a free space of imaginal adventure”. I have included this quote in the study guide because I think it’s important to keep the translator’s thoughts in mind while we read the fragments. The way we feel about the brackets is indicative of how humans, in the modern age, are uncomfortable with ambiguity. We also discussed Ezra Pound and H.D., who were inspired by the minimalism of fragmented verse, the reduction of a poem to pure image, which contributed to their espousal of the ‘Imagist’ movement in verse. Pound’s poem ‘Papyrus’, for example, from his 1916 collection, Lustra, is clearly influenced by Sappho’s fragments, particularly 95: Spring… Too long… Gongyla… Also, it is useful of Carson to include the Greek along with the English, because it gives us the structure of a Sapphic stanza. The Priamel:

This is a very important device in the poem. Sappho begins with a rhetorical device called a priamel, whose function is to focus attention to and to praise. The priamel’s typical structure is a list of three items followed by a fourth that is different and better. For example, in fragment 16, Sappho begins with: ‘Some men say an army of horse and some men say an army on foot and some men say an army of ships is the most beautiful thing on the black earth. But I say it is what you love’. Sappho’s list states three masculine opinions, and then moves to dissent, and emphasizes a more feminine opinion. (from war to love). In the longer, more complete fragments, the structure is 3 longer lines punctuated at the end with a short emphasis. For example, the very first stanza: ‘Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind, child of Zeus, who twists lures, I beg you do not break with hard pains, O Lady, my heart’

Enjambments: An enjambment is a continuation of a sentence without a pause beyond the end of a line, couplet or stanza. For example, in fragment 16: ‘Easy to make this understood by all. For she who overcame everyone in beauty (Helen) left her fine husband

behind and went sailing to Troy’. The break between ‘husband’ and ‘behind’ represents an enjambment. The enjambments in the poem are part of a larger, and very important theme, regarding the placement of words and lines in order to create a particular emphasis. Here, the emphasis is on Helen leaving her husband ‘behind’. Her husband (Menelaos) is left behind both literally and figuratively. When we read the fragment, we give emphasis to the word ‘behind’, something that Sappho probably intended to do.

Themes: Love, desire (Eros), love as a feminine rather than masculine emotion, love vs war, homosexuality, the aesthetics and beauty of relationships as opposed to simply a social construct, connected arts : music and poetry.

Changes from the Iliad to Sappho: Helen reimagined: In the Iliad, Helen is seen as woman consumed by remorse, guilt and selfloathing. She doesn’t seem proactive in the least, and can hardly be called a strong or confident woman. However, in fragment 16, she is seen as strong and independent- she ‘left her fine husband behind and went sailing to Troy. Not for her children nor her dear parents had she a thought, no’. She seems to be a different character. From War to Love: The Iliad is often thought of as a ‘masculine text’ with its heavy emphasis on war, gore, bloody deaths and glory in battle. Sappho’s fragments are softer, more feminine and melodious. In fragment 16, when she writes ‘Some men say it is war, some men…..but I say it is what you love’, it’s almost as though she’s saying “I’m not Homer”. Relationships: While the Iliad treated relationships with a certain formality, and as more of a social construct, Sappho gave much importance to the aesthetics and beauty of relationships. She heavily detailed the intimacy between partners in a relationship. She also hints at an equal relationship between men and women in fragment 31, ‘He seems to me equal to gods that man whoever he is who opposite you sits and listens close to your sweet speaking’

while in the Iliad, the women are given almost no power in relationships, they are treated as mere objects. The only woman who is treated with some sort of respect is Andromache (by Hektor). Interestingly, Hektor’s and Andromache’s marriage is remembered with fondness in this poem (fragment 44). Could that be because Sappho hails the nature of their relationship? A common theme between the Iliad, Plato’s Symposium and Sappho is that of homosexuality in the ancient world. It is touched upon in the Iliad, in the relationship between Partoklos and Achilleus, and in Sappho, where women homosexuality is a recurring theme. It could be why Plato finds Sappho interesting, as he discusses homosexuality.

Paper Topics: 1. Eros (desire)- what we can and can’t have 2. Love vs war

3. Is love a feminine emotion? 4. The placement of lines and words in the poem- what emphases does it create and how does it shape our understanding of the poem? How do verbs of action, placement and movement tell us what is going on? 5. All translation is an art- the theme of the poem (desire, and what we can’t have)- is it analogous to our desire to have the original poem, and our frustration that our understanding is so limited? 6. The importance of priamels and enjambments 7. The connection between various art forms and the theme of ‘synesthesia’

Important Fragments:

Fragment 1: Sappho implores Aphrodite to come to her and grant her desires. There are some interesting fragments used here. ‘Deathless Aphrodite of the spangled mind’. The ‘spangled mind’ is an epithet that can refer to either her chair or her mind. The gods have fancy, spangled chairs, but it seems to be Aphrodite’s agile mind that is at work for most of the poem. ‘(now again)’ – The parentheses are not Sappho’s but Carson wants to mark her use of the temporal adverb deute. It is probably no accident that, in a poem about the cyclical patterns of erotic experience, this adverb of repetition is given three times. Sappho’s ‘now again’ does more than mark repetition as a theme of her poem, it instantiates the difference between mortal and immortal perspectives on this painful feature of erotic life. Sappho is stuck in the pain of ‘now’, Aphrodite calmly surveys a larger pattern of ‘agains’. Fragment 16: Fragment 16 has the first mention of the priamel. It brings in theme of love vs war, and here Sappho firmly sets herself apart from Homer by outlining events of the same story in a different light (reimagining Helen) and reassigning priorities (putting love first, and casting aside violence and rage). It is still not clear who led Helen astray- it could be Aphrodite, Eros or Alexandros himself. It is also not clear how this links to ‘Anaktoria who is now gone’. The line ‘I would rather see her lovely step and the motion of light on her face than chariots of Lydians or ranks of footsoldiers in arms’ illustrates the importance of movement in the poem. Fragment 44 In fragment 44, Sappho narrates a story from the Trojan war saga which is not included in the Iliad- the homecoming of Hektor with his bride Andromache. She adopts a version of Homer’s dactylic fragments as well as certain epic features of diction, while mingling them with real details of the Lesbos of her time like myrrh, cassia, frankincenses and castanets.

Fragment 94: Fragment 94 opens with a rather dramatic feel- ‘I simply want to be dead. Weeping she left me’. It illustrates the devastation that can be felt as the result of losing a loved one. As Sappho wallows in sadness, she recalls the times she had with her lover. This fragment concentrates largely on the desire between the two lovers, and is the closet we get to ‘Eros’ as a practice. It is represented in these lines – ‘But if not, I want to remind you ]and beautiful times we had. For many crowns of violets and roses ]at my side you put on and many woven garlands made of flowers around your soft throat. And with sweet oil costly you anointed yourself and on a soft bed delicate you would let loose your longing’....