I find it fascinating that Sappho wrote the first "make love, not war" poem a mere 2,500 years ahead of her time! And I consider her the first Romantic poet, the first Confessional poet, and the first modern poet.
I would not hesitate to include Sappho in my top five poets. She is right up there with Yeats, Eliot, Rilke and Neruda. Perhaps if her work had survived in its entirety she would be at the very top. She had a musical ear second to none - no wonder she played the lyre and sang her own work. She was extraordinary.
I'm afraid I find Sappho's legacy so fragmentary that I find it difficult to form an adequate picture of her achievements. So I've always reserved judgement and bowed to other people's no doubt greater wisdom. As for 'make love not war' isn't that the whole point of Homer's efforts? Haven't poets always inclined to that opinion?
I have read fourteen different versions of Sappho in translation and, in my opinion, nobody translates Sappho better than Mike Burch. He aways has a real sense of her feelings, her emotions, and - occasionally when words are missing from the original papyrus manuscript - what she intended to say, and how she said it.
The last stanza of this is just sublime. I can feel Sappho here being more impressed by the beauty of her female companion than by any heroic soldier in all his glittering armour.
Mike Burch, in his superb translations, always brings 'honey-tongued Sappho' vividly back to life. And what a poet she is! So modern, so musical, so unafraid of her own desires and emotions. I have no doubt that she was indeed the 'Tenth Muse'.
I find it fascinating that Sappho wrote the first "make love, not war" poem a mere 2,500 years ahead of her time! And I consider her the first Romantic poet, the first Confessional poet, and the first modern poet.
I would not hesitate to include Sappho in my top five poets. She is right up there with Yeats, Eliot, Rilke and Neruda. Perhaps if her work had survived in its entirety she would be at the very top. She had a musical ear second to none - no wonder she played the lyre and sang her own work. She was extraordinary.
Yes, the immortal Sappho was an extraordinary poet and an extraordinary woman: centuries ahead of her time and perhaps still ahead of ours.
I'm afraid I find Sappho's legacy so fragmentary that I find it difficult to form an adequate picture of her achievements. So I've always reserved judgement and bowed to other people's no doubt greater wisdom. As for 'make love not war' isn't that the whole point of Homer's efforts? Haven't poets always inclined to that opinion?
Sappho is the reason we have lyric poetry to begin with.
She was an accomplished lyre player and set her own poets to music.
The standard was pretty high!
David accompanied his poems on the harp, which is not too dissimilar from the lyre.
I have read fourteen different versions of Sappho in translation and, in my opinion, nobody translates Sappho better than Mike Burch. He aways has a real sense of her feelings, her emotions, and - occasionally when words are missing from the original papyrus manuscript - what she intended to say, and how she said it.
The last stanza of this is just sublime. I can feel Sappho here being more impressed by the beauty of her female companion than by any heroic soldier in all his glittering armour.
Mike Burch, in his superb translations, always brings 'honey-tongued Sappho' vividly back to life. And what a poet she is! So modern, so musical, so unafraid of her own desires and emotions. I have no doubt that she was indeed the 'Tenth Muse'.