Reading Sappho: Contemporary Approaches / Edition 1

by Ellen Greene

Overview

Reading Sappho considers Sappho's poetry as a powerful, influential voice in the Western cultural tradition. Essays are divided into four sections: "Language and Literary Context," "Homer and Oral Tradition", "Ritual and Social Context", and "Women's Erotics". Contributors focus on literary history, mythic traditions, cultural studies, performance studies, recent work in feminist theory, and more.

A legendary literary figure, Sappho has attracted readers, critics, and biographers ever since she composed poems on the island of Lesbos at the close of the seventh century B.C. Bringing together some of the best recent criticism on the subject, this volume, together with Re-Reading Sappho, represents the first anthology of Sappho scholarship, drawing attention to Sappho's importance as a poet and reflecting the diversity of critical approaches in classical and literary scholarship during the last several decades.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780520206014
Publisher:	University of California Press
Publication date:	08/02/1999
Series:	Classics and Contemporary Thought , #2
Edition description:	First Edition
Pages:	316
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ellen Greene is Associate Professor of Classics at the University of Oklahoma.

Table of Contents

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 
SERIES EDITOR'S FOREWORD 
Thomas Habinek
INTRODUCTION 
Ellen Greene
I · LANGUAGE AND LITERARY CONTEXT
1. Sappho's Amatory Language 
Giuliana Lanata, translated by William Robins
2. Critical Stereotypes and the Poetry of Sappho 
Mary R. Lefkowitz
3· Phaethon, Sappho's Phaon, and the White Rock of Leukas:"Reading" the Symbols of Greek Lyric 
Gregory Nagy
4· Eros and Incantation: Sappho and Oral Poetry 
Charles Segal
II · HOMER AND THE ORAL TRADITION
5· Sappho and Helen 
Page duBois
6. Gardens of Nymphs: Public and Private in Sappho's Lyrics 
Jack Winkler
III · RITUAL AND SOCIAL CONTEXT
7· Sappho's Group: An Initiation into Womanhood 
Claude Calame
8. Sappho and Her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality 
Judith P. Hallett
9· Romantic Sensuality, Poetic Sense: A Response to Hallett on Sappho 
Eva Stehle
10. Who Sang Sappho's Songs? 
Andre Lardinois
IV WOMEN'S EROTICS
11. Woman and Language in Archaic Greece, or, Why Is Sappho a Woman? 
Marilyn B. Skinner
I2. Sappho's Gaze: Fantasies of a Goddess and Young Man 
Eva Stehle
13· The Justice of Aphrodite in Sappho 
Anne Carson
14. Apostrophe and Women's Erotics in the Poetry of Sappho 
Ellen Greene
15. Sappho and the Other Woman 
Margaret Williamson
BIBLIOGRAPHY 
CONTRIBUTORS 
INDEX