Sappho of Lesbos: The Female Poet of Ancient Greece

00:06:40
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=95SDtZdT8sA

Sintesi

TLDRThe video provides an insight into Sappho, the celebrated female Greek poet and musician from Lesbos, who lived around 620-570 BCE. Known for her influential lyric poetry, she was revered in her time, often referred to as "The Poetess." Despite the loss of many works over time, her legacy endures through one complete, several fragmented poems and literary references. Sappho pioneered the Sapphic Meter and contributed significantly to music with the pektis lyre and mixolydian mode. Her poetry, charged with emotional intensity, often explored themes of love, particularly between women, leading to terms like "sapphic" and "lesbian." Misunderstandings about her life story abound, including myths about her sexuality and death. Despite partial preservation, recent discoveries spark hope for more of her works to surface, testifying to her enduring influence in literature and music.

Punti di forza

  • 🎵 Sappho is considered the inventor of lyric poetry.
  • 🏺 Sappho hailed from the Greek island of Lesbos and was known for her aristocratic background.
  • 📜 Only fragments of Sappho's poetry have survived, alongside one complete poem.
  • 🎶 She introduced musical innovations like the pektis and the mixolydian mode.
  • 🏳️‍🌈 Her works explore themes of female love, influencing terms like 'sapphic.'
  • 📝 She created the Sapphic Meter, a distinct poetic form.
  • ⏳ Despite myths, Sappho's personal life is largely unknown.
  • 🏛️ Revered in antiquity, she was regarded as equal to great poets like Homer.
  • 🔍 Recent discoveries in 2004 and 2014 suggest more of her poetry may still be found.
  • 📚 Sappho's work continues to resonate with modern audiences due to its emotional depth.

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  • 00:00:00 - 00:06:40

    The video introduces Sappho of Lesbos, a renowned Greek poet and musician noted for her influence on lyric poetry. Despite limited surviving works, her contributions include inventing the plektron for the lyre and the mixolydian mode. Sappho's poetry is linked to female homosexuality, but her own orientation remains speculative. Her intimate and emotive poems resonate even today, cementing her legacy alongside Homer. The mystery of her life includes multiple artistic and historical recognitions, though much of her work is lost, with recent discoveries sparking hope for more finds. Her poetry's endurance is an embodiment of its timeless appeal, inviting viewers to reflect on other poets lost to history.

Mappa mentale

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Domande frequenti

  • Who was Sappho of Lesbos?

    Sappho was a famous Greek poet and musician from the island of Lesbos, credited with inventing lyric poetry.

  • What is Sappho known for?

    Sappho is known for her lyric poetry, the invention of the plektron, pektis, and the mixolydian mode in music.

  • How many of Sappho's works survive today?

    Only one full poem of Sappho survives; the rest are fragments.

  • What does 'sapphic' refer to?

    'Sapphic' refers to female homosexuality, inspired by Sappho's poetry, which often explored themes of romantic love between women.

  • Was Sappho a lesbian?

    It is uncertain if Sappho was a lesbian; her poetry suggests themes of female love, but this might not reflect her personal life.

  • Why is Sappho's poetry significant?

    Sappho's poetry is significant due to its emotional depth and exploration of human emotions, which continue to resonate today.

  • What is the Sapphic Meter?

    The Sapphic Meter is a poetic form created by Sappho, consisting of three lines of eleven beats and a concluding line of five.

  • Did Sappho commit suicide?

    A myth suggests Sappho committed suicide over unrequited love by jumping off a cliff, but this is widely discredited.

  • How was Sappho viewed in her time and beyond?

    Sappho was highly revered in her time and later, considered unrivaled as a poetess as per ancient scholars like Strabo.

  • Do any new finds of Sappho's work exist?

    Recent finds in 2004 and 2014 uncovered one of her poems and several unknown fragments.

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  • 00:00:00
    Which Greek poet do you think invented lyric poetry? If you guessed Homer, you would be wrong.
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    - intro music -
  • 00:00:10
    Hello and welcome to Ancient History Encyclopedia, my name is Kelly and today we are going to be having a
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    look at the life and surviving works of the female Greek poet and musician, Sappho of
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    Lesbos. Sappho was so famous that she was often simply referred to as “The Poetess” without
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    mentioning her name and an audience would know exactly who was meant! The easiest way
  • 00:00:33
    to support us is by giving this video a like and subscribing to our channel so you don’t
  • 00:00:38
    miss out on any new uploads!
  • 00:00:41
    Sappho of Lesbos was considered as one of the greatest poets of her time. Ancient scholars
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    included her among the illustrious Nine Lyric Poets - a list of the most important and influential
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    poets of her age who mirrored the Nine Muses. According to many ancient sources, she was just as
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    highly regarded as highly as Homer and just as influential, for the invention and development
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    of lyric poetry. Sappho was born on the Greek island of Lesbos to an aristocratic family
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    in around 620 BCE and is known to have been a poet and a musician. Of the nine volumes
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    of poetry that she composed, only one full poem survives, and the rest are fragments. None
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    of her music survives, but she is remembered to have been the inventor of lyric poetry, the plektron
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    which is used to pick a lyre, the pektis which is a particular type of lyre, and the mixolydian
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    mode which is a major musical scale still used in jazz and blues music. Time and circumstance
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    have caused the loss of the majority of Sappho's work, but what has survived is incredibly
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    emotive.
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    From Sappho, we get the words ‘sapphic’ and ‘lesbian’, both of which concern themselves
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    with female homosexuality due to the many fragmentary poems surviving which concern
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    themselves with romantic love between females. Whether Sappho herself was a lesbian is not
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    known, and uncertainty clouds many aspects of her life as well. She was a daughter of
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    a wealthy family, and grew up on Lesbos which held women in higher esteem than much of Greece.
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    She grew up learning the lyre and composing poetry and music, she may have married a man
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    who died shortly afterwards, she may have had a daughter named Cleis, and she possibly
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    had three brothers. She was exiled to Sicily twice for her political views and was famous
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    enough to have statues erected in her honour and coins minted with her face and name on them
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    Although her poetry, as well as later works about her, suggest she was a lesbian, these
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    claims have been challenged. The “speaker” in Sappho’s poems may or may not be the
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    poetess herself and later writers drew their conclusions about her sexual preference from
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    these works. Although she is generally regarded as a lesbian poet in the modern day, this
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    may not have been the case.
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    Her sexual preference is not as important as the work she left behind which is her
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    legacy. Sappho’s poems are both intimate and honest, and even in fragments, displays her
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    understanding of enduring human emotion that still resonates with readers in the modern
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    day. Sappho invented her own poetry meter called the Sapphic Meter or Sapphic Stanza
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    which consists of three lines of eleven beats and a concluding line of five. She was revered
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    in her time and long afterwards as evidenced by the geographer and historian Strabo (who
  • 00:03:50
    lived 63 BCE-23 CE) who commented in his Geography: And along with these flourished also Sappho,
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    a marvellous woman; for in all the time of which we have record I do not know of the
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    appearance of any woman who could rival Sappho, even in a slight degree, in the matter of
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    poetry.
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    Sappho is believed to have died in around 570 BCE, although the cause of her death is unknown.
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    The Athenian playwright Menander wrote of her death as a suicide by jumping off the
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    Leucadian cliffs over unrequited love with a ferryman named Phaon: they say that Sappho
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    was the first, hunting down the proud Phaon, to throw herself, in her goading desire, from
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    the rock that shines from afar. This has been discredited as a myth which
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    draws parallels to Aphrodite who threw herself off the same cliffs known as the ‘lovers
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    leap’ while she was in mourning over the death of Adonis.
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    Although her poetry was much admired, it was written in a difficult dialect which Roman
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    scribes who were responsible for preserving the majority of Greek poetry, tended
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    to ignore. Her reputation as a great poetess endured through various references in many works
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    but the pieces themselves were eventually lost. Still, there is hope that many still
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    exist and are just waiting to be found as supported by the finds in 2004 and
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    2014 of one of her poems and fragments of others, some of which were unknown to scholars.
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    Even though much has been lost, Sappho’s poems live on, even in fragments, over 2000
  • 00:05:29
    years after they were composed. Sappho’s legacy epitomises her own desires as shown
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    in one of her best-known fragments: Someone will remember us I say Even in another time.
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    The enduring interest in Sappho and her poetry proves that she was right. Do you know of
  • 00:05:49
    another poet whose works have been lost to time? Who are they and what do their works mean
  • 00:05:54
    to you? Let us know in the comments below! If you enjoyed this video don’t forget to
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    give it a like and subscribe to our channel so you don’t miss out on any new uploads!
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Tag
  • Sappho
  • Lyric poetry
  • Lesbos
  • Sapphic Meter
  • Greek antiquity
  • Mixolydian mode
  • Female poetry
  • Greek poetess
  • Ancient Greece
  • Literary legacy