Sappho's Immortal Daughters

By Margaret Williamson

Book Overview

She lived on the island of Lesbos around 600 B.C.E. She composed lyric poetry, only fragments of which survive. And she was--and is--the most highly regarded woman poet of Greek and Roman antiquity.

Little more than this can be said with certainty about Sappho, and yet a great deal more is said. Her life, so little known, is the stuff of legends; her poetry, the source of endless speculation. This book is a search for Sappho through the poetry she wrote, the culture she inhabited, and the myths that have risen around her. It is an expert and thoroughly engaging introduction to one of the most enduring and enigmatic figures of antiquity.Margaret Williamson conducts us through ancient representations of Sappho, from vase paintings to appearances in Ovid, and traces the route by which her work has reached us, shaped along the way by excavators, editors, and interpreters. She goes back to the poet's world and time to explore perennial questions about Sappho: How could a woman have access to the public medium of song? What was the place of female sexuality in the public and religious symbolism of Greek culture? What is the sexual meaning of her poems? Williamson follows with a close look at the poems themselves, Sappho's "immortal daughters." Her book offers the clearest picture yet of a woman whose place in the history of Western culture has been at once assured and mysterious.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 067478913X
• ISBN13: 9780674789135
• Release Date: January 1998
• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Length: 224 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.7"

Customer Reviews

Most Comprehensive I've Read

Just fininshing up a history term paper here for my major, and I thought I'd drop off a good word for the best secondary source on Sappho's life and work that I've ever seen. Ms. Williamson leaves no rock unturned, no aspect of Sappho's work or life unaddressed, and manages to do it in an entertaining and comprehensive way without running into 500 pages! If you are interested in Sappho at all beyond the text of her extant poetry, this is the book to buy!