Sappho and Her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality

The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the Visual

“…1 . Winkler (1990); Hallett (1979) discuss Sappho's social context and the coexistence of public and private in the Sapphic corpus. re-examines testimonia supporting a sympotic performance by older women.…”

Female Homoeroticism

“…We know very little about the circumstances in which Sappho's poems were performed (Greene 1996), and they have often been subjected to anachronistic visions casting Sappho as a schoolmistress, a priestess, or even a jealous, aging lover (see Parker 1993 for a critical discussion of these interpretations). Several studies concern the voice delivering the poem, its genre, and whether it expresses homoerotic feelings (Hallett 1979;Greene 1996); a pragmatic approach to Sappho's work-an approach that takes into account the concrete performance of the songs as indicated by verbal clues (e.g., Calame 1999, Yatromanolakis 2007)-emphasizes the musical and collective character of the poems, which clearly celebrate eros between women.…”

Erotic Lyric

“…However, the example of Athenian tragedy reminds us that choro-poetic forms integrated into the power structures and ritual life of a community need not be restricted to the straightforward presentation of socially normative values. If there is a danger of romanticizing the capacity of Sappho's songs and Sappho's female community to provide a center of imagination free from patriarchy and heteronormative control of sexuality, there may also be a danger in underestimating the subversive capacity of song and sensuality (contrasting views in Hallett 1996, Skinner 1996, Winkler 1996, Stehle 1997, Lardinois 2011.…”