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Diachronic Sappho: some prolegomena
No full textIn my posting for Classical Inquiries 2015.10.08, I offered my own working translations of some songs attributed to Sappho, complementing my interpretations as posted for Classical Inquiries 2015.10.01. These songs, currently known as “the newest Sappho,” are part of a set of new discoveries of papyrus fragments. In my posting here for Classical Inquiries 2015.10.22, my current interpretations of the “newest Sappho” songs are integrated with my earlier interpretations of the “old Sappho” songs that I have been studying ever since the early 1970s. I am thinking here especially of my work on Songs 1, 16, 31, and 44 of Sappho. The reasons for my giving the title “Diachronic Sappho” in this posting for 2015.10.22 will be explained as I now proceed to present my essay.Version of Recor
Reading Sappho: contemporary approaches
No full textReading 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
Re-reading Sappho: reception and transmission
No full textRe-Reading Sappho reflects the recent fascination with Sappho's "afterlife." The essays examine the changing interpretations of scholars and writers who have read the fragmentary remains of Sappho's poetry. As the contributors explore the ways that each generation creates its own Sappho, the Sapphic tradition itself becomes an index to changing sensibilities and cultural norms about sexuality, gender roles, and notions of fema le authorship.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 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
Maria Sappho the Ostoyae
No full textMaria Sappho presents her instrument designed for mushroom, machine and human collaboration as part of the Royal Society of Edinburgh grant researching Diversifying Improvisatio
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The “New Sappho” Reconsidered in the Light of the Athenian Reception of Sappho
No full textThe New Sappho on Old Age: Textual and Philosophical Issues is a Center for Hellenic Studies publication, namely Hellenic Studies Series 38. Since Gregory Nagy is both author of this article and Director of the Center for Hellenic Studies, no special permissions is required for online submission.The text of the “New Sappho,” found in a Cologne papyrus dated to the third century BCE (P.Köln inv. 21351 + 21376), is different from a later text of Sappho, found in an Oxyrhynchus papyrus dated to the second or third century CE (P.Oxy. 1787). In the two papyri, the songs of Sappho are evidently arranged in a different order. Both papyri contain fragments of three songs, but only the second of the three songs in each papyrus is the same. The other two songs in each papyrus are different from each other. The sameness of the second song in each papyrus is evident from an overlap between the wording of lines 9–20 in the earlier papyrus (Π1 in the working edition of Obbink) and of lines 11–22 in the later papyrus (Π2). But even this same song, which is about Tithonos, is not really the same in the two papyri. The text of Sappho’s “song of Tithonos” in the later papyrus is longer: after line 22, which corresponds to line 20 of the earlier papyrus, the song seems to keep going for another four lines, all the way through line 26, before a third song starts at line 27. By contrast, the text of Sappho’s “song of Tithonos” in the earlier papyrus is shorter: after line 20, there are no further lines for this song, and a third song starts at line 21. This difference between the two texts of Sappho’s “song of Tithonos” leads to a question: which of the texts is definitive—the shorter one or the longer one? In what follows, I will formulate an answer based on what we know about the reception of Sappho in Athens in the fifth century BCE.The ClassicsVersion of Recor
Sappho
No full textThis project was the the theatrical culmination of an ARC grant for the writer/performer Jane Montgomery Griffiths. For me as the sound designer it was to explore methods of representing elements of ancient Greek poetry and drama without disrupting the poetic and subjective world experienced by the audiences with elements which would tie the production down to specific era and geography. It also involved lengthy discussions about the differences between the experience of poetry and the experience of sung text - again with my reservations associated with the destruction of the poetic, open and personal (which incorporates an ongoing dynamic between the residues of artifice and "natural" speech) with the potentially proscriptive artificiality of musical settings potentially not doing justice to the beauty and mystery of fragments of the ancient verse.
Importantly, the work was revelatory, given that the sonic approach to narrative within narrative (which I had successfully explored in "Madagascar" earlier in the year) completely failed in my initial experiments here. It was quickly clear how certain characteristics of direct address fundamentally shifts the dynamic with a narrative line - and when not handled correctly, potentially catching the sound design in its glare as artifice. This was a problem that I continued to wrestle with later in the year (see "Syncopation...
Details: Commissioned work
Significance: Malthouse is one of the two premiere Victorian theatre companies. I was invited to compose for this project by the new artistic director of the company (ex Bell Shakespear AD) Marion Potts.
The project was the culmination of an Australian Research Council grant - the Monash/Malthouse Linkage Project "Staging Sappho: investigating new methodologies in performance reception". It was criticaly very well received
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Death at sunset for Sappho
No full textIn a painting that goes by the title Safo, by Miguel Carbonel Selva, dated 1880, we see the figure of Sappho at the moment when she is about to leap to her death, plunging into the sea from the heights of Leukas. Her death is timed to happen at sunset, and the timing is the same in other renditions as well. A most striking additional example is a painting by Gustave Moreau, dated around 1893. But I ask this question: why sunset?The ClassicsVersion of Recor
Marble Sculpture of Sappho of Lesbos
No full textColor photograph marble sculpture of a nude woman sitting, leaning forward with her upper torso and gazing up, dimensions 23.75 x 16.25 x 27 in. title "Sappho of Lesbos" By Utah Artist Alice Morrey Baile
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Can Sappho be freed from receivership? Part One
No full textIn this essay, I make a distinction between, on the one hand, what I describe as a receivership of Sappho in the world of Classics today and, on the other hand, the variegated reception of Sappho in the world of ancient Greek song culture. In making such a distinction, I repeat a term I once used—only once ever before in Classical Inquiries (Nagy 2015.12.31, linked here)—and I did so with reference both to Song 1 of Sappho and to Ode 4.1 of Horace. That term was “a poetics of repetition,” which I redeploy here as a way of conceptualizing the ancient reception of Sappho, to be contrasted with today’s receivership of her songs. I will say more about my use of the term “receivership” as my argumentation proceeds, but for now I concentrate on the contrasted term “reception,” which I use in the context of describing situations in the ancient world where the songs of Sappho could be reperformed. One such situation is actually exemplified in Song 1 of Sappho, as I have argued more than once in Classical Inquiries (I said it best, I think, in the essay listed in the Bibliography as Nagy 2015.11.05, linked here). The repetition itself is signaled in two ways by the song. First, there is the adverb dēute (δηὖτε), meaning ‘once again this time’, which is used three times in this song with reference to the onset, ‘once again this time’, of passionate love. And, second, there is the adjective poikiló-thronos, which is the first word of the song and which, as I interpret this adjective, describes the goddess Aphrodite herself as ‘[you] who wear [your] pattern-woven dress’ or, more literally, ‘wearing [a dress decorated with] woven patterns’ where the primary forms of patterns tend to be floral. For those who experience love, the love itself as personified by the goddess of love is limitlessly varied, each time love happens, just as the wording of Sappho pictures a limitless variety of patterns that are woven into the exterior of Aphrodite’s dress. This exteriorization of such patterns—in most cases representing flowers—is matched by the interiorization of love felt inside the heart of the one in love. A comparable scheme of exteriorization is visible in the vase painting I have chosen as the cover image for this essay. We see pictured here the goddess Aphrodite, accompanied by the boy Himeros, who is sexual desire personified, and she is shown wrapped in a himation decorated with floral patterns.The ClassicsVersion of Recor
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