Sappho: The Translations (reprised)

The Lesbian Historic Motif Podcast - Episode 27c

Due to scheduling issues, I’m reprising a pair of shows I aired two years ago about Sappho and her poetry. I hope you enjoy either revisiting this material or discovering it for the first time.

In this episode we talk about

How much poetry did Sappho write, and how much survives? Why was it lost, and why were the bits we have preserved?

What was the changing image of Sappho from the middle ages through the 19th century? How did people reconcile their admiration for Sappho’s poetry and their disapproval of homosexuality?

Who translated Sappho’s works and how did their opinions of her affect those translations?

The show will include recitations of the following poems:

Ode to Aphrodite & Fragment #31: Jane McIntosh Snyder from Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho (20th century)

“On a Lady Named Beloved” inspired by fragment #31: Anne de Rohan (1617), translated from the French

Fragment #31: John Hall (1652)

Fragment #31: Joseph Addison (1735)

Ode to Aphrodite & Fragment #31: Abrose Philips (1748)

“Eleanore” inspired by Fragment #31: Lord Tennyson (1832)

Fragment #31 & “Imitation of Sappho” inspired by Fragment #31: Mary Hewitt (1845)

More info

The Lesbian Historic Motif Project lives at: http://alpennia.com/lhmp

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The poetic texts are from the following publications:

Addison, Joseph. 1735. The Works of Anacreon, Translated into English Verse, with Notes Explanatory and Poetical. To which are added the Odes, Fragments, and Epigrams of Sappho. London.

Castle, Terry (ed). 2003. The Literature of Lesbianism: A Historical Anthology from Ariosto to Stonewall. Columbia University Press, New York. ISBN 0-231-12510-0

Hall, John. 1652. Sappho’s On the Sublime.

Snyder, Jane. 1997. Lesbian Desire in the Lyrics of Sappho. New York: Columbia University Press.

Wharton, Henry Thornton. 1887. Sappho: Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation. London.

This topic is discussed in one or more entries of the Lesbian Historic Motif Project here: http://alpennia.com/lhmp/lhmp-event-person/sappho

If you have questions or comments about the LHMP or these podcasts, send them to: [email protected]

A transcript of this podcast is available here.

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