Queermunity's very own copy editor Eloise Tilbury introduces Sappho as her LGBTQIA+ History Month Top Pick.
Sappho is a well-known name amongst the LGBTQ+ and feminist communities and thought of to this day as a heroine of self-expression and opposing the status quo. Writing during the late 7th century BC, she was known as the greatest female poet and lyricist. Homer (writer of the most influential works of epic in human memory: The Odyssey and The Iliad) was known in antiquity as ‘the poet,’ and Sappho was equal in his renown - known as ‘the poetess’. So too was she the only woman to be included in the canon of nine lyric geniuses by the scholars at the Library of Alexandria.
She was born on the Greek island of Lesbos and her bittersweet, eloquently heart-aching descriptions of being and falling in love with younger women has passed down the adjectives ‘sapphic’ and ‘lesbian’. Her nine books of lyric poetry (amounting to 10,000 lines) have been bequeathed to us in mere fragments; some amounting to just a single word long - poem 69 only leaves the word ‘sinful’…
This paucity of Sappho's own words is on account of the censoring and whitewashing by the Christian Church due to her unrestrained sexual appetite. Sappho was officially renounced by the church for her overt sexual preferences. It was said that she had three female ‘students’: Atthis, Telesippa, and Megara. Sappho was known for having scandalous relationships with these young girls and these three names can be found in the fragments of her words.
The writings of Sappho, famous for their candour and the accuracy with which they portray the human experience of love, have gained a greater gravitas through their brokenness. Poem 38 just reads ‘you burn me’, made all the more echoing and heart-breaking in its isolation.
Although her sexual preferences are now scrutinised by scholars (boo, hiss), it cannot be overstated how much of an impact Sappho has had on the LGBTQ+ community. She and her descriptions of love regardless of the gender of the recipient created a space for inspiration and acceptance for generations of gay women in history. Judith Butler is famed to have once said ‘As far as I knew, there was only me and a woman called Sappho.’
"Her descriptions of love regardless of the gender of the recipient created a space for inspiration and acceptance for generations of gay women in history."
For anyone wanting to read more of Sappho’s works, poet Anne Carson’s If Not, Winter (2002) is easily the best translation of Sappho’s poetry.
Poem 31 (fragment):
He seems to me equal to the gods that man
whoever he is who opposite you
sits and listens close
to your sweet speaking
and lovely laughing - oh it
puts the heart in my chest on wings
for when I look at you, even a moment, no speaking
is left in me
no: tongue breaks and thin
fire is racing under skin
and in eyes no sight and drumming
fills ears
and cold sweat holds me and shaking
grips me all, greener than grass
I am and dead - or almost
I seem to me.
Article By Eloise Tilbury
(She/Her)
Works Cited
Carson, A. (2002). If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho. Virago (p63).