smokingboot

http://books.guardian.co.uk/news/articles/0,6109,1513491,00.html

Thanks to

larians for this link. Too few know of Sappho; she is not taught in schools for two reasons, the first that there is very little of her poetry intact, the second that she is an icon of lesbian love.

But this poetess was so magnificent as to be considered a muse among the Greeks. Many who read her poetry now wonder what all the fuss is about. Everybody has heard the phrase, 'Rosy-fingered dawn'. Who cares? It has been overused by bad 'borrowing' poets for centuries. Well, meet the person who looked at the morning sky and created that pattern, the first, the very first to to see it, to frame it in words, to pass it on. This latest poem, they say, is ostensibly about her hope for love from a young man. If it is found to be a true fragment, the cynical side of me says that Sappho will instantly become more acceptable.

I remember reading Robert Graves' 'White Goddess,' in which the author claims that women should not attempt poetry, they should keep their place as the muse to male poets, that in fact, poetry is the province of those enthralled by the Goddess, and anything else is not 'true' poetry. At the same time, he admits that Sappho was a great poet. 'That's the trouble,' he quotes. His implication is that her poetic genius comes from her unacceptable (i.e lesbian) dedication to the feminine principle.

No-one ever dares to suggest that Shakespeare's genius came from his homosexual tendencies; he's rescued from that ignominy by his sonnets to a dark lady. In the same tradition, doubtless we'll soon all know that actually Sappho was bi not gay, and liked men after all, so that's all right then. Once we can get past that same-sex thing, she'll be on the school curriculum, being dissected with the rest of the dead poets.

Genitals. Genius. There is no correlation.