SAPPHO- Context

Question 1

Where was she from?

Answer 1

Lesbos

Question 2

When was she alive?

Answer 2

6th century BC

Question 3

What is a Monody?

Answer 3

A poem performed by one

Question 4

What is a Chorus?

Answer 4

Poem performed by multiple

Question 5

What are the four interpretations of Sappho?

Answer 5

-A prostitute
-A priestess
-A school mistress or leader of a Thiasos
-A tragic heroine

Question 6

What is the legend of Sappho’s death?

Answer 6

She had fallen in love with a ferryman named Phaon, but when he rejected her she threw herself off a cliff

Question 7

What was Sappho’s brother called?

Answer 7

Caraxos

Question 8

What goddess would she have been a priestess for?

Answer 8

Aphrodite

Question 9

How would her poems have been performed?

Answer 9

On a lyre, potentially at religious festivals or within a thiasos or at weddings. Also at male/female symposiums

Question 10

What is a Mesa?

Answer 10

A middle ground where people from all over the island of Lesbos would come and worship the gods

Question 11

When were her fragments first found?

Answer 11

1896

Question 12

What is the joke about Sappho’s husband?

Answer 12

That he was called ‘Prick’ from ‘Man Island’.

Question 13

What did Plato call Sappho?

Answer 13

The tenth muse

Question 14

Sappho and her representation of love and desire

Answer 14

She has been celebrated for her depictions of the physical effects of desire and she had a varied vocabulary for it:
-Eros: uses this word for ‘love’ as both the adjective and the verb.
-Thumos: uses this word for the ‘heart’ or ‘soul’, she uses it to demonstrate the power of desire or the depth of anguish or pain.
-Pothos: used to indicate powerful desire