SEARCHING FOR SAPPHO: BOOK REVIEW
I've finally finished a book that's not part of the 46 Books Challenge!! And it's a nonfiction book! Whoo! (Since this is my first time seriously reviewing a nonfiction book, this may not be the greatest review in the universe. I apologize for that.)
This book was actually a gift from my brother and sister-in-law for my birthday earlier this month and I've finally finished it. (I'd originally gotten it at the library and hadn't finished it before the due date, but I liked it enough to want a copy properly.)
If you don't know who Sappho is, she's one of the first female poets, at least in the Greek world (she lived around a century after Homer), and was definitely one of the earliest poets we have who was a female poet writing love/ erotic poetry about other women. That was the extent of what I remembered from my Classics classes about Sappho.
Cue this book - Searching for Sappho by Philip Freeman. This contextualizes Sappho's life, as much as we can contextualize a woman's life at the time (there weren't any female writers at the time, so most of the records we have of women's life at the time come from men, with varying degrees of bias, and Sappho.) Each chapter goes over a specific thing that's been relevant in Sappho's poetry (including motherhood, religious life, family, marriage, sexuality, etc), and how Sappho's poetry (and what we have remaining of it) ties into that topic.
I really liked Freeman's writing in this - and it was very informative for how quickly I got through it. If you have low to moderate knowledge of gender roles and concepts of sexuality from 2600 years ago, you'll definitely get a lot out of this.
However, this is not for anyone who's not okay with non-euphemistic discussions (still professional, but he doesn't dodge around it) of sex, erotic poetry, innuendos, and a non-condemning discussion of lesbianism. Sappho was a woman who wrote about things that many women encounter, especially in the ancient world - motherhood, participating in religious life, praying for her brother to stop being a dick - but she also wrote poetry with romantic and erotic tones about other women. Since so much of her surviving work is about that, you can't write a book about Sappho without addressing it. As Freeman pointed out, people have tried to fudge the interpretation of this kind of poetry before. The Victorians tried to make one of the most explicit ones into something very straight. ("In this poem about a very pretty bride, the perspective of the narrator definitely shifts from the female onlooker to that of the groom in this situation, even though there are no linguistic implications to verify that! THIS POEM DEFINITELY DOESN'T HAVE LESBIANS!" - the Victorians, probably.) Sexy poetry happens. It exists. If you don't like that, Sappho is NOT the writer for you.
That being said, there is a really solid discussion of the norms of the day, especially to contextualize the norms of the day and Sappho's role in it. I'd love to hear more about the context of women in religious life, and how female sexuality was addressed, but we don't have a whole lot of information about that, so it's not entirely Freeman's fault. He does a good job of addressing what we do have and how it relates to Sappho, though.
I don't know if it was because I sought this book our or because I just didn't have a deadline and had to have discussion points on top of vague social anxiety, but I liked reading this better than reading most of the articles I had to read for Classics courses in college. I would recommend it if you're interested in some of the ancient poets that aren't the big names for non-Classics people. Or if you're interested in female poets and/ or sexuality, or all of the above.
GOOD JOB, PHILIP FREEMAN!
This book was actually a gift from my brother and sister-in-law for my birthday earlier this month and I've finally finished it. (I'd originally gotten it at the library and hadn't finished it before the due date, but I liked it enough to want a copy properly.)
If you don't know who Sappho is, she's one of the first female poets, at least in the Greek world (she lived around a century after Homer), and was definitely one of the earliest poets we have who was a female poet writing love/ erotic poetry about other women. That was the extent of what I remembered from my Classics classes about Sappho.
Cue this book - Searching for Sappho by Philip Freeman. This contextualizes Sappho's life, as much as we can contextualize a woman's life at the time (there weren't any female writers at the time, so most of the records we have of women's life at the time come from men, with varying degrees of bias, and Sappho.) Each chapter goes over a specific thing that's been relevant in Sappho's poetry (including motherhood, religious life, family, marriage, sexuality, etc), and how Sappho's poetry (and what we have remaining of it) ties into that topic.
I really liked Freeman's writing in this - and it was very informative for how quickly I got through it. If you have low to moderate knowledge of gender roles and concepts of sexuality from 2600 years ago, you'll definitely get a lot out of this.
However, this is not for anyone who's not okay with non-euphemistic discussions (still professional, but he doesn't dodge around it) of sex, erotic poetry, innuendos, and a non-condemning discussion of lesbianism. Sappho was a woman who wrote about things that many women encounter, especially in the ancient world - motherhood, participating in religious life, praying for her brother to stop being a dick - but she also wrote poetry with romantic and erotic tones about other women. Since so much of her surviving work is about that, you can't write a book about Sappho without addressing it. As Freeman pointed out, people have tried to fudge the interpretation of this kind of poetry before. The Victorians tried to make one of the most explicit ones into something very straight. ("In this poem about a very pretty bride, the perspective of the narrator definitely shifts from the female onlooker to that of the groom in this situation, even though there are no linguistic implications to verify that! THIS POEM DEFINITELY DOESN'T HAVE LESBIANS!" - the Victorians, probably.) Sexy poetry happens. It exists. If you don't like that, Sappho is NOT the writer for you.
That being said, there is a really solid discussion of the norms of the day, especially to contextualize the norms of the day and Sappho's role in it. I'd love to hear more about the context of women in religious life, and how female sexuality was addressed, but we don't have a whole lot of information about that, so it's not entirely Freeman's fault. He does a good job of addressing what we do have and how it relates to Sappho, though.
I don't know if it was because I sought this book our or because I just didn't have a deadline and had to have discussion points on top of vague social anxiety, but I liked reading this better than reading most of the articles I had to read for Classics courses in college. I would recommend it if you're interested in some of the ancient poets that aren't the big names for non-Classics people. Or if you're interested in female poets and/ or sexuality, or all of the above.
GOOD JOB, PHILIP FREEMAN!
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