Sappho: The Poet from Lesbos
The Ancients
History Hit
4.7 • 4.5K Ratings
🗓️ 27 February 2022
⏱️ 33 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Famous throughout antiquity, yet retold only in fragments today - who is Sappho? Her poetry inspired generations, from Catullus to Byron, so how come we know so little about her life? This week Tristan is joined by Professor Margaret Reynolds from Queen Mary University in London to piece together what we know about Sappho. What can we learn from her fragmented history and how do her depictions in art further our understanding of who she was?
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | It's the Ancients on History Hit. |
| 0:16.3 | I'm Tristan Hughes, your host and in today's podcast where we're talking about a well-known |
| 0:21.1 | figure from antiquity but also quite an elusive, quite a mysterious figure who we don't know |
| 0:27.7 | too much about. |
| 0:30.2 | And this is the figure of Sappho. |
| 0:32.7 | She was probably born, she was living at the end of the 7th century in the early 6th century |
| 0:37.6 | BC, sensed around the island of Lesbos in the northeast of Gien, near Asia Minor, near |
| 0:43.7 | Anatolia. |
| 0:44.7 | She's renowned nowadays for her poetry and also for becoming this feminist, this gay icon. |
| 0:50.8 | But what do we know about Sappho? |
| 0:53.2 | Why is her poetry so extraordinary? |
| 0:55.0 | How much of it has survived? |
| 0:56.4 | Are there any particularly striking examples? |
| 0:59.2 | And how has she come down to become this feminist, this gay icon today? |
| 1:03.4 | Well to ask all of these questions and more, I was delighted to get on the podcast, Professor |
| 1:08.1 | Peggy Reynolds from Queen Mary University of London. |
| 1:11.7 | Peggy, she knows all things Sappho, she's written a couple of books all about this figure |
| 1:16.4 | and she's also incredibly engaging, incredibly passionate when talking about Sappho. |
| 1:21.7 | It was wonderful to get her on the podcast and just to listen to Peggy talk about this |
| 1:26.4 | ancient figure. |
| 1:28.0 | So without further ado, to talk all things Sappho, here's Peggy. |
| 1:35.2 | Peggy, thank you so much for taking the time to come on the podcast today. |
... |
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