Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the Greek poet Sappho. Born in the late seventh century BC, Sappho spent much of her life on the island of Lesbos. In antiquity she was famed as one of the greatest lyric poets, but owing to a series of accidents the bulk of her work was lost to posterity. The fragments that do survive, however, give a tantalising glimpse of a unique voice of Greek literature. Her work has lived on in other languages, too, translated by such major poets as Ovid, Christina Rossetti and Baudelaire.
With
Edith Hall Professor of Classics at King's College, London
Margaret Reynolds Professor of English at Queen Mary, University of London
and
Dirk Obbink Professor of Papyrology and Greek Literature at the University of Oxford Fellow and tutor at Christ Church, Oxford
Producer: Simon Tillotson.
Transcript
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| 0:44.0 | Hello in Antiquity the Greek lyric poet Sappho was known as the 10th muse or |
| 0:50.0 | Sappho the wise where Homer was the poet Sappho was the poet Saffa was the poet, Sappho was the poetess. She was as prolific as she was celebrated. |
| 0:57.0 | Her work filled nine papyrus roles in the Alexandra Library. |
| 1:01.0 | Today, it's thought less than 1% of Saffe's poetry remains. Even so, she's been a significant |
| 1:06.7 | influence on literature since there ends, sorry, since there are nassance and an inspiration to many struck by the vividness of her writing |
| 1:15.4 | and the way she describes her desires often for other women. |
| 1:19.8 | Just as little of a verse remains, so we know a few hard facts about her. But rarely a new fragment of papyrus is discovered as it was recently about one of our guests giving us more of her poetry and some tantalising personal details. |
| 1:34.0 | I have to take a glass of water. Sorry about this. |
| 1:37.0 | We can't have that time on, unfortunately. |
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