Loss of Literature: Sappho

Much of what we know about the past comes from literature. From fictional tales, which reflect the culture that surrounded it to accounts of expenditure in the government, our literary sources play a huge part in understanding how ancient societies functioned. It could be said that it is the most vital aspect when attempting to understand the past. When examining the classical world, any literature that survives is crucial and is in fact how we know so much about ancient civilisations such as the Greeks. Unfortunately, more often than not, we have lost significant portions of our history through the destruction of such materials. In this post, I will be discussing pieces of literature that have been almost entirely lost to us and thus discuss the impact it has on our lives.

A great example of significant literature being lost to us is the Greek poet Sappho. She wrote and performed poetry that discussed desire and desperation, pain and passion and, most interestingly, her love for other women. This is quite unique among writers as she was both a highly celebrated poet but also what we would define as a lesbian and so having access to her poetry could help us to examine the position of women with regards to literature and sexuality in ancient Greece. The issue is that we have probably only 1% of her works left. This means that we have to gain an insight into her writing through the most minute pieces of literature that is found and through other free writers and their quoting of her. The main reason why we do not have her work is to do with it not being handed down and it being burnt. Poetry and the like was an oral tradition; it was recited primarily at temples as a ritualistic performance. In that way, it makes sense, there would have been some gaps in our knowledge of her works but there would have been transcriptions done and it would have been recorded so that is not the primary issue. In reality, what happened was that it was not transcribed either at the time or later. Scribes could be hired to record literature but the 'paper' used was fragile and so would nor often survive, it would eventually disintegrate. Following that, if it did survive long enough, it would reach the middle ages wherein it would be copied down by monks and then most likely survive to printing. The question is then why do we not have Sappho’s work and the answer to that is we do not have it partially due to neglect to copy it down and partially due to the possible destruction because the offence it caused some religions. Literature that dealt with homosexuality in such a brazen way was seen as quite blasphemous and unholy. In this way, Sappho was disliked and it is said that Pope Gregory III burnt quite a lot of her work. Also, the fact that she was a woman meant that her work would be disregarded almost on principal.

Furthermore, her work not copied due to themes of homoeroticisms. Thus, a great lyricist and poet's works have been rendered mostly inaccessible. Almost all of her work that we have is quite fragmentary which creates a major problem when attempting to translate her work. She is described as a brilliant lyricist and her work had a profound effect on the ways in which we view desire. Thus, when we attempt to translate her, we have work with the lack of context of other lines, the lack of knowledge of the content of the poem and translating her works in a way that does her justice.

As a poet and lyricist, she has massively influenced how we view desire and the iconography of desire has stemmed partially from her. The main access we have to her now is other authors quoting her and while that is extremely useful for knowing how other authors regarded her, it does mean that we do not, and may never, have access to Sappho as the ancient Greeks knew her. And that has mean we have lost the work of a significant female, an ancient Greek lesbian poet. This quite unique combination means her work would have enlightened us on female sexuality and ancient perceptions of women, in a patriarchal society like ancient Greece where mainly men's work survives. This, quite frankly, is tragic.

If works by Sappho had survived, we would understand the position of women and their views on lesbians to a greater degree; as it is, there are major gaps in our knowledge and we forced to fill these gaps in with, often baseless, conjuncture. Moreover, Sappho’s work not only gives us access to her as a poet but also the lost women of Greece; the women who are never acknowledged and remain hidden beneath the misogynistic work of the men of ancient Greece. In the archives of history, often the voice of women is silenced, erased, or is never given the chance to exist, Sappho remains another example.