Title: Sappho's immortal daughters
First published: 1995
Description: Margaret Williamson conducts us through ancient representations of Sappho, from vase paintings to appearances in Ovid, and traces the route by which her work has reached us, shaped along the way by excavators, editors, and interpreters. She goes back to the poet's world and time to explore perennial questions about Sappho: How could a woman have access to the public medium of song? What was the place of female sexuality in the public and religious symbolism of Greek culture? What is the sexual meaning of her poems? Williamson then looks closely at the poems themselves, Sappho's "immortal daughters." Her book offers the clearest picture yet of a woman whose place in the history of Western culture has been at once assured and mysterious.

Margaret Williamson conducts us through ancient representations of Sappho, from vase paintings to appearances in Ovid, and traces the route by which her work has reached us, shaped along the way by excavators, editors, and interpreters. She goes back to the poet's world and time to explore perennial questions about Sappho: How could a woman have access to the public medium of song? What was the place of female sexuality in the public and religious symbolism of Greek culture?

What is the sexual meaning of her poems? Williamson then looks closely at the poems themselves, Sappho's "immortal daughters." Her book offers the clearest picture yet of a woman whose place in the history of Western culture has been at once assured and mysterious.
Subjects: Criticism and interpretation, Criticism, Textual, Greek Love poetry, Greek Songs, History, History and criticism, In art, In literature, Love poetry, Greek, Sex in literature, Sexual behavior, Songs, Greek, Textual Criticism, Women, Women and literature, Women authors, Sappho, Love poetry, history and criticism, Songs, history and criticism, Women, greece, Greek poetry, history and criticism, Art, Overlevering, Receptie, Critique et interprétation, Critique textuelle, Poésie d'amour grecque, Histoire et critique, Chansons grecques, Femmes, Sexualité, Histoire, Femmes et littérature, Sexualité dans la littérature, Sappho dans l'art, Sappho dans la littérature, Écrits de femmes grecs, Greek poetry, Contemporary Greece
Places: Greece
People: Sappho
LC classification: PA4409 .W55 1995