Similarities Between Sappho And Catullus

Poetry is oftentimes associated with the subjects of love and romance. Poets throughout the ages have used this medium to express their deepest emotions in the most eloquent of ways. Whether the poet is a man or woman is irrelevant. Poets of both genders have succeeded in expressing a heartfelt love to another with a poetic language that speaks volumes in a relatively short amount of text. Two poets from two separate eras each wrote a poem with just such a theme. Anne Bradstreet in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and Edgar Allan Poe in “Annabel Lee” created magic by writing these poems that express a love for another that transcends time and place.

Sappho’s poem, entitled Fragment 16, is of the lyrical style instead of the epic style we are used to in Homer’s Iliad. The lyrical style of poetry got its name because it was usually accompanied by a lyre while it was recited. It also was used to express more emotion rather than telling a story. This form of poetry seems to be more artistic rather than the story telling of epic poetry of the time. In this poem we are able to use the comparison of different imagery to understand a common theme within the poem itself. The reason for the interesting title of the poem is because most of Sappho’s poetry is now only found in fragmented forms. Most of Sappho’s writing is from 600 B.C.E.

Lyric poetry flourished during Greece’s Archaic Age. This was a time of rebirth for Greece. Literacy shifted from epics to lyric poetry as a result encouragement for a variety of voices to be heard. Lyric poetry is different from epic poetry because it is more personal to the author and is mostly their personal thoughts. In Greece, Sappho was unquestionably the finest composer of lyric poetry. Sappho’s poems were intimate. Love was always the evident theme.

Moreover, the poems share the same theme, love, but they are thought of differently. In “Pamphillia to Amphilanthus” or Poem A, love is shown as a joke and not serious. Whereas in “I… and Your Eyes” or Poem B, love is shown as admirable and motivational. In Poem A, the theme of love is not positive. However, in Poem B, love is amazing and

Poetry is oftentimes associated with the subjects of love and romance. Poets throughout the ages have used this medium to express their deepest emotions in the most eloquent of ways. Whether the poet is a man or woman is irrelevant. Poets of both genders have succeeded in expressing a heartfelt love to another with a poetic language that speaks volumes in a relatively short amount of text. Two poets from two separate eras each wrote a poem with just such a theme. Anne Bradstreet in “To My Dear and Loving Husband” and Edgar Allan Poe in “Annabel Lee” created magic by writing these poems that express a love for another that transcends time and place.

Love is a special emotion that most individuals strives for. Part of a human’s nature is to love and long for another individual. This feeling has existed since the beginning and will continue to exist until the end. The term “love,” however, is very broad. To understand more easily what the term means, the Ancient Greeks came up with three terms to symbolize the three main types of love. The three classical types of love are very important to understand, as they will continue to exist until the world ends. The selected poems read reflect three classical types of love.

Sappho is an ancient Greek poet who is known for her capability in the theorization and processing of love, though in The New Sappho her curiosity and amusement tends to turn its perspective to the idea of age. While we are used to the common concept of love and appearance of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, in Sappho’s poems, it seems that The New Sappho is both a play on her age, as well as a metaphor for her new subject. The poem’s title seems to suggest a rebirth or a renewal of being, yet in contradiction her physical form is aging.

Psappo’s poetry was the model from which ancient cultures defined love. Her views on love have influenced many works of literature, including The Aeneid of Virgil. Love is an uncontrollable force that strikes an individual from the outside and can occur suddenly as well as unexpectedly. Love is often depicted as a positive emotion that causes people to feel blissful, but this can easily turn into furor; furor is the aspect of love associated with violence and insanity. Dido’s love for Aeneas exemplifies the internal turmoil that afflicts individuals when they are deprived of the love that they crave so ardently. Virgil accomplishes this through the incorporation of the symbol of fire and through the platonic metaphor of the war between

deal with concepts of homosexual love. Sappho, the only ancient Greek female author whose work survived, talks from the female point of observation, whereas Plato’s work concentrates on the idea of love among males. Though both of their perspectives are similar in ways such as their ideas of physical attraction and desire, Plato’s work creates a better understanding of the nature of love then Sappho’s ideas. This understanding will be shown with three arguments and counter- arguments in order to demonstrate the dominance of Plato over Sappho. It will than be concluded with an overview of the main idea and a recap of the three arguments made for Plato.

In the “Love Poems of Catullus”, Catullus illustrates his emotions through his poems. He shows his audience the love, hope, disillusionment, hate, and his despair throughout his poems.

In Plato’s Symposium, Agathon, Aristophanes and Diotima discuss the goodness and purpose of love. The men are gathered at a drinking party hosted by Agathon and begin their accounts on love. Aristophanes praises love and discusses the origin of desire while Agathon discusses the nature of love and that to which it is attracted. However, Socrates conception of love, as narrated by Diotima, questions the origins of love and what Love is himself. During her speech Diotima refines the various theories of love as discussed at the party and concludes that we grow in our conception of love to closer characterise the beauty and goodness of it.

Sappho, the poet, was born around 615BCE on the island of Lesbos in Greece. There are conflicting details on her life, with some saying she threw herself off a cliff after she got her heart broken and died at an early age and others saying she died of old age at around 550BCE (Poet: Sappho n.d.). She was known as a great poet in her time and is still reflected in that way today.

Love, in classical Greek literature, is commonly considered as a prominent theme. Love, in present days, always appears in the categories of books, movies or music, etc. Interpreted differently by different people, Love turns into a multi-faceted being.

The poem “How Do I Love Thee”, by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and “What Lips My Lips Have Kissed”, by Edna Vincent Millay are both well-known poems that both have themes of love. (LIT, Kirszner & Mandell, Pg. 490). In both poems the poet helps the reader experience a lot of emotion with the use of certain words. There are speakers in both poems. In Mrs. Browning’s poem, the speaker is undefined, leaving open that the speaker could be a he or she. Millay’s poem which is written in first person, the speaker is more defined leading the reader to believe it is a she who is talking about love in the past tense. Both poems are sonnets written with fourteen lines, and written in Italian style. When comparing these poems we will be looking at the use of rhyme scheme and metaphors and how they were used to express emotions in these two sonnet poems.

In the same way, Sappho finishes by indicating love is forever. Through this poem, she wins over how deep her love is by turning this scary crazy love, into something that is going to last for a very long time. Additionally, the Sapphic poetry displayed in this poem creates a powerful emotion which simply intensifies as you read the poem. The poem starts out beautifully slowly, and then erupts to deep love affection.