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Sappho was a female poet philosopher who lived in the Greek Isle of Lesbos, around 630 B.C. She wrote sensual, erotic poetry about women and goddesses. Sappho's wisdom and celebration of the beauty of women is shown through her artistic work. Her yearning desire, wild passion and love are achingly portrayed.

'Sapphic Erotica' is known as the eroticism of lesbians, named afterSappho. The word 'lesbian' is derived from Sappho's home, the Greek Isle of Lesbos. Both words were used to describe female homosexuality by the 19th century.

Alcaeus, a contemporary of Sappho described her as "Violet-haired, pure, honey-smiling Sappho". The 3rd century philosopher Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho's relationships to her female friends were similar to those of Socrates:
"What else could one call the love of the Lesbian woman than the Socratic art of love? For they seem to me to have practised love after their own fashion, she the love of women, he of men. For they said they loved many, and were captivated by all things beautiful."

Much of Sappho's poetry survived until the end of antiquity. Scholars at the Alexandrian library collected her poems in an edition of nine books, but this edition got lost during the Middle Ages. The surviving proportion of the nine-volume corpus is small but still constitutes an important and fascinating work of poetry.

This Kindle book has been formatted by human hand, includes a linked table of contents and is illustrated with beautiful paintings of Sappho (who has inspired many artists). Enjoy!

"Your enticing laughter
that indeed has stirred up the heart in my breast.
For whenever I look at you even briefly
I can no longer say a single thing,

but my tongue is frozen in silence;
instantly a delicate flame runs beneath my skin;
with my eyes I see nothing;
my ears make a whirring noise.

A cold sweat covers me,
trembling seizes my body."

"I love the sensual.
For me this
and love for the sun
has a share in brilliance and beauty."

"Again love, the limb-loosener, rattles me
bittersweet,
irresistible,
a crawling beast."

"As a wind in the mountains
assaults an oak,
Love shook my breast."

"For by my side you put on
many wreaths of roses
and garlands of flowers
around your soft neck.

And with precious and royal perfume
you anointed yourself.

On soft beds you satisfied your passion.

And there was no dance,
no holy place
from which we were absent."

"Come and lift my shaken soul to the sacred
Shadow cast by Helicon's rustling forests;
Sweep on wings of flame from the middle ether,
Seize and uplift me;

Thrill my heart that throbs with unwonted fervor,
Chasten mouth and throat with immortal kisses,
Till I yield on maddening heights the very
Breath of my body."

"Come to me now once again and release me
from grueling anxiety.
All that my heart longs for,
fulfill. And be yourself my ally in love's battle."

"I would much prefer to see the lovely
way she walks and the radiant glance of her face
than the war-chariots of the Lydians or
their footsoldiers in arms." ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Poetry of Sappho: Lesbian Love, Sensual Art and Erotic Poems
Sappho is an inspirational woman - intelligent, artistic, strong and beautiful. It is important (to both men and women!) that her story and poetry are heard today. Many artists and writers have been influenced by Sappho and her work. She is recognised as an ancient 'female philosopher', though poet is probably more apt.

This book is beautifully illustrated with paintings of Sappho, by artists such as Gustave Courbet, Correggio, Goya, William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Alexandre Cabanel, Gustav Klimt, Seignac Guillaume and many others. The famous Pompeii fresco of Sappho is also included. The strength and beauty of these lovely pictures are a wonderful accompaniment to the remaining fragments of the poetry of Sappho. All of her known work is included in this collection.

Love Poems of Sappho would make a beautiful and educated gift, particularly for lesbians (or men and women who enjoy and appreciate female love and beauty). Dive into the sublimely sexy sensual sensation of Sappho! ... Read more

Product Description
This study of early Greek lyric provides portraits of Archilochus, Alcaeus and Sappho and their poetry. It looks at their social setting, and their purposes within it. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A scholarly treatment.
I had not realized until this year how much we are living in an age after Archilochus.The philologists of Germany at the time of Nietzsche's education had such exalted views of Archilochus that one of their experts, Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Mollendorff in a reply to Nietzsche's first book, THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY OUT OF THE SPIRIT OF MUSIC, complained, "As unbelievable as it might sound, Mr. N. has the audacity to compare Archilochan poetry with folk songs . . ." FUTURE PHILOLOGY! A REPLY TO THE BIRTH OF TRAGEDY BY FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE, English translation in "New Nietzsche Studies," Volume 4:1/2 Summer/Fall 2000, page 10.Further research by me indicated that the footnote on page 11 of that journal, which indicated that when his girlfriend's father "refused to grant her hand in marriage to Archilochus, he retaliated with such venomous satires that it is said that both the father and daughter hung themselves," might understate the number of people who hung themselves.This book helps translate the popularity of Archilochus into modern English for today's scholars, with a good bit of attention for the few other poets who retain enduring interest for real folksingers and their fans.Please love these people in spite of their faults, and try to appreciate the soundtracks if you ever go to movies, which continue to base plots on the themes covered in this book. ... Read more

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"This collection shows that women have seen themselves as aggressive and receptive lovers, as well as philosophically sexual and loving partners, since the beginning of recorded history."
SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE
Here is the first collection of female erotic writing through the ages, and the first to reveal the form's amazing scope--as multifaceted as the sexuality of women themselves. EROTICA reveals the history of women's erotic writing and reexamines the literary expression of female sexuality. Included in this unique anthology are: Kathy Acker, Jane Austen, Anne Boleyn, Kate Copin, H.D., Radclyffe Hall, Edna O'Brien, Vita Sackville-West, Stevie Smith, Marina Tsvetayeva, Virginia Woolf, and many others.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Multi-faceted erotica by women for... women?
As a heterosexual but experimental woman, I hoped to find in "Erotica" sexual writing for a variety of tastes.However, what I actually found was an overwhelming tendency toward lesbian eroticism. Regardless, the writing was interesting, erotic, and broad-based, thoughthe modern writers emphasized more homosexuality than heterosexuality. Overall, the book is a great introduction to feminine erotica, andempowering to those women who feel timid about their sexuality. ... Read more

Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishings Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the worlds literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Half Sappho, Half Carman, but Genuine Poetry.
The title above shows all.
Nobody knows Sappho's real life, but her spirit still exists now through her poems exactly. Mr Carman has proved this.William Bliss Carman is a true poet. His copious imaginative and astonishing construction which based on Sappho's many scattered fragments is a really splendid composition. It is constructed by rhythm, tone, and harmony, just like music. And some poems can be said his own words creation--an extreme example, the Poem Xll, surprisingly 'the first line only' attributes to Sappho's, and the rest fifteen lines are Carman's.
It is out of question for his Victorian style from the narrow sight. Thou, thy, hark, haply, hadst, etc. which he has used, are doubtless beautiful sound phonetically. The use of inversion makes it also.
This book has a notable introduction by Charles George Douglas Roberts. (author's cousin also a poet who inspired Carman, and was knighted in 1935).We can go back to a hundred years ago at the first published time this Poetry in 1904.

A candid advice; this edition is large 8vo, but its inside layout is very poor. No regard to the page-separation for the verses, particularly annoying verse-line's number.I recommend the Feminine Publishing edition. Here, the both of those problems are none.

About Poem XC:In the edition of L.C.Page and Company MDCCCCllll(1904), the verse begins that, O sad, sad face....., not A sad, sad face..... I think "O" is a correct word. ... Read more

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An unpredictable gathering of 110 women poets of all sexualities, writing for friends or for lovers, all in some way speaking of love between women. The anthology stretches from America to Ireland, from Scotland to Italy, from Canada to New Zealand, from the 1660s to the 1990s. ... Read more

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Most material of all, this book begins to fill the terrible need of an entire population of women, until now not only persecuted and ignored, but deprived of any reasonable account of themselves and the sufferings imposed on them by a hostile society. ... Read more

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The weather in Moscow is good, there's no cholera, there's also no lesbian love...Brrr!Remembering those persons of whom you write me makes me nauseous as if I'd eaten a rotten sardine.Moscow doesn't have them--and that's marvellous."
—Anton Chekhov, writing to his publisher in 1895

Customer Reviews (1)

Hidden Name Revealed
Her name was forgotten for several decades. During the Soviet era it was unthinkable to mention the name of that close friend of Akhmatova and Tsvetaeva, their poetic rival and lover. There is special tenderness and atrait of decadent fragility in her verses, as well as in her life. I likedthe way Diana tells us about Parnok - one see guess that she had the samefeeling and substantially the same life experience. ... Read more

Product Description
What is Sappho, except a name? Although the Greek archaic lyrics attributed to Sappho of Lesbos survive only in fragments, she has been invoked for many centuries as the original woman poet, singing at the origins of a Western lyric tradition. Victorian Sappho traces the emergence of this idealized feminine figure through reconstructions of the Sapphic fragments in late-nineteenth-century England. Yopie Prins argues that the Victorian period is a critical turning point in the history of Sappho's reception; what we now call "Sappho" is in many ways an artifact of Victorian poetics.

Prins reads the Sapphic fragments in Greek alongside various English translations and imitations, considering a wide range of Victorian poets--male and female, famous and forgotten--who signed their poetry in the name of Sappho. By "declining" the name in each chapter, the book presents a theoretical argument about the Sapphic signature, as well as a historical account of its implications in Victorian England. Prins explores the relations between classical philology and Victorian poetics, the tropes of lesbian writing, the aesthetics of meter, and nineteenth-century personifications of the "Poetess." as current scholarship on Sappho and her afterlife. Offering a history and theory of lyric as a gendered literary form, the book is an exciting and original contribution to Victorian studies, classical studies, comparative literature, and women's studies.Amazon.com Review
A remarkable new addition to the fields of gender studies, classical studies, and modern poetics, Yopie Prins's Victorian Sappho sends off many casually brilliant sparks, with a broad appeal that easily transcends disciplines. "Invoked as a lyric muse in antiquity and mythologized for posterity by Ovid," Sappho has always been "a figment of the literary imagination." Prins traces the 19th-century recovery of new fragments of Sappho's poems and the allure they held for classical philologists, who attempted to piece together not only her lyrics but her absent, impossible self--the feminine voice and the female body. In scholarly writing, as well as the work of Swinburne and countless popular poets like Felicia Hemans, Sappho eventually came to embody the Victorian definition of the lyric. The era's fascination with the "incomplete" Sappho carried over to this century in the modernist idealization of the fragment. The book features engaging scholarship--the introduction alone establishes Prins as a strong and subtle thinker--and is gorgeously written. --Regina Marler ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Find out who the most Sapphic poet of the Victorian Period was!
Are you studying Sappho?How about Michael Field or Algernon Swinburne?This book covers in detail how Victorian poets were or were not like the Greek poet Sappho.During the Victorian time period, fragments were published of Sappho's work.This took the Victorians by storm.Dr. Henry T. Wharton published a book about Sappho entitled "Sappho:Memoir, Text, Selected Renderings, and a Literal Translation."Many writers and artists of the time were mesmerized by his book.Prin tells us that his book had a "broad circulation" and was reprinted 4 times between 1887-1907.

Prins is a Victorian scholar with a great deal of knowledge to bestow.In this particular book, she talks about the connection between Sappho's writing and legend and Dante Gabriel Rossetti; Christina Rossetti; Mary Robinson; John Addington Symonds; Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Robert Browning; and many others.Prins states in her book "Rather than organizing the chapters to imply a developing tradition or a linear progression, I emphasize the continual recirculation of Sappho within Victorian poetry" (p. 15).

... Read more

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Argues that Sappho's style is characteristically playful, and that this is probably the best explanation for some problematic features of her text. ... Read more

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Product Description
This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone! ... Read more

Product Description
This book presents a new text and a detailed commentary for many of the central pieces of Greek lyric poetry. The book joins textual and literary criticism of the poets together, providing a close and sustained analysis of important poems across the genre, and enables the reader to see in detail the development and diversity of a remarkable body of poetry. ... Read more