Sappho Research Paper

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Although Sappho played a very significant role in the development of Greek literature, many of her poems have been lost over the decades. The few poems recovered from her nine books are very fragmentary, however even though there is limited available works of Sappho. She was known in antiquity as a great poet. She was referred to as “the tenth muse by Plato. New discoveries of Sappho’s poetry have been found of recent, sometime in February of this year, they are assumed to have come from Egypt. In truth, very little is known about Sappho’s personal life because these details have been left out of her poetry. She was born on the Island of Lesbos in Greece sometime in the archaic age, about 610 B.C., to an aristocratic family. Although she was born and raised in Lesbos, she was exiled to Sicily, Italy at a point in her life, where she…show more content…
Apart from her poetry, Sappho ran a school for young unmarried women earning herself great distinction as dedicated teacher and poet ().Evidence from archeologic research suggests that she had brothers and was married to a man named Cercylas. In Greek Language, Cercylas is said to mean “prick”, suggesting that he never existed. It is hard to imagine Sappho happily married because of her affection toward women which was expressed openly in her poetry. An old legend gives a second account of Sappho’s death stating she committed suicide at a young age after rejection from Phaon, a mythological character. However she writes her feelings on her aging making it easy to assume she grew old and died. In addition, other historians posit she grew old and died around 550 B.C. however thin the line between myth and fact in the account of Sappho’s life, I believe she loved and was loved with so much passion that she wasn’t afraid to express in her writing. Cercylas and Phaon are merely put into her story to make it more acceptable in the eyes of the
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