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English 240: Ancient Literature Questions on Sappho's Lyrics Alfred J. Drake. Hours: Cyber Cafe Tu/Th. 12-1 | ajdrake@ajdrake.com 1. What effect does the fragmentariness of Sappho's poetry have on your interpretation of the individual poems you read? 2. What are the qualities of Sappho's lyric voice as you discern them? In other words, what kind of speaker are we listening to—what attitudes towards others and towards experience does she convey? 3. How does the speaker deal with her own passions (erotic or otherwise) and the passion of others? Would you say she is concerned primarily with matters of the heart, or with other things? Explain. 4. What kind of relationship do you conjecture between the speaker and those whom she addresses? Use an example or two in your response. 5. Memory is often important in lyric poetry—what role does it play in Sappho? 6. How does Sappho refer to nature in her poems? What significance does she give nature, what connections does she makes between nature and human society? 7. What role do the gods play in Sappho's fragments? How does she address Aphrodite in particular? 8. What kinds of references to death and sleep do you find in Sappho? Explore a few of them to draw out their significance for the poem/s in which they occur. 9. Sappho's circle is female, but at what points does her speaker refer to men? What does the speaker seem to think of men and their relationships with women?
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