![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
poetree_admin posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
poetree"Of the nine books of lyrics that Sappho is said to have composed, one poem has survived complete. All the rest are fragments."
"Hellenistic poets called her 'the tenth Muse' or 'the mortal Muse'"
- 'Introduction', If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho - Anne Carson.
---
Our central text for this week comes to us from more than two thousand five hundred years in the past. Sappho's original poem would have been lyric in the oldest sense of the word: intended for singing or chanting with musical lyre accompaniment. That the words, if not the music, were transcribed and treasured is testament both to their power and to how highly Sappho was regarded by her contemporaries and later generations. Centuries after her death, the Library of Alexandria staff collected every surviving poem of hers into nine papyrus scroll books, and listed Sappho as one of the nine ancient Greek 'lyric poets' most worthy of close study. In other words, Sappho was regularly listed in the ancient 'topten nine' in her chosen art - no easy feat for any poet working in that tradition, let alone a female one.
The Library of Alexandria burned. Julius Caesar set fire to it; Emperor Aurelian burnt the entire city quarter to the ground; its daughter library in the Serapeum was destroyed, possibly by Pope Theophilus; no one knows for sure if there was a library left to burn by the time commander Amr ibn Al-Asi came conquering. The wonder is not that there is only one whole poem of Sappho's left; the wonder is that there are any fragments left at all, and that we can still find meaning in them after such millennia.
This week, we will explore Fragment 16 primarily in translation, re-examining it in light of its cultural and historical contexts, reimagining it as set to music, remixing it into new poetry, and revisiting more generally how we make sense of gaps in our record & our understanding of the past.
Monday:rainjoy: Greek Conceptions of Beauty, and Other Notes on Translation
Tuesday:luzula: Sappho's 16th fragment set to music
Wednesday:poetree_admin: ['free space of imaginal adventure' in honor of missing matter]
Thursday:alexconall: advancing Sappho into the English-speaking modern day [remix poem]
Friday:kaberett: Ringing steel, or, resonance
Saturday:cirque: Small Miracles
---
Last edited 9/21/13 by jjhunter
"Hellenistic poets called her 'the tenth Muse' or 'the mortal Muse'"
- 'Introduction', If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho - Anne Carson.
---
Our central text for this week comes to us from more than two thousand five hundred years in the past. Sappho's original poem would have been lyric in the oldest sense of the word: intended for singing or chanting with musical lyre accompaniment. That the words, if not the music, were transcribed and treasured is testament both to their power and to how highly Sappho was regarded by her contemporaries and later generations. Centuries after her death, the Library of Alexandria staff collected every surviving poem of hers into nine papyrus scroll books, and listed Sappho as one of the nine ancient Greek 'lyric poets' most worthy of close study. In other words, Sappho was regularly listed in the ancient 'top
The Library of Alexandria burned. Julius Caesar set fire to it; Emperor Aurelian burnt the entire city quarter to the ground; its daughter library in the Serapeum was destroyed, possibly by Pope Theophilus; no one knows for sure if there was a library left to burn by the time commander Amr ibn Al-Asi came conquering. The wonder is not that there is only one whole poem of Sappho's left; the wonder is that there are any fragments left at all, and that we can still find meaning in them after such millennia.
This week, we will explore Fragment 16 primarily in translation, re-examining it in light of its cultural and historical contexts, reimagining it as set to music, remixing it into new poetry, and revisiting more generally how we make sense of gaps in our record & our understanding of the past.
Monday:
rainjoy: Greek Conceptions of Beauty, and Other Notes on TranslationTuesday:
luzula: Sappho's 16th fragment set to musicWednesday:
poetree_admin: ['free space of imaginal adventure' in honor of missing matter]Thursday:
alexconall: advancing Sappho into the English-speaking modern day [remix poem]Friday:
kaberett: Ringing steel, or, resonanceSaturday:
cirque: Small Miracles---
Last edited 9/21/13 by jjhunter
no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 05:24 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-09-16 11:11 pm (UTC)Oh, possibly, but I don't know enough about Roman history to write it.
no subject
Date: 2013-09-17 12:40 am (UTC)