One would hope that more fragments can be found to piece together these extraordinary poems. One of her saddest poems is not being able to provide her daughter with a headband.įor those of us in search of a woman’s voice in poetry, this is a good volume to find. When her leaders fell out of favor, Sappho was exiled to Sicily. Sappho lived on the island of Lesbos during a politically charged time. In order to flush out a full book, the author fills in details of life as it would have been perhaps for Sappho at that time. This book tries to piece together that life that Sappho lived and the poems she wrote.

Unlike Homer, she does not sing of war, but of family, weddings and her child. While more recent than Homer by one hundred years, Sappho’s poems are only fragments on strips of damaged papyrus which are still being discovered.

Searching for Sappho is the exciting tale of the rediscovery of Sappho's poetry and of the woman and world they reveal.Imagine the task of assembling poems of someone who lived over two thousand years ago in ancient Greece. He is the author of many books, including Searching for Sappho (Norton) and Oh My Gods: A Modern Retelling of Greek and Roman Myths (Simon & Schuster). Norton, 336 pages, illustrated, 26.95) Sappho is likely the most highly praised poet we. Nonetheless, although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of the ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience. Philip Freeman is the editor and translator of How to Grow Old, How to Win an Election, and How to Run a Country (all Princeton). Searching for Sappho: The Lost Songs and World of the First Woman Poet by Philip Freeman (W.W. Sappho was the daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother, a lover of women, and one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. The poems of Sappho reveal a remarkable woman who lived on the Greek island of Lesbos during the vibrant age of the birth of western science, art, and philosophy. As recently as 2014, yet another discovery of a missing poem created a media stir around the world. But within the last century, dozens of new pieces of her poetry have been found written on crumbling papyrus or carved on broken pottery buried in the sands of Egypt.

Yet those meager remains showed such power and genius that they captured the imagination of readers through the ages. An exploration of the fascinating poetry, life, and world of Sappho, including a complete translation of all her poems.įor more than twenty-five centuries, all that the world knew of the poems of Sappho-the first woman writer in literary history-were a few brief quotations preserved by ancient male authors.

Searching for Sappho by Philip Freeman