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Article: The Sappho History.(Book Review)
- Article from:
- CLIO
- Article date:
- September 22, 2004
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CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Indiana University, Purdue University of Fort Wayne. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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The Sappho History. By Margaret Reynolds. Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire: Palgrave, Macmillan, 2003. xii + 311 pages.
For centuries Sappho has presented a puzzle to scholars and a challenge to aspiring lyric poets. Born circa 625 B.C.E. on the island of Lesbos, she is the most important female poet to have survived antiquity. Yet we know little about Sappho or her work. We know that nine books of her poetry were collected in the third century B.C.E. but that in the fourth century A.D. Saint Gregory ordered them to be burnt and, again, in the eleventh century Pope Gregory VII authorized a public burning. Thus Sappho's oeuvre is mostly lost, known only through ...