Ovid, the first five-book edition of Amores were reportedly to be lost (along with potentially part of Fasti and maybe even his one tragedy). He tells the best stories through his poetry.
Telesilla from Argos. According to other authors who lived in a later period, her poetry was of the highest quality. It can be presumed all of it was destroyed by the religious fanaticism that ravaged Ancient Greece starting from the end of the fourth century and culminating in the destruction of all temples, temple statues, libraries (!), and medical centres (the dozens of Asklepieia all over the Mediterranean world) by the troops of Theodosios II in or around 426 CE. He is usually portrayed by encyclopaedia as being a "gentle" and "well-educated" man, as that is what Christianity wants us to believe. In reality, if we read more neutral sources of information from that time, he ordered not only the destruction of a complete civilisation that had been thriving since the Late Bronze Age and in certain parts even since much earlier than that, but also the execution of anyone who refused to be converted to Christianity. He is responsible for tens of thousands of murders and for setting back science a thousand years.
I didn't know Sappho invented the Mixolydian scale! It's unfortunate so little of her works remain intact, but cool that at least one full poem survives.
Her sexuality is important. A lot of her works were destroyed by the Catholic church during the 1100's because they disproved her love poems about women. It was part of her work, and her identity, as well as a reminder that lesbianism has always existed. I'd definitely work on not coming off as so dismissive on her sexuality!
Nothing in her poems suggests that she loves women in a sexual manner rather her poems are an ode to femininity I am Greek, have studied ancient Greek and have read her poems in their original forms, not the mistranslated Anglo versions
@deagleninja You're way off ! Who someone loves is DEFINITELY important. This is a pure example of how dismissive many are of Lesbian love. You've been trying to erase it for centuries. Shame on you !
Slight correction, I believe it was the Orthodox Church that did the book burning this time Also most of her work was lost not because of book burning but rather because they couldn’t be translated
Your ancient-history presentations are so good; they're balanced & objective. _Thank you._ Consider doing a video on another famous female from the ancient world, *Hypatia of Alexandria.*
There are not a lot of women spoken of in Ancient Greek history. She must have been very talented and had too have a strong personality to be spoken of so well and to be exiled for her political feelings.
the debate between lesbian or straight is very indicative of how homophobic our society is... there's more than just two options people. sappho would not have written so much about wlw if there wasn't something there that resonated with her. creativity comes from inspiration and experience. her written work and her potential marriage to a man do not work against each other in any form - they can coexist. there is a lot we don't know about her but it's honestly ridiculous to claim that she's heterosexual based off of what is available to us.
Assumptions are all we make. Some argue she could only write what and how she did because she was homosexual, but that's saying one can only write about something one experiences. However, history shows us that is not true. My point is that there's nothing specifically stating her gender preference and tbh it doesn't really matter. She wasn't a fenomenal author because of it. There's a growing movement to find historical precedent as if it was needed to validate ones choices. In reality it doesn't matter. We should not need a reference to define how we live.
Given that Sappho lived so long ago, we can't be 100% certain about any aspect of her life. Is she speaking as herself in her poems or in the voice of a character? We'll probably never know for sure. But given that her one surviving complete poem and a few fragments name herself as being in love with a woman, and knowing some of her other poems (such as the recently discovered "Brothers Poem") were apparently autobiographical, it's not unreasonable to conclude that Sappho herself was sexually and romantically attracted to women, even if she may have been married to a man.
I mean…as a lesbian, the fact that people say that her sexuality doesn’t really matter is kind of annoying. There have been so many examples of straight washing throughout history. It matters to me that I’m a lesbian and it matters to other queer people that they are queer. We can’t just say that our queerness is not important and make it go away because cishet people don’t want to talk about it. That’s just how I felt watching that. It’s just kind of frustrating to see someone say that it doesn’t matter that one of the only examples of a wlw figure in history is wlw, especially that it does matter to so many wlw and LGBT+ people in general. Please don’t take the is personally. This isn’t an attack. This is just a commentary as a queer person of what I noticed in this video about someone who is a big part of queer history.
@deagleninja Well, it is quite clear you are heterosexual and more than happy to deny the importance of identity. If none of it is important, why not say you are a girl?
I enjoyed much of this, but I’m curious why so much energy was spent trying to disprove her lesbianism. Poets do take on other personas from time to time, but where is any evidence that she was doing this.
you can click the cc button on the lower right of the video to get the subtitles/sous-titres, and auto translate to english to french. i hope that helps. :)
Thanks for watching! Yes, Enheduanna was the first known author and we have a video featuring her, Sappho and Zhuo Wenjun ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-7hRrBcWyb98.html
the "her sexuality doesn't matter" clearly meant some homophobic offended opinion inside the discorse. most of her poems are about loving woman and the sexual desire on it, how can people say she might after all be straight??????????? WHY PEOPLE STILL WANT TO ERASE LESBIAN EXISTENCE FOR FUCKING SAKE
@camis You SHOULD feel offended. It is a direct attack on Sappho, Lesbos and lesbians. It's absolutely shocking ! It is quite similar to the biblical story of Lilith. Because she insisted upon being equal to Adam, a "new" replacement, "Eve" was created from ADAM'S RIB ! She was "obedient." Does this all sound sexist ? It surely does. Notice that even the words his story are indeed not HEŔ story.
This may be the tinfoil hat talking but I don't think she killed herself...I think she was murdered!! It's an absolute shame we can't read any more of her poetry...what we know of so far is lovely!
Ancient poets I recommend include: Enheduanna, Ono no Komachi, Ō no Yasumaro, Matsuo Basho and Charles d'Orleans. I have modern English translations of their poems if you're interested. If so, please leave me a note here and I can provide some examples.
The whole "it's unknown if Sappho was a lesbian" thing is wildly insensitive to Sappho's own sexuality as well as the impact that has had on queer people throughout history and to this day. Fr. 1 has Aphrodite address the speaker directly as Sappho and in that same poem she speaks of the one she loves with feminine participles. Stop trying to please people uncomfortable with queer sexuality because claiming Sappho's sexuality is "unknown" is not the neutral statement you think you're making. Nothing about the ancient world and its sources is 100% known, but it's widely accepted and heavily implied that Sappho had romantic and sexual encounters with women.
Simonides, the Lyric and Dithyrambic poet from Ceos. Ω ξείν', αγγέλλειν Λακεδαιμονίοις ότι τήδε κείμεθα, τοις κείνων ρήμασι πειθόμενοι. O xein', angellein Lakedaimoniois hoti tede keimetha tois keinon rhemasi peithomenoi. Tell them in Lakedaemon, passerby, that here, according to their laws we lie.
Informative as always! :) I read somewhere but for the moment i am missing who claimed it that Sapfo indeed suicide but because she had sex with a man, Faion for the first time in her life and found it so sweet and fantastic that she couldn`t live without it so when he abandoned her she suicide (and i think that they just made love once and then he left). Also there is a fact somewhere that she is the first who made the soaps. Not exactly the same way we have today or the natural oiled once but the first to create the soaps as a soap with natural incredience and ofcourse difficult to find how she did it.
@@betsylalich4570 ...what are you mambling about on researchers ? Dont you have anything better to say or just talking nonsense is the new shith for you around the net ?
One of famous line of her poem is O Zeus why is it so that i m granted body of a woman and soul of a man Ancoent greeks did not distinguish between soul and mind
