GOAL: Close-Reading Activity on Sappho’s poetry and poetics. This short writing activity builds on critical reading and thinking skills to succeed in the learning process of ‘interpreting’ a piece of literature with theoretical approaches.

INSTRUCTIONS: Sappho lines of poetry are rich with imagery, follow a structured rhyme scheme, and develop the voice of the narrator. 1. Close-read for imagery, word choice, and identify the use of figurative language. 2. Then, address the representation of nature. In contrast to the hymn by Enheduanna, what do you learn about lyrical poetry through Sappho’s lines of poetry?

…heavenly summit of the mountain descending (LP. 2.1A)

There are meadows, too, where the horses graze knee deep in flowers, yes, and the breezes blow here honey sweet and softer…  (LP. 2)

GOAL: Close-Reading Activity on Sappho’s poetry and poetics. This short writing activity builds on critical reading and thinking skills to succeed in the learning process of ‘interpreting’ a piece of literature with theoretical approaches.

INSTRUCTIONS: “Hephaestion, Handbook on Metres / Anacreon wrote whole songs in the ionic a minore tetrameter brachycatalectic: / Once again Love has struck me like a smith with a great hammer and dipped me in the wintry torrent” (Classic Lyrical Poetry)

GOAL: Close-Reading Activity on Sappho’s poetry and poetics. This short writing activity builds on critical reading and thinking skills to succeed in the learning process of ‘interpreting’ a piece of literature with theoretical approaches.

INSTRUCTIONS:  1) Work with one of the fragments attributed to Sappho below, 2) Explain how the lines of poetry reflect aspects of lyrical poetry, and 3) Address what you learn about ancient forms of lyrical poetry.

EVER MAIDEN

I shall be ever maiden, / Ever the little child, / In my passionate quest for the lovely, / By earth’s glad wonder beguiled. / I shall be ever maiden, / Standing in soul apart, / For the Gods give the secret of beauty / Alone to the virgin heart.

COURAGE

Faint not in thy strong heart! / Nor downcast stand apart; / Beyond the reach of daring will there lies / No beauty’s prize. / Faint not in thy strong heart! / Through temple, field and mart, / Courage alone the guerdon from the fray / May bear away.  History of Lyrical Poetry

GOAL: Close read poetry, identify poetic devices on the representation of nature, and apply ecocritical interpretative approaches. This short writing activity builds on the learning process of ‘interpreting’ a poem with theoretical approaches.

INSTRUCTIONS: 1) Read Sappho’s poem “Eros,” 2) Then, identify the role of Eros in nature, 3) Explain what you learn, & 4) Lastly, build on your initial understanding by reading the passage below, an ecocritical approach to Sappho’s poem “Eros.” Explain how the passage broadens your understanding of Eros and nature in the poem:

“For the ancient Greeks, perhaps the nearest conceptual equivalent to a generalized understanding of ecology is Eros, the god of desire and the unifying impulse that binds organisms together… Contextualizing the metaphors of desire with ecology helps us to read Sappho again: what are the environmental consequences of the desire for “an army of horses” or “footmen” as opposed to desire for “whatever someone loves”?… Our desires are not without ecological consequences” (Tribble 2022).

EROS

From the gnarled branches of the apple trees/The heavy petals, lifted by the breeze,/Fluttered on puffs of odor fine and fell/In the clear water of the garden well;

And some a bolder zephyr blew in sport/Across the marble reaches of my court,/And some by sudden gusts were wafted wide/Toward sea and city, down the mountain side.

Lesbos seemed Paphos, isled in rosy glow,/Green olive hills, the violet vale below;/The air was azure fire and o’er the blue/Still sea the doves of Aphrodite flew.

My dreaming eyes saw Eros from afar/Coming from heaven in his mother’s car,/In purple tunic clad; and at my heart/The God was aiming his relentless dart.

He whom fair Aphrodite called her son,/She, the adored, she, the imperial One;/He passed as winds that shake the soul, as pains/Sweet to the heart, as fire that warms the veins;

He passed and left my limbs dissolved in dew,/Relaxed and faint, with passion quivered through;/Exhausted with spent thrills of dread delight,/A sudden darkness rushing on my sight.