Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Lyric Age
• after Homer’s day, the Greek world started to
change dramatically
• with the fall of the Phoenicians to the Assyrian
onslaught in the eighth century BCE, sea
routes were opened all around the eastern
Mediterranean basin
• Greeks became traders and money began
pouring into Greece
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Lyric Age
• but keeping track of one’s wealth requires
some knowledge of accounting
• and accounting requires writing!
• so this new class of wealthy pre-classical
Greeks had to learn how to write
• starting around 700 BCE, literacy in Greece
began to climb
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Lyric Age
• these noveaux riches (“the newly wealthy”)
were not always members of the established,
traditional aristocracy
• many were bright young men who came from
humble origins
• these merchants did not necessarily have a
deep investment in the “heroic past”
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Lyric Age
• in fact, most of them would just as soon not
have talked about their ancestors
• most of these people lived for now, not in
some mythological past
• as a result, these adventurous entrepeneurs
wanted a type of poetry closer to their own
experiences in life
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Lyric Age
• that meant verses which were fast and intense,
and immediately rewarding
• thus, during the Lyric Age an evening’s
entertainment turned from the recitation of one
long, stately poem by an oral bard like Homer
• to the performance of many short, emotional
poems by a lyric poet
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Lyric Age
• and the topic of this lyric poetry was almost
invariably love
• or if not love, the need for immediate political
change
• cf. the evolution in music of the modern age
from operas (a century or more ago) to rock
music today
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Nature of Lyric Poetry
• lyric poetry is very different from Homeric
epic, even just on the surface
• lyric poems were composed in many different
poetic meters (rhythms)
• Homer used only one type of verse ever
• after all, how many different verse forms can
an oral poet (who works in oral formulas) be
expected to master?
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Nature of Lyric Poetry
• literacy was an important element in this
equation
• writing allowed for greater poetic flexibility
• if nothing else, poets could now erase and recompose a line
• erasing a word or correcting a line was
something an oral poet like Homer could never
have done
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Nature of Lyric Poetry
• moreover, a lyric poet could send a poem off in
written form to be read by someone else in
performance
• Homer could not ever have done that either
• thus, lyric poetry could spread wherever there
was a literate performer available
• lyric poetry reached a much wider audience
than oral poetry like Homer’s
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Nature of Lyric Poetry
• still, lyric poetry was designed to be sung and
heard in public, not read in private
• most lyric poems were designed to be read
aloud at parties (or political rallies)
• to the accompaniment of the lyre (a stringed
musical instrument)
• hence, the name “lyric”
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Statuette of a Poet
Playing the Lyre
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Nature of Lyric Poetry
• the lyre is the ancient equivalent of the guitar
today
• it was associated with intense emotion, and
often extreme behavior
• several stories survive from antiquity of lyric
poets who performed drunk
• and lived in non-traditional lifestyles
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
A Greek Vase
Depicting a Lyric Poet
in the Rapture of
Performance
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Nature of Lyric Poetry
• Greek lyric poetry was much centered on the
music behind the verse
• too bad, then, that all the music of lyric poetry
has been lost
• nevertheless, the verse is gloriously beautiful
all on its own
• but it only hints at the true power of this genre
in its day
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
• the best exponent of lyric poetry was a woman
named Sappho
• her poetry represents one of the very few
woman’s voices to emerge from all of Greek
and Roman antiquity
• the power and beauty of her poetic voice was
great enough to overcome the ancient world’s
deep-seated misogyny
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
A Greek Vase depicting
the Lyric Poets Sappho
and Alcaeus
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
• she lived on the Greek island of Lesbos, ca.
600 BCE
• little is known about her, except that she ran a
sort of finishing schools for girls
• she wrote love poems to the girls there
• hence, our word “lesbian”
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
• in large part because of her sexuality, later ages
denounced her poetry as “immoral”
• even though her surviving poems never
include sexually graphic or lurid passages
• unlike many other ancient authors who include
explicit passages but whose work has survived
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
• nevertheless, her work was censured and not
copied or preserved the way other authors’
works were
• the result was that most of her work was lost
• what little we have today comes for the most
part from quotes of her poetry found in the
work of other authors
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
• some poems, however, have been preserved on
ancient papyri
• these are often only fragments
• it is possible that today we do not have even
one complete poem by Sappho!
• all in all, the loss of Sappho’s poetry is one of
the greatest literary catastrophes of all time
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
• moreover, to focus on Sappho’s sexual
orientation is to miss the point of her poetry
• her songs almost invariably center around the
intensity of feeling inspired by the objects of
Sappho’s affection
• that is, Sappho writes honestly and elegantly
about herself, e.g. what loves does to her
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
He seems to me, that man, almost a god—
the man, who is face to face with you,
sitting close enough to you to hear
your sweet whispering
And your laughter, glistening, which
the heart in my breast beats for.
For when on you I glance, I do not,
not one sound, emit.
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
But my tongue snaps, lightly
runs beneath my flesh a flame,
and from my eyes no light, and rumbling
comes into my ears,
And my skin grows damp, and trembling
all over racks me, and greener than the grass
am I, and one step short of dying
I seem to myself.
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
•
•
•
•
note that Poem 31 does not focus on the girl
the girl is not even named
nor is she mentioned much in the poem
indeed, the poem focuses more on the man
who is sitting beside the girl
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
• but the poem really dwells on Sappho and her
reaction to her feelings for this girl
• Poem 31 was, in fact, preserved among the
writings of an ancient doctor who quoted it as
a way of diagnosing love sickness
• in modern terms, then, Poem 31 is a “clinical
pathology” of love
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
• the poem was, in fact, preserved among the
writings of an ancient doctor who quoted it
when he was trying to diagnose love sickness
in a patient of his
• in modern terms, Poem 31 is a “clinical
pathology” of love
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
• seen as a medical condition then, Sappho
claims that love makes her:
–
–
–
–
dumb (“my tongue snaps”)
feverish (“lightly runs beneath my flesh a flame”)
blind (“and from my eyes no light”)
deaf (“and rumbling comes into my ears”)
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
• love makes Sappho:
–
–
–
–
sweaty (“And my skin grows damp”)
twitchy (“and trembling all over racks me”)
pale (“and greener than the grass am I”)
and catatonic (“and one step short of dying I seem
to myself”)
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
• thus, Poem 31 is not a poem about a girl
• or even a girl flirting with someone else to
make Sappho jealous
• it is a poem about love and separation, and
what they do to a person physiologically
• which hints that there is much more to the
situation than the words on the surface
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 31
• after all, if Sappho is looking at the man, and
the man is facing the girl (“who is face to face
with you”), then who is the girl looking at?
• Sappho?
• if so, does she have feelings for Sappho?
• but she’s not the point -- Love is!
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 1
On a dappled throne, deathless goddess, Aphrodite,
Zeus’ child, charmer, I beg of you:
break me not with aching, nor with grief,
Lady, tame my heart!
But come here, if ever before from over there
when you heard my voice from afar
you listened and left your father’s home
of gold and you came
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 1
Hitching up your chariot. Lovely they that lead you
the swift sparrows above the darkling earth
wings whirling countless from heaven
sent amidst us here,
And in a flash appear and you, blessed goddess,
the smiling face that never dies,
asked me what was wrong this time and why
this time I called her
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 1
And what most of all my heart wished to have
in my troubled way. “Who is it this time I’m
to turn back to your favor? Who hurts
you now, Sappho dear?
You know, if she runs, soon she will chase;
and if she spurns presents, some day she’ll give them;
and if she rejects love, soon she will love,
like it or not.” So,
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 1
Come to me even now, and from my hardships free
me
and from my cares, and all the things to bring about
my heart desires, bring about for me. And you,
fight here beside me.
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Sappho
Poem 1
• to the ancient Greeks, one of the strongest
forces in the universe was Eros (“love”)
• in Poem 1 (The Ode to Aphrodite), Sappho
invokes Aphrodite, the goddess of Eros
• note her comic, sophisticated self-deprecation:
“Who is it this time . . ., Sappho dear?”
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
• lyric poetry seems very different from epic
• but lyric poetry is not a complete break from
the epic poetry which preceded it
• Sappho acknowledges her Homeric ancestry in
various ways
• even sometimes at the same time she is
debunking epic verse
• cf. Poem 16 (The Ode to Anactoria)
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 16
One man has his cavalry, another has his legions,
yet another has his ships, on all the earth
most beautiful to him. But to me it is the
single thing one loves.
How easy it is to make this understood
to anyone, for, far outstripping mortal
loveliness, Helen left her man—
and a good man too!—
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 16
Left him and went off to Troy, sailing
away with no thought for her child or parents,
not one glance back, but he led her astray,
Love did, at first sight.
The eyes of brides are easy to turn, light things,
lightly swayed by passion—which makes
me think now of Anactoria,
who isn’t here now.
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 16
I would rather see her lovely step
and her twinkling bright face
than Lydians process in pomp and
soldiers’ pageantry.
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 16
One man has his cavalry, another has his legions,
yet another has his ships, on all the earth
most beautiful to him. But to me it is the
single thing one loves.
• while Sappho openly denounces Homeric
values, such as “soldiers’ pageantry”
• and insists instead that love controls our lives
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 16
• but Sappho also borrows much from Homer
• e.g., Sappho composes Poem 16 in ring
composition, but on a much smaller scale
than Homer
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 16
• also note the way she make comparisons:
How easy it is to make this understood
to anyone, for, far outstripping mortal
loveliness, Helen left her man—
• cf. Homeric similes
• Helen’s passion is a “simile” for the power of
Eros in Sappho’s word
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
• but one major difference between Homer and
Sappho stands out
• while he looks back in time across the sea, she
looks at the world around her
• while Homer talks about Aphrodite on some
distant mountain centuries ago, Sappho calls
Aphrodite to her, cf. Poem 2
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 2
Here to me from Crete to this temple here
this shrine, where you have this graceful grove
of apples, and the fragrant altars
fume with frankincense.
In here the cold water bubbles through branches
of apples, and with roses everything’s
shaded, and glistening in the wind the leaves
rain down gentle sleep.
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Lyric Poetry and Epic
Sappho, Poem 2
In here the meadow horses graze flourishes
in spring with flowers, and the winds
soothing breathe . . . <several words are lost>
To there, you . . . lift, Aphrodite,
in golden goblets lightly
what’s mixed with our delights, the nectar
like the wine, come pour!
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Significance of Lyric Poetry
• Homer takes the listener into a past and distant
world of the gods and heroes
• Sappho, instead, brings the gods to us and
glorifies what happens in our world
• she gives our daily struggles an “epic”
grandeur and a heroic sensibility
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Significance of Lyric Poetry
• that is, our lives here and now stand in the
foreground of Sappho’s poetry
• and Homer’s gods and heroes serve mainly to
give our lives dimension and depth
• in Sappho’s world view, we are what is
important, not some mythical figures
• Aphrodite’s purpose is to rescue us, not Paris
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Significance of Lyric Poetry
• but even more important than this change in
world view, lyric poets were clearly literate
• even though they still recited their poetry in
performance
• no longer were poems composed
spontaneously before an audience the way oral
poets like Homer had done
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
The Significance of Lyric Poetry
• this makes lyric poetry the beginning of true
“literature” (i.e. written down in “letters”)
• literate poets can revise their work more easily
and create a wider diversity of poetry
• most important of all, a literate poet’s work is
more readily preserved than oral epics
• assuming the poet is not censored!
Chapter 5: Lyric Poetry
Grammar Review 5: Parts of Speech