The ugliness or otherwise of male poets is something which never seems to
be mentioned. Why so, I wonder?
Sappho wrote at least one epithalameum - ok, I can't remember the spelling
- and there is that poignant fragment about her daughter, which compares
the child to a golden flower and swears she would not swap her for all the
gold of Croesus. Which makes simplistic divisions between gay and
heterosexual poems in Sappho's case somewhat peculiar, since the poetry
suggests a fluidity of sexual identity.
As for Sappho herself, who is to know? It seems a little impudent to draw
a literal biographical gloss on the fragments we have.
Best
Alison
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