Roman Receptions of Sappho

Edited by Thea S. Thorsen and Stephen Harrison

Classical Presences

The first volume dedicated entirely to the Roman reception of Sappho; and the first investigation into Roman male poets' reception of an authoritative female precursor
Offers the most complete collection of Sappho testimonia to date
Focuses on a key female figure in Roman literature, placing her as a poetic authority
Challenges prevailing conceptions of male and female intellectual authority in antiquity
Draws on new evidence to produce significant knowledge of central Roman poets such as Catullus, Vergil, Horace, Propertius and Ovid

Roman Receptions of Sappho

Edited by Thea S. Thorsen and Stephen Harrison

Description

Sappho, a towering figure in Western culture, is an exemplary case in the history of classical receptions. There are three prominent reasons for this. Firstly, Sappho is associated with some of the earliest poetry in the classical tradition, which makes her reception history one of the longest we know of. Furthermore, Sappho's poetry promotes ideologically challenging concepts such as female authority and homoeroticism, which have prompted very conspicuous interpretative strategies to deal with issues of gender and sexuality, revealing the values of the societies that have received her works through time. Finally, Sappho's legacy has been very well explored from the perspective of reception studies: important investigations have been made into responses both to her as poet-figure and to her poetry from her earliest reception through to our own time. However, one of the few eras in Sappho's longstanding reception history that has not been systematically explored before this volume is the Roman period. The omission is a paradox. Receptions of Sappho can be traced in more than eighteen Roman poets, among them many of the most central authors in the history of Latin literature. Surely, few other Greek poets can rival the impact of Sappho at Rome. This important fact calls out for a systematic approach to Sappho's Roman reception, which is the aim of Roman Receptions of Sappho that focuses on the poetry of the central period of Roman literary history, from the time of Lucretius to that of Martial.

Roman Receptions of Sappho

Edited by Thea S. Thorsen and Stephen Harrison

Classical Presences

List of Abbreviations
List of Contributors
Notes on Texts and Translations
Introduction: 'Ecce Sappho' Thea S. Thorsen
1. 'Sappho: Transparency and obstruction', Thea S. Thorsen
2. 'Notes on the ancient reception of Sappho', Richard Hunter
3. 'Lucretius and Sapphic Voluptas', Laurel Fulkerson
4. 'As important as Callimachus? An essay on Sappho in Catullus and beyond', Thea S. Thorsen
5. 'Odi et amo: on Lesbia's name in Catullus', Lars Morten Gram
6. 'Sapphic echoes in Catullus 1-14', Olivier Thevenaz
7. 'Shades of Sappho in Vergil', Stephen Harrison
8. 'Sappho and Latin poetry: the case of Horace', Richard Hunter
9. 'Sappho, Alcaeus and the literary timing of Horace', Thea S. Thorsen
10. 'Sappho in Propertius?', S. J. Heyworth
11. 'Vates Lesbia: Images of Sappho in the poetry of Ovid', Jennifer Ingleheart
12. 'Sappho as pupil of the praeceptor amoris and Sappho as magistra amoris: Some lessons of the Ars amatoria anticipated in Heroides 15', Chiara Elisei
13. 'The newest Sappho (2016) and Ovid's Heroides 15', Thea S. Thorsen
14. 'Sappho in Roman epigram', Gideon Nisbet
15. 'Receiving receptions received: A new collection of testimonia sapphica c. 600 BCE-1000 CE', Thea S. Thorsen and Robert Emil Berge
Bibliography
Index

Roman Receptions of Sappho

Edited by Thea S. Thorsen and Stephen Harrison

Classical Presences

Author Information

Thea S. Thorsen, Associate Professor of Classics, The Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), ,Stephen Harrison, Professor of Latin Literature, University of Oxford,

Thea S. Thorsen is Associate Professor of Classics at NTNU, Trondheim, Norway. She is the author of Ovid's Early Poetry (Cambridge University Press, 2014), contributing sole editor of Cambridge Companion to Latin Love Elegy (CUP, 2013), contributing co-editor of Dynamics of Ancient Prose (de Gruyter, 2018), and editor of Greek and Roman Games in the Computer Age (Akademika Publishing, 2012). She is the author of numerous articles on Greek and Roman literature in English and Norwegian and was the first to translate all of Ovid's love elegies - in verse - into Norwegian.

Stephen Harrison is Professor of Latin Literature at the University of Oxford, Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Corpus Christi College, Oxford, and Adjunct Professor at the universities of Copenhagen and Trondheim. He has published extensively on Latin literature and its reception, including the following relevant volumes for OUP: A Commentary on Vergil, Aeneid 10 (1991), Generic Enrichment in Vergil and Horace (2007), Living Classics: Greece and Rome in Contemporary Poetry in English (OUP, 2009), (with Amanda Wrigley), Louis MacNeice: The Classical Radio Plays [jointly with Amanda Wrigley] (OUP, 2013), and (joint ed. with Lorna Hardwick) Classics in the Modern World: A 'Democratic Turn'? (OUP, 2013).

Contributors:

Robert Emil Berge is a Doctoral Student at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU
Chiara Elisei is an independent scholar and author of a forthcoming commentary on Ovid's Heroides 15
Laurel Fulkerson is Professor of Classics at the Florida State University
Lars Morten Gram is a Doctoral Student at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU
Stephen Harrison is Professor of Latin Literature, University of Oxford, and Fellow and Tutor in Classics, Corpus Christi College
S. J. Heyworth is Professor of Latin, Bowra Fellow and Tutor in Classics at the University of Oxford
Richard Hunter is Regius Professor of Greek, Chair of the Faculty Board, Fellow of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge
Jennifer Ingleheart is Professor of Latin at the University of Durham
Gideon Nisbet is Reader in Classics at the University of Birmingham
Olivier Thevenaz is Maitre d'enseignement et de recherche at the Universite de Lausanne
Thea S. Thorsen is Associate Professor of Classics at The Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NTNU

Roman Receptions of Sappho

Edited by Thea S. Thorsen and Stephen Harrison

Classical Presences

Reviews and Awards

"this volume's overall contribution to a deeper awareness of how Sappho was received in Rome is unquestionable." -- Giuseppe Bocchi, EOS: Commentarii Societatis Philologae Polonorum

"Following the important discoveries of new fragments of the poetry of Sappho,1 Thea Thorsen and Stephen Harrison have undertaken the publication of a volume devoted for the first time, and with no claim to being exhaustive, to the influence of Sappho on Roman authors from Lucretius to Martial." -- Antonio RamÃrez de Verger, University of Huelva, Bryn Mawr Classical Review

"This is a thoroughly worthwhile book and a credit to the two editors. It will reinvigorate everyone with an interest in the first feminist poet." -- Stuart Lyons, Classics for All