Customer Reviews

The Sappho Companion

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I don't know what the previous reviewer is talking about; I loved this book. Granted, I am no scholar of Sappho. Although I have read various translations of her poetry in the past, I do not read Greek and cannot comment upon whether Reynolds' research is accurate. However, given her amazing previous work (editing Aurora Leigh, the Penguin Book of Lesbian Short Stories, etc.) I am inclined to trust her (and I like her writing style anyway).

For me, this book was the perfect introduction to Sappho. It includes historical background followed by many of Sappho's fragments in a variety of translations. But that's just the beginning: Reynolds goes on to show how Sappho has been imagined/created by literature up to the present day. She anthologizes a variety of poems, plays, and fictions inspired by Sappho. It is amazing to see how, though so little of her writing survived, she has remained a titaness in our imaginations. Each literary generation has reinvented and recreated her. Reading Jeanette Winterson's amazing story "The Poetics of Sex" (narrated by a modern-day Sappho) fills me with hope and joy at the potential for lesbian creativity that is Sappho's legacy. I also appreciated the inclusion of works of art depicting Sappho through the ages. Although they are in black and white, they are an exquisite visual touch to this beautiful volume (the cover art is amazing as well).

I urge you not to judge this book by one bad review. It is a book to be perused at leisure, to leaf through in times of anxious sorrow and contemplative joy. Buy or borrow a copy and judge it for yourself.

If you're a Sappho fan, you get everything in this book: her poems and fragments in the original Greek, followed by renderings by poets from Catullus and Ovid onward; her history, as much as is known; commentary on her by writers through the ages; and others' poems based on her work. The extant body of Sappho's work is so slender that the heart aches for what was lost; but these musings, analyses, and celebrations down through the ages help round out our image of her.

Are you wondering about the poet Sappho" the poet the Greek & Roman people revered and respected for her beautiful poetry? Read this book, it unlocks the doors on the life & beauty of the talented "Sappho" a wonder with words that can touch or pierce your heart.
Blessings,
Donna Swindells

I don't know for whom this book may have been written. For the Sapphophile, there are certainly more exhaustive and interesting books, some are which are noted in the bibliography at the end. Furthermore, for all the treacly editorial reviews about Ms. Reynolds's scholarly resources (which are certainly evident), she abuses them time and time again in two ways, one merely bothersome, and the other approaching dishonesty. 1.)She frequently truncates the passages from other authors just when they begin to get interesting. 2) She frequently selects works of literature, particularly poems, that may or may not have anything to do with Sappho and offers no solid evidence that they do. They are, I guess, Sapphic by association. Reynolds's association. The two most obvious examples are Shelley's "To Constantia, Singing" and Emily Dicknson's ""Heaven"- Is What I Cannot Reach!" To take the latter as a case in point, the poem is supposed to be Sapphic because of a three line Sappho fragment (#105) about an apple on the topmost bough. Need I remind everyone that there was another apple on a bough in another book that has a far more rich cultural history. And given that Dickinson's poem concerns "Heaven" and "Paradise," it seems a stretch, so to speak, to see the poem as influenced by the Sapphic fragment. Truth be known, I spent many more hours meditating on Ms. Dickinson's exquisite 15 line poem than I did in reading the rest of the entire hodgepodge of this book, though I plodded through from srart to finish.
So, my advice is to buy a book of Ms. Dickinson's poems or a more intriguing and honest study of Sappho. This book is just a non-starter.