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A report on a poet named Sappho
Sappho
Love is the theme in Sappho's poetry, she uses it to the extent
to justify opposing the traditional values that were held at that time,
so that love can be the ultimate experience. The best example is in
Fair Helen, "All For Love", this poem is about Hel en and why she goes
off to Troy. The traditional way of seeing the story of Helen and Troy
is that she was taken against her will, but Sappho has Helen going,
because of love. She leaves her husband, child, and parents, which is
the rejection of tradition al values of loyalty to her family. During
the time that Sappho was alive, the life of the people, alot of the
time, were dealing with war. In the poem "The Fairest Thing on Earth",
were other people than she see, a Troop of Horsemen, Band of
Footsoldiers, or a Squadron of Ships, all parts of war, as the
"Fairest Thing." Sappho rejects those values and says that the
"Fairest Thing" is the beloved. The love to most of her society is
war,to her it is the emotion of love.
"When I See You" is not a sad poem, but on the contrary is a
very happy poem. It is a poem of purely the emotion of love. When
read, the reader can feel what the person is feeling as she/he sees the
one they love. This poem seems irrational, in a time when one needs a
good commarad to trust in times of war, where the emotion of love can
not win a war. one needs a good warrior to help, not a lover.
In "Love Rends Me", Sappho compares the feeling of being in
love again, to a tree being blown on a mountain side. This it seems
could be a poen written during the Enlightenment,where people
werebegining to notice the natural beauty, not a poem from a tim e were
war was the prodominant way of life.
"The Moon Is Set" is apoem in which it could be as the other
side to war. The women have to stay at home while there husbands are
out fighting. This poem states the fact that this woman is longing to
have her husband back from war so she does not have to
lie alone in bed . It shows that love should not wait, even for war.
In a society, were war is the ultimate emotion, or part of
life, Sappho has taken this war emotion and flipped it around to its
opposite emotion, the emotion of love. Sappho has gotten rid of the
traditional values of her society in her poetry by opposin g them by
there opposite, love, which is the ultimate experience.
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