biography
pronunciation:
[safoh]
| sex:
| female
|
| lived:
| (c.610–c.580 BC)
|
| biography:
| Greek poet, born in Lesbos, Greece. The most celebrated female poet of antiquity, she wrote lyrics unsurpassed for depth of feeling, passion, and grace. Only two of her odes are extant in full, but many fragments have been found in Egypt. She is said to have plunged into the sea from the Leucadian rock because Phaon did not return her love, but this event seems to have no historical foundation. Tradition also represents her poetry as a celebration of lesbian love, but this too has been disputed. She wrote in a great many metres, one of which, the Sapphic, is named after her. She influenced many later writers, among them Catullus, Ovid, and Swinburne. |
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