Reading Sappho

by Ellen Greene

In this volume, scholarship on Sappho moves beyond a limiting focus on textual reconstruction or analysis of her possible biography to study her as a powerful and influential voice in the Western cultural tradition. Many of the essays presented here mark a turning point in Sappho scholarship, an efflorescence of literary and contextual criticism in which scholars read Sappho's poetry for its literary content and its relation to literary and mythical tradition. The move to assimilate methodologies from other branches of literary and cultural studies is evident, and feminist scholarship and work on gender theory are represented. The aim of this collection is to draw well-deserved attention to Sappho's importance as a poet and to offer a sense of the lively debate and competing critical positions within Sappho studies.