Femininity in the Ancient Greek World: An Exploration of Sappho’s Fragmentary Poetry

Sappho’s fragmentary poetry offers a rare opportunity for scholars to explore 6th-century BC Lesbos through a female perspective. In Sappho’s poetry, we are presented with insight into Archaic Greek femininity, a term used to refer to traditionally female characteristics and behaviors. In her expressive lyrics, Sappho highlights emotional complexity and beauty as key attributes of the ideal woman in Archaic Lesbos. Sappho’s perspective is especially significant as most other sources concerning the role of women in Archaic Greece, including Alcaeus, were written by men and offer a distinct, male-centric understanding of womanhood. 

In Sappho’s poetry, female characters repeatedly express emotional complexity. In the available fragments, Sappho holds women who could experience and express deep longing, love, and desire in especially high regard. In fragment 31, Sappho portrays her own passionate, emotional response when watching a woman she loves with a man. She describes a figurative fire seizing her, a metaphor for being overtaken by uncontrollable rage and envy. Sappho may be making a generalization, acknowledging the pain and suffering love can provoke within women. In fragment 1, Sappho sings of her passionate plea to Aphrodite for assistance in longing. She proclaims, “everything my heart longs to have fulfilled, fulfill,” hyperbolizing her desire. Sappho’s depiction of emotional complexity may be an attempt to relate to women in her audience, a demographic overlooked in Archaic Lesbos. 

Alcaeus’ writings, on the other hand, contradict Sappho’s view of ideal womanhood. In fragment 10, Alcaeus criticizes Helen for giving in to her passion and running off to Troy. Alcaeus reprimands her greatest irresponsibility: neglecting her maternal obligations, “leaving her child at home…,” and instead choosing to satisfy her desire. He later ties the “slaughter” and the violence of the Iliad to Helen’s recklessness ignited by her intense emotions and irrationality. His perspective is rooted in the belief that women, specifically wives, were property, expected to remain loyal to their husbands and perform domestic duties with little freedom or autonomy. 

Beauty is a characteristic Sappho repeatedly attributes to feminine identity. In many of the fragments available, Sappho sings of beauty, most notably when speaking of her relations with young women. In fragment 22b, Sappho describes one of her many relationships: “I urge you [to sing] of Gongolya, Abanthis, [quickly] picking up your lyre, while desire for her once again flutters about you, who are beautiful.”Sappho highlights Abanthis’ beauty, which may illustrate her view that physical beauty is integral to female identity.  In fragment 16, Sappho compares the beauty of military strength with the beauty of one’s lover: “Some say an army of horsemen…is the most beautiful thing on the black earth. I say it is whatever one loves.” While Sappho accentuates the hypothetical lover’s beauty, just as in fragment 22b, in fragment 16, she generalizes one’s beloved. Her abstraction emphasizes the significance of physical beauty to women of the upper class.  Sappho’s lyrics offer one of the only windows into the female experience of antiquity. Owing to a lack of resources, it is uncertain whether Sappho’s work accurately portrays the beliefs of most Archaic Greek women. Few women shared Sappho’s upper-class status and high level of education. Therefore, her views may differ from or even contradict the beliefs of other women of the period. It is also uncertain whether the beauty and emotional complexity Sappho speaks of can be restricted to women. The Poetess may have equally valued emotional complexity and beauty in men. We’re left wondering: Is Sappho exploring an Archaic form of love felt within relationships of all genders? Are Sappho’s descriptions unique to homosexual love? Are emotional complexity and beauty attributes of the ideal lover of any gender? Additionally, all fragments available were part of longer pieces; any conclusions drawn by scholars may say more about the scholar than Sappho herself. Despite these uncertainties, Sappho’s poetry remains an essential upper-class female perspective on Archaic Greek femininity in Lesbos.