Homosexual Content In Sappho’s Lyric Poetry

Sappho is the only female poet among the nine ancient Greek lyric poets,and her poems have been handed down to today.Her poems are different from those of epic writers such as Homer and other lyric poets.What she wrote is not the glorious life of the heroes or the parts that everyone pays attention in public life at that time.She always focuses on her own emotions and life.Sappho’s poems are also different from the war culture of Homer’s epics.She describes Aphrodite,the god of love and beauty,writing about soft beds,roses,the garden of God,jealousy,longing,and the departure of those girls she loves.Her poems are against the values of labor and reproduction in the early Greek city-states.The broken pieces of her poems that have been circulating to this day are not about labor and war and the instrumentalization of the human body.On the contrary,most of them eulogize joyous and beautiful bodies of women.Sappho loves this ultimate beauty,and she never hides her desire for sex.Sappho is surrounded by a group of young girls.She teaches them singing and dancing skills,playing musical instruments,leads them to participate in religious rituals and festivals,and writes poetry for them to sing.These activities have strengthened the bond of their friendship and made their heart together.This led to the formation of a social circle composed of women,centered on Sappho.This thesis intends to start from Sappho’s social circle and her lyric poems,to explore the "homosexuality" among women reflected in her poems.In addition to discussing Sappho’s own life and the social circle,the main body of the thesis will be divided into three parts,starting from the individual subjective writing in Sappho’s lyric poems,the passion for same-sex lovers,the desire and the restraint in her poems.And the three parts are supplemented by a intensive reading of three important lyrics.In sum,the " homosexuality " in Sappho’s lyric is manifested in her women’s narrative stance.She bluntly expressed her longing,that is,the love for the same-sex and jealousy in the face of love rivals,although in the end,Sappho had to restrain her desire,but she has written the love and beauty between women.