SOURCE: “Woman and Artist: Grillparzer's Sappho Revisited,” in German Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3, 1980, pp. 298-316.

In the following essay, Harrigan suggests that Sappho appealed to Grillparzer because he viewed her as a figure who was able to integrate her life and art into a complex whole.

I

Since it was first performed in 1818, the tragic fate of Grillparzer's Sappho has been interpreted primarily in two ways: either as the result of the artist's betrayal of her calling through descent into life's occasionally murky depths or as the only acceptable exit left for a jealous woman who is incidentally an artist.¹ These expositions accentuate a dualism of character which compartmentalizes Sappho into single, isolated and apparently fully contained components: successful artist or jealous woman in love. While these approaches are useful in distilling different aspects of Grillparzer's theme, they ignore the complexity and totality of the title character. The fundamental...