Circa 620-Circa 550 B.C.E.
Poet

Relationships. Known as the Tenth Muse, Sappho was the most celebrated woman poet of the ancient world. Born in Mytilene on Lesbos, her early exile in Sicily is evidence of the politically volatile world in which she lived; yet, it is remarkable that politics are almost entirely absent from her surviving work, particularly in view of their importance in the poetry of her contemporary Mytilinean, Alcaeus. Instead, her focus is on her relationships with her brother, daughter (for she was evidently married), and female companions. The nature of her relationship with these last has been the subject of much speculation, so that the term "Lesbian" has acquired (at least in modern times) a more than geographical significance. By any reckoning her expressed feelings towards her young friends was passionate and clearly erotic rather than maternal; and in fact a fragmentary parchment...