Schlagwort: Sappho

Devastating power

„Do I still yearn for my virginity?“ Sappho asks in another fragment. What is the meaning here? Who is talking? Is it Sappho, an old woman tormented by sex? Or the voice of Sappho’s creation? It is the need to decide that draws us… Continue Reading „Devastating power“

Tragic power of the word

The fragments of Sappho constitute a compelling demonstration of the tragic power of the word, its capacity to make us feel loss as deeply as we do in life. The lines just quoted are all that survive of the original poem, recovered from a… Continue Reading „Tragic power of the word“

„two nightingales dueling“

I wish I’d been on the street in Madrid on that night in 1934 when Pablo Neruda, who was then Chile’s consul to Spain, told Miguel Hernández that he had never heard a nightingale. It is too cold for nightingales to survive in Chile. Hernández grew… Continue Reading „„two nightingales dueling““

Drei Gedichte der Sappho

Aus den vier Gedichtvorlagen, die ihm Walter Jens gegeben hatte, wählte er drei aus, die sich, obwohl sie zu unterschiedlichen Zeiten entstanden, zu einer Geschichte, zu einem kleinen Monodram formieren: Sappho klagt der Göttin Aphrodite, dass sie von ihrer Freundin verlassen würde. Das zweite… Continue Reading „Drei Gedichte der Sappho“