Sappho, the only female author from ancient Lesbos with written works left, uses women as the main characters of her works where as Odyssey describes a story with a man returning to his homeland after manly war in Troy. The atmosphere of Sappho’s works is relatively emotional and sentimental but gloomy while mainly depicting her feeling of rage and melancholy. On the other hand, Homer’s work is more adventurous and heroic in which Odysseus took a long journey to his land overcoming several difficulties and temptations from female characters.
More importantly, Sappho reveals her deeper inner feeling toward love by writing poem 31 which says she would feel close to death when she watched a woman, she loves, talking to other man. This poem reveals how Sappho emphasizes emotional love. However, in my opinion, Homer’s perspective of love seems relatively frivolous when Odysseus says he is still loyal to his wife after having several sexual relationship with other women. Homer believes that a man/woman can truly love someone while having physical relationship with another person that he/she does not love.