The Fragmentary Past

Choose one of Sappho’s poems or fragments and make an argument about it. What does the poem do? What does it describe? Your interpretation should consider the fragmentary nature of the ancient text, if parts of it are missing or illegible, and whether there are things about the poem we just don’t know.

Some useful questions to ask (you don’t have to answer all of them):

• Try to explain the ‘situation’ that the poem describes, if you think there is one. Does the poem tell a story? What is happening in it?
• What is the mood of the poem? Does it describe a feeling?
• Does it use figurative language, metaphors or similes? What images appear in it? Are they images drawn from the home, like clothes, cups or wine? Or are they images from travel, the sea, sailors and ships? Are they images from the natural world, trees, groves, flowers?
• Do any of the themes of lyric poetry appear? Is there a description of singing or of a lyre? Is the poem an elegy or a lament for something lost? Is it a love poem or a wedding poem? Does it offer some sort of “wisdom?”
• How does the fragmentary or incomplete text change our understanding of the poem?

Your response should be no more than 1-2 pages. It may be a single paragraph, or several, but this is not an essay. You must write in the CEA style, however. The point is to begin practicing this style of writing. That means that every paragraph should have all three parts: Claims, Evidence, and Analysis.

Due Thursday, 9/14

Bring 3 copies to class.