Compare And Contrast The Poetry Of Sappho

Karle’e Gleghorn
WLIT Research Paper
MWF 10:45-11:35

L o v e
For a simple four-letter word, the expression “love” has been conveyed in an innumerable amount of ways. Everywhere you go, whether it’s the supermarket or an airport on a busy Monday afternoon, love surrounds you. From philosophers and historians, to poets and scientist, love has seized our imagination and curiously for centuries. If there are so many different connotations of love in the world, does that mean that one is better or more correct than another? Or is love this universal way for us to interact as we have since the beginning of time. First, I’m going to clarify a few illustrations of what love is commonly portrayed as and then how individuals have tried to express it
Egyptians portrayed love as erotic and passionate. The reader gets a more balanced side of both the male and female’s point of view. Where as in Sappho’s poetry, love is more tender and romantic and speaks of deeper feelings of the ones being written about. “Egyptian love poems idea of love is more about every form of love, whereas love for Sappho is based purely more on an emotional view of love.” (#3) With each one of the Egyptian and/or Sappho’s love poems, they express a similar idea but their manner and way they represent imagery is different. The Egyptian poem “I passed close by his house” contains the lines, “How joyfully does my heart rejoice, my beloved, since I first saw you... My heart leaps up to go forth that I may gaze on my beloved.” This passage is an explanation of the inner mindset the speaker feels as he sees his lover, just as my papaw did on that special day in 1926. Sappho’s work demonstrates a difference of opinion on a comparable subject from Poem 31. Sappho gives the impression of pain, speechlessness and burning passion felt by the other’s lover. This is a perfect example of being struck by the emotion of love. Compared to the Egyptian love poems which portrays a euphoric heart and the desire implores quite a different image. Sappho
Ancient Egyptians showed their affection through moving poetry and songs that we continue to use to express love. In my opinion, something that has been around for so long can’t be too flawed or it would fall through the cracks of society. Love, true or not, is a huge chunk of life, as we know it. From ancient people and my papaws googly eyes, to the notebook and the one-year anniversary I just celebrated with my boyfriend, its obvious that this simple four-letter word is more complex than it was thought to be in the beginning. Thus supporting my argument that love is unanimous and inclusive, irrational but comforting, universal and forever timeless. There cannot be a set wrong or right way to love because every person in the world has some version of it in his or her life and it is expressed by ones inner self. Ancient Egyptian poets have inspired many people, including myself, to simply change the outlook on the love of life itself. Through the examples I have provided, it is clear that love has and always will be