Sappho and Homer : A Reparative Reading

by: Mueller, M.

Sappho and Homer
A Reparative Reading
AUTHOR: Melissa Mueller, University of Massachusetts, Amherst

In this book, Melissa Mueller brings two of the most celebrated poets from Greek antiquity into conversation with contemporary theorists of gender, sexuality, and affect studies. Like all lyric poets of her time, Sappho was steeped in the affects and story-world of Homeric epic, and the language, characters, and themes of her poetry often intersect with those of Homer. Yet the relationship between Sappho and Homer has usually been framed as competitive and antagonistic. This book instead sets the two side by side, within the embrace of a non-hierarchical, 'reparative reading' culture, as first conceived by queer theorist and poet Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick. Reintroducing readers to a Sappho who supplements Homer's vision, it is an approach that locates Sappho's lyrics at the center of timely discussions about materiality, shame, queer failure, and the aging body, while presenting a sustaining and collaborative way of reading both lyric and epic.

Introduces a non-hierarchical mode of reading and applies it to interpreting the poetry of Sappho and Homer
Invites readers to engage with queer theory while experiencing how it opens up new perspectives on ancient Greek literature
Offers new readings of most of the major fragments of Sappho's poetry

Table of Contents
Introduction: A Colicky Muse
Part I. Reparative Reading:
1. Reparative Intertextualities: Sappho and Homer Between Lesbos and Troy
2. Sappho and Sedgwick as Reparative Readers
Part II. Sappho and Homer:
3. Plaiting and Poikilia: the Materialities of Sappho's Craft
4. Aphrodite and the Poetics of Shame
5. In the Bardo with Tithonos
6. Sappho fr. 44V, or Andromache's 'No Future' Wedding Song
7. Sappho's Third Alternative: Helen and the Queering of Epic Desire
8. Sapphic Remembering, Lyric Kleos
Epilogue: Homer's Night, Sappho's Day
Appendix: On the Absence of the newest Sappho fragments from this book.

Sappho and Homer : A Reparative Reading

by: Mueller, M.

• ISBN-13: 9781108491709 / 978-1-108-49170-9
• ISBN-03: 1108491707 / 1-108-49170-7
• Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2023