Sappho and Homer: A Reparative Reading

FAIN: FEL-273288-21

Melissa Yin Mueller
University of Massachusetts, Amherst (Amherst, MA 01003-9242)

Research and preparation of a book exploring the reception of Homeric epics in the work of the ancient Greek poet Sappho (c. 630-570 BCE).

Like all poets in archaic Greece, Sappho was steeped in Homer’s story world; yet scholars typically frame the relationship between the two poets as competitive and antagonistic. Inspired by the work of Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick whose turn in the mid-1990s toward “reparative reading” sparked a new wave of queer feminist criticism, this project seeks to disentangle Sappho’s reading of Homer from the combative, arena-like moves and politics of current practices of literary criticism. In queering the markedly heterosexual desire foregrounded by epic, her lyrics furnish alternative endings and new interpretations of epic material. Sappho expertly captures the experience of falling in and out of love, as a woman, a poet, and a reader of epic. This will be one of the first books to offer in-depth discussions of the major fragments, including those only recently published, and to initiate a conversation between philological scholarship on Sappho and Homer and more recent trends in the humanities.