Five years later, I still know pitifully little about Anne Carson except that she's Canadian and picked up several major awards, including a MacArthur Fellowship (popularly known as the "genius grant"). Her work is heavily influenced by classical literature and she's a skilled translator of classical works, including Sappho and, most recently, four plays by Euripides.

But I really haven't read any of her work. Perhaps I had the misguided notion that because she was mentioned on the first episode of The L Word--a treacly, overblown premium-cable soap opera--that her writing would be disgustingly sappy as well and not worthy of my attention. I was wrong.

The good news is that by doing this so-called supplement, I will force myself to fill in the gaps in my contemporary poetry education. The bad news is, I knew there would gaps in my reading but I'm beginning to fear the gaps are more like chasms. And I can't possibly bone up on these new-to-me poets and speak intelligently about them and their work week after week. So I'll do what I can and farm out the rest:

Meghan O'Rourke has a nice article about Carson and The L Word on Slate.com.

Brief reviews of Eros the Bittersweet and Autobiography of Red at Oyster Boy Review.

Anne Carson reading at the 92nd St. Y:

***

It's impossible for me, this being the first poem by Anne Carson I've read (or at least have consciously read) to place the first poem in the October 6, 2008, issue in context with the rest of her work. Obviously. It's also very difficult for me to make much sense of it, though I very much like the forceful language she employs, and really the poem as a whole. But instead of pulling a Sarah Palin and responding or rebutting with a one-word answer and then move on to ANWR or energy issues, I'm actually going to address the issue at hand and do a little explication.

The title and section titles provide little instruction; "tag" could mean the childhood game or a label; "this" and "your" reveal nothing. "April" in the first line also proves troublesome initially. Is the "insatiable April" a person or the month? The description of trees and branches and "green shoot areas" point to the month, but we usually ascribe insatiability to human behavior, not the natural world, so it takes a reading or two to understand that Carson is talking about the month. Also troubling is that April famously appears in another's first line: Eliot's The Waste Land.

April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.

For a poet, it's very difficult to use certain words because another poet used them to great effect before you had your chance to bungle their usage. Shelley owns skylark, Whitman lilacs, Keats the nightingale, and Eliot--especially if it's used in the first line of a poem--April. There's really no getting around it. Some words have greater intertextual connotations than others and to use them, like musicians, you need to give credit to those who made the sample you want to co-opt. (Eliot gives a little nod to Whitman with lilacs--dead land, memory and desire; you can't just use "lilacs" willy-nilly.)

There is a marked difference between the first section and the second. The first section uses the language in the traditional noun-verb-object way. Very direct and forceful. Enhancing this effect is that each line is end-stopped. It lends the feeling that something is being built--bricks-and-mortar like--something substancial so that by the time we get to the final lines of the first section we really feel the aggregate weight of the loss the speaker incurred. 

Every line in the second section (aside from em dashes) is enjambed, which gives the sense of more fluidity. Milton said, when speaking of Paradise Lost, that the enjambed lines in his epic were to give the reader a moral choice, which was then resolved in the following line. Or something to that effect. (If I can track down the quote, I'll revise this post.) I'm pretty sure that Milton is the only poet who used/uses enjambment that way. But when the majority of the lines are enjambed, it does give the poem a more fluid sense. Furhtermore, the second section is syntactically different (and more difficult). Carson brackets words in a couple of places and I'm not really sure how to take it. Perhaps it's to denote how language becomes insufficient and inconsequential in times of grieving. Or it could be the imprecision of memory when the speaker is thinking back to this loss. I'm thinking specifically here of "[some noun]". Does it matter which noun? At the moment, no.

The second section also introduces Friedrich Holderlin, the German poet-philosopher (who, like Carson, was a major Classics geek), and by doing so, changes the register of the poem. The poet steps back and we step back with her. And with her we no longer recognize the wonderful answer scars or the frantic hand in the address book.

It is because these things can never be fully recovered. Memory is faulty; the pressures of time change who we are and tints who we were so we can never really recall who we were when we try to recall who we were. (Like that?) The moments we lived are "unalterable" in one sense, but in another--in our minds--they certainly are. Perhaps that's what Carson in driving at in the second section and now that I look at the poem again, it almost seems like two different poems, the first section written when the poet was younger and the second section thinking and responding to that youthful poet. Hmm.

Good poem. And I'm definitely going to pick up The Autobiography of Red when I get the chance.

Love is a cunning weaver of fantasies and fables. 

How fevered and furrowed our minds become when we're swept away by love!  Our beloved's fleeting glances seem to last forever, while the shortest silences appear to be cruel slights.  Everything looks so right, always on the verge of going so wrong.

The delusions of romantic love can grip us in the business world as well.  I'm now recovering from such fantasies and fables myself.  I've had to take a step back from an initiative where I drove the approach, the design, and the initial implementation because my love for it has become a barrier to its acceptance and success. 

I'm so passionate about the initiative that I've lost more than a little perspective -- I came to believe that I was the only one who understood it.  When objections were raised, I veered from sulking quietly to excitedly defending and justifying all that was done before.  Every time I spoke I was losing my audience and betraying my "love".

Luckily, I was self-aware enough to step back and let go before I damaged my pride and joy irreparably... or before my colleagues slapped a restraining order on me!

Die Kategorie zeigt natürlich nur Segmente der höheren Preiskategorie für Frauen, wie auch für Männer. Vorgestellt wurden bis jetzt: Duchess, J.Ryu, Zecchino, Haegal, Atelier de Sappho ♥mein persönlicher Favorit♥, Freaks, Luis und Dirk Lui. Doch seht selbst auf Designer Mode.

Eure Salome

To Atthis

Though in Sardis now,
she thinks of us constantly

and of the life we shared.
She saw you as a goddess
and above all your dancing gave her deep joy.

Now she shines among Lydian women like
the rose-fingered moon
rising after sundown, erasing all

stars around her, and pouring light equally
across the salt sea
and over densely flowered fields

lucent under dew. Her light spreads
on roses and tender thyme
and the blooming honey-lotus.

Often while she wanders she remem-
bers you, gentle Atthis,
and desire eats away at her heart

for us to come.

~ Sappho

Without warning
as a whirlwind
swoops on an oak
Love shakes my heart

~ Sappho

He seems to me, that one, equal to the gods,
The man fixed there, who sits opposite you
And hears close by your sweet voice
And delightful laugh, which once
Shook the soul in my breast.

For as I look on you,
My voice yields no sound,
Gasping, my silent tongue shivers,
A thin fire runs in under my skin,
In my eyes there is no sight,
My ears pound and throb,
A chill sweat runs over me,
Trembling seizes me all over,
Paler than the reeds am I,
And, weakened, I seem little short of dying.

But all must be endured....

Translated by Peter Saint-Andre

Somewhat appropriate because it's asking week for homecoming, and I know at least two guys who are competing for someone's affection.

Which begs the question: do they still have a gender?

It's an interesting problem. Socially, gender is assumed through assessment of a person's physical body, their voice, mannerisms, clothes and so on: but strip away all these things - remove even their possibility - and what is left? Is the brain (we'll call it Sam, a neatly androgynous handle) gendered depending on the sex of its original body? Is it possible for a 'female' brain to wind up ensconced in male flesh, or vice versa? If one accepts that homosexuality is more often an innate predeliction than a conscious choice (certainly, I believe, it can be both or either), what role does the physical wiring of our brain play? Is it the only factor? Does nurture always prevail over nature in matters of sexuality, or vice versa? Is it a mixture? If so, does the ratio vary from person to person? Why? And so on.

Let's lay some cards on the table. When it comes to sexual orientation, my two rules of thumb are: 

(a) mutual, intelligent consent; and

(b) the prevention of harm to others.

In a nutshell: all parties have to agree to what's happening, and no bystanders can be hurt or unwillingly drawn in. While this doesn't rule out BDSM (provided, of course, it keeps within the bounds of said rules), it definitively excludes rape and paedophilia, which, really, is common sense. Anything relating to homosexuality and transexuality, however, is fair game.

A few more points, in no particular order:

1. Life is often unfair.

2. Life is often weird.

3. Insofar as evidence is concerned, human beings are still shaky on the definitive origins of personhood (souls v. genes, or possibly a blend of both), but most people will agree that brains and gender play a more important role in this than, say, knees and elbows.

4. Original notions of gender roles developed in the context of reproduction and childrearing, but provided both these things still occur in sufficient numbers to ensure the survival of the species, there is little harm in broadening or questioning their parameters.

5. People have, or should have, a basic right to assert their identity. Reasonably, there must be some limits of credulity - there was only ever one Napoleon,  mankind are distinct from dolphins - but within the recognised sphere of human gender and sexual orientation, it seems counter-intuitive that appearance should dictate black and white rules for what is, quite evidently, an internal and subtle determination.

Witness, then, the idea of transgender couples, in which one partner may undergo a sex change without ending the relationship. Witness, then, the case of Aurora Lipscomb, born Zachary, who identified as a girl from the age of two and was removed from her parents when they refused to forcibly contradict her. These are just two examples that buck the trend of traditional gender ideas, and rather than making us squirm, they should make us think. When and why did certain socio-cultural ideas of gender develop, and how do they change? Consider, for instance, the well-documented and widespread instances of winkte, berdache and two-spirit people in Native American culture, compared to the deep-seated fear of these concepts in western traditions. Look at the long-standing tradition of male homosexuality in Japan, particularly among samurais, and the role of Sappho in ancient Greek lesbianism. Think of hermaphrodites.

Point being, there's a wealth of diverse and fascinating history surrounding the ideas of gender, sexuality and male/female roles, to the extent that many legal restrictions now placed on non-heterosexual couples and individuals are faintly ridiculous. Throw in the question of child-rearing, and there's a tendency to reach for the nearest pitchfork. Personally, I find debating my views in this matter difficult, if only because debate is meaningless without a modicum of mutually accepted middleground, and where my opponents object to homosexuality and transsexuality as an opening gambit, it's well-nigh impossible to discuss the matter of non-heteros breeding, adopting and/or applying for surrogacy without both sides resorting to instant moral veto of the contrary position.

Still, it's always worth trying, and the whole issue fascinates me. Socially, I marvel at where the next hundred years could take us, and cringe at how far we might also fall. But in the interim, I return to the question of brains in vats, and how, within the parameters of such a hypothetical, gender is determined. Is it innate, biological, genetic, spiritual, chosen consciously, chosen unconsciously, socially conditioned, random, nurtured, culturally selected; or can the glorious gamut of human existence countenance the possibility that these options simultaneouly coexist as true, contributing on an individual basis, in individual ratios? Or is that too confronting a thought?

Greetings, citizens! We can't all make it to the conventions this year, but we CAN all exercise our right to Internet democracy by voting for the nominees for the 2009 Hot Blogger Calendar! Oh, shit, son, it's goin' DOWN! Thanks to the folks who nominated my ass. Now it's time to vote! I will marry you if you go to this place and vote for me, Sara B.! I'm like the 14th-ish name down, something like that.

If you go to the men's page, you can vote for many great men, one of whom makes out with me on the regular, and his name (ahem, Francesco Marciuliano, ahem) is toward the bottom on this here page right now!

Thanks, hotties, and remember--a vote for me is a vote for me making out with my girl Michelle Malkin, who is probs dreaming of me as she slumbers. Or else she's dreaming about a world in which she can forcibly intern many, many ethnic groups. Oh, Michelle!

So, to anyone who ever tries to move abroad, bear in mind the following: Having a friend just as foreign and unemployed as you is invaluable, but everyone's going to think you're dating.

That's right, folks.  The respective new people in our lives, including my very Jewish landlord, and Jane's boho roommates are all pretty much convinced that Jane and I are "together."  

We get sly comments like, "Ach! your friend, she is always here, no?" and "Um, Jane ... did she move over here ... for you?" and no matter how much we digress, they're all pretty much convinced that Jane and I are doing the sappho mambo.  

The funny thing is, sometimes we behave in ways that enforce this suspicion.  No, not by having naked pillow fights and then making out, but rather by seeing each other every day or occasionally getting into arguments where it's necessary to discuss our communication faults, and how we can fix them.  

Jane's Indian paramour even got suspicious the other day when she was forced to end their phone conversation because she needed to go make me dinner.  Truly, she was making us both dinner, but I'm sure Kip is now trying to figure out exactly what kind of threat I am.  

The highlight, so far, of this whole thing, for me, was probably last night.  Jane was sitting at my computer when my landlord showed up in the middle of the effing night (again), and I paid him what was left of this month's rent.  He sort of peeked into my room and, upon seeing Jane, said the thing about her always being here with a big, goofy smile.

"I'm not always here," Jane snapped.  "It was just the two times you've come by."  Which is true.

"Oh, perhaps I phrase this wrong ..." Landlord said, literally taking a step back.

"No, the thing is, I'm really not always here," Jane insisted, acidly.  

"Oh, okay.  It is not a problem.  You are welcome here, do not misunderstand ..."

"That's great, but I'm not always here."

etc.

This plays into when I came to view the flat, and Jane was with me, and he looked from one of us to the other and made sure it was just me moving in, and that I wouldn't suddenly move a "friend" in with me.  We both assumed he'd meant boyfriends at the time, but less than an hour later, it clicked what he'd really assumed.

In fact, he's never even seen me without Jane happening to be there.  This really is a matter of coincidence, since if we're hanging out at home, most of the time, we're at Jane's pad.  And usually we're not at home; we're at a pub or a park.  We do like parks.  

So, yeah, dear readers - this blog, started by two women about their respective adventures with men, is now written by two women who are likely assumed by many to be "that hot American lesbian couple."

My mother would be so proud.

Above is the painting Sappho which was completed by Charles Mengin in 1877. It is hanging in the Manchester Art Gallery in Manchester, England. The Manchester Art Gallery is publically owned. I'm sure many of my Texas Progressive Alliance blogger friends would support the idea of public ownership of an art gallery.  

The current definitive translation of Sappho's poetry is If Not, Winter--Fragments of Sappho by Anne Carson. Sappho lived on the Island of Lesbos 2600 years ago. Here is a link to a 1925 translation of Sappho's poetry.

The Texas Progressive Alliance is a group of Texas bloggers, connected yet autonomous, who blog on Texas politics and other subjects. Each week a round-up is offered of best posts from the previous seven days. Here is this week's collection---  

Check out The Truth About Texas Republicans, a new blogger-powered website designed to expose the real truth about GOP Texas legislators. The opening posts look at the stuff state representatives Dwayne Bohac, Betty Brown, John Davis, Bill Zedler and State Sen. Mike Jackson don't want you to see.

refinish69 was happy to introduce a real progressive Democrat to the readers of Doing My Part For The Left a few weeks ago, but has to wonder how to describe Michael Skelly: Democrat or Republican Lite?

Vince at Capitol Annex takes a look at the Texas State Teacher's Association lawsuit against the Texas Education Agency for giving public funds to private institutions.

Irony Alert: Mary McDaniels, Manager - Pipeline Safety, Texas Railroad Commission, lied on camera about the Atmos Energy gas pipeline couplings. She spoke in Fort Worth about pipeline safety, inspections, and regulations for Chesapeake Energy's Barnett Shale pipeline, says TXsharon at Bluedaze.

Julie Pippert at MOMocrats asked: "Offshore drilling -- whose issue is it anyway? The people's? Or the politician's?"

Women who enter the military know they may encounter danger along the way, just as their male counterparts do. Diarist Liberal Texas at Texas Kaos highlights an additional danger they face in Assault on Women in the Military, and calls on all of us to ensure that our fighting women are protected against sexual assault from the companions they should be able to trust.

WhosPlayin used to think John McCain was worthy of respect, even if he was wrong on issues. But mocking conservation and lying about Obama raising taxes demonstrate who John McCain really is.

jobsanger thinks Democrats should let Clinton's backers have their vote at the convention, and believes Barack Obama has a chance to win Texas this November.

Neil at Texas Liberal talks about AIDS and black people.

Due to the purchase of McBloggerby a rival blogging firm, the regular writers are on strike. This week we'd like to introduce you to a new McBlogger, Rose Petal.

North Texas Liberalremarks on John McCain's anti-Obama ad comparing the Democratic nominee to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears, and also includes Hilton's response ad. Still waiting on Britney's energy policy...

Off the Kuff takes a look at The Queue behind KBH for her maybe-to-be-abandoned Senate seat.

YaGottaLoveIt of South Texas Chismeurges Barack Obama to have a fundraiser for money that stays in Texas while urging Hillary Clinton to campaign for Rick Noriega in south Texas.

WCNews at Eye On Williamsonposts on the Williamson County DA's unwillingness to test DNA evidence in a 30-year-old unsolved murder case in Lawsuit Filed Against County For New DNA, Fingerprint Tests.

Tropical Storm Edouard was more like a decent rainstorm, but that didn't stop the media -- old as well as new, including madcap reporter/Congressman John Culberson -- from building it up to a height it could no more sustain than its winds. PDiddie at Brains and Eggs has the roundup of the hyperventilating in Houston.

BossKitty at TruthHugger is concerned about the economy in "Purses Tighten, Small Business Suffers, Families Budget".

nytexan at BlueBloggin wonders, as the Georgian-Russian war continues and Bush plays with U.S. athletes at the Olympics ... Could The U.S. Get Pulled Into Georgia’s War?

XicanoPwr discusses the immigration survey that was sent to presidential candidates Obama and McCain put together by The Sanctuary, a web-based grassroots community of pro-migrant, human rights, and civil-rights bloggers.

The wrath of Aphrodite (or Venus, the Goddess of Love) is against extreme stubbornness: She maketh her stubborn enemies appear more and more ridiculous! :)

NOT affected by the sane judgement of the Greek judge, who dismissed their absurd case (explained in a previous post HERE), the people who started it all (Mr. Dimitris Lambrou and others) apparently continue to delude themselves that they have a chance to win their case in a European court:

( source: Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2008 ):

After the decision was handed down, Mr Lambrou said: "The decision by the court will not stop the effort of hundreds of thousands of Lesbian islanders to fight for the right to maintain their name separately from that of a sexual deviation. It is a misguided ruling, highest courts both in Greece and Europe". so we have decided to take the matter to the highest courts both in Greece and Europe".

Well, as far as I am concerned, anyone stubbornly continuing this absurd case, might as well go to a local Mytilenian (LesVian) grocery shop, buy a decently sized cucumber, and shub it up his ass: It's guaranteed to leave in his mind a lasting impression... of what it's like to turn one's whole country into the laughing stock of the world, for nothing...

• Have these people conducted a referendum among the inhabitants of Lesvos, to be able to claim that "hundreds of thousands of people feel offended"?
• Furthermore: Have these people realized their case's collateral damage affecting badly the international reputation of Greece (as a whole)?

The ultimate, most supreme arrogance, was expressed by Mr. Lambrou, when he stated:

"They can do what they want with their bodies. And they can call themselves what they want, but not lesbians," he said.

Well, someone has got to tell this person (living totally in his own little world) that there exists such a thing as the "right of self-determination"; the right to chose what to call one's self. And someone has also got to tell him that the "Greek Gay and Lesbian Union" (whom he unjustly sued) is by definition totally innocent... of any ulterior motive to steal the precious (my ass) "copyright" of the word "Lesbian"!

Perhaps the wisest reaction to this, was Ms. Evangelia Vlami's, a lesbian activist who told the court:

"Claiming that the word insults their history is racist and ridiculous," she told the court. "It is a word that has evolved harmlessly from history and mythology and under no circumstances is intended to offend the islanders or those many people around the world who originate from this island".

"After all," she added, "'Siamese twins is an internationally accepted term, and nobody thought of arguing that this term insults the people of Siam".

Meanwhile, some extremely hilarious comments about this case (including some very good jokes) have entertained the world (at the expense of our reputation, Greece as THE country of insanity). E.g. a reputable lesbian blogger wrote:

“…how can 250,000 people of Lesbian descent - including women - be considered homosexual?” (quote)

OMG, this sentence seriously cracked me up. Basically, some people from the island of Lesbos are suing a Greek gay and lesbian group for using the word “lesbian”. They say this “insults the identity” of the OG Lesbo Lesbians. I think this is super funny, but it also makes me feel a bit weird…

An anonymous commentator in another blog recollected a very good relevant joke, contributed here as a comment by a friend of mine (JohnPap) who first spotted it:

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/30/true_mytilenians/comments/

“An old cowboy went to a bar and ordered a drink.

As he sat sipping his whiskey, a young lady sat down next to him.

After she ordered her drink, she turned to the cowboy and asked him, “Are you a real cowboy?” He replied, “Well, I have spent my whole life on the ranch, herding cows, breaking horses, mending fences. Yep, I guess I am.”

After a short while, he asked her what she was.

She replied, “I am a lesbian. I spend my whole day thinking about women. As soon as I get up in the morning I think of women, when I eat, shower, watch TV, everything seems to make me think of women.”

A short while later she left and the cowboy ordered another drink.

A couple sat down next to him and asked, “Are you a real cowboy?”

He replied, “I always thought I was, but I just found out that I’m a lesbian.”

———

There was also someone else who proposed “LesVos” instead of “Lesbos”, as a solution:

By Kanhef

Posted Wednesday 30th April 2008 14:06 GMT
Thumb Down

Just change the official Anglicization to ‘Lesvos’. End of problem. Or call it ‘Midilli’, but the Greeks wouldn’t be too happy.

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• Lesbos climax as lesbians lick Lesbians

En af de nyere udgiftsposter dækker over ansættelsen af vagter med muslimsk baggrund i områder med få etniske danskere

Mere af Uwe Max Jensen på SAPPHO

Lesbos is best known as the birthplace and home of the poet Sappho ― a Lesbian in both senses of the word. The island is a popular vacation destination for lesbians, who flock to the capital city of Mytilene as well as the village of Eresos (Sappho's birthplace).

The highlight of the trial was probably when one of the plaintiffs' witnesses declared, "My wife is a Lesbian, my daughter is a Lesbian and I am a Lesbian," provoking laughter from the gallery.

Lambrou promises to appeal the case.

Read more:

A Greek's Crusade to Protect His Island's Name (Spiegel)

Lesbos islanders lose lesbian ban court case (Telegraph)

OLKE

Digg it!   Stumble it!

Lesbos Loses Lesbian Lawsuit

A Greek court Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing an LGBT rights group of demeaning the people of the Aegean island of Lesbos by purloining the word Lesbian, a term islanders have used to name themselves for centuries. …

Dimitris Lambrou, one of the litigants in the case, said Sappho was not gay.

--From Lavender Liberal

~~~~

Some lesbians aren't quite as moved by the "win":

While lesbians in more than 80 countries are still denied their basic equal rights and more than 50 per cent of Britain's lesbian youth are bullied, poor old Lambrou and his sister are upset that use of the word violates the human rights of the islanders and disgraces them around the world. Clearly, Hellenics hath no fury like a lesbian scorned.

But beneath my own tut-tutting lies an irony that might solve his and some of our own privileged contemporary concerns. Lambrou may not know it, but some lesbians wish that they could scratch the L word. Often used pejoratively, the term shares an unfortunate phonetic similarity to “less than”, “loser” and, some say, an exotic venereal disease. When I asked a friend whether she liked being called a lesbian, she said: “No, I like being called Barbara.” When the writer Diana Souhami was asked by a reporter if she was a lesbian, she replied: “Yes, but not at the moment. It's 9.30 in the morning and I'm thirsty.”

--From TimesOnline

~~~

I'm more interested in the historical trend of the whole situation. As far as I'm concerned, Dimitris Lambrou, proud Lesbian and leader of this inane court case, can just get in a long line of folks who have longed to rid the Isle of Lesbos of its pro-woman sentiment and history, mostly through efforts to "cleanse" Sappho’s verse, as noted here:

Attempts to Heterosexualize Sappho

Despite the strong evidence to the contrary, serious attempts have been made to heterosexualize Sappho. In antiquity, a legend was created that, in the end, Sappho renounced the love of women and fell in love with the ferryman, Phaeon. Too ugly to get her man, she leapt off of the Leucadian Cliff to her death.

This legend is so incongruous with the authorial voice in Sappho's verse that the ancient biographers themselves were confused: They list two Sapphos of Lesbos. The second Sappho is described as either a lyre-player or courtesan, but specifically not the poetess. It is this second Sappho who committed suicide for love of Phaeon.

Ovid, in his Epistles, conflates the two Sapphos: It is the great poet Sappho who renounces girls and longs for Phaeon. It is this Sappho that writers, artists, and composers have focused on ever after.

Sappho's Marriage as Proof of her Heterosexuality

Some commentators cite as proof of Sappho's heterosexuality the fact that she was married and had a daughter. Curiously, her husband is cited as Kerkylas from Andros. The name Kerkylas is based on the word for "penis." Andros comes from the word for "men." If we translate, then, we find that the most famous lesbian of all was married to Penis of the city of Men.

Too good to be true? In any event, it is likely that she was married, but this has no bearing on her sexual orientation. Greek society was very different from our own: Marriage was seen as a civic responsibility and familial obligation. It was not designed--nor expected--to fulfill one's erotic or romantic needs. For that, men looked elsewhere. And marriage did not interfere with their homosexual affairs.

Marital relations were known as a ponos or "labor," ergon "work," or kamnos, "toil." In contrast, erotic affairs were called paidia or "play." Men were so unenthusiastic about participating in sexual intercourse with their wives that they had to be reminded.

Plutarch in his life of Solon suggests that a man should make love to his wife three times a month in order to ease marital tensions. Foreplay was actively discouraged: Too much pleasure might give a woman power over her husband and, thus, undermine his authority.

Clearly, women could not expect sexual fulfillment within marriage. But for a woman to remain unmarried in this society was unthinkable. According to Eva Cantarella in her book Pandora's Daughters, girls were betrothed as young as five years old and, by thirteen or fourteen, they were subjected to arranged marriages to men who were aged thirty or older.

Before and after marriage, women were completely segregated in the internal part of the house to which men had no access. Women did not come into contact with men outside their immediate family except occasionally at public festivals and funerals.

On Lesbos, aristocratic women like Sappho got an education, albeit a "female" one emphasizing music, singing, and dancing. But as Cantarella points out, at least this education helped form their individual personalities and offered them a means to express it.

If we take Sappho as a model teacher, it would appear that an appreciation of sensual expression, including lesbian affairs, was part of a girl's education. When a girl moved from maiden to married woman (at about fourteen), her time for play was over. She would have only memories of what must have been the happiest time of her life. It is no wonder that she wept on graduation.

Women were segregated with other women, and socialized and trained by them. What would be more natural than for romantic attractions and rivalries to occur among them, as occurred among their menfolk? Who is to say if Greek women had homosexual affairs of their own?

Sappho does, but, unfortunately, she is our only direct source for love between women; as Cantarella states, "Unlike male homosexuality, female homosexuality was not an instrument for the training of citizens. It therefore by definition interested only women."

--Continued GLBTQ

The Debate over Sappho's Sexual Identity

In the face of her erotic poetry, it is hard to believe that scholars continue to argue that Sappho was not a lesbian in the modern sense of the word. From the first extant comments on Sappho's erotic relations with young women in the Hellenistic period to the present day, critics (predominantly male), appalled at the thought of women engaging in lesbian sexual activity, have tried to deny Sappho's homosexuality.

Their attempts range from deliberately mistranslating words that indicate that the beloved is female to forcing a heterosexual context on poems depicting lesbian desire.

For example, the famous Fragment 31 has been described as a marriage-song in which Sappho relates the girl's desirability for the groom's benefit. Her feelings in the poem continue to be hotly disputed. They have been described as anything ranging from jealousy, love, fear, wonder, and terror to an anxiety attack brought on by penis-envy.

Had this poem been written by a man, there would be little dispute. Nor has there been in the many translations penned by men. Of course, the gender dynamics of the poem are significantly altered when it becomes a male voice describing his response to a woman. Such translations are an insidious (if unintentional) way of heterosexualizing Sappho.

In the poem, Sappho watches a man's reaction to her beloved and marvels at his composure, so different from her own response. To anyone who has ever been a lover, the symptoms of infatuation are unmistakable:

Fragment 31

To me, he seems like a God, that man,

Who can sit at ease in your presence

Who can hear your melodic voice

Strumming close in his ear,

Your provocative laughter:

Ample cause for cardiac arrest.

You spied, I swallow all voice

And my tongue lies crippled.

A lyric fire sweeps my flesh

And my eyes stare blindly.

Rhombs crash close in my ear,

A chilling sweat fingers my spine,

Trembling invades my every part

And I am greener than grass.

To myself, I seem like a corpse, or near....

There is a whole tradition of "defenders" of Sappho. David Robinson is typical: "Villainous stories arose about her and gathered vileness till they reached a climax in the licentious Latin of Ovid."

The most famous of Sappho's "defenders" was the German Ulrich von Wilamowitz-Moellendorff who in his classic Sappho und Simonides depicted Sappho as a chaste Hausfrau, a virtuous pillar of the community and moral instructor of young girls. As Page describes it, Wilamowitz "gave new and lasting dignity to the old theory that Sappho was a paragon of moral and social virtues and that her poetry was grossly misunderstood in antiquity."

Wilamovitz explained Sappho's relationship with her charges by depicting her as a cult priestess in the service of an "honest" (that is, nonsexual) Aphrodite. As Page points out, there is absolutely no evidence for this theory. Nevertheless, much scholarly ink has been spilled trying to prove that despite her professed love of women, despite her poetic genius, Sappho was still a "good" woman.

--Continued at GLBTQ

~~~

Dimitris, time to purge yourself of your lesbian-envy. Embrace your lovely island and be glad so many beautiful women visit regularly. Oh, and enjoy your fifteen minutes. Case closed.

~~~

]]> http://manofroma.wordpress.com/?p=396 Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:43:39 +0000 ManofRoma http://manofroma.da.wordpress.com/2008/07/12/fragments-of-greek-beauty/

The isles of Greece! the isles of Greece!
Where burning Sappho loved and sung,
Where grew the arts of war and peace ...

Thus Byron chanted, and such landscapes, the Mediterranean Greek islands (and mainland Greece as well), explain a bit how Hellenic beauty in arts developed and flourished: the extreme limpidity of the air, the richness of colours and smells, skies and sea of a magnificent intense blue, and a vehement sun, burning and pervasive. What perfection, what simplicity and yet profundity!

Well, one might say, where has all this Beauty gone? The landscape is still there but is it true that all that was splendid and Greek has disappeared ...

as the flowers of the orange tree
swept away by the cold north wind …?"

(quote from here).

Greece didn't continue its beauty and civilization like Italy did in the centuries (see the comments section for a discussion on this point). But some fragments have survived. Narrowing the focus on literature, we personally are fascinated by the works of the sublime neo-pagan poet Constantine Cavafy (1863 - 1933) from Alexandria, or by those of the writer, poet and philosopher Nikos Kazantzakis (1883 - 1957) from Crete, who lost the Nobel Prize to Albert Camus in 1957 by just one vote and who was spiritually restless, seeking "relief in knowledge, in travelling, in contact with a diverse set of people, in every kind of experience"(Wikipedia). And we are naming only those we have some knowledge of.

Crete is the largest Greek island which completes from the south the Greek archipelago (1400 islands!) and which, sung by Homer, conjures up ancient legends like Minos, the Minotaur, Theseus and Ariadne, the labyrinth created by Daedalus etc. (were they mere legends? I do not think so). It is an island that hosted the Minoan civilization, namely the most ancient Greek (hence European) civilization (ca. 2600–1400 BC).

Admire the perfection of this Minoan Bull Head from the Heraklion Museum, Crete (click on this and all other pictures for source files and credits).

Let us now listen to the words of Nikos Kazantzakis recalling some decisive moments from his childhood in Crete: his first contacts with earth, sea, woman and fire (from the starry sky).

Earth, Sea, Woman and Fire

Kazantzakis remembers how advancing on all fours, still not able to walk, he once extended his tender head full of longing and fear in the courtyard for the very first time. Until that moment he had looked out his house windows but had seen nothing. That time though he didn’t just extend his sight, he actually saw the world for the very first time. Extraordinary revelation!

“Our little courtyard-garden seemed without limits. There was buzzing from thousands of invisible bees, an intoxicating aroma, a warm sun as thick as honey. The air flashed as though armed with swords, and, between the swords, erect, angel-like insects with colourful, motionless wings advanced straight for me. I screamed from fright, my eyes filled with tears, and the world vanished.”

This was the very first time he experienced the Earth.

(A landscape from Crete)

Ψ

He also remembers how a man with a thorny beard took him in his arms and brought him down to the port. While approaching their destination the little child started to hear like the terrible sighing and roaring of a wounded beast. He got so frightened that he tried to escape from the man’s arms, like a little trapped bird.

“Suddenly – the bitter odour of carob beans, tar, and rotten citrons. My creaking vitals opened to receive it …at a turn in the street – dark indigo, seething, all cries and smells (what a beast that was! what freshness! what boundless sigh) – the entire sea poured into me frothingly. My tender temples collapsed, and my head filled with laughter, salt, and fear.”

This was the very first time he experienced the Sea.

Ψ

He then remembers, when he was three, that a plump and pretty young woman, Anika, a neighbour with nice blond hair and large eyes, came to their little garden while he was playing around. The place smelled of summer and she, newly married and recent mother, leaning over, took him in her lap and hugged him.

“I, closing my eyes, fell against her exposed bosom and smelled her body: the warm, dense perfume, the acid scent of milk and sweat. The newly married body was steaming. I inhaled the vapour in an erotic torpor, hanging from her high bosom. Suddenly I felt overcome by dizziness and fainted. Blushing terribly, the frightened neighbour put me down, depositing me between two pots of basil.”

After that day the woman never took him on her lap again. “She just looked at me very tenderly with her large eyes and smiled.”

This was the very first time he experienced the Woman.

Ψ

One night in summer he was in his yard again.

"I remember lifting my eyes and seeing the stars for the first time. Jumping to my feet, I cried out in fear, 'Sparks! Sparks!' The sky seemed a vast conflagration to me; my little body was on fire."

This was how he experienced fire (and the starry sky) for the first time in his life.

Ψ

These four terrible elements - he recognizes - imprinted on his mind to the extent that even the most abstract ideas or the most metaphysical problems, in order to be significant to him, must take on a physical form "which smells of sea, soil and human sweat. The Word, in order to touch me, must become warm flesh."

It is this special trait, this synaesthetic aptitude, among others, that makes many Kazantzakis’s pages so vibrant and unforgettable.

References. Quotes from Nikos Kazantzakis's autobiographical and last novel, Report to Greco, Faber and Faber 1965, translation from modern Greek by Bruno Cassirer, Oxford, 1965.

Sappho, a cool hang-out whose ambiance affords a certain unique chill-out factor hard to find elsewhere in Taipei - the live music program provides a platform for artists to further their musical inclinations, without having to “sell-out” to, say, a philistine materialist proprietor out to make a fast buck. But then again, you will not be subjected to 9000 decibels of in-your-face-death-metal or random noise generators, no matter how alternative, because at the end of the day, Sappho must take a stand & create its own sense of “cool” - leaving you to judge for yourselves. Nowadays Sappho is frequented by a interesting mix of musicians, artists, creative types - often local Taiwanese, but also with a diverse international crowd. The sort of thing you’d never expect to find in Hong Kong, with its expat cultural apartheid scene. The pride of the bar is the cocktails & wines, but they also stock some Euro-beers.

web: www.sappho102.biz
Address and map after the jump

________________________________________

B1, No. 1, lane 102, An-He Rd. Sec. 1, Taipei

台北市安和路一段102巷一號B1

Tel: 2700-5411

Nothing "real" is how it seems it should be.  Nothing meets the fantastical criteria I harbor deep within me.  

The glorious World I visit in my dreams is so different from this Earth we occupy.  I am constantly driven to escape, to flee from Reality and Necessities and Normalcy.  I know that the Earth supposedly offers everything we should need to be "happy."  But some of us, blind since birth, cannot see it.  We enter a museum, attend a wedding, read about romance, kiss a person who loves us, eat, sleep, and have delicious dreams - And, somehow, this bouquet of Joy nauseates us.  We are sick in spirit.  This wonderful world seems alarmingly empty, hollow, and terrifying.

Most recently, I fled via alcohol.  This provided an efficient respite...for a time.  But, ultimately, it just brought the wretchedness of Life into sharper focus; it forced an unbearably acute awareness of futility upon my already-frail psyche.  Addiction truly is the antithesis of escape.

The polarity of Needs - imposed by competing & contradictory Desires - juxtaposed itself in a satirical tragedy of the utmost irony.  That is why Sappho & Eustochium & S. are so dear to me.

Sappho, the lover, poet, and muse, is a victim of this irony.  Living on the island of Lesbos, she composed lyrical verses for a sailor, valiant Greek seaman.  After years of longing for his eventual return to her, she received word of his death.  Upon hearing this news, she hurled herself off a cliff, to join her lover forever in the sea.  And yet, today she is hailed as the Mother of Lesbianism.  A crueler remembrance could not be conjured up.

Eustochium, daughter of a raped Paduan nun, was the physical embodiment of this Irony.  She was the purest of her cloister's Sisters, entering the Paduan convent at 11 years old.  But, she was afflicted by evil (& powerful) spirits.  She suffered through 25 years on this earth before succumbing to the Death that had haunted her for a decade.  The name of "Jesus" was found cauterized on her left breast.

S., a fictional enigma created by Salinger, was a lifelong seeker of beauty & purity.  His search was markedly desperate and honest, but never fruitful.  He could not find what he was looking for.  So, in an act of ultimate Irony, he ended a beautiful life with an obscene & grotesque act: suicide.  

I would also add John Wilmot to this cadre of malcontents.  His addition would be for a different reason, though.  A beautiful poet, he spent his entire life pursuing the despicable.  He chronicled his misogynistic endeavors in cynical plays and poems.  But, at the age of 33, dying of syphilis and alcoholism, he made one last attempt at Living - he wrote an impassioned plea to Parliament that saved Protestantism from extinction (and rescued Christendom from making an irrevocable mistake).