“Empty Spaces” A Close Reading on Sappho

“Perhaps the most rewarding way to read Sappho is by embracing a position somewhere between two extremes” (xi). Accessing the paradoxes, intricacies, and emptiness that exists in the fragments of Sappho’s poetry, a hazard of history, leaves the reader standing on a bridge between reasonable thought and passionate expression uncertain which way to go because there are gaping holes in every direction. Sappho’s words were largely lost in time, and as a result readers throughout history may never experience the poet’s true intention. However, through examining  the remaining fragments as closely as the spaces between them, readers can experience Sappho’s pure and basic observations of daily life tinged with simplistic beauty on one side of the bridge, contrasted with an eruption of passionate expression at the other side, all while inserting one’s own experiences into the holes throughout her fragments as they go, thus creating a modern and personal rendition of an ancient poetic voice whose passion leaps over the holes in her text and has endured perhaps due, in part, to the loss of her original words and intentions. Through a close reading, we can come to find a source of beauty and pleasure for Sappho, and experience it for ourselves by bridging passionate experience and observations of life knowing full well we aren’t receiving the full picture. By inserting our own experience into that space we may have a chance to connect with Sappho in a way that may not have been possible had the entirety of her work survived, thus bridging the gap between reason and passion as well as between past and present.

The daily activities of any life can feel repetitive and mundane. However, and though some of her shorter fragments leave much to be desired, Sappho’s words have a power behind them that capture the reader’s attention, drawing them into the scene she is observing and recording. Some fragments left behind by Sappho observe the everyday world with a certain innocence that captures a quality of beauty in its purest form.  One fragment writes:

“a child, very soft, picking flowers” (46).

Here, the tone is delicate, pure, and honest. The basic language does not suggest any greater purpose than to witness the innocence of a child not yet influenced by the ups and downs of a passionate adult life where fear and love can exist in the same moment; the child is  instead simply picking flowers, and while it must be admitted that children are run by a passion of sorts, their innocence is what is captured here. While this may not be a direct or accurate translation, and pieces may be missing from the entirety of the poem, this fragment is appealing because it could be any child, in any place, picking any flower; a wonderful and pure observation of a childlike passion for the simplest of things. Readers are drawn in to observe this everyday act as if they were there, with their child. One can wonder about what has disappeared from the poem over time. Yet it is in the missing pieces where we have an opportunity to insert our life into Sappho’s, accepting her observations as our own.  While the missing pieces may leave readers wondering what her intentions were, as in fragment 46, it is perhaps those missing pieces in themselves that give some of Sappho’s fragments a unique quality. It gives them a poignant simplicity that is pure, honest, and offers a child-like view of a passionate world filled with beautiful flowers. A fragment like this is a chance to welcome modern readers into Sappho’s everyday life because they are able to insert themselves into the blank spaces. The same is true with some of her more deliberate, yet still fragmented, passionate poetry. 

In contrast to the simplistic fragments of  child-like passion for daily life, Sappho also captures and expresses the innermost desires of those whose passions and emotions may have been suppressed or contained in a reasonable and acceptable society, which could be speculated as the case for Sappho when she wrote her poems in a Greek an male dominant society over 2000 years ago. Her fragments suggest a release from an inner dialogue that has no other outlet but that of passionate poetic expression.  One such fragment exclaims a feeling that nearly everyone has experienced- seeing someone they yearn for yet unable to reach them:

“                                     And O yes,

it sets my heart racing---

                              one glance at you

and I can’t get any words out,

                             my voice cracks,

a thin flame runs under my skin,

my eyes go blind,    

                            my ears ring,

a cold sweat pours down my body,

I tremble all over

                           turn paler than grass.

Look at me

                  just a shade from dead…” (20)

When reading this poem, one may call to mind any moment having seen someone with love and desire, where feelings are spilling over. The emotional gravity created in part by the honest language that is less flowery and poetic than it is like the observation of a child picking flowers- pure. The is only compounded by the blank spaces between the words. One might pick out parts where the initial missing pieces of the line are missing, and focus only on those in order to feel the passion coming through in a true way, devoid of over indulgent vocabulary. For instance, the third, fifth, and eighth fragmented lines read: “one glance at you/… my voice cracks/… my ears ring/…”. Here we almost don’t need the rest of the poem to know exactly how Sappho must have felt at this exact moment, for we likely have felt this most basic of human emotions at one time or another. By reading the poem while acknowledging the blank spaces that come with it, we are less reading Sappho’s mood and are more remembering our own desire, standing at the bridge trapped between what we want to do and express versus what we should, with a range of uncertainty everywhere we look. Thus, the blank spaces in this poem perhaps make it more passionate than what the original may have intended, simply due to the option of inserting ourselves into the story or having the opportunity to imagine- creating an extremely powerful personal connection to the passionate scene and to Sappho herself; a powerful passion which could be precisely why this poem, and others like it, have lasted throughout history. 

While a reader may glean and guess at what Sappho’s intentions were in any of the fragmented poems that stood the test of time, her original intentions have likely been lost in time or in translation, leaving readers with no choice but to assume the context in her writing. This may appear to be a tragedy in itself and yet it is perhaps one main reason that Sappho has transcended history altogether. A person’s psychological desire to fill a blank space, is as powerful as any passionate poetry. Inserting our own language into the fragments left behind by Sappho allows the reader to recreate a story and experience in their own reality. One such fragment reads: 

“the beautiful and the good

            you             pain

        reproach

you well

           you are grieved    for it

not so me

           she is disposed

                        I understand

                        disgrace

                        other

            minds well

                       blessed” (56)

Though her words may be sparse and the original meaning lost, there is passion and emotion that exists in the remaining words and within the emptiness of the white space itself. We see “pain”, “I understand”, or“disgrace” and we know the definitions and connotations these words bring; their simplicity if powerful and allows the reader to bridge the gap not only from one word to the next, but from one emotion to another along with Sappho herself as she recounts events and emotions. While it is true that the language has been translated and the original poem may have had a different intention, one must wonder if what is lost is what should be focussed on rather than allowing the missing parts to become an integral piece of Sappho as an ancient poet reborn for readers in the modern world. Today’s readers, and perhaps all readers throughout history, have a desire to fill spaces; there is something attractive in the mystery behind what we can’t see; Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and the veil on a bride’s wedding day. Through reading Sappho, we have the chance to fill that mysterious white space between “you”, “not some” and “blessed” with raw, organic, and personal desire, filling the holes with ourselves,  which may lead any reader to a more fulfilled understanding of their own passion. Life itself can be observed, and we may become the architects of our own expression, which could in turn help us make a connection through passion - true honest and pure-  to Sappho herself. 

Language constructs our reality and if we are to access Sappho’s poetry at all, we must insert our own language into her reality so that we may understand not only her need to observe mundane daily life, or express a passionate suppression, but also so that we may become the poet ourselves. Without passion, we become trapped inside the empty spaces of our life with nothing to fill it. The reason Sappho’s poetry survived is because her poems, in spite of the initial simplistic language and basic observations that seem to mean nothing more than what they state, her poems were so infused with truth in passion and expression that through word choice, even though gaping holes were left, readers have enough of a blueprint to fill in the blank spaces with their own ideas, making Sappho relatable, understandable, and personal to each and every reader. Therefore, Sappho’s description of the observations in her daily life and passionate expression of desire, not only made it to the 21st century because of such a strong will to express herself, but also because parts of it were in-fact lost; allowing those who picked it up centuries later, to make her poetry their own- they made it personal with their own passion, and thus Sappho’s fragments will continue to survive because they are in fact fragments, ready for new readers in a new world with their own struggles to express yet without a voice- they may perhaps use Sappho as a blueprint for self expression. 

Works Cited:

Lombardo, Stanley and Gordon, Pamela. Sappho: poems and fragments. Hackett, 2002.