FOOTNOTES TO SAPPHO: AN EXAMINATION OF THE FEMALE POETS OF GREECE by Jonathan Milton Rowland A dissertation submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Classical Studies) in The University of Michigan 2012 Doctoral Committee: Professor Ruth Scodel, Chair Professor Yopie Prins Assistant Professor J. Mira Seo Professor Benjamin Acosta Hughes, The Ohio State University This work is dedicated to my mother, Ellen, who taught me, among many things, that not all great literature is required reading in school. ii Acknowledgments Many people have helped me with this project and, more generally, in life, and I would like to take this opportunity to thank as many of them as space allows. I could never express the debt I owe to my father, Milton. He has inspired me, pushed me, and given to me all the advice and aid he possibly could. He is the smartest man I have ever met, as well as the best. Truly, I would not be where I am today without his influence. My mother Ellen has always been, to me, the very embodiment of quiet strength and courage. She has always believed in me, and I have always believed in her. This project would not have been possible were it not for my wonderful fiancée Simone. She has read and edited my drafts, made me laugh, made sure I slept and ate, and been more than patient with me throughout this process. I am very grateful to her for all of this and more. My beautiful and precocious son Henry has been a source of pure joy and constant optimism as I wrote this dissertation. I am blessed with a wonderful family that has been very patient with me, even though this project has not allowed me to see them nearly often enough. My siblings Jessica, Patrick, and Amanda are kind and loving people for whom I am very grateful. iii My nephew Liam is a smart, kind, and good young man, and I'm very proud to be able to call myself his uncle. Lengley is an adorable two year-old who is and hopefully will always be Henry's closest friend. I love you all. I am very fortunate to have assembled an excellent committee who have provided many readings, edits, and helpful comments to me. Special thanks are owed to Ruth Scodel, who answered all my (many) questions. Any errors in this dissertation more than likely correspond to suggestions from my committee that I forgot to take. Thank you all very much. Finally, I would like to thank my friends who kept my spirits up whenever I was overwhelmed, especially Jackie Murray, who helped me rework some of the more problematic spots, and Robin Greene, who provided me with helpful insights and a lot of laughs. I am very grateful to David, Brian, Conison, Chris, Michael, Elizabeth, Matt, Vicki, Ian, Marty, and Jim for their friendship and support, and to Shol, who was a healing influence on many of us. iv Table of Contents Dedication ii Acknowledgements iii List of Abbreviations viii Chapter 1 - Footnotes to Sappho 1 1.1. Introduction to the Study 1 1.2. Sappho's Influence on the Female Poets 3 1.3. The Hellenistic Revolution 7 1.4. The Study 10 Chapter 2 - Erinna 15 2.1. Introduction 15 2.1.1. Life and Works 16 2.1.2. Ancient Assessment 22 2.2. The Distaff 28 2.2.1. Introduction and the Text of the Distaff 28 2.2.2. Erinna's Silent Sounds, or Erinna's Lament 33 2.2.3. The Applicability of the Title 41 2.2.4. Conclusion 45 2.3. Erinna's Epigrams 45 2.3.1. Introduction 45 2.3.2. Messages from the Grave 46 v 2.3.3. The Textual Sirens and Erinna the Engraver 51 2.3.4. The Text of Agatharchis 56 2.3.5. Conclusion 59 2.4. Conclusion - Erinna's Voice 61 Chapter 3 - Anyte 64 3.1. Introduction 64 3.1.1. Life and Works 65 3.1.2. Ancient Assessment 68 3.2. The Traditional Poet 71 3.2.1. Introduction 71 3.2.2. The Meta-Memorial 74 3.2.3. Parallels of Grief 79 3.2.4. More Parallels - Animal Epitaphs 84 3.2.5. Conclusion 89 3.3. The Textual Poet 93 3.3.1. Introduction 93 3.3.2. The Argument for Anyte's Book 95 3.3.3. Funereal Texts: Meta-Memorials Revisited 97 3.3.4. Dedicatory Texts: Programmatic Offerings 106 3.3.5. Conclusion 111 3.4. Conclusion - Anyte's Contribution 113 Chapter 4 - Nossis 115 4.1. Introduction 115 4.1.1. Life and Works 116 4.1.2. Ancient Assessment 119 vi 4.2. Gendered Polemic 121 4.2.1. Introduction 121 4.2.2. AP 5.170 = 1 GP 122 4.2.3. Dedicatory Epigrams 130 4.2.4. Two Poems Often Ignored 139 4.2.5. AP 7.718 = 11 GP 142 4.2.6. Conclusion 147 4.3. Generic Games 149 4.3.1. Introduction 149 4.3.2. Nossis and Epinikian Poetry 152 4.3.3. Nossis' Partheneion 156 4.3.4. Conclusion 163 4.4. Conclusion - Nossis' Texts 164 Epilogue – The Grouping Paradox 167 Appendix – Frequently Discussed Texts 170 Bibliography 181 vii List of Abbreviations AP = Anthologia Palatina FGE = D.L. Page, ed. Further Greek Epigrams. Cambridge, 1981. GP = A.S.F. Gow and D.L. Page. The Greek Anthology: Hellenistic Epigrams. IG = Inscriptiones Graecae. Vol. 1ff. Berlin, 1873-. LP = E. Lobel and D.L. Page. Poetarum Lesbiorum Fragmenta. Oxford, 1955. PMG = D.L. Page. Poetae Melici Graeci. Oxford, 1962. viii Chapter 1 Footnotes to Sappho 1.1. Introduction to the Study The 7th or 6th century BCE poet Sappho of Lesbos was in antiquity, and very likely still is today, the most famous and influential female poet in the world.1 She was known in the Greek world as "the tenth Muse" and her poetry has been read, imitated, and translated for over two thousand years.2 As a consequence of her renown, Sappho's poetry has cast a tremendous shadow over the work of other female poets, especially other Greek female poets. The poetry composed by these later Greek women is largely ignored by the wider scholarly world for a variety of reasons -- their extant corpus is too small, little to nothing is known about them outside of their poetry -- but the underlying reason is simple: these women are typically assumed to be imitators of Sappho.3 It is the goal of this study to challenge that assumption and hopefully to help restore these poets to their rightful places in the history of Greek literature as innovative and influential poets worthy of scholarly attention. 1 On her date, the Suda claims that she either flourished or was born (the Greek is unclear) in the 42nd Olympiad, or 612/608 BCE, while Eusebius notes that she was famous in the first year of the 45th Olympiad, or 600/599 BCE. 2 On the Hellenistic conception of Sappho as the tenth Muse, see Gosetti-Murrayjohn 2006, Acosta-Hughes 2010: 82-87. 3 Cf. Barnard 1978: 213 "Anyte, Erinna and Nossis...followed the tradition of Sappho"; Gutzwiller 1997: 202 claims that "in [composing lyrics] as in so much else, the principal model was Sappho." 1 Sappho's poetry focuses primarily on women and the concerns of women and this has led to various readings of her poetry and life; the most dominant interpretations of Sappho's life are Sappho as lesbian (in the modern sense) lover and Sappho as schoolmistress.4 Scholars for the most part agree that her poetry was composed and likely performed for a predominantly female audience.5 This view of Sappho as not just a female poet but a female poet has persisted from antiquity to the modern era and has dovetailed with the recently emerging scholarly interest in "women's songs".6 Broadly defined, "women's songs" are those songs sung publicly or privately by women that were part of a female oral tradition that was not written down and consequently did not enter the literary canon. As a result of this intersection, Sappho's work is understood as a glimpse into the exclusively female poetic tradition.7 Although this is a study of later poets, and not of Sappho, this view of Sapphic poetry as female is important to the present work inasmuch as it has influenced scholarly interpretations of the later Greek female poets from the Hellenistic period to today. Antipater of Thessalonica lists nine women in his epigrammatic catalogue of Greek female poets: Praxilla, Moero, Anyte, Sappho, Erinna, Telesilla, Korinna, Nossis, and Myrtis.8 Of these nine, this study will explore the poetry of three -- Erinna, Anyte, and Nossis. These poets were chosen because modern scholarship on their poetry has for too long been fixated on questions about how feminine or masculine their poems are, or 4 For an excellent discussion of the different readings of Sappho's life and social circle, see Parker 1996. 5 See bibliography in Parker 1996. 6 Recent studies on women's songs include Stehle 1997, Lardinois 2001, Bowman 2004, Klinck 2008. For discussion of Sappho's poetry as providing a woman-centered model of poetry, see Williamson 1995, duBois 1996, Skinner 1996, Winkler 1996, Stehle 1996. 7 Snyder 1997: 2ff. 8 AP 9.26. 2 to what extent they are imitators of Sappho, rather than about the poetry itself.9 In this study I will attempt to refocus the conversations about these poets away from Sappho and onto the poems, the innovations, and the poetic projects of these excellent poets.