The "Revenge" Group should answer TWO of the following questions for Wednesday's class (see the groups two posts down if you forget what group you're in). Bring the questions with you to class, so if I call on you, you can read your response (or remember what you wrote!).
Q1: How does Sappho define or complicate a "woman's" experience of life? For the Greeks, women were in the background--they couldn't own property or be citizens, being only a step up from slaves. How do the women seem to look at the own lives? As less than? Equal to? Different? The same?
Q2: Some of the poems in the last part of our reading are wedding songs, which celebrate the wedding night of the bride and groom. How do these poems show us a different side of Sappho’s art? Also, how might this show that Sappho is like many artists, composing for different audiences and occasions, rather than simply writing for herself?
Q3: How might some of the “Maidens and Marriages” and "The Wisdom of Sappho" poems be advice from a mother to her daughter? What advice might Sappho want to give to her daughters—or the next generation of women?
Q4: Pithy advice like those found in "The Wisdom of Sappho" easily survives fragmentation, since it doesn't need a lot of explanation. Like a fortune in a fortune cookie, it's meant to stand by itself. Which fragments seem to say the most with the least?
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