Sappho's Prayer to Aphrodite
The importance of Sappho's first poem as a religious document has long been recognized, but there is still room for disagreement as to the position that should be assigned to it in a history of Greek religious experience. The difficulty lies in the interpretation of the language of the poem; no...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Cambridge Univ. Press
1939
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| In: |
Harvard theological review
Year: 1939, Volume: 32, Issue: 1, Pages: 1-17 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | The importance of Sappho's first poem as a religious document has long been recognized, but there is still room for disagreement as to the position that should be assigned to it in a history of Greek religious experience. The difficulty lies in the interpretation of the language of the poem; not of its literal meaning, which is clear, but of its tone and color. Is the poem, as Bowra puts it, “a prayer intimate and serious”? Is it “after all a religious poem, concerned with an experience which can only be called mystical”? Or is it an exercise in a literary genre, charming indeed in the simple directness of its expression, but still conventional and not to be taken seriously as a religious utterance. Or, finally, does the truth lie somewhere between these two extremes? |
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| ISSN: | 1475-4517 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Harvard theological review
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1017/S0017816000021568 |