![]() ![]() ![]() Additionally, from a conceptual perspective, Sappho connects eros with geras and death. In keeping with an almost homogenous Greek belief, nothing is directly ascribed as coming from within. The approach to the representation of the Sapphic body is also the same: viewing her body as if from above, the singer watches physical transformations caused by external factors, namely old age in poem 58 and, in part, the forces of eros in fragment 31. ![]() In both pieces the same poetic devices are employed to evoke the Sapphic self-gaze: hyperbole, vivid imagery and the theme of transformation. In poem 58 Sappho laments the bodily effects of old age (58.3–6) while in fragment 31, writing on the physiological urgency of intense desire, she describes her body in crisis (31.5–16). The results of this comparative study will hopefully shed some light on poem 58 in relation to an established fragment, fragment 31, as well as extend discussion of the latter piece-not only in terms of the themes of age and aging per se-but also in terms of the possibilities of the influence of Mimnermus, whose voice I suggest is not only audible in fragment 31 but in poem 58 as well. In addition to this feature of Sapphic poetic technique, I wish to consider further viable connections between the two pieces-specifically a similarity of theme ( eros, geras and death) and one of artistic allusion (the poetry of Mimnermus). I would like to address this subject as it relates to the poet’s depiction of herself, or her artistic construct, with a focus on poem 58 and fragment 31, to illustrate what Eva Stehle defines as “poetry in and through which the gaze opens the self to disintegration, shifting position, identification with the other, or mirroring of the viewer’s desiring self” (Stehle 1996:221). Much has been written on the Sapphic gaze, primarily in relation to the representation of the various personae in her poems and fragments. ![]()
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