Abstract
In this chapter, Hodge explores the twenty-first century legacy of the ancient Greek poet, Sappho, transitioning from fragmentary papyri to dynamic, multi-faceted online platforms such as YouTube, Tumblr and WordPress sites. Sappho’s status as a feminist icon has continued to evolve, as this chapter illustrates via close readings of several creative and communal adaptations. Though much about this ancient poet’s life and beliefs is unknown, Hodge identifies some consistent approaches to Sappho, linked by power-oriented images as well as proto-feminist thinking. Hodge explores not only the ways in which Sappho continues to serve as a “rallying point” for feminist voices and inspiration for creative adaptors but also how Sappho’s poetics and themes have been preserved in cyberspaces.
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Notes
- 1.
In 2014, three previously unknown fragmentary poems of Sappho were discovered and later translated by Oxford papyrologist Dirk Obbink (2015). These poems’ authenticity and content were hotly debated online, particularly on Twitter and WordPress sites, and discussions were also staged on how best to translate these as well as the ethics of procuring such papyri in the first place: See Francesa Torchin (2014); Douglas Boin (2014) for further discussion.
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Hodge, S. (2018). Sappho in Cyberspace: Power Struggles and Reorienting Feminisms. In: Dale, C., Overell, R. (eds) Orienting Feminism. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70660-3_8
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