The Afterlife of Sappho's Afterlife

This article explores an important aspect of the constellation of elements that contribute to the construction of the image of ‘Sappho’ from antiquity to the twentieth century, that of Sappho's ultimate destiny after her fatal leap from the Rock of Leucas. I first argue that the story of Sappho's leap lies behind the description of the Underworld in a long fragment of a fifth-century Attic comedy, the Miners of Pherecrates, and that indeed ‘Sappho’ appeared as a character in the play. The next sections examine the background and the iconic function of Sappho's leap in the underground Basilica near Porta Maggiore in Rome and connects all these elements to the way in which the Underworld is represented in Sappho's textual fragments. The fifth section of the article deals with the ways in which Sappho's fate was reconfigured from the Renaissance onward, examining first visual, musical and dramatic representations. In the final part I focus on the ways the motif is transformed by Baudelaire and Yourcenar. The image of the poetess can shift from being an icon of an eschatological message of new life to one of an exemplary failure, two poles that have an impact both on the reception of classical antiquity and on the vision of the destiny of poetry itself.