Sapphic stanza#Use by other poets

In poetry, "Sapphic" may refer to three distinct but related Aeolic verse forms;{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}} for full discussion see Hendecasyllable.

1. The greater Sapphic, a 15-syllable line, with the structure:
   – u – – – | u u – | – u u – u – –
   –=long syllable; u=short syllable; |=caesura
2. The lesser Sapphic, an 11-syllable line, with the structure:
   – u – x – u u – u – –
   x=anceps (either long or short)
3. The Sapphic stanza, typically conceptualized as comprising 3 lesser Sapphic lines followed by an adonic, with the structure:
   – u u – –

Classical Latin poets duplicated the Sapphic stanza with subtle modification.

Since the Middle Ages the terms "Sapphic stanzas" or frequently simply "Sapphics" have come to denote various stanzaic forms approaching more or less closely to Classical Sapphics, but often featuring accentual meter or rhyme (neither occurring in the original form), and with line structures mirroring the original with varying levels of fidelity.{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}}{{sfn|Hamer|1930|pages=302-310}}

File:Alkaios Sappho Staatliche Antikensammlungen 2416 n1.jpg and Sappho, the two great poets of Lesbos. Attic red-figure calathus, {{circa|470 BCE}}]]

Alcaeus of Mytilene composed in, and may have invented, the Sapphic stanza,{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}} but it is his contemporary and compatriot Sappho whose example exerted the greatest influence, and for whom the verseform is now named. Both lived around 600 BCE on the island of Lesbos and wrote in the Aeolic dialect of Greek.

The original Aeolic verse takes the form of a 3-line stanza:{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}}

{{Poemquote|

– u – x – u u – u – –

– u – x – u u – u – –

– u – x – u u – u – x – u u – –

–{{=}}long syllable; u{{=}}short syllable; x{{=}}anceps (either long or short)}}

However, these stanzas are frequently analyzed as 4 lines, thus:{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}}

{{Poemquote|

– u – x – u u – u – –

– u – x – u u – u – –

– u – x – u u – u – x

– u u – –}}

While Sappho used several metrical forms for her poetry, she is most famous for the Sapphic stanza. Her poems in this meter (collected in Book I of the ancient edition) ran to 330 stanzas, a significant part of her complete works, and of her surviving poetry: fragments 1-42.

Sappho's most famous poem in this metre is Sappho 31, which begins as follows:

{{Poem quote|{{lang|grc|

Φαίνεταί μοι κῆνος ἴσος θέοισιν

ἔμμεν ὤνηρ ὄττις ἐνάντιός τοι

ἰζάνει καὶ πλάσιον ἆδυ φωνεί-

σας ὐπακούει}}{{sfn|Edmonds|1922|p=186}}

|source=Fragment 31, lines 1-4}}

(In this stanza, all anceps positions are filled with long syllables.) Transliteration and formal equivalent paraphrase (substituting English stress for Greek length):

{{Verse translation|lang=grc-Latn|

phaínetaí moi kênos ísos théoisin

émmen᾽ ṓnēr, óttis enántiós toi

isdánei kaì plásion âdu phōneí-

sas upakoúei.|

He, it seems to me, is completely godlike:

Ah, that man who's sitting across from you, there,

Leaning in and listening to your sweet voice,

Charmed by your laughter.}}

A few centuries later, the Roman poet Catullus admired Sappho's work and used the Sapphic stanza in two poems: Catullus 11 (commemorating the end of his affair with Clodia) and Catullus 51 (marking its beginning).{{sfn|Quinn|1973|pages=125, 241}} The latter is a free translation of Sappho 31.{{sfn|Quinn|1973|page=241}}

Horace wrote 25 of his Odes as well as the {{lang|la|Carmen Saeculare}} in Sapphics. Two tendencies of Catullus became normative practice with Horace: the occurrence of a caesura after the fifth syllable; and the fourth syllable (formerly anceps) becoming habitually long.{{sfn|Quinn|1973|page=127}}{{sfn|Halporn|Ostwald|Rosenmeyer|1994|page=100}} Horace's Odes became the chief models for subsequent Sapphics, whether in Latin{{sfn|Heikkinen|2012|page=148}} or the later vernaculars — hence the term "Horatian Sapphic" for this modified model. But due to linguistic change, Horace's imitators split on whether they imitated his quantitative structure (the long and short syllables, Horace's metrical foundation), or his accentual patterns (the stressed or unstressed syllables which were somewhat ordered, but not determinative of Horace's actual formal structure).{{sfn|Gasparov|1996|page=86}} Gasparov provides this double scansion of Ode 1.22 (lines 1-4), which also displays Horace's typical long fourth syllables and caesura after the fifth:

/ × × / × × × / × / ×

– u – – – u u – u – ∩

{{lang|la|Integer vītae}} {{!}} {{lang|la|scelerisque pūrus}}

× / × / × / × × × / ×

– u – – – u u – u – –

{{lang|la|Nōn eget Maurīs}} {{!}} {{lang|la|iaculīs, neque arcū,}}

× × × / × / × × × / ×

– u – – – u u – u – –

{{lang|la|Nec venēnātīs}} {{!}} {{lang|la|gravidā sagittīs,}}

/ × × / ×

– u u – –

{{lang|la|Fusce, pharetrā}}...{{sfn|Gasparov|1996|page=86}}

/=stressed syllable; ×=unstressed syllable; ∩=brevis in longo

This can be translated as:

:'A man of integrity, untainted by sin,

:has no need of Mauritanian javelins or bow,

:nor, Fuscus, of a quiver pregnant

:with poisoned arrows'

Other ancient poets who used the Sapphic stanza are Statius (in Silvae 4.7), Prudentius, Ausonius, Paulinus of Nola and Venantius Fortunatus (once in Carmina 10.7).{{sfn|Heikkinen|2012|page=148}}

Usually, the lesser Sapphic line is found only within the Sapphic stanza; however, both Seneca the Younger (in his Hercules Oetaeus) and Boethius used the line in extended passages (thus resembling the stichic quality of blank verse more than a stanzaic lyric).{{sfn|Halporn|Ostwald|Rosenmeyer|1994|page=101}}

In one poem (Odes 1.8) Horace uses stanzas of the following form, consisting of an aristophaneus and a greater Sapphic line:

:   – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x

:– ᴗ – – – ᴗ ᴗ – | – ᴗ ᴗ – ᴗ – x

:   {{lang|la|Lȳdia, dīc, per omnīs}}

:{{lang|la|hoc deōs vērē, Sybarin cūr properēs amandō}}

:   {{lang|la|perdere, cūr aprīcum}}

:{{lang|la|ōderit campum, patiēns pulveris atque sōlis,...}}

:   'Lydia, tell me this, by all

:the gods truly, why do you hasten

:   to destroy Sybaris by loving him, why does he shun

:the sunny Campus, though he can tolerate the dust and the sun...'

Nisbet and Hubbard cite no other examples of this metrical form in Horace or in other poets. The metre is not found in the fragments of Sappho and Alcaeus.Nisbet, R. G. M. & Hubbard, M. (1970). A Commentary on Horace Odes Book 1. Oxford. pp. xliv–xlv.

The Sapphic stanza was one of the few classical quantitative meters to survive into the Middle Ages, when accentual rather than quantitative prosody became the norm. Many Latin hymns were written in Sapphic stanzas, including the famous hymn for John the Baptist which gave the original names of the sol-fa scale:

{{Poemquote|Ut queant laxīs {{!}} resonāre fibrīs

Mīra gestōrum {{!}} famulī tuōrum

Solve pollūtī {{!}} labiī reātum

Sāncte Ioannēs}}

Accentual Sapphic stanzas that ignore Classical Latin vowel quantities are also attested, as in the 11th-century Carmen Campidoctoris, which stresses the 1st, 4th and 10th syllables of the lines while keeping the Horatian caesura after the fifth (here with a formal equivalent paraphrase):

{{Verse translation|lang=la|

Talibus armis {{!}} ornatus et equo

—Paris uel Hector {{!}} meliores illo

nunquam fuere {{!}} in Troiano bello,

sunt neque modo—{{sfn|Montaner|Escobar|2000|loc=§ Edición crítica|page=5}}

|attr1=Carmen Campidoctoris, Stanza 32

|

Furnished with all these munitions and stallion,

Paris nor Hector, nor anyone ever,

Better than he was, bore their arms at Illium...

Nor any since then.}}

File:Portrait of Algernon Charles Swinburne.jpg, around the time he published "Sapphics"]]

Though some English poets attempted quantitative effects in their verse, quantity is not phonemic in English. So, imitations of the Sapphic stanza are typically structured by replacing long with stressed syllables, and short with unstressed syllables (and often additional alterations, as exemplified below).

The Sapphic stanza was imitated in English, using a line articulated into three sections (stressed on syllables 1, 5, and 10) as the Greek and Latin would have been, by Algernon Charles Swinburne in a poem he simply called "Sapphics":

{{Poem quote|

So the goddess fled from her place, with awful

Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her;

While behind a clamour of singing women

Severed the twilight.{{sfn|Swinburne|1866|page=236}}

|source="Sapphics", stanza 6}}

Thomas Hardy chose to open his first verse collection Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898) with "The Temporary the All", a poem in Sapphics, perhaps as a declaration of his skill and as an encapsulation of his personal experience.

{{Poem quote|

Change and chancefulness in my flowering youthtime,

Set me sun by sun near to one unchosen;

Wrought us fellowly, and despite divergence,

Friends interblent us.{{sfn|Hardy|1899|page=1}}

|source="The Temporary the All", lines 1-4}}

Rudyard Kipling wrote a tribute to William Shakespeare in Sapphics called "The Craftsman". He hears the line articulated into four, with stresses on syllables 1, 4, 6, and 10 (despite being called a "schoolboy error" by classical scholar L. P. Wilkinson due to Horace's regularisation of the 4th syllable as a long, stressing the 4th-syllable was a common approach in several Romance languagesMarcelino Menéndez y Pelayo, Horacio en España (1885 ed, Madrid,) p. 313. ). His poem begins:

{{Poem quote|

Once, after long-drawn revel at The Mermaid,

He to the overbearing Boanerges

Jonson, uttered (if half of it were liquor,

{{pad|8em}}Blessed be the vintage!){{sfn|Kipling|c. 1919|page=400}}

|source="The Craftsman", lines 1-4}}

Allen Ginsberg also experimented with the form:

{{Poem quote|

Red cheeked boyfriends tenderly kiss me sweet mouthed

under Boulder coverlets winter springtime

hug me naked laughing & telling girl friends

{{pad|6em}}gossip til autumn{{sfn|Ginsberg|1988|page=735}}

|source="τεθνάκην δ' ὀλίγω 'πιδεύης φαίνομ' ἀλαία", lines 1-4}}

The Oxford classicist Armand D'Angour has created mnemonics to illustrate the difference between Sapphics heard as a four-beat line (as in Kipling) versus the three-beat measure, as follows:

{{Poem quote|

Sapphics A (4 beats per line):

Cőnquering Sáppho's nőt an easy búsiness:

Masculine ladies cherish independence.

Only good music penetrates the souls of

Lesbian artists.{{sfn|D'Angour|n.d.}}

Sapphics B (correct rhythm, 3 beats per line):

Índependent métre is overráted:

What's the use if nobody knows the verse-form?

Wisely, Sappho chose to adopt a stately

{{As written|regular}} stanza.{{sfn|D'Angour|n.d.}}}}

Notable contemporary Sapphic poems include "Sapphics for Patience" by Annie Finch, "Dusk: July" by Marilyn Hacker, "Buzzing Affy" (a translation of "An Ode to Aphrodite") by Adam Lowe, and "Sapphics Against Anger" by Timothy Steele.{{cn|date=January 2023}}

{{further|Sapphic stanza in Polish poetry}}

Written in Latin, the Sapphic stanza was already one of the most popular verseforms of the Middle Ages, but Renaissance poets began composing Sapphics in several vernacular languages, preferring Horace as their model above their immediate Medieval Latin predecessors.{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}}

Leonardo Dati composed the first Italian Sapphics in 1441, followed by Galeotto del Carretto, Claudio Tolomei, and others.{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}}

The Sapphic stanza has been very popular in Polish literature since the 16th century. It was used by many poets. Sebastian Klonowic wrote a long poem, {{ill|Flis (poem)|lt=Flis|pl|Flis,_to_jest_Spuszczanie_statków_Wisłą_i_inszymi_rzekami_do_niej_przypadającymi}}, using the form.{{sfn|Pszczołowska|1997|page=77}} The formula of 11/11/11/5 syllables{{sfn|Sierotwiński|1966|page=258}} was so attractive that it can be found in other forms, among others the Słowacki stanza: 11a/11b/11a/5b/11c/11c.{{sfn|Darasz|2003|pages=145-146}}

In 1653, Paul Gerhardt used the Sapphic strophe format in the text of his sacred morning song "Lobet den Herren alle, die ihn ehren". Sapphic stanza was often used in poetry of German Humanism and Baroque. It is also used in hymns such as "Herzliebster Jesu" by Johann Heermann. In the 18th century, amidst a resurgence of interest in Classical versification, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock wrote unrhymed Sapphics, regularly moving the position of the dactyl.{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}} An example from Friedrich von Matthisson is described in Adelaide (Beethoven).

Esteban Manuel de Villegas wrote Sapphics in Spanish in the 17th century.{{sfn|Swanson|Brogan|Halporn|1993|page=1113}}

Miquel Costa i Llobera wrote Catalan Sapphics in the late 19th century, in his book of poems in the manner of Horace, called Horacianes.{{cite web|title=Diccionari de la Literatura Catalana.|url=https://www.enciclopedia.cat/ec-dlc-32928.xml}}

{{reflist|18em}}

;Main

• {{cite book |author-last=Darasz |author-first=Wiktor Jarosław |title=Mały przewodnik po wierszu polskim |date=2003 |location=Kraków |isbn=9788390082967 |oclc=442960332}}
• {{cite book |last=Gasparov |first=M. L. |authorlink=Mikhail Gasparov |translator1-last=Smith |translator1-first=G. S. |translator2-last=Tarlinskaja |translator2-first=Marina |translator2-link=Marina Tarlinskaja |editor1-last=Smith |editor1-first=G. S. |editor2-last=Holford-Strevens |editor2-first=L. |editor2-link=Leofranc Holford-Strevens |title=A History of European Versification |year=1996 |publisher=Clarendon Press |location=Oxford |url= https://archive.org/details/historyofeuropea00gasp |url-access=registration |isbn=0-19-815879-3 |oclc=1027190450}}
• {{cite book |author1-last=Halporn |author1-first=James W. |author2-last=Ostwald |author2-first=Martin |author2-link=Martin Ostwald |author3-last=Rosenmeyer |author3-first=Thomas G. |author3-link=Thomas G. Rosenmeyer |title=The Meters of Greek and Latin Poetry |date=1994 |orig-date=1980 |publisher=Hackett |location=Indianapolis |isbn=0-87220-243-7 |edition=Rev. |oclc= 690603221}}
• {{cite book |author-last=Hamer |author-first=Enid |title=The Metres of English Poetry |date=1930 |publisher=Methuen |location=London |pages=302–310 |url=https://archive.org/details/metresofenglishp0000hame/page/302 |url-access=registration |oclc=1150304609}}
• {{cite book |author-last=Heikkinen |author-first=Seppo |title=The Christianization of Latin Metre: A Study of Bede's De arte metrica [PhD diss.] |year=2012 |url=https://helda.helsinki.fi/bitstream/handle/10138/30099/thechris.pdf?...1 |publisher=Unigrafia |location=Helsinki |pages=147–152 |isbn=978-952-10-7807-1}}
• {{cite book |author-last=Pszczołowska |author-first= Lucylla |title=Wiersz polski: Zarys historyczny |date=1997 |location=Wrocław |isbn=9788388631047 |oclc=231947750}}
• {{cite book |author=Catullus |author-link=Catullus |display-authors=0 |editor-last=Quinn |editor-first=Kenneth |year=1973 |title=Catullus: The Poems |edition=2nd |location=London |publisher=St. Martin's Press |url=https://archive.org/details/catulluspoems0000catu |oclc=925241564 |isbn=0-333-01787-0 |ref={{harvid|Quinn|1973}}}}
• {{cite book |author-last=Sierotwiński |author-first=Stanisław |title=Słownik terminów literackich |date=1966 |location=Wrocław |oclc=471755083}}
• {{cite book |author-last=Steele |author-first=Timothy | author-link=Timothy Steele |title=All the Fun's in How you Say a Thing : an explanation of meter and versification |date=1999 |publisher=Ohio University Press |location=Athens, OH |isbn=0-8214-1260-4 |oclc=1051623933}}
• {{Cite encyclopedia |title=Sapphic |author1-last=Swanson |author1-first=Roy Arthur |author2-last=Brogan |author2-first=T.V.F. |author3-last=Halporn |author3-first=James W. |page=1113 |editor1-last=Preminger |editor1-first=Alex |editor2-last=Brogan |editor2-first=T.V.F. |editor3-last=Warnke |editor3-first=Frank J. |editor4-last=Hardison, Jr. |editor4-first=O. B. |editor5-last=Miner |editor5-first=Earl |display-editors=2 |date=1993 |encyclopedia=The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics |location=New York |publisher=MJF Books |url=https://archive.org/details/newprincetonency0000unse/page/1113 |url-access=registration |isbn=1-56731-152-0 |oclc=961668903}}

;Verse specimens

• {{cite web |last=D'Angour |first=Armand |author-link=Armand D'Angour |title=Mnemonics for metre |date=n.d. |url=https://www.armand-dangour.com/mnemonics-for-greek-metre/ |website=www.armand-dangour.com |access-date=3 July 2021}}
• {{cite book |editor-last=Edmonds |editor-first=J. M. |editor-link=John Maxwell Edmonds |title=Lyra Graeca, Volume I: Terpander, Alcman, Sappho and Alcaeus |series=Loeb Classical Library (#142) |date=1922 |publisher=William Heinemann |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/lyragraecavolume00edmo_534}}
• {{cite book |last=Ginsberg |first=Allen |author-link=Allen Ginsberg |title=Collected Poems, 1947-1980 |date=1988 |publisher=Harper & Row |location=New York |isbn=978-0-06-091494-3 |url=https://archive.org/details/collectedpoems1900gins/page/735 |url-access=registration}}
• {{cite book |last=Hardy |first=Thomas |author-link=Thomas Hardy |title=Wessex Poems and other verses |date=1899 |publisher=Harper & Brothers |location=New York and London |url=https://archive.org/details/wessexpoemsother00hard/page/1 |oclc=503311523}}
• {{cite book |last=Kipling |first=Rudyard |author-link=Rudyard Kipling |title=Rudyard Kipling's Verse : inclusive ed., 1885-1918 |date=c. 1919 |publisher=Copp Clark |location=Toronto |url=https://archive.org/details/rudyardkiplingsv00kipluoft/page/400 |oclc=697598774}}
• {{cite web |last1=Montaner |first1=Alberto |last2=Escobar |first2=Angel |title=Carmen Campidoctoris o poema latino del Campeador [preprint version] |date=2000 |url=https://www.academia.edu/886023 |access-date=3 July 2021}}
• {{cite book |last=Swinburne |first=Algernon Charles |author-link=Algernon Charles Swinburne |title=Poems and Ballads |date=1866 |publisher=John Camden Hotten |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/b29012685/page/236 |oclc=459165016}}
• {{cite book |author=Horace |author-link=Horace |display-authors=0 |translator-last=Marris |translator-first=William Sinclair |translator-link=William Sinclair Marris |editor-last=Wickham |editor-first=E[dward] C[harles] |title=The Odes of Horace : Books I-IV and the Saecular Hymn|date=1912 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=London |url=https://archive.org/details/odesofhoracebook00horauoft/page/50 |oclc=1000697823 |ref={{harvid|Wickham|1912}}}}

{{EB1911 poster|Sapphic Metre}}

• http://www.aoidoi.org/articles/meter/intro.pdf
• https://digitalsappho.org/fragments-2/
• {{cite journal|author=Shorey, Paul|author-link=Paul Shorey|title=Word-Accent in Greek and Latin Verse|journal=The Classical Journal|volume=2|issue=5|year=1907|pages=219–224|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=CH9sCoPlg6QC&pg=PA219}}

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Category:Stanzaic form

Category:Sappho