The Other Lesbian Poets

By Dr Oliver Tearle (Loughborough University)

Let’s begin, as I’m fond of doing, with a question. Who is being described here? This ancient Greek poet, associated with the island of Lesbos, is regarded by some as the founder of lyric poetry. However, little of their poetry has survived, so we know them more by their classical reputation than by their work.

Regular readers of this blog will perhaps suspect a little verbal sleight-of-hand at work here. And you’d be right: I deliberately opted for the gender-neutral ‘they’ because I’m not talking about Sappho (the most famous ‘Lesbian poet’) but a male poet named Terpander.

Associated with Antissa, on the island of Lesbos, Terpander is thought to have lived in the first half of the 7th century BC, or thereabouts. Although he doesn’t appear to have been a prolific or complex poet, he is often considered the father of Greek music and through it, of lyric poetry.

‘Lyric’ poetry is so named because original lyric poems were composed to be sung, with the lyre – a stringed instrument resembling a harp – providing musical accompaniment. So, when people insist that music lyrics can never be ‘poetry’ and the Nobel committee was wrong to give Bob Dylan the 2016 Nobel Prize for Literature, they are seeking to decouple the modern sense of ‘lyric’ from its origins in the world of music.

But the modern idea of the lyric poem is very much bound up with the classical understanding of the lyric, even if these days, few poets write their works with the express intention of having them performed to music. The lyric is distinct from epic poetry (of which Homer was the pioneer in Greek civilisation), with its focus on the telling of grand narratives featuring gods and heroes, and dramatic poetry.

The lyric is, in short, a smaller kind of poem, usually focusing on the thoughts and feelings of the speaker or singer (again, much like modern pop lyrics). Love poetry is probably the most famous example of the lyric, and Sappho, the best-known of the ‘Lesbian’ poets – and the woman from whom the word lesbian is derived to describe women attracted to other women – certainly wrote her fair share of lesbian love poems.

But Sappho is one of a number of classical poets who have been given the label ‘Lesbian poets’. Terpander’s star fell when he was exiled after he killed a man in a brawl, but not before he’d established a reputation as a pioneer of lyric poetry. Indeed, in some ways his reputation may have killed him: there’s a rumour he died by choking on a fig that was thrown in appreciation of one of his performances (sadly the phrase ‘doesn’t give a fig’ has nothing to do with this supposed occurrence).

As for the other Lesbian poets, Alcaeus is perhaps the most noteworthy. Alongside Sappho, his contemporary and possibly his lover, he was included in the canon of nine lyric poets (which also included Anacreon and Pindar); like her, he was a citizen of Mytilene on the island of Lesbos.

His range was wider than Sappho’s, with his poems spanning a number of genres, from political poems to drinking songs, as well as hymns and love poems. The Roman poet Horace took his cue from Alcaeus, rendering the Lesbian poet’s verse forms into Latin.

And then there’s Arion, although he’s a much less notable poet (he didn’t make it into the ‘canonical nine’), and his connection to Lesbos is less strong. His biggest claim to fame is probably that he’s credited with coming up with the dithyramb, an ancient Greek hymn sung and danced in honour of the god Dionysus, although the term itself appears to have predated his invention of the form.

So perhaps his stronger claim to fame is his role in originating the myth that he was kidnapped by pirates and miraculously rescued by dolphins. According to Herodotus, the ‘father of history’, Arion was travelling back from Sicily, laden with awards he’d won at a musical contest, when he was seized by sailors looking to steal his valuable prizes.

Arion, given the choice of ‘noble’ suicide and respectful burial on land, or being tossed over the side of the boat, made one last request of his captors: to be given permission to sing one final song. His song attracted a number of dolphins, who approached the ship, and when he threw himself overboard before the pirates could slay him, Arion was saved from drowning by a dolphin, which took him safely to land.

Of course, Herodotus’ work is full of stories that can scarcely be called ‘history’ in the modern sense, and Arion’s kidnap and rescue is fanciful in the extreme. But it’s a nice story, all the same.