Classical Poetry

Classical Poetry

This Web page offered back ground information on both Sappho and Catullus as well as many other poets. The web site had 45 of Sappho’s poems and 16 of Catullus’s poems. The web page also offered different types of poetry from “children, collaboration, contemporary, hope, dark, humor, love, nature, other, society, spiritual, abuse, adult humor, adult, erotica, beat, personal, haiku, lyrics, sad, weird, fantasy." The web page also included information on many other authors from around the world including regular people that write into the site. The site also includes a discussion board where you can talk about different poems that
you have read. It also seemed like teachers were working with the site to
answer questions about poetry. One cool thing about the web site was that it was really easy to navigate.

--Damian Rumbough

This site offers a list of thousands of poets and poems. You're able to browse through different types of poetry such as love, nature, war, philosophy, society, spiritual, humor, lyrics, eastern, collaboration, children's, dark, mythology, sad, tribute, and erotica. In addition you're able to browse through poets by the letter of their name.

An interesting thing about Sappho from the website was according to a legend, she threw herself from a cliff when a young sailor broke her heart.

--Mallory O'Neil

I found the website Old Poetry.com to be very informative on both poets, Sappho and Catullus. This site enables the user to view the biographies of many different poets as well as some of their works. This website gives informative biographies and gives the viewer a better understanding of how important poetry really is. I enjoyed reading about Catullus better than Sappho because his poems were "read like letters to friends," which tells me that he appreciated his friends very much, and tried to keep them as close to him as possible.

--Heather Burgner

Sappho and Catullus (http://www.pogodesigns.com/JP/weddings/S&C.html) - no longer valid

The website opens with an introduction stating that Sappho was a key inspiration in the works of Catullus. The paper then goes into explaining the history of “Epithalamia,” which was a series of poems written by Catullus. After the paper talks about the poems of Catullus, it discusses the songs of Sappho. After a lengthy discussion on the songs of Sappho, the following discussion is on the nature of the poems, and how they are a males’ perspective into the mindset of women.

--Terry Foster

Savvy.com: Classical Studies (link no longer works)

This website offers a wide arrange of links to websites with novels, dramas, images, and other forms of classical literature. A list of categories to choose from is given at the top with additional pages of information and links. Sappho is found as a category after clicking on the category "Greek." Several links to biographies and poetry archives are provided. This website is very useful because it offers a ton of links to a wide variety of information.

--Jenny High

Catullus

From Virtual Roma

This site has the listings of all of Catullus' poems. It lists all of his friends, lovers, and rivals so that you can get to know him a little better, and thus, gain a better understanding of his poems. It also shows how some of his poetry went along with what he was experiencing in his own life.

--Ashley Cook

Mr. J's Catullus Page

This website is exclusive to Gaius Valerius Catullus and his works. I found it fascinating, because it offers the original Latin text of the poem and then also offers its translation. Something interesting is the Figures of Speech link. It explains and defines certain figures of speech while also giving examples. The VRoma Catullus section of the website offers a section on Catullus' social life. It lists about 22 individuals and Catullus' feelings towards them. It even supports its statements with text. The site also offers over 540 versions of Catullus’ poems. Under The Classics Page, there are links for Sappho under the Greek section and Catullus under the Latin poets. The website designer also provides other useful links.

--Ashley Thompson

Poem Hunter: Catullus

I did choose this website because there are a lot of information about many poets. There are more than 75000 poets. The database is really easy to use, so you can quickly find what you are looking for. The other cool thing of this website, but it doesn't have any relation with classical poetry, is that there are plenty of lyrics from top artists.

--Aurelien Serrault

Sappho

Study Guide for Classical Love Poetry

The above website was created by Paul Brians of Washington State University to serve as a study guide for students taking his course: Classical Love Poetry. It has much information about numerous classical poets including Sappho and Catullus. The section about Sappho provides a link to poems written about her. The section on Catullus provides a link to a page with in-depth information on him.

The thing that I found most useful about this website was the biographical look at the poets. Sappho was most likely a bisexual and was a greatly admired poet until the Christian era. Catullus was born into a rich family and liked to offend men by referring to their femininity. For me, facts like these make the poems more interesting to read when you know a little bit more about the authors and their environments.

--April Gaitan

This website includes summaries of many early Greek writers. It focuses on love poetry, and offers a look at several different styles of writing and their impact of literature today. It also ties in Greek culture and it's significance in the writing by mentioning the Greek gods, sirens, etc. It is useful because it contains the cultural contents in which the love poetry was written, and also because it includes links you can use to read all the poems by the different authors.

--Phyllis Morgan

According to the information on this website, Sappho is described as "the greatest lyric poet of antiquity." She was a married woman with a daughter which brings about disagreement as to whether She was a 'lesbian' or not. Her famous lines in her love poems were mostly directed to women. She was criticized by the church during the Christian era; her writings were destroyed when found. Before the Christian era, her poems were widely read. Today, there are only fragments of her poems written on papyrus manuscripts due to the fact that her writings were destroyed and not recopied. The 'cool' thing is that even in our present day, we still find the remains of her writings. From "The New Sappho", scholars have recently found papyrus manuscripts containing Sappho's writings and was published in the Times Literary Supplement (TLS) on June 24.

--Abena Scherer

This site offers background information on "Greek Love Poetry" as well as samples of the work of Sappho and Catullus. The site offers detailed information, such as the origin of the word "lesbian" and background information on the poets themselves. One "cool" thing about this website is that it has links to ‘notes’ and other information on the poet such as their collections, life, and other interesting quirks and facets of the poet’s works, such as the inspirations for their works. Another thing that could be very helpful on this website is a link called "Using this Study Guide." I find this extremely helpful because it explains the purpose of the website and how it will be most effectively used. Sometimes a website is so confusing that it ends up being a waste of time. This link is a great, helpful idea that contributes to the overall usefulness of the website!

--Meg Welch

This website is broken up into two sections, Greek Love Poetry and Roman Poetry. Each section contains information about poets who wrote in that style. Under each poet’s name, is a poem by that poet and a book in which it can be found. I found it interesting that many of these poets wrote in a homosexual manner. For example, I learned that Sappho helped coin the term lesbian.

--Wade Waybrant

In this website, there is some information about the authors Sappho and Catullus. There are two poetry authors. First, it tells you about Sappho's life, mentioning that she was a lesbian, that she was married and that she had a daughter. Also, Sappho was called the Tenth Muse by Plato. Actually, there are some writings that Sappho wrote, that before were destroyed by the Christian Church.

After Sappho's, the web page talks about Catullus, saying that he was one of the most famous and influential love poets. One of his most famous poems is “Lesbia”, where he talks about the girl that he is in love with. The important thing about this poem is that he didn’t use the name Lesbia because this woman was a lady. People think he used it just to find a different name.

--Lidia Gandarias

The "Classic Love Poetry" website offers a brief look at Greek and Roman poets, including both Sappho and Catullus. This includes their life story and few interesting facts, like what inspired them to write, who they wrote to, and even their sexual orientation. It also gives the title of one of their most famous pieces.

--Sarah Furr

AOIDOI: Sappho

AOIDOI is Greek and it means “poets”. This site is offered to any person interested in studying ancient Greek poetry. It is really geared toward any level of study in Greek Writing. This website explains who Sappho is and what she stands for. Several scripts are contained within this website that I could never decode, but there are some poems that have a decoding portion at the end of the poem. These poems also explain what all is going on during these poems, which, is really groovy!

--Katie Goppert

Poetry Archives: Sappho (www.emule.com/poetry/?page=overview&author=51) - no longer valid

This site offers hundreds of classical poems by dozens of authors, and Sappho is one who writes about many things in Greek mythology. She often writes her poems all about love, many poems of desperation. Many poems by Sappho are offered here and while some are long and complex, many of this poet’s writing would be best described as “short and sweet.” Sappho’s writing leaves plenty of room for interpretation, making it thought-provoking and ideal for discussion. I think Sappho’s use of so much sensual imagery really makes the reader feel like they are in the writer’s situation, enveloping the reader in the poem, and that is the coolest thing about the subject matter.

--Brandon Vieira

The ‘Poetry Archives’ offers a wide variety of poems and poets focusing primarily on classical poetry. This website includes 153 classical poets and 5048 classical poems. Sappho, Edgar Allen Poe, William Shakespeare, Charlotte Bronte, Emily Dickinson, Ovid, Homer, and Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin are just a few of the poets featured on this website.

‘Poetry Archives’ not only contains a section of authors and their works, it also has a random poem feature, where you can click the link and it will take you to a random poem. This could be helpful in finding new poets that one may not have read. Another cool and useful thing about the website is the listing of top poems and top authors on the site. It also features a discussion board where you can discuss featured poetry on the site, or even user submitted poetry.

--Stan Shelnutt

This website is a compilation of poems from many of the classical poets. You can search by poem or poet to find what you want. It has a list of poems to choose from for each poet that it has in the database.

--Steve Townsend

The website has poems by Sappho. The website is a poetry archive. You are to click on a link to see the poems. There is also other author on the website and you can look at their poems.

--Rebecca Jackey

Temple University's Sappho Page

The website contains a variety of useful information on both Sappho and her poetry. Biographical information on Sappho, social and political information on Sappho’s era, as well as various images depicting Sappho were among the site’s most prominent highlights. By helping the students to better understand the time and culture in which Sappho lived, the website allows them to better understand the content of Sappho’s poetry. The section I found most interesting, however, was the subheading on Aphrodite. Since Aphrodite plays an important role in some of Sappho’s poetry, I found it helpful to be able to learn more about goddess herself. An understanding of who Aphrodite is and the symbolic roles she plays is critical to understanding her appearance in the context of Sappho’s work. Despite being somewhat drab and aesthetically boring, the website did manage to present relevant and useful information. I would, therefore, readily recommend it for student use.

--Megan Hoak

Questia: Sappho

I like this site because it has a fair selection of scholarly books and articles online. The works on the site range across the spectrum, starting with Sappho's life and her questionable sexuality to her works and the impact those works have made on society/ literature. This site also has many results for Catullus. I like that by searching this one site, you can find a cluster of works and that many of the books/article are scholarly. I searched the web and had many dead-ends, but I think this site might be something good. It's definitely worth more consideration.

--Ashley Barnard

PoemHunter: Sappho

This website offers some of Sappho’s poetry to read online. To be exact it contains exactly 50 poems that each consists of only four lines. The poems are listed by title and have a corresponding number from one to fifty. One useful thing about this site is that you can select certain “poems” and add them to you own “My Favorite Poems” list. One thing that I don’t like about the website is the fact that all the poems are not even one verse long.

--Domini Girod

Isle of Lesbos: Sappho

Sappho was one of the great Greek lyrists and few know female poets of the early world. She was born between the time of 630 and 612 BC. She married a rich merchant and had a daughter by the name of Cleis. Her wealth enabled her to spend time studying the arts on the isle of Lesbos. She was called Lyrist. She was also one of the first poets to write about love in the first person and describe it thoroughly. In her time, Sappho’s works were condemned because of her use of homosexuality, but scholars later on discarded it. Her name has become so synonymous with woman-love that the most recent words to describe female homosexuality; lesbian and sapphic originated from her. In olden times she was very big when it came to popularity. Over time Sappho’s work was lost and so went her fame because few knew of her. Over time her works were found and her fame was rekindled, proving that she was who people knew her to be. She was exiled because of political activities.

--Carlton Morrick

Mythography: Sappho

I lucked out however and found a very informative site called the dmoz open directory. The site is generally a database for looking up all sorts of information. The purpose of the website is to direct the user to the piece of the information that they are looking for. There is a section completely devoted to classical poetry and classical poets. The Sappho section for example has some articles about the poetry and biographies about the poet. A good number of the links also contain information about books on Sappho poetry and where to get them. The neat thing about this site is that one can get different perspectives on the poetry or the poet because the information comes from many places. Not only is there information about Sappho but there’s information about other classical poets, classical poetry in general, actual poems, and all types of analyses. For example, I was directed to a website that focused on Sappho and how her writings related to Greek mythology. The site even had a link to an art gallery about Sappho poetry. The meaning of the art is explained thoroughly as well. This open directory is full of information about these classical poets. It is an easy way to find extensive amounts of resources.

--Tania Rodriguez

last updated: 9/05