Classics Professor Melissa Mueller Publishes Book on Greek Lyric Poet Sappho

Melissa Mueller, professor of classics, has written a new book on the archaic Greek lyric poet Sappho titled, "Sappho and Homer: A Reparative Reading." Published by Cambridge University Press, the book offers a new approach to the relationship between lyric and epic poetry in Ancient Greece.

Melissa Mueller

Published in December 2023, the tome will be featured during a symposium on Sappho and Homer at Yale University in April, as well as in a colloquium, "Sappho, Homer and Tragedy: Reading with Sedgwick, Bespaloff and Butler," to be hosted by the Department of Rhetoric at the University of California, Berkeley in May.

Like all lyric poets of her time, Sappho was steeped in the affects and story world of Homeric epic, the language, characters and themes of her lyrics often intersecting with those of Homer. Yet the relationship between these two poets has usually been framed as competitive and antagonistic. Mueller's book charts a more promising way forward, setting Sappho and Homer side by side within the embrace of a non-hierarchical "reparative reading" culture, as first conceived by queer theorist and poet Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick.

For an overview on "Sappho and Homer: A Reparative Reading" parts one and two, and information on Mueller's other published works, visit the College of Humanities and Fine Arts news website.

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