Sappho, Marguerite Johnson

Sappho by Marguerite Johnson belongs to the Ancients in Action series by Bloomsbury — short and accessible introductions to major figures of the ancient world, depicting the essentials of each subject's life and their significance for later western civilisation. Sappho’s work, preserved only in alluring fragments, is renowned for its depth and passion, with imagery of flowers and fruit common throughout.

We’ve been on the fence over whether Sappho’s work is “nature” enough (what a silly concept anyway) for the library, or if we were stretching the definition too much, but it was wonderful hearing Maria Sledmere speak of Sappho’s poetry and passionate nature imagery in the Nature Writing podcast for Glasgow Women’s Library’s Open The Door 2020, plus in the same podcast we said if it makes you think of the natural world then it belongs on the shelves, and so it’s staying on them. You can listen back to the podcast here.

Marguerite Johnson is a Lecturer in Classics at the University of Newcastle, Australia. She is an interdisciplinary cultural historian of the ancient Mediterranean, and a comparative cultural analyst. Her methodology privileges literary-informed cultural paradigms, underpinned by the theoretical praxes of both gender and post-colonial theories. Her research expertise is predominantly in ancient Mediterranean cultural studies, particularly in representations of gender, sexualities and the body. She is especially interested in the ways in which the ancients write about women. (