A ‘new’ poetry find has left lovers of Sappho thrilled, but its backstory may have been fabricated
Fresh research calls into question the published accounts of the origin of ancient papyrus fragments of the Greek poet’s work.
Feb 23, 2021 · 05:30 pm
The 2014 discovery was of five stanzas of one poem and portions of a second.
|
Simeon Solomon, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
The announcement follows years of questions about the origins of the fragments, and the origins of a fragment from the same papyrus roll that came to public attention in 2014. Scholars and literary critics were abuzz after
The Daily Beast reported on January 28, 2014, that papyrologist Dirk Obbink of the University of Oxford had identified two new poems by Sappho.