Female Choruses and Gardens of Nymphs: Visualizing Chorality in Sappho
in The Look of Lyric: Greek Song and the VisualSearch for other papers by Katerina Ladianou in
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Focusing on the imagery and visualization of chorality, this paper discusses how the visual blends with the other senses in Sappho’s fragments in an attempt to map out the synaesthetic quality of Sappho’s poetry. Moreover, Philostratus, Aulus Gellius, and an epigram from the Palatine Anthology serve to show that later authors not only perceived the emphasis on the visual and its connection with all other senses as a characteristic of Sapphic poetry but also associated this feature with chorality. In conclusion the question of whether synaesthesia could be an added argument for the choral dimension of her poetry is raised.