Dom Garcie de Navarre, details

07 Saturday Dec 2019

Posted by michelinewalker in Comedy, Molière

Tags

Anagnorisis, Francis Baumal, Jealousy as illness, la carte de Tendre, Madeleine de Scudéry, Pity, René Bray, Tragic Flaw

Dom Garcie de Navarre (my collection)

Jealousy as a Tragic Flaw

A long conclusion to Dom Garcie de Navarre is not necessary, not for our purposes. But there is more to say. Dom Garcie’s jealousy is not quite the same as that of a man who fears cuckolding. Dom Garcie truly loves Done Elvire and his feelings are reciprocated. I mentioned three events, two of which are the letters. Done Elvire is offended, but she forgives Dom Garcie. At the very beginning of the play, he tells her that he cannot repress his feelings.

Ah! Madame, il est vrai, quelque effort que je fasse,/ Qu’un peu de jalousie en mon cœur trouve place,/ 265 Et qu’un rival absent de vos divins appas/ Au repos de ce cœur vient livrer des combats.
Dom Garcie à Done Elvire (I. iii)
[Alas, Madam, it is true, that, notwithstanding my utmost effort, some trifling jealousy lingers in my heart; that a rival, though distant from your divine charms, disturbs my equanimity.]
Dom Garcie to Elvira (I. 3)

Molière wrote a comédie héroïque, but Dom Garcie’s jealousy is a tragic flaw. Pity plays a role in Dom Garcie, and we know it does as soon as the curtain lifts.

Pity

At the beginning of Act Four, before our third event, the disguise, Dom Alvar says to Donna Elvira:

1096 Madame, il fait pitié, jamais cœur que je pense,/ Par un plus vif remords n’expia son offense;/ Et si dans sa douleur vous le considériez,/ Il toucherait votre âme, et vous l’excuseriez.
Dom Alvar à Done Elvire (IV. i)
[Madam, he deserves your pity. Never was any offence expiated with more stinging remorse; if you were to see his grief, it would touch your heart, and you would pardon him.]
Don Alvarez to Elvira (IV. 1)

Dom Alvar also mentions Dom Garcie’s age. Age is a factor in Molière. We have seen it in Dom Juan:

Non, c’est qu’il est jeune encore, et qu’il n’a pas le courage.
Sganarelle à Gusman (I. i)
[No, but he is still young, and does not have the heart ….]
Sganarelle to Gusman (I. 1)

At first, Dom Alvar’s words do not appease Done Elvire:

Ah! c’est trop en souffrir, et mon cœur irrité/ Ne doit plus conserver une sotte bonté;/ Abandonnons l’ingrat à son propre caprice,/ Et puisqu’il veut périr, consentons qu’il périsse;/ 1430 Élise… À cet éclat vous voulez me forcer,/ Mais je vous apprendrai que c’est trop m’offenser.
Done Elvira to Élise (IV. viii)
[Ha! This can no longer be borne; I am too angry foolishly to preserve longer my good nature. Let me abandon the wretch to his own devices, and, since he will undergo his doom, let him—Eliza!… (To Don Garcia). You compel me to act thus; but you shall see that this outrage will be the last.
Done Elvira to Élise (IV. 8)

The Anagnorisis: forgiveness

But Elvire forgives. The play features a redeeming anagnorisis or recognition. Done Elvire is Dom Alphonse’s sister:

Un éclatant arrêt de ma gloire outragée,/ À jamais n’être à lui me tenait engagée;/ Mais quand par les destins il est exécuté,/ J’y vois pour son amour trop de sévérité;
Et le triste succès de tout ce qu’il m’adresse/ 1565 M’efface son offense, et lui rend ma tendresse./ Oui, mon cœur trop vengé par de si rudes coups, Laisse à leur cruauté désarmer son courroux,/ Et cherche maintenant par un soin pitoyable/ À consoler le sort d’un amant misérable;/ 1570 Et je crois que sa flamme a bien pu mériter/ Cette compassion que je lui veux prêter.
Done Elvire (V. ii)
[When my honour was outraged, I vowed openly never to be his; but as I see that fate is against him, I think I have treated his love with too great severity; the ill success that follows whatever he does for my sake, cancels his offence, and restores him my love. Yes, I have been too well avenged; the waywardness of his fate disarms my anger, and now, full of compassion, I am seeking to console an unhappy lover for his misfortunes. I believe his love well deserves the compassion I wish to show him.]
Done Elvire (V. 2)

At first sight, this change of heart may seem artificial on Done Elvire’s part, but it isn’t, except that comedy has its rules. Done Elvire is the King’s sister, so her love will be sisterly and Dom Alphonse’s brotherly. Dom Alphonse/Silve will marry Donna Ignès. She was his first love and by Done Elvire’s own standards, one marries one’s first love. Dom Garcie is Elvire’s first love. Failing to marry him would a “crime.”

In fact, the degree to which Dom Garcie’s jealousy frustrates and angers her could be looked upon as proportionate to her love. She is the King’s sister and could dismiss him. As for Dom Garcie, he fails in his mission to kill Mauregat, after which, had he been successful, he planned to die. He sees himself as dishonoured. It is as though Dom Silve and Dom Garcie fought a duel as rivals for Done Elvire’s affection. But the duel was an interior conflict, which Dom Alvar recognizes and, ultimately, Dom Garcie himself.

In Act Four, Dom Garcie says to Dom Alvar that he, Dom Garcie, is his worst enemy:

Ah! Dom Alvar, je vois que vous avez raison,
Mais l’enfer dans mon cœur a soufflé son poison;
Et par un trait fatal d’une rigueur extrême,
1485 Mon plus grand ennemi se rencontre en moi-même.
Dom Garcie à Dom Alvar (IV. ix)
[Ah! Don Alvarez, I perceive you were in the right; but hell breathed its poison into my soul; through a merciless fatality I am my worst enemy.]
Dom Garcie to Dom Alvar (IV. 9)

But in Done Elvire’s eyes, both she and Dom Garcie have public interests. These are her words, not Dom Garcie’s.

Mais, enfin, vous savez comme nos destinées,/ Aux intérêts publics sont toujours enchaînées,/ Et que l’ordre des Cieux pour disposer de moi,/ 1595 Dans mon frère qui vient, me va montrer mon roi.
Done Elvire à Dom Garcie (V. iii)
But you know that it is the doom of such as we are, to be always the slaves of public interests; that Heaven has ordained that my brother, who disposes of my hand, is likewise my King.
Done Elvire to Don Garcia (V. 3)

Done Elvire has shown pity previously and will do so again. Moreover, jealousy has harmed Dom Garcie. In no way does Done Elvire perceive jealousy as a sign a love. On the contrary. She vowed not to marry Dom Garcie. However, she loves him.

La Carte de Tendre

Carte du pays de Tendre or The Map of Tendre par François Chauveau (Wikipedia)

In the case of Dom Garcie, a brief look at Madeleine de Scudéry‘s “map of Tendre” is useful. Tendre is the country of love.

The Carte de Tendre is included in Mademoiselle de Scudéry’s Clélie, histoire romaine. It was engraved by François Chauveau. Madeleine de Scudéry, an indefatigable writer, had a Salon. She had attended Catherine de Rambouillet‘s salon, the Chambre bleue d’Arthénice (an anagram of Catherine), but as Catherine de Vivonne grew older, Sappho opened her own salon. Gatherings took place every Saturday. These are referred to as les Samedis de Sappho or La Société du Samedi.

The Map of Tendre consists of three rivers: Inclination, Estime, and the river Reconnaissance. Lovers descending the river Inclination (attraction) had fallen in love. Those descending Estime admire the lover they had chosen. As for the river Reconnaissance, it represents gratitude. Done Elvire’s love for Dom Garcie includes all three rivers. The little villages are steps to love, such as Billet Doux, love letters. All lead to a dangerous sea, une mer dangereuse, but in the salons of the middle to late 17th century, one had accepted that love was dangerous, but that to love and to be loved, was, by and large, worth the risks. Love was the greater good. It was a fact of life, but husbands were galants hommes. They were the Prince d’Ithaque. As of the Princesse d’Élide fewer ladies woke early to go hunting and kill a boar, which is how Sostrate may marry Ériphile (Les Amants magnifiques).

Molière has juxtaposed a prince and jealousy, which in Dom Garcie alienates Done Elvire, were it not, first that an anagnorisis reveals that only sisterly or brotherly love is possible between Elvira and her King. Dom Alphonse will marry his first love, and so will Done Elvire, in whose eyes, Dom Garcie has not been dishonoured. In fact, Dom Alphonse is pleased to serve Dom Garcie’s love.

Mon cœur, grâces au Ciel, après un long martyre,
1845 Seigneur, sans vous rien prendre à tout ce qu’il désire,
Et goûte d’autant mieux son bonheur en ce jour,
Qu’il se voit en état de servir votre amour.
Dom Alphonse à Dom Garcie (V. ii)
[My heart, thank Heaven, after a long torture, has all that it can desire, and deprives you of nothing, my Lord. I am so much the happier, because I am able to forward your love.]
Dom Alphonse to Dom Garcie (V. 6)

As for Donna Elvira, she shares Dom Alvar’s opinion. She sees Dom Garcie’s as pitiable and his jealousy, as an illness.

… Et votre maladie est digne de pitié./ Je vois, Prince, je vois, qu’on doit quelque indulgence,/ Aux défauts, où du Ciel fait pencher l’influence,/ 1870 Et pour tout dire, enfin, jaloux, ou non jaloux;/ Mon roi sans me gêner peut me donner à vous.
Done Elvire à Dom Garcie (V. ii)
[… and your malady deserves to be pitied. Since Heaven is the cause of your faults, some indulgence ought to be allowed to them; in one word, jealous or not jealous, my King will have no compulsion to employ when he gives me to you.] (V. 6)

Dom Garcie de Navarre was a failure. It is very long and analytical. Critic René Bray views Dom Garcie as héroïque, but it is his opinion that “preciosity is all the same, something other, and more complex, than the taste for moral analysis.”

La préciosité est tout de même autre chose, et plus complexe, que le goût de l’analyse morale.[1]

He quotes Francis Baumal[2]:

Il se peut après tout que Molière, sauf peut-être dans les Écoles, n’ait point marqué ses préférences et se soit contenté de peindre la société de son temps telle qu’il la voyait.[3]

“It could be after all that Molière, except maybe in his Écoles, did not emphasize his preferences and that he was content to depict the society of his time as he saw it.”

RELATED ARTICLES

Love in the Salons: a Glimpse (4 October 2011)
The Salons: La Guirlande de Julie (2 October 2011)

Sources and Resources

The Misanthrope is a Wikisource publication EN
Dom Garcie de Navarre is a toutmoliere.net publication FR
Dom Garcie de Navarre is Gutenberg’s [EBook #6740] EN
René Bray’s La Préciosité et les Précieux is an archive.org publication
Images belong to the BnF, but the source of the image featured at the top of his post has been lost.
Bold characters are mine.
I translated Bray and Baumal.

__________________
[1] René Bray, La Préciosité et les Précieux (Paris: Nizet, 1960 [1948]), pp. 222 – 223.
[2] Francis Baumal, Molière auteur précieux (Paris: La Renaissance du livre, 1925).
[3] René Bray, La Préciosité et les Précieux, loc. cit.

Kind regards to everyone. 💕

Claire Lefilliâtre, Brice Duisit, Isabelle Druet,
Le Poème Harmonique, Vincent Dumestre

Dom Garcie de Navarre (théâtre-documentation)

Fêtes galantes & Galanterie

25 Monday Apr 2016

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, Commedia dell'arte, Courtly Love, Dance, French Literature

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

Fêtes galantes, Gallantry, Madeleine de Scudéry, Map of Tendre, Marquise de Rambouillet, Salons

Embarquement pour Cythère by Jean-Antoine Watteau (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Despite the use of the word “for” (pour), it would appear that Jean-Antoine Watteau‘s (10 October 1684 – 18 July 1721) The Embarkation for Cythera (Louvre version)[1] depicts “a departure” from the island of Cythera, the birthplace of Venus. According to Wikipedia, whose sites dealing with our subject have just been maintained, it symbolises “the temporary nature of human happiness.” (See Fêtes galantes, Wikipedia).

Consequently, the characters portrayed in The Embarkation for Cythera are not leaving our imperfect world to travel to the land of love, a land resembling Madeleine de Scudéry‘s (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), famous carte de Tendre, or map of Tendre. They are returning from Cythera.

Rosalba_Carriera_Portrait_Antoine_Watteau

Antoine Watteau by Rosalba Carriera, 1721 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Fêtes galantes: a Definition

The term fêtes galantes was adopted by the French Academy in 1717 when Watteau handed in his reception piece to the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. It refers to a “courtship party,” such as a masquerade ball that borrowed from the commedia dell’arte. In particular, the term Fêtes galantes refers to the paintings of Jean-Antoine Watteau who died of tuberculosis at the age of 36, in 1721. There had never been paintings such as Jean-Antoine Watteau’s. (See Fêtes galantes, Wikipedia.) Watteau therefore set a trend. Jean-Honoré Fragonard, François Boucher, Nicolas Lancret and other 18th-century artists also depicted Fêtes galantes. It became a favourite subject matter and it fits the reign of Louis XV (Louis quinze).

Pierrot (Gilles)

Mezzetin

L’Enseigne de Gersaint

Paintings, texts and Music

The Embarkation for Cythera is a painting rather than a text. After Watteau, however, Fêtes galantes re-entered literary works and music. The best-known literary Fêtes galantes is a collection of poems by Paul Verlaine, published in 1869. The theme also suffuses Pierre Louÿs’ Les Chansons de Bilitis.

Verlaine’s Fêtes galantes were a source of inspiration to composers Gabriel Fauré, Claude Debussy, and Reynaldo Hahn, among others.

The 17th Century

galant homme vs homme galant
the salons

The term Fêtes galantes has roots in both 17th-century honnêteté and préciosité. As mentioned above, there was, on the one hand, a galant homme. He was an honnête homme and at times a précieux. On the other hand, there was un homme galant or a womanizer. The homme galant, was unlikely to be invited to salons, with the possible exception of persons such as Giacomo Casanova (2 April 1725 – 4 June 1798).

The préciosité Molière mocked in his Précieuses ridicules (1659) developed in salons and promoted Platonic love. In Les Précieuses ridicules, Cathos expresses disdain for a man’s body. She tells her uncle Gorgibus:

Comment est-ce qu’on peut souffrir la pensée de coucher contre un homme vraiment nu ? (Les Précieuses ridicules, I, 4)
(How can one suffer the thought of sleeping next to a truly naked man?)

Salon Literature

word games
pastoral and heroic romances
la carte de Tendre

In early salons, the main activity of salonniers and salonnières was literature, witty literature. Salonniers and salonnières engaged in “word games,” or the creation of ingenuous little poems. For instance, they would be given the end of lines of poetry to which they had to attach a beginning. These bouts-rimés (rhymed ends), as they were called, demanded inventiveness and substantial linguistic skills. A main characteristic of salon literature, poems mainly, is the use of the conceit (la pointe).

However, salonniers and salonnières savoured pastoral romances such as Honoré d’Urfée‘s L’Astrée and heroic romances. Occasionally, they played shepherds and shepherdesses, which were flights from reality, as would be, to a certain extent Paul Verlaine‘s hedonistic and somewhat decadent fin de siècle Fêtes galantes. In other words, despite préciosité, love was a main interest in salons.

In fact, to be understood, galanterie must be contextualized. Paul Verlaine’s poems were hedonistic, but they were poems and therefore fictional. There is a Cythera, but Venus is a mythological figure. Madeleine de Scudéry‘s (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), carte de Tendre, or map of Tendre, published in Clélie, histoire romaine, is a product of the imagination. Yet, préciosité is a moment in the history of love. Précieuses were real women.

La Guirlande de Julie

One instance of précieux love is the fourteen-year courtship Julie d’Angennes FR (1607 – 15 novembre 1671), Madame de Rambouillet‘s daughter, imposed on the Charles de Saint-Maure, d uc de Montausier. Here, however, one senses genuine apprehensions: pregnancy, childbirth, and infant mortality. On her 35th birthday, Montausier gave Julie the exquisite Guirlande de Julie[2] a collection of 62 madrigals,[3] but Julie made the Duke wait five more years. This is how “precious” and perhaps frightened she was. They married on 15 July 1645 and, although the Duc de Montausier was an honnête homme and a galant homme, he was un homme. Julie got pregnant and gave birth to a daughter.

Préciosité, as mocked in Molière’s Précieuses ridicules (1659), was short-lived. However, as noted above, préciosité or disembodied love is a milestone in the history of love. It belongs to the querelle des femmes, the woman question. It therefore differs from chivalry and the Roman de la Rose, which promoted courtly love without rejecting sexual intimacy.

Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

La Chambre bleue d’Arthénice

Italian-born Catherine de Vivonne, Marquise de Rambouillet (1588 – 2 December 1665) opened the first salon: L’Hôtel de Rambouillet, rue Saint-Thomas-du-Louvre. Its Catherine de Vivonne called herself Arthénice, an anagram of Catherine. Hôtels were private residences (un hôtel particulier) and salon hostesses received once or twice a week. The hostess usually sat in bed and her guests were in a ruelle, literally and alley way, on a side of the bed. Madame de Rambouillet received in her blue room, la chambre bleue. Occasionally, salonniers and salonnières went on a picnic. That outing was called un cadeau, a gift. When the Marquise closed her salon, Madeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701) opened hers. Mademoiselle de Scudéry never married.

Fêtes galantes

Let us return to Watteau’s 18th-century Fêtes galantes, Jean-Antoine Watteau’s paintings depicting “courtship parties.” (See Fêtes galantes, Wikipedia).

In Fêtes galantes personal sentiment is masked by delicately clever evocations of scenes and characters from the Italian commedia dell’arte and from the sophisticated pastorals of 18th-century painters, such as Watteau and Nicolas Lancret, and perhaps also from the contemporary mood-evoking paintings of Adolphe Monticelli.[4]

Fêtes galantes are associated with the commedia dell’arte. Actors were, as in ‘to be,’ “masks.” As well, the sad clown is an archetype. Masquerade balls have survived. Balls go back to the ballet de cour. They are courtly and have a counterpart in festivals and carnavals.

The Laws of Gallantry

Les Loix de la galanterie (Google e-book)
Les Lois de la galanterie (Molière 21)
Les Loix de la galanterie (Ludovic Lalanne)

Charles Sorel, who was named the historiographer of France in 1635, wrote Les Loix de la galanterie, first published in 1644, but galants met and discussed the rules of gallantry.

We have several e-copies of Sorel’s Loix or lois de la galanterie. However, despite repeated attempts, I have not found a translation into English of Charles Sorel‘s (c. 1602 – 7 March 1674) Loix de la galanterie. I presume there is a translation, but it is not on the internet. In my next post, I will therefore provide not a translation, but a summary of Les Loix de la galanterie, using Ludovic Lalanne’s text.

Conclusion

The terms honnête homme and galant homme are no longer used, nor is the term gentilhomme. The honnête homme is now called a gentleman in both French and English. The word gallant has survived and is used to describe men who still open the door of a car to help a woman out or hold a heavy door when a fragile individual enters or leaves a building or are very polite. The term “grande dame” is used to describe particularly accomplished women, including women who had a salon.

Fêtes galantes now belong to the discourse on love refined or “galant,” but love as depicted in Watteau’s ethereal Fêtes galantes.

With kind regards to everyone. ♥

RELATED ARTICLES

Galanterie & l’Honnête Homme (16 April 2016)
Le Chêne et le Roseau, the Oak Tree and the Reed: the Moral (28 September 2013)
A Few Words on Sprezzatura (21 June 2012)
Il Cortegiano, or l’Honnête Homme (3 September 2011)

Bergamo: Arlecchino & Brighella (23 July 2014)
The Figaro Trilogy (14 July 2014)
Picasso in Paris (9 July 2014)
Picasso’s Harlequin (3 July 2014)
Arlecchino, Arlequin, Harlequin (30 June 2014)
Pantalone: la Commedia dell’arte (20 June 2014)

Sources and Resources

Paul Verlaine: Fêtes galantes is a Wikisource publication FR
Jules Tellier: La Guirlande de Julie is an article FR
Pierre Louÿs: Les Chansons de Bilitis is a Wikisource publication FR
Charles Sorel: Le Berger extravagant is a Wikisource publication FR

____________________
[1] Another version is housed at the Charlottenburg, in Berlin.
[2] Calligraphy by Nicolas Jaret. Paintings by Nicolas Robert.
[3] A madrigal could be either a song and a poem.
[4] “Paul Verlaine”. Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online.
Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2016. Web. 22 Apr. 2016 <http://www.britannica.com/biography/Verlaine-Paul>.

Jean-Léon_Gérôme_-_Duel_After_a_Masquerade_Ball

Duel after a Masquerade Ball by Jean-Léon Gérôme (Photo credit: Wikipedia)[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=93DDyW8kiGQ&w=591&h=360%5D

Pierre Louÿs’ Songs of Bilitis

03 Friday Aug 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Art, French Literature, Love

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

Art Deco, George Barbier, Le Grand Cyrus, Lesbos, Madeleine de Scudéry, Pierre Louÿs, Sapho, Sappho, Shappic love, Songs of Bilitis

George_Barbier_Untitled_pochoir_from_1922_Corrard_edition_Chansons_de_Bilitis

Les Chansons de Bilitis, untitled pochoir by George Barbier (1882–1932), from the 1922 edition of Songs of Bilitis, edited by Pierre Corrard (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Bilitis is also a film

Pierre Louÿs

Pierre Louÿs (Dec. 10, 1870, Ghent, Belgium – June 4, 1925, Paris, France), was a “French novelist and poet whose merit and limitation were to express pagan sensuality with stylistic perfection.”[i]

In 1894, Louÿs, who was born Pierre Louis, published Les Chansons de Bilitis (1894), prose poems about Sapphic love. According to Wikipedia, The Songs of Bilitis were written by a woman of Ancient Greece called Bilitis, a courtesan and contemporary of Sappho. As for Sappho, who could be Bilitis, she was an ancient Greek poet, a woman, born on the Island of Lesbos between 630 and 612. She was very gifted as a poet and was, therefore, included among the Nine Lyric Poets. Pierre Louÿs translated the mostly lost Sapphic, i. e. lesbian poems of Bilitis or, possibly, Sappho. So it would appear he invented many of them, showing talent, “stylistic perfection,” and providing himself and his readers with an opportunity to indulge in both exoticism and eroticism.

Exoticism and eroticism are very effective marketing tools, which may have motivated Louÿs to “fill in the blanks.” As we know, many of the “Bilitis” or Sappho’s poems, were Louÿs own poems. He was therefore able to deceive many readers, which is quite an accomplishment on Louÿs part, but somewhat humiliating for those readers who thought they were reading what my students would call “the real thing.” Given the artful eroticism that pervades “Les Chansons de Bilitis,” let us be a little forgiving with respect to those who were deceived. According to Britannica, Louÿs’s finest achievement is La Femme et le pantin (1898; Woman and Puppet), which is set in Spain. More exoticism!

Sapho: the seventeenth-century France

In seventeenth-century France, the famous salonnière (from Salon) and late précieuse Madeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701) nicknamed herself Sapho. Madeleine de Scudéry is the author of Le Grand Cyrus or Artamène, arguably the longest novel ever written. She is also the main cartographer of the Map of Tendre, a map of love included in Le Grand Cyrus. Madeleine de Scudéry was Georges de Scudéry‘s younger sister. So the memory of Sappho linguered in the mind of erudite salonnières. Not to mention that the Greek Sappho wrote love poems. But did they know that Shappic love was lesbian love?

The Daughters of Bilitist

The Daughters of Bilitist[iii] is a gay rights movement, active since the middle of the twentieth century. We have little information on Bilitist, who wrote in the manner of Sappho, but we know Sappho was born in Lesbos and, although she is purported to have given birth to a daughter, Leïs, Sappho’s mother’ name, even Ancient Greeks doubted Sappho’s heterosexuality. She may of course have been a lesbian, but this mattered little to the citizens of Ancient Greece. She may also have had an affair with Thracian courtesan Rhodopis, which is fascinating as Rhodopis would be Cinderella. This, however, I must investigate. I must also investigate the reason why Sappho was exiled to Sicily? It would have been a short exile as she lived in Lesbos for most of her life. She probably died around 570 BC.

Sappho as a Poet

Sappho was an extremely talented poet, one of the Nine Lyric Poets, not a trivial achievement. However, most of her poetry has been lost. What is left is mostly fragments. Moreover, Sappho wrote in Aeolian Greek, a lesser–known Ancient Greek dialect of which there were several. She therefore had fewer readers.

George Barbier

George Barbier illustrated Pierre Louÿs’ Chansons de Bilitis and did so discretely and tastefully. I have therefore included a video or his illustrations, hence the above information.

—ooo—

[i] “Pierre Louÿs.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 03 Aug. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/349430/Pierre-Louys>.

[ii] Ibid.

[iii] “Daughters of Bilitis.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 03 Aug. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/152374/Daughters-of-Bilitis>.

[iv] “Sappho.” Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Encyclopædia Britannica Inc., 2012. Web. 03 Aug. 2012. <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/523753/Sappho>.

Claude Debussy (22 August 1862 – 25 March 1918)

Chanson de Bilitis “La Chevelure”

Irène Joachim