by DjWhite

Created on: June 29, 2008

Poetry analysis: He is More Than a Hero, by Sappho. Analyzing any particular poem can be an exercise in futility. No one can read a writer's poem and instantaneously climb into the scribe's mind and exactly know the who[s], the what[s] and the why[s] of their particular piece or any piece that they've written.

In the case of Sappho's He's is More Than a Hero, it's not truly known whether the piece translated is a full poem or a fragmented poem. Most of Sappho's poetry was destroyed and not recopied with the coming of the Christian era and now exist as fragments and brief quotations in modern literature. It is said that some of these pieces were found in a papyrus manuscript that had been cut into strips and used to wrap an Egyptian mummy.

He is More Than A Hero - by Sappho

He is more than a hero
he is a god in my eyes-
the man who is allowed
to sit beside you - he

Reading this opening strata: This reads, to this writer, that Sappho is writing about a man she has a very high regard. Some man who's done something that's touched her to the core of the soul. A man deeply loved. A man she's quivering and quaking for. Lust!

In Greek times gods where the all and all. When writing this piece it seems that when Sappho elevated her hero to a god she was giving him the highest praise.

who listens intimately
to the sweet murmur of
your voice, the enticing

laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't

speak - my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,

hearing only my own ears
drumming, I drip with sweat;
trembling shakes my body

and I turn paler than
dry grass. At such times
death isn't far from me

Each strata following the first flows of her emotion towards this man. In strata three and four -

[laughter that makes my own
heart beat fast. If I meet
you suddenly, I can't

speak - my tongue is broken;
a thin flame runs under
my skin; seeing nothing,]-

you can picture her wistfully penning about what she would do if she were to stand before him blushing like a school girl.

The last strata:

[and I turn paler than dry grass. At such times death isn't far from me.]

I believe this alludes to being over-whelmed at the thought of him and fainting. Notice the part that reads: "at such times death isn't far from me" at such times, reads to me that this has happened before and she's using the word death as a metaphor for fainting.

No one can really analyze a poem. The question is, should we try. Poetry is an expression of feelings. Unless someone has the ability to crawl into the skin of the writer and feel what the writer is feeling as they write they can't accurately analyze the poem. Poetry is an art sorely misunderstood.

My favorite poet Billy Collins, eloquently wrote about readers reading poetry in his poem Introduction to Poetry , he wrote: " They begin beating it with a hose to find out what it really means."

He's right.

What true poets and true writers really want is for people to water ski across the surface of the poem and enjoy.

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