Both poems are written with much feeling. Compassion, jealousy and suffering mark the texts. However, there are also many marked differences in the text. The language used differs, the tone differs, most noticeable however, is the overall personal feeling involved in the poems.
Though he was inspired by her, Catullus writes with more energy than Sappho. His poems are angry and passionate. The reader can clearly understand how Catullus feels when he starts poem 16 with “up yours both, and sucks to the pair of you”(1-2). It is a feeling that perhaps any reader has felt and can identify with. Catullus writes anger just as it is, without eloquence.
That is not to say that Sappho writes without feeling, there is much to be felt in the poems she writes. Sappho just has a much subtler way of writing out her feeling of love. Shown in poem 31 when she writes “he seems to me equal to gods that man whoever he is who opposite you”(1-2). Her jealousy of the man standing beside the woman she loves feels almost detached for the reader. Sappho writes her poems with a deep sense of longing instead of with the angry that Catullus displays. The ambiguity in Sappho’s’ poems leaves plenty for the reader to embellish themselves, making it easier to put the situation into their own lives often making it more enjoyably for the reader. Catullus’s way of writing, his straightforwardness, makes this harder to do.
Though inspired one by the other, these poets represent completely different styles of writing. The styles reflect directly on Sappho and Catullus and they people that they were. Sappho was a woman writing during Ancient Greece. Being a woman, in the patriarchal Greek society, it may be very difficult for her to express her sexuality and the hesitation to reveal herself and her feelings comes through in her writing style. Catullus on the other hand was man, a man that had a torrent affair with a married woman. That alone tells the reader what kind of life he lived. Catullus was deeply inspired by Sappho’s work, and though the style in which he writes is different than hers, it is just as moving and deeply felt.
Though he was inspired by her, Catullus writes with more energy than Sappho. His poems are angry and passionate. The reader can clearly understand how Catullus feels when he starts poem 16 with “up yours both, and sucks to the pair of you”(1-2). It is a feeling that perhaps any reader has felt and can identify with. Catullus writes anger just as it is, without eloquence.
That is not to say that Sappho writes without feeling, there is much to be felt in the poems she writes. Sappho just has a much subtler way of writing out her feeling of love. Shown in poem 31 when she writes “he seems to me equal to gods that man whoever he is who opposite you”(1-2). Her jealousy of the man standing beside the woman she loves feels almost detached for the reader. Sappho writes her poems with a deep sense of longing instead of with the angry that Catullus displays. The ambiguity in Sappho’s’ poems leaves plenty for the reader to embellish themselves, making it easier to put the situation into their own lives often making it more enjoyably for the reader. Catullus’s way of writing, his straightforwardness, makes this harder to do.
Though inspired one by the other, these poets represent completely different styles of writing. The styles reflect directly on Sappho and Catullus and they people that they were. Sappho was a woman writing during Ancient Greece. Being a woman, in the patriarchal Greek society, it may be very difficult for her to express her sexuality and the hesitation to reveal herself and her feelings comes through in her writing style. Catullus on the other hand was man, a man that had a torrent affair with a married woman. That alone tells the reader what kind of life he lived. Catullus was deeply inspired by Sappho’s work, and though the style in which he writes is different than hers, it is just as moving and deeply felt.