Inventing Sappho 0 ▲ Alpennia Blog 1 hour ago · 6 min read1221 words · Writing · hide Friday, November 13, 2026 - 10:00 The Lesbian Historic Motif Project Any time an intriguing historical figure has a dearth of factual information available, there is an inevitable impulse to envision the unknown details of their life When historical novelists do this, we can get vividly imagined stories. When historians do it...well, we often get factoids that are then passed along and circulated uncritically. Somewhere in between the novelists and the historians are all the modern lesbians projecting their hopes, dreams, and desires onto Sappho. It can be unsatisfying to constantly repeat, "It's much more complicated and much less knowable than 'Sappho was a (small-L) lesbian." And goodness knows, regardless of which version of Sappho you want to believe it, there will be some scholar, somewhere in time, who came to just that conclusion about her. Major category: LHMPTags: LHMP LHMP #586 Parker 1993 Sappho Schoolmistress About LHMP Full citation: Parker, Holt. “Sappho Schoolmistress”… Commenting on Bubbles has been removed. Why? If you want to talk about this post, write to the author, use the comments on their blog if it has them, or reply with a "RE:" post on your own blog. Suggestions? feedback@bubbles.town
