The Sapphic meter, a rhythmic echo from ancient Greece, continues to intrigue and challenge poets today. Named after the renowned poet Sappho of Lesbos (c. 630-570 BC), this metrical pattern, though fragmented in Sappho’s surviving works, resonated through classical literature, influencing poets like Catullus and Horace. Its resurgence in 17th and 18th century England, driven by the study of classical languages at universities like Oxford and Cambridge, solidified its place in the poetic landscape. Even literary giants like Coleridge, winner of the Cambridge “Greek Ode” prize, composed in this demanding meter.
Contents
The Challenge of Sapphics in English
The inherent difficulty of adapting the Sapphic meter to English has only fueled its allure for poets like Swinburne, Tennyson, Watts, Hardy, and Kipling. An article discussing Tennyson’s fascination with Greek poetry emphasizes the prevalence of Sapphics: “The grandest of all measures,” Tennyson declared of the alcaic meter. The article further states that “Other Greek and Latin lyric meters had been Englished with some success. The sapphic, for instance: dozens of English sapphics from the sixteenth century onward attest to its virtual naturalization into the English tradition.” (Project Muse). This historical context reveals the enduring appeal and ongoing experimentation with this complex form.
Here’s an example of Swinburne’s “Sapphics”:
So the goddess fled from her place, with awful
Sound of feet and thunder of wings around her;
While behind a clamour of singing women
Severed the twilight.
And a contrasting example from Isaac Watts, “The Day of Judgment—An Ode Attempted in English Sapphic”:
Such shall the noise be and the wild disorder,
(If things eternal may be like these earthly)
Such the dire terror, when the great Archangel
Shakes the creation,
Tears the strong pillars of the vault of heaven,
Breaks up old marble, the repose of princes;
See the graves open, and the bones arising,
Flames all around ’em!
Understanding the Structure of Sapphic Meter
The rhythmic structure of Sapphic verse can be confusing. Poets.org offers a technical explanation: “The original sapphic form was determined by quantitative meter…modern sapphics are rendered in accentual meter…The main building blocks of the sapphic are trochees and dactyls.” While technically accurate, this description may not be readily accessible to all readers. A simplified explanation follows.
The most common English Sapphic stanza consists of four lines. The first three lines follow an identical pattern of stressed (D) and unstressed (d) syllables, with (a) representing a syllable that can be either, but consistently so:
D d D (a) D d d D d D
D d D (a) D d d D d D
D d D (a) D d d D d D
d d D d
Let’s revisit Swinburne’s example with stressed syllables highlighted:
So the god-dess fled from her place, with aw-ful
Sound of feet and thun-der of wings around her;
While behind a clam-our of sing-ing wom-en
Sev-ered the twi-light.
Notice the natural pause after the fifth syllable in the first three lines, and on the first syllable of the final line. Watts’s poem utilizes a different stress pattern on the (a) syllable, requiring the pause on the first syllable of each line for a smooth rhythmic flow.
Contemporary Examples and Further Exploration
Numerous poets have experimented with variations on the Sapphic form. The challenge lies in manipulating the English language to fit this demanding metrical structure while retaining poetic expression. The following examples highlight the complexities and possibilities of Sapphic verse in English.
John Lee’s satirical take on the difficulty of writing Sapphics:
Making Sapphics isn’t that easy, shackling
Our reluctant language with trochees. Since you
First begot them, songstress of Lesbos, keep them.
I’ll never write them.
John Tranter echoes this sentiment in “Writing in the Manner of Sappho”:
Writing Sapphics well is a tricky business.
Lines begin and end with a pair of trochees;
in between them dozes a dactyl, rhythm
rising and falling,
like a drunk asleep at a party. Ancient
Greek — the language seemed to be made for Sapphics,
not a worry; anyone used to English
finds it a bastard.
The difficulty of the Sapphic meter is precisely what continues to attract poets to experiment with its form. Are you ready to take on the challenge? Exploring the Sapphic meter provides valuable insights into the interplay of language and rhythm in poetry, connecting us with a rich literary tradition.