Sappho’s (630-570) poetics and the science of her time
Chapter in Harry, C.C., Vlahakis, G.N. eds 2023. Exploring the Contributions of Women in the History of Philosophy, Science, and Literature, Throughout Time pp 21–38, 2023
Greek proto-science and proto-philosophy first emerged in the 7th and 6th centuries BC in the Aeg... more Greek proto-science and proto-philosophy first emerged in the 7th and 6th centuries BC in the Aegean alongside lyric poetry. Science and philosophy long intertwined as contemplative search for the essence of the cosmos. A highly intellectual attitude gave birth to the early development of reason, providing the tools for the establishment of early science. Thought rigorously captured and developed patterns of ideas, carrying them to their logical extremes either as validated, and therefore transcendent culminations, or as absurdities. The admirable eloquence of Greek philosophy, including its penchant for the extreme, has influenced deeply subsequent thinkers of the West. Less comprehended remains that Greek thought was also mythical and intuitive, originating as it did from a fine intellectual and perceptual versatility where myth instigated but also crowned both philosophical thought and poetry.
This chapter tests the above hypothesis in the case of Sappho’s poetry. The themes explored are the following:
-Philosophical logos, Homer, and the emergence of Sappho’s poetry.
-The role of analogy.
-Space and nature in Sappho’s poetry.
-Cosmology in Sappho’s poetry and the science of her time.
-Sappho’s poetic communication with the divine.
-Modern Greek poets like Odysseus Elytis and Sappho.
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Papers by argyro loukaki
1. The birth of ancient Greek tragedy as a political emancipatory project and the pursuit of authenticity.
2. The revival of ancient Greek tragedy performances in Greece and Italy. 3. Pasolini, Cacoyannis and their Greek tragedy renditions.
4. Michael Cacoyannis’s dialogue with visual archetypes in his tragedies. 5. Pier Paolo Pasolini: A mythicized autobiography through Greek tragedy. 6. Conclusions.
The presentation of this chapter took place online, on May 17, 2025, in the context of the BIP Erasmus organized by the University of Salerno.
The subject of the present analysis is a critical look at the exact manner in which, on the one hand, modern art and architectural theory, and on the other, ancient thought and architecture, a major intellectual substratum, influenced Doxiadis’s oeuvre, spatial conceptions, and deeply compassionate attitude.
Doxiadis's early fame is due to his proposal for the visual and spatial arrangement of ancient precincts such as the Acropolis, which was both acknowledged and criticized. Recently, a fresh round of disagreement broke out in regard to the Acropolis, as a new concrete pathway across much of the site was deemed necessary to facilitate disabled visitors. This addition has been controversial, though the pathways are reversible, cushioned, not directly attached to the surface of the Sacred Rock, and approved by UNESCO. Critics argue that the Rock as a natural monument is devalued. Following the analysis here, a further point may be that the ensuing strong, two-dimensional linearity, which, starting from the Propylaea, frames the Periclean monuments, strengthens a visual manner that evokes Doxiadis’s criticized proposal. But, as we suggested, Doxiadis duly distanced himself from it in later stages of his career, because it contravenes the ancient visual principles and spatial feeling.
Keywords: C. A. Doxiadis, architecture and urban planning, ancient logos as creative legacy, ancient vs modern visual perception, visual and spatial arrangement of ancient precincts, divergent interpretations of the Athenian Acropolis, ekistics, ecumenopolis, Islamabad, Doxiadis and global postcolonial development
the paper discusses the depth of Cacoyannis’s sensitivity and awareness of painting, architecture, and sculpture, plus his manifold dialogues with the East. The following eight aspects are explored: The treatment of space in this film, which comprises various scales, including Eastern, Greek, and Western geographies. Beauty as a stratagem of both survival and authority appropriated by Helen. Cacoyannis’s lessons from Eastern, mainly Japanese painting and film. The role of color in this film. The kind of “modern” spatialities created by camera movement. The purposeful cinematic reincarnation of ancient Greek sculpture through choreographies of the bodies of Trojan women, which draws upon the graded placement of classical pedimental sculptures. The symbolic role of fire in The Trojan Women, and finally, the city as a sublime locus of sanctity, destruction but also restitution.
How we define ‘the East’ and ‘the West,’ whereby the East has been regularly identified with backwardness and tradition, while the West with dynamism and modernisation, as Edward Said has shown, is subject to historical-geographical changes. This is witnessed in the case of Greece: Cradle of the Western civilization for its classical period, it became an Ottoman province for four centuries after the fall of Constantinople, gravitating between a dystopian East and an ideal West in the geographical imaginations of Europe which participated multifariously in its return to the ‘Western’ sphere. These geographical re-orientations, power relations and antagonisms have often involved all kinds of clashes over resources, predominance, religions and cultures, some of which continue unabated, despite recent cultural movements such as post-modernism and concomitant explorations of otherness, as processes of globalization are fiercely resisted nationally.
The international conference Space, Art and Architecture between East and West: The Revolutionary Spirit, organised by the Module Art-Architecture-Urban Planning, Hellenic Open University, to be held in the Acropolis Museum, Athens, 18-20 March, 2021, intends to explore the spatial and creative aspects and impacts of the above processes both diachronically and in the present. More particularly, the following relevant dimensions will be pursued:
-19th-Century Creative Imaginations, the Classical Legacy, and the Revolutionary Spirit.
-Charting the Geographies of ‘Westernness’ and of ‘Otherness’ Across the Map.
-The Mediterranean Cinematic Gaze Between East and West.
-Art and Spatial Processes: Byzantium and the Ottoman Empire.
-Modern Architectural Identities, Infrastructures and Social Becoming Around the Mediterranean.
-Eastern Architecture and Art in Western Interpretations.
Academic Committee
Argyro Loukaki, Hellenic Open University
Dimitris Plantzos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens & Hellenic Open University
François Penz, University of Cambridge
Konstantinos Moraitis, National Technical University of Athens
Georgios Panetsos, University of Patras
Melita Emmanouel, National Technical University of Athens
Konstantinos I. Soueref, Director Emeritus of Antiquities, Greece
Stavros Alifragkis, Hellenic Open University
Jenny Albani, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports
Dionysis Mourelatos, Hellenic Open University
Organizing Committee
Argyro Loukaki, Hellenic Open University
Dimitris Plantzos, National and Kapodistrian University of Athens & Hellenic Open University
Konstantinos I. Soueref, Director Emeritus of Antiquities, Greece
Stavros Alifragkis, Hellenic Open University
Jenny Albani, Hellenic Ministry of Culture and Sports
Dionysis Mourelatos, Hellenic Open University
ΠΕΡΙΛΗΨΗ Το κείμενο αυτό διερευνά τις πολιτιστικές ανταλλαγές στη Μεσόγειο στην περίπτωση της Βυζαντινής τέχνης και του Μπαρόκ, στο πλαίσιο του αυξανόμενου σημερινού ενδιαφέροντος για τις δύο αυτές καλλιτεχνικές κουλτούρες. Μετά από αιώνες αμφιθυμίας, η Βυζαντινή τέχνη, ένα οπτικό, μυθολογικό, αισθητικό και συμβολικό σύμπαν υψηλής εκλέπτυνσης και ευθραυστότητας επανεκτιμάται σήμερα επειδή έχουν γίνει συνείδηση οι ανεπάρκειες του Διαφωτισμού και επειδή υπόσχεται τη δημιουργία χώρων φιλικής κοινωνικής συνύπαρξης μέσω του ανθρωποκεντρισμού, της οπτικής διαδικασίας, της έμφασης στο φως και του σεβασμού για την ανθρώπινη αισθαντικότητα και σωματικότητα. Παρομοίως, επανεκτιμάται ο 'πανθεϊστικός' δυναμισμός του Μπαρόκ επειδή μπορεί να θεωρηθεί προάγγελος του σημερινού κόσμου ροών. Και τα δύο καλλιτεχνικά είδη φέρουν τη σφραγίδα αρχαίων ιχνών και αρχετύπων ως μνήμη και έμπνευση, αν και σε διαφορετικές ερμηνείες που διερευνώνται εδώ. Ο χειρισμός διαφόρων θεμάτων από τη Βυζαντινή τέχνη και το Mπαρόκ, περιλαμβανομένων της αντίληψης του χρυσού, της υλικής πολυτέλειας, του φωτός, της αισθητικής και του συμβολισμού θόλων και οροφών, και του σώματος, προσεγγίζεται συγκριτικά, για να φανεί πώς κατανοήθηκε ο Νεοπλατωνισμός από τις δύο αυτές καλλιτεχνικές κουλτούρες. Επίσης, διερευνώνται ενδιάμεσες ζώνες αισθητικής συνύπαρξης, που διαμορφώθηκαν μέσω της αισθητικής διακλάδωσης στον Ελληνικό χώρο του 18 ου αιώνα μεταξύ Οθωμανοκρατούμενων και Βενετοκρατούμενων περιοχών. Αυτός o διαχωρισμός παρήγαγε δημιουργικές συγχωνεύσεις και στις δύο πλευρές του πολιτιστικού διαδρόμου Ιταλίας-Ελλάδας, όπως προκύπτει από παραδείγματα.
ABSTRACT In the context of the present increased interest in Byzantine and Baroque art, this paper explores cultural exchange around the Mediterranean. After centuries of ambivalence,
This chapter tests the above hypothesis in the case of Sappho’s poetry. The themes explored are the following:
-Philosophical logos, Homer, and the emergence of Sappho’s poetry.
-The role of analogy.
-Space and nature in Sappho’s poetry.
-Cosmology in Sappho’s poetry and the science of her time.
-Sappho’s poetic communication with the divine.
-Modern Greek poets like Odysseus Elytis and Sappho.
Η «μετακίνηση» της πόλης και τα ηθικά διλήμματα στην προστασία της αρχαίας κληρονομιάς: η περίπτωση της Κνωσού
Abstract
The "move" of the city and the moral dilemmas in the protection of ancient heritage: τhe case of Knossos This paper proposes the urgent reconsideration of Knossos and its archaeological protection in view of the pressures exerted on it by modern building activity on the one hand, and its global importance on the other. This reconsideration necessitates an interdisciplinary approach, combining archaeology, restoration, art history, literature, urban planning, architecture, aesthetic theory, as well as psychoanalysis. Knossos, lying 5 km to the south of Crete's largest city, Heraklion, is not simply the capital of Minoan Crete, but also a source of inspiration to major artists, writers and cultural movements, including, among others, Picasso, Masson, Kazantzakis, Highsmith, Le Corbusier, plus the surrealists. The urban expansion of Heraklion is mainly due to microscalar, spontaneous and opportunistic urban activity leading to the approximately concentric move of the city from the northern shore to the south, which urbanized the immediate environment of Knossos, subsequently excluded from the prestigious UNESCO list of World Heritage monuments. Spontaneous building activity in Heraklion has raised solid areas of "irrational" morphology in the historic center and "regular" architectural volumes on irregular streets in its periphery, both bespeaking the pursuit of maximized land profit and indifference to the urban image. This, however, contrasts with the grandiose image of the city, particularly during the latter part of Venetian rule (12111669). The paper contrasts issues of local identity, economy and interests with the moral obligation towards a monumental site of global importance which can only be fulfilled through the optimum protection of Knossos' material and symbolic authenticity. Λέξέις Κλέιδιά: η Κνωσός ως παγκόσμιο και τοπικό πολιτιστικό τοπίο, αρνητικές επιπτώσεις της αστικής ανάπτυξης του Ηρακλείου στην ένταξη της Κνωσού στον κατάλογο μνημείων της UNESCO, μινωικά αρχέτυπα και σύγχρονος πολιτισμός, αναγκαιότητα νέων μέτρων προστασίας και δημόσιας ευαισθητοποίησης, διεπιστημονική ερμηνεία της παγκόσμιας κληρονομιάς
The material and spiritual formation of Post-Byzantine Aegean space: the deep descriptive (ekphrastic) faculty and tradition ingrained and recovered here, linked with the appreciation of great views from high rocks over planes, gorges and the open sea, which informed the urban design of Byzantine cities.
The sophisticated manner of adjustment to, and appropriation of, mountainous physical topography. Prismatic architectural forms are in constant discourse with the natural topography and have affected artistic representation.
The particular role of the Aegean in the formation of important artists and creators: modern intuitive interaction with the Aegean natural beauty, hard and exhilarating light, and heritage, is both material and spiritual. As is shown, the Aegean expresses the culture-nature dialectic par excellence, exemplified in the surreal metaphysical clarity and plasticity of islands like Santorini and Hydra.
There have been foreign (for instance, Brancusi’s, Giacometti’s and Modigliani’s) as well as indigenous modern creative responses to the plastic values of the Aegean and its art. Modern Greek artists like Konstantinos Maleas explored and depicted the many pictorial dimensions of islandness as the epitome of Greek space. The paper focuses on his work inspired by Santorini. Besides Maleas, the analysis stresses the particular role of the Aegean in the formation of Nikos Hadjikyriakos Ghikas and Panagiotis Tetsis, both inspired by the island of Hydra.
In all three cases, it is shown how, in parallel with the effects of the Aegean, these artists also communicated with the pictorial traditions of the West as well as the East, particularly with Japanese art.
Keywords
The Aegean archetypal backdrop of European modernism, Greek modernism, Greek 20th-century artistic responses, natural and architectural space, artistic creativity, joint effect of multiple artistic traditions, coexisting visual and intellectual traditions, Modern Greek artists, European and Oriental cultural foci, centres and peripheries.