SOURCE: “Woman and Artist: Grillparzer's Sappho Revisited,” in German Quarterly, Vol. 54, No. 3, 1980, pp. 298-316.

[In the following essay, Harrigan suggests that Sappho appealed to Grillparzer because he viewed her as a figure who was able to integrate her life and art into a complex whole.]

I

Since it was first performed in 1818, the tragic fate of Grillparzer's Sappho has been interpreted primarily in two ways: either as the result of the artist's betrayal of her calling through descent into life's occasionally murky depths or as the only acceptable exit left for a jealous woman who is incidentally an artist.¹ These expositions accentuate a dualism of character which compartmentalizes Sappho into single, isolated and apparently fully contained components: successful artist or jealous woman in love. While these approaches are useful in distilling different aspects of Grillparzer's theme, they ignore the complexity and totality of the title character. The fundamental mistake of the critics is that of taking the opposition of art and life for granted and of ignoring those discordant elements in the play which don't fit their dualistic conception of Sappho's personality. Implicit in this notion is an unquestioning acceptance of the Cartesian duality between mind and body, between spirituality and sexuality, which has had a lasting impact on Western culture and literature.² In addition, this notion is accompanied by an uncritical acceptance of the separation between art and life as something “natural.”

I hope to provide an analysis here which reaffirms the integrity of the whole person and which builds on the insights of one critic who has provided the beginnings of an alternative to the picture sketched above. George Reinhardt interprets Sappho on two levels—the psychological and the mythic: “Reason alone can explore the depths of Sappho's ravaged psyche. Empathy alone, aroused and assisted by the skill of a great actress, can fully appreciate Grillparzer's tragic vision of the artist as both more and less than the average mortal. By accepting the dual nature of Sappho, the passionate woman who is also an archetypal Muse, one can reconcile otherwise discordant elements of her character.”³ Reinhardt's insights into the reciprocity between Sappho's art and life are invaluable, especially since they are unique in Grillparzer criticism. But despite these insights, Reinhardt eventually reverts back to the traditional view—which of course was that of the romantics and of Grillparzer himself—that art and life cannot be united: “The Muse exacts a harsh penalty: her own must come to know the ‘malheur d'être poète’!” (p. 140). By insisting on Sappho's identity as the Muse's own, Reinhardt too ascribes her artistry to the divine realm which is far removed from everyday life: “Because Sappho is a genius her love will not be reciprocated. … The poet is a marked man [sic], doomed to isolation and denied human companionship” (loc. cit.). I, in contrast, tend to view Sappho's immortalization as an unsuccessful attempt by the world she leaves behind in the play, as well as by the critics, to mystify what they fail to understand about the creative process and the exceptional female in a world where only males are assumed to be subjects. Sappho's tragedy is neither the tragedy of a woman nor that of a poet. It is the tragedy of a woman-poetess who challenged both the separation of art and life and the extant male/female role models. Since both the art/life dichotomy and traditional difference between masculine and feminine roles have come to be recognized in their historic specificity and development, we should no longer interpret Sappho's death as a return to her genuine calling as a poetess, but rather as her acknowledgment of failure to achieve the unity she desired.

In contrast to previous studies, Sappho is viewed here as a multifaceted person who lives but one level of existence and who neither ascends nor descends in any real existential or psychological sense. Her art is public and lived, and it ceases to find an outlet at the end of the play. Her rejection by Melitta, the beloved child, is surely as important as her rejection by Phaon, a consideration which previous critics underestimated.⁴ Sappho's death is not only a vindication of her passionate past as Reinhardt claims (p. 140), but simultaneously a denial of art—because it is the ultimate denial of life.

Sappho dies unable to fulfill the mandates of her calling because she has been effectively prevented from living as the result of the constellation which crystallizes in the course of the play: she is unable to fulfill herself in the private sphere because she cannot be accepted in any role except that of artist/deity by those around her. Since her public fame has become undeniable—a fact underscored by the victorious return from Olympia which opens the play—she can be henceforth ignored only as the private person who is a woman. Sappho the woman creates with all her sensibilities, but she is de-sexed by her public through the divinity they thrust upon her. Without life to draw from, she cannot create, for her poetry is nothing less than the product of the interplay between her passionate, sensitive nature and the world around her. She commits suicide because the relationship between art and life has been destroyed.

If it is Sappho's need for integrity that leads to her death, why are the critics almost unanimous in their assumption of a strict separation between the components of her life—art and reality—in which Sappho's choices are mutually exclusive? A familiar pattern can be detected which begins with the works of female artists. These women, viewed as exceptions to the rule of “human” nature, are mentally transformed into abstract notions of general “human” perfectibility by male-dominated criticism. Here, the critics have divorced Sappho's art from her person by declaring her a body-less, sex-less god. It is the only way her production as an artist can be understood and accepted. Silvia Bovenschen, commenting recently on this phenomenon, said: “Diese Argumentation—die Zahl der Kunsttheoretiker, die in diese Kerbe schlugen ist Legion—auf ihre banale Grundstruktur gebracht, heisst: Frauen sind anders, und ein Moment ihres naturgegebenen (wohlgemerkt!) Andersseins ist, dass sie zur Kunst nicht fähig sind. … Die spärlich gesäten weiblichen Literatur-, Kunst- und Musikproduzentinnen sind von der Kunstkritik stets als exotische Sonderfälle behandelt worden. …⁵ It is this type of thinking which accounts for the dualistic concept which dominates Sappho criticism: either Sappho is a passionate woman (and human) or a creative artist (and divine) but it is simply incomprehensible to the critics that she could be both artist and woman. Grillparzer's text is in fact far richer than this type of reductive thinking gives it credit for, and Bovenschen suggests an approach which unlocks its insights and ambiguities: “… solche Ausführungen, [wie, z.B, hier die Sappho-Kritiker—RKH] halten Momente von Wahrheit, wenn auch in steter Verwechslung von Ursache und Wirkung. Gegen den Strich, gegen die Intention gelesen, ergeben derartige Elaborate ein unverschleiertes Bild … des verstellten Zugangs” (loc. cit.). Bovenschen's insistence on the value of reading against the grain opens the way for a reinterpretation of Sappho based on textual, historical and societal evidence.

II

Grillparzer's own understanding of his play changed in the course of his lifetime, which is not unusual. His lengthiest comment on Sappho is contained in the often-cited letter from 1818 to Adolf Müllner. Sappho is a character of “glühender Leidenschaften” and “erworbene Ruhe,” but above all,

Sappho ist Dichterin! Dass das hervorgehoben werde ist durchaus nötig, die Wahrscheinlichkeit der Katastrophe hängt wie ich glaube wesentlich davon ab … Ich … musste vor dem Sturme der Leidenschaften eine Kraft anschaulich machen, die mit unter die erregenden Kräfte des Sturmes selber gehört. Die Dichtungsgabe ist kein in der gewöhnlichen Menschennatur liegendes Ressort, sie musste daher herausgehoben werden.⁶

In Grillparzer's view, Sappho is a superior character simply because she is a poetess. Modern audiences may have trouble with this somewhat romantic definition of the artist although Sappho's critics prefer to ascribe her emotional extremes to this cause. The letter continues:

Ferner! Sappho ist in der Katastrophe ein verliebtes, eifersüchtiges, in der Leidenschaft sich vergessendes Weib; ein Weib das einen jüngern Mann liebt. In der gewöhnlichen Welt: ist ein solches Weib ein ekelhafter Gegenstand. War es nicht durchaus notwendig, sie noch vor dem Sturm der Leidenschaften so zu zeigen, wie sie in ihrem gewöhnlichen Zustande war, damit der Zuschauer die Arme bemitleide, statt sie zu verabscheuen

(loc. cit.).

The age disparity is Grillparzer's own invention and he ridicules it here with a vehemence which corresponds not at all to the reality in the text nor to his later utterances. Thirty years later Grillparzer wrote of the character, “Was man meiner Sappho zum Vorwurf machte, ist vielmehr ein Vorzug des Stückes—dass ich nämlich mehr das leidende Weib als ihr poetisches Element hervorhob” (p. 108). Finally, in 1866 or 1867 Grillparzer wrote to Auguste von Littrow-Bischoff of a Sappho who is fully consistent with my interpretation of the play but who completely contradicts his own understanding of the figure in the earlier letter to Müllner: Es war dem Geiste des Stückes entgegen, dass ältere oder reizlose Frauen diese Rolle spielten, weil Entsagung in der Liebe von seiten der Frau in reiferen Jahren allzu sehr in der Ordnung der Natur liegt” (p. 115).

Since assumptions about Sappho's age in the play have led to different interpretations, it is perhaps best to clarify the matter immediately from the text. Sappho once comments, “Von Mytilenes besten Bürgerinnen / Ist manche die in freudiger Erinnrung / Sich Sapphos Werk aus frühern Tagen nennt (II, vi, 749-51),⁷ but this information tells more about her position in the community than her age. A better estimate of Sappho's age is contained in the latter's conversation with Melitta who at the age of either 15 or 16 has been Sappho's slave for thirteen years (III, v, 1049), since the time Sappho was “selber noch ein kindlich Wesen” (III, v, 1054). Assuming that a woman is still partially a girl from the ages of 12 to 16, Sappho is still under thirty. Grillparzer's conception of the poetess as an impassioned woman whose renunciation of love is forced upon her too early is confirmed also by Sappho's words at her death when she consecrates herself to the gods “in voller Kraft, in ihres Daseins Blüte” (V, vi, 2005). George Reinhardt sensibly concludes that Grillparzer presents “not aging but a gap in age between lover and beloved” (p. 140); I would add he presents a gap in experience as well.

The age difference was accepted and even ignored, it seems, by the Viennese public if its adulation of the 37-year-old Sophie Schroeder in the title role is any indication. The actress was constantly involved with younger men and had in fact started a relationship with a 26-year-old—Grillparzer's age at the time—shortly before opening in Sappho.⁸ Perhaps the public tolerated more from its “exceptional” women, but the extent to which actresses were sexually and economically independent was accompanied by a lesser degree of social acceptability. The city of Vienna had been exposed to licentious activity of the European nobility during the Congress of Vienna three years before.⁹ Thus the thesis might instead be advanced that Sappho's experience would actually be an exotic lure for younger males and females rather than a problem and that if in fact she becomes an “ekelhafter Gegenstand,” it is only through her jealousy that she does so.

If Sappho's age is Grillparzer's innovation, his choice of a protagonist is clearly the historical Sappho:¹⁰ both are educators of women, both are high priestesses in the cult of Aphrodite, goddess of sexuality and fertility; both are reputed to be erotic creatures, whether homo-, hetero-, or bi-sexual. The most important aspect of the historical Sappho for our study is her position “as a poet with an important social purpose and public function: that of instilling sensual awareness and sexual self-esteem and of facilitating role adjustment in young females coming of age in a sexually segregated society.”¹¹ Such a view lends credence to the idea that Sappho's relationship with Melitta should be re-evaluated. After all, if Grillparzer had been interested solely in the question of art or passion why would he have gone out of his way to choose Sappho as his protagonist? And even if his age did not care to speculate about Sappho's sexuality, the fact that he chose a poet who lived with and educated only women is surely of significance.

III

Grillparzer's Sappho views her art as an integrated part of her life and in this she is similar to the historical Sappho.¹² Our first view of her is at her public and professional best—an effect calculated by Grillparzer in the above mentioned Müllner letter. Her salutation to her people gathered to welcome her home as the victorious poet of the Olympic games is couched in terms which connect her art with her role in the community: “Um euretwillen freut mich dieser Kranz, / Der nur den Bürger ziert, den Dichter drückt, / In eurer Mitte nenn ich ihn erst mein” (I, ii, 45-47). Although a distinction is made between common citizen and poet, Sappho embodies both without any contradictions here. The concrete manifestation of her poetic calling, the wreath, takes on its meaning only to the extent that she is the citizen of a community, albeit first among equals. Her art has its proper value in public service within that community which had witnessed and nourished her growth both as poet and as person. Rather than separating art and life, she sees them as interdependent and Grillparzer presents them that way in the first act.

Sappho continues this theme in the following scene with Phaon, although here she can be justly accused of exaggerating to disarm him and praise him. She lists his gifts as “Leibesschönheit,” “Lebenslust,” “Mut,” “Stärke,” “Entschlossenheit,” “Lust an dem was ist, und Phantasie.” She asserts, “Und leben ist ja doch des Lebens höchstes Ziel!” (I, iii, 264-70). She ascribes traditional masculine traits to Phaon here, except that fantasy, the artist's creative power, in fact belongs to Sappho. She continues by granting Phaon—through gesture if not actual word—the will to live, leaving for herself by implication the aesthetic realm: “Und ewig ist die Kunst gezwungen, / [mit ausgebreiteten Armen gegen Phaon] Zu betteln von des Lebens Überfluss” (I, iii, 276-77). Two latent problems are contained in nuce here. First, it will become important that Sappho alone by virtue of her position and her experience can do the bestowing; secondly, the first hint at separation of what has been a harmonious relationship for Sappho is implied by the open arms which allot life to Phaon and art or intellect to Sappho. In an attempt to create reality through the power of her words, she now aims at exaggerating the difference between herself and Phaon, thus positing the eternally masculine and the eternally feminine as antipodes. The mystifying dichotomy which Sappho hints at here is prompted by her desire to create two opposites which seek each other for completion, herself and Phaon. She also attempts with her words to alleviate Phaon's obvious discomfort with her accomplishments and her position. She implies the duplicity of her attempt with the words which conclude her speech:

Lass uns denn trachten, mein geliebter Freund,
Uns beider Kränze um die Stirn zu flechten,
Das Leben aus der Künste Taumelkelch,
Die Kunst zu schlürfen aus der Hand des Lebens.

(I, iii, 280-83).

Thus she ends the interchange on the earlier note of unity between art and life which we expect from her.

At the Olympic games she had been one among many competing artists; here she is obviously without peer. If Sappho's description of her life and her past are to be believed, the abstract opposition of art and reality has had no place in her life up to now. The dichotomy between art and life which she forces at this point becomes a problem for Sappho only because she begins to believe it herself in the course of the play. The more difficulty she has with her new love, the more worthless the life she had formerly valued becomes (III, ii, 944) and the more extreme she believes to be her choice of either life or art (III, ii, 950-53; IV, ii, 1271-75). Such rationalizations and abstractions characterize the middle of the play; when Sappho later opts for death, it is a decision informed by her earlier experience of the reciprocity between art and life.

The demands and rewards of Sappho's art are equalled by her immersion in life. Her opening dialogue with Phaon (I, iii), with its twice repeated “Ich hab gelernt verlieren und entbehren” (I, iii, 113; 122), reveals either hard-won equilibrium or resignation which stems from the breadth of her past experiences: “So ward mirs stets im Wechseltausch des Lebens; / Ich war zufrieden, und bin hoch beglückt” (I, iii, 109-110). The personal losses she refers to in the next lines extend beyond her relatives (I, iii, 115-18) for she admits, “Der Freundschaft und der—Liebe Täuschungen / Hab ich in diesem Busen schon empfunden” (I, iii, 120-21). The pause before admitting to her sexual experience seems less a product of drama than of her momentary uncertainty about whether or not to reveal to the insecure Phaon that here too she probably overshadows him completely. Although she has not achieved a personal happiness which would preclude her search for new relationships, her experiences have not left her embittered. Quite the opposite—through experiencing life in its many guises she is able to embrace life without reservations. The “Unermesslichkeit / Die auf und nieder wog in dieser Brust” (I, iii, 126-27) remains intact, the source of life which is simultaneously the source of her art.

The ability to interact with one's environment, or in Sappho's vocabulary, to immerse oneself in life, is a necessary pre-condition for psychological and emotional growth but because of Sappho's “Unermesslichkeit,” or boundless receptivity, the potential for self-dissolution is present as well. At the same time, Sappho's capacity to love is possible only through her choosing vulnerability, which is a necessary component of the “Unermesslichkeit” so important to her both as artist and woman. This, rather than inexperience, is what kindles Sappho's rage later. Her living at the limits is what makes it difficult for others to accept Sappho; for Sappho to live that kind of life without destroying herself proves finally impossible.

Sappho's desire for intensity is what prevents her from finding her equal among either friends, lovers or even other artists. The realization of her isolation, the enormity of which is only beginning to dawn on Sappho at the play's beginning, makes her long for a return to her innocent, pre-conscious youth. Some critics interpret Sappho's desire here to return to her childhood as evidence of her inexperience,¹³ but textual evidence, as shown above, proves quite the contrary. Her wish is rather a manifestation of doubt which the exposure of self causes in any love relationship:

Lasst mich zurückekehren in die Zeit,
Da ich noch scheu mit runden Kinderwangen,
Ein unbestimmt Gefühl im schweren Busen,
Die neue Welt mit neuem Sinn betrat.
Da Ahnung noch, kein qualendes Erkennen
In meiner Leier goldenen Saiten spielte

(I, v, 385-90).

To interpret these lines as the desire for youth alone is to miss their full import, for the responsibility of authentic existence is so great that even someone as dynamic as Sappho occasionally desires release from it. Sappho connects her youthful prescience here with her art. At that time she had created through the fresh appreciation of her senses for the world she was beginning to discover about her. Since then her art has become critical and conscious, no longer spontaneous and instinctive. The immediacy of experiencing life is accompanied by her longing for and appreciation of it. Life and art are repeatedly interrelated even here. Sappho's heightened awareness of isolation is the result of the constellation which opens the play: public acknowledgement of her poetic genius which will make it more and more difficult for others to accept her as a person also in need of love and companionship.

IV

The first indication we have of Sappho's complete isolation resounds in her conversation with Melitta in the first act. At this point she is secure, or blind, in her love for Phaon. In this mood she cannot perceive here the possibility of betrayal from either Melitta or Phaon. Despite Melitta's spontaneous appreciation of Phaon's beauty, the bond between her and Sappho is intact. Sappho's relationship with Melitta has generally been underestimated, starting with Grillparzer himself who debated in his letters whether he should leave Melitta “ganz aus dem Spiele” (p. 109), calling her a “dummes” (p. 109) and “albernes Mädel” (p. 114). Insofar as he perceives the unfolding of Sappho's personality as the focal point of the play, Melitta may indeed be regarded as a marginal figure; but Sappho's relationship with Melitta is unique and essential for an understanding of the play. Sappho's attempt to create a friendship between equals with Melitta is sincere, given their close relationship. Having eschewed Phaon's address of “Erhabene Frau” (I, iii, 130) in the previous scene, Sappho acts in a similar manner with Melitta here: “Nicht Sappho, die Gebietrin steht vor dir, / Die Freundin Sappho spricht mit dir Melitta” (I, v, 348-49). Sappho desires a love from both these people which includes friendship and a recognition of both individuality and differences. Sappho wishes with Melitta “In Zukunft … als traute Schwestern / In seiner [Phaons] Nähe leben, gleichgepaart, / Allein durch seine Liebe unterschieden” (I, v, 361-63). Her love for Melitta is distorted here by the immediacy of her interest in Phaon but Sappho's incessant talk of “him” who remains unnamed throughout the entire scene betrays above all the need to share her heady experience with her natural confidante and potential equal. The gulf which nevertheless separates the two women has already been made apparent through Sappho's role as Melitta's teacher and model in the lines opening this scene.

It is Melitta's emergence from adolescence during Sappho's absence which sets the pre-conditions for transformation of the relationship between the two. Sappho's wish is not as capricious as it seems, although the emotional history Melitta and Sappho share—ultimately that of mother and daughter—is stronger than their tentative attempts at a new beginning. The emphasis on the mother-daughter relationship is constant; “Mein Kind” is Sappho's spontaneous appellation for Melitta (I, v, 339; 425) except when calling her by name. It is also the relationship to which not only Melitta reverts when she calls Sappho “Mutter” (V, iv, 1758-60; 1774; 1785) but Sappho as well (V, vi, 2020) when she calls herself “Mutter.” Although Sappho's emphasis on this aspect of their relationship is exaggerated for her own purposes when she speaks to Phaon in Act II (vi, 739-47), her inability to see Melitta as a rival is prompted by the mother's desire not to have her child hurt in an irresponsible flirtation. The intense conflict Sappho feels is confirmed by her inability to meet Melitta face to face after she has commanded her removal to Chios (IV, iii, stage directions at end) and by her bewailing the strength of their past relationship, of habit as “Ein lästig Ding” (IV, iii, 1333) shortly before this decision is made. It is the habit of the mother-child relationship which is referred to here, for this is the context in which Sappho describes her past with Melitta, from the time she purchased her as a sickly baby from the “wilde[n] Männer[n]” (III; v, 1050) who had kidnapped her: “Mich dauerte der heimatlosen Kleinen, / … ich bot den Preis / Und schloss dich, selber noch ein kindlich Wesen / Mit heisser Liebe an die junge Brust” (III, v, 1052-55). Through the sleepless nights which follow in nursing Melitta back to health, Sappho demonstrated a mother's need-oriented, selfless, and at times self-denying love.¹⁴ It is the intensity of this bond which is still felt, and which prevents her from seeing Melitta as a rival even after she has witnessed the kiss (III, v, 1071-72). Grillparzer has captured here in terse dramatic language and compressed action the difficult process of a child's path to independence from its mother, a process often effected through the child's assertion of its sexuality.¹⁵ Later adolescent attraction to the mother on the part of both boys and girls is directed toward more acceptable love objects in the course of the child's separation from the mother. The phenomenon is complicated here since mother and daughter have chosen the same man. Sappho concludes at this time with a wish for the future, that Melitta and she be sisters and equals: “Lass unsre Herzen aneinanderschlagen, / Das Auge sich ins Schwesteraug versenken / Die Worte mit dem Atem uns vermischen” (III, v, 1073-75). The words describe a highly eroticized relationship to which only Politzer alludes through his recognition of Sappho's jealousy not only of Melitta but also of Phaon (p. 94). The exclusivity of the mother-child bond is the case in the family Freud was to describe much later, but it is unusual both for Sappho's and for Grillparzer's period.

By the middle of the play, the “Schwesteraug” of Sappho's hopes disintegrates, albeit with much hesitation and confusion, into the “Herrinaug” (III, v, 1091) of the stern and disciplinary mother. The friendship between equals is impaired by pre-established patterns of behavior—just as reframing any mother-child relationship into one in which both recognize the other as independent is not only difficult but for many impossible. To expect a new basis to emerge within the short time span of the action is unrealistic and complicated by the external pressures placed upon that relationship, namely Sappho's public position and Phaon's aggressive pursuit of Melitta. Sappho's “tragic guilt” seems to me greatest not in the betrayal of her art but in the rash attempt to kill and later to remove Melitta from Mytilene. The mother sins against the daughter. Infanticide, particularly by the mother, is an act of such enormity that it makes us shudder even in today's calloused age, when we are only beginning to understand the conflicting pressures upon maternal love and the institution of motherhood within the nuclear family.¹⁶

Grillparzer's age was dominated, according to Friedrich Sengle, by a mother cult in which “Liebe und Gefühl” were prized more highly than “Leistung und Autorität.”¹⁷ Thus, qualities associated with the historically feminine (and specifically maternal) were prized more highly than those associated with the historically masculine. This assignation of value was, of course, still possible in a primarily pre-industrial age. The image of woman as mother, mainstay and center of the Biedermeier hearth, was even more idealized, it seems, than it is today. The natural conclusion, then, would be that Melitta as the child and the potential friend has a special place in the play.¹⁸ Precisely because Grillparzer chose as a protagonist Sappho, the educator of women, the center of a women's cult in honor of Aphrodite, we must pay close attention to her relationships with women. Like all other characters, Melitta has meaning only in relationship to the title character; however, she is the only one who consistently sees Sappho as a woman and an individual behind her many roles. We recognize this in the first scene: the people prepare to greet Sappho as a triumphant poet laureate, but Melitta at first seems to scoff at what she perceives as their exaggeration. She receives the announcement of Sappho's arrival with an ironic question: “Wer?—Götter!” (I, i, 7). This implies not only a more intimate relationship with Sappho than, for example, Rhamnes has, but also a healthy disrespect for any tendency to deify a woman whose humanity she knows so well. When Melitta discovers that her friend has won the poetry contest, she becomes enthusiastic, but even here she sees the person rather than the “Kranz”: “Ich sehe Sappho nur! Wir wollen ihr entgegen!” (I, i, 24-25). Rhamnes immediately squelches Melitta's enthusiasm by saying, “Der Mann mag das Geliebte laut begrüssen, / Geschäftig für sein Wohl liebt still das Weib” (I, i, 38-39). Rhamnes' words here certainly imply that Melitta and Sappho's relationship is a close one; more important, however, he emphasizes how little Sappho fulfills society's expectations for women by transforming her into the man for whom Melitta, the woman, waits “geschäftig” and “still.”

Melitta's special role is also evident as a mediator between Sappho and her environment, most often in explaining her to Phaon. He is incapable of comprehending Sappho as an integrated person (II, iv, 671-72; V, iv, 1776-77; 1795-98). At the conclusion of the play, Melitta is the only one of the entire assemblage who understands Sappho's pain. In a great many respects, this last act represents Melitta's coming of age; she approaches Sappho as an emotional and psychological equal even though her words are often couched in the patterns which their past history has established. Melitta's naivete and innocence are gone forever:

Ich kann nicht leben, wenn sie mich verdammt!
Ihr Auge war von jeher mir der Spiegel,
Vor dem ich all mein Tun und Fühlen prüfte!
Er zeigt mir jetzt die eigene Ungestalt!
Was muss sie leiden, die gekränkte Frau!

(V, iv, 1788-92).

Melitta assumes responsibility here at last for her own role in this particular tragedy. There is a marked difference in the Melitta here and the Melitta of the third act who is passively ready to give Sappho both Phaon's rose and her life and then just as passively allow herself to be drawn from the scene by Phaon.

V

Phaon's most important function in the play is that of catalyst, for it is difficult to see why Sappho could fall in love with him. He is certainly believable as the object of passion¹⁹ but hardly as an appropriate consort for Sappho. The situation his appearance precipitates is extreme because it requires an end to Sappho's relationship with Melitta. If Melitta is the only one who sees Sappho as a complete person, and Sappho rejects Melitta in favor of Phaon, then in the symbolic context, this means that Sappho would have to reject the possibility of an integrated existence and accept herself as a truncated personality. Since this is humanly and psychologically impossible, Sappho chooses to die affirming her own integrity. Phaon comes to represent in essence the voice of the people which Reinhardt very correctly labels the voice of conventionality (p. 130).

We already have some idea of the conventions which govern male and female behavior from Rhamnes' comment to Melitta on the occasion of Sappho's homecoming. But such conventional expectations are complicated by Sappho's public position, hence Rhamnes' consternation when Sappho introduces Phaon as his master—and her consort (I, iv, 302). In this response, Rhamnes is not dissimilar to Phaon who had already expressed his misgivings to Sappho: “Und bist du wirklich jene hohe Frau, / Wie fiel dein Auge denn auf einen Jüngling, / Der dunkel, ohne Namen, ohne Ruf, / Sich höhern Werts nicht rühmt?” (I, iii, 155-58). Both men are incapable of seeing the particular woman with human needs who is also Greece's poet laureate, and both operate from assumptions based on stereotypes of accepted behavior for a man and woman of Sappho and Phaon's respective stations.

Sappho recognizes from the start that her worldly superiority will be a problem. Only that realization could prompt her self-delusive wish to exchange the laurel wreath of fame with the myrtle wreath of domesticity (I, ii, 95). Whereas both Sappho and Phaon recognize more and more consciously their differences as the play progresses, both lovers wish to remain blind to the emotional maturity and sensitivity which mark Sappho's superiority over Phaon, a superiority which is not even diminished by her irrationality and jealousy. The desire of all lovers to shower each other with gifts poses yet another unforeseen problem since Sappho alone has the abundance from which to bestow. Her impulsive offer, “Was mein ist, ist auch dein. Wenn dus gebrauchst, / So machst du erst, dass der Besitz mich freut” (I, iv, 293-94), is deflated by Phaon's reply which clarifies how uncomfortable he feels in his position of grace: “Wie kann ich so viel Güte bezahlen? / Stets wachsend fast erdrückt mich meine Schuld!” (I, iii, 299-300). Phaon's immediate translation of Sappho's gifts into concrete money terms is the simplest way of dealing with the situation but also most unfortunate since it is doubtful whether Phaon would ever be able to repay such munificence—at least in kind. Sappho later recalls her impulses at that time as an attempt to make Phaon her equal (IV, i, 1222-30) but great inequality between two lovers places an immense burden on any relationship. Had the roles been reversed, the problem would undoubtedly have been overcome; after all, the Pygmalion myth is a popular model for male / female relationships and it does not have a female equivalent.²⁰

The conventions of accepted sex role behavior are confirmed by Sappho at the start of Act III. The passage is an attempt to rationalize the kiss she has just witnessed, but it is also an expression of the problems confronting a socially prominent, successful female whose male lover is neither well known nor accomplished. Sappho ruefully questions, “Was heisst den Masstab denn für sein Gefühl / In dieser tiefbewegten Brust mich suchen?” (III, i, 809-10). The somewhat rhetorical question focuses upon the age-old problem of unequal emotional involvement. Love is a gift freely and often capriciously given; however, Sappho delineates the male role as inconstant, insistent on change and hungry for renown (III, i, 813-20) and proceeds,

Und findet er die Lieb, bückt er sich wohl,
Das holde Blümchen von dem Grund zu lesen
Besieht es, freut sich sein und steckts dann kalt
Zu andern Siegeszeichen auf den Helm

(III, i, 821-24).

In this extended metaphor, the man lowers himself in order to raise the beloved one to his level; once conquered, however, the woman becomes his reflection rather than retaining any identity of her own. The image of the woman as the “holde Blümchen” evokes a picture of shyness, purity and, with the diminutive, youth in need of protection. Even less astute readers would realize that this image does not correspond to the sophisticated Sappho; in fact, the description reads as an entrance cue for someone like Melitta.

The social expectations for the female are not unknown to Sappho as the above quote from Act III details. Woman is overcome completely by the emotion of the moment. She lives in and through her relationship to the loved man:

Er kennet nicht die stille mächtge Glut
Die Liebe weckt in eines Weibes Busen!
Wie all ihr Sein, ihr Denken und Begehren,
In diesem einzgen Punkt sich einzig dreht
… Das ganze Leben als ein Edelstein
Am Halse hängt der neugebornen Liebe!

(III, i, 825-34)

On the one hand, Sappho correctly identifies women's traditional susceptibility to and emphasis on need-oriented relationships. On the other, she is deluding herself if she believes that Phaon's love can become her whole life, as is so often the goal of the woman socialized to domesticity. Psychologically Sappho feels the need to camouflage what she perceives to be the unequal commitment in her own love relationship behind the guise of generalizations about female and male behavior. Although Sappho wishes indeed to immerse herself completely in her new love, she is able to do so without becoming Phaon's appendage. This combination in Sappho of self-abandonment and self-affirmation pinpoints her problem in conforming to the norm.

The dualistic conception of Sappho's personality which denies the complexity of the individual only serves to extend the conventional view which would place Sappho within the accepted norm for women. Phaon's perception of Sappho fails consistently in comprehending the whole person: he views her only as the “erhabene Frau” (I, iii, 130-31) of public office, as a “hohes Götterbild” (I, iii, 164) who will be deified by all at the play's end, and as the victorious and famed poet (I, iii, 240-48), the office which combines her many different roles.²¹ Phaon's is a lone voice at the start of the play and Rhamnes' stereotypical admonition of Melitta can be dismissed as that of a loyal but obtuse bureaucrat; in any case Melitta's human view of Sappho counterbalances both male attitudes. Grillparzer himself undermines Phaon's exaggerated, idealized picture of Sappho by having him detail his own inadequacy and immaturity. Phaon constantly refers to himself in self-deprecating terms as “Hellas letzte[n] Jüngling” (I, iii, 257), a “blöde[n] Jüngling” (I, iii, 245), an “arme[n] Jüngling” (I, ii, 80) whose life before being chosen by Sappho has been one of “stille[n] Niedrigkeit” (I, iii, 133). His confusion and self-questioning, expressed in his monologue at the start of Act II, are completely understandable. Rather than accept the challenge of meeting Sappho as a person, his exaggerated perception of both Sappho's grandeur and of his own lowliness serves to protect him from that encounter. Phaon's peremptory and insensitive treatment of Melitta provides the psychological counterpoint to his threatened loss of self under Sappho's beneficence and power.²²

Phaon's evasion of this personal challenge issued by Sappho is accompanied by his rationalization that Sappho can function only as a divinity if she wishes to maintain any sort of moral integrity. He is in actual fact simply taking the escape route which Sappho had opened for him at the start through her forced description of a dichotomy between art and life which she does not accept. Phaon extends it here in the interests of his own self-preservation. At first, he defines Sappho's regained “divinity” in terms of his own subjective needs:

Du bist mir wieder was du einst mir warst,
Eh ich dich noch gesehen … Dasselbe Götterbild,
          das ich nur irrend
So lange für ein Menschenantlitz hielt,
Zeig dich als Göttin! Segne, Sappho, segne!

(V, iii, 1717-21).

Phaon implicitly admits his inability to deal with the complexities of Sappho as a woman, wishing for the same distance his image of her had provided him before they met. From here he proceeds to extend the image of a divine Sappho, constructed from his personal needs, to the entire community:

Mit Höhern, Sappho, halte du Gemeinschaft,
Man steigt nicht ungestraft vom Göttermahle
Herunter in den Kreis der Sterblichen.
Der Arm, in dem die goldne Leier ruhte,
Er ist geweiht, er fasse Niedres nicht!

(V, iii, 1726-30).

With these words Phaon's personal needs become the moral imperative for the whole community—except for Sappho, since for her it means exclusion from life, and thus death. With this glib mental abstraction Phaon saves himself and effectively shuts the door to Sappho's participation in the emotions and inconsistencies of a life lived rather than thought.

That other voice of conventionality, Rhamnes, concludes the play in a summation which cannot be regarded as anything but a mystifying conclusion: “Es war auf Erden ihre Heimat nicht— / Sie ist zurückgekehret zu den Ihren!” (V, vi, 2040-41). Sappho herself provides a more plausible explanation when she says, “Ihr, die ihr Sapphon schwach gesehn, verzeiht! / Ich will mit Sapphons Schwäche euch versöhnen” (V, vi, 1973-74). These words relieve Phaon, Rhamnes and her entire people of all responsibility toward her. Only the public Sappho can henceforth be exhibited, but a Sappho in need of guidance, comfort and love must be concealed. Constant fortitude—self-motivated, self-sustaining and self-regenerating—is beyond the realm of the human and Sappho, understandably so, rejects the sterile life of a pseudo-deity. She “chooses” to die only because she has no other choice. Her death is indeed an affirmation of her whole life which is the source of her art. Art and reality have been closely related in Sappho's life but this close relation—which should not be mistaken for identity²³—brings her into conflict with a world demanding that art and reality define their difference by total separation. Although the people's view of Sappho as a divinity renders her acceptable to them as a poet, in actual fact that vision floats free of all flesh and blood. Sappho's private view of herself is that of a still integrated personality, “voller Kraft, in ihres Daseins Blüte” (V, vi, 2005), but simply “zu schwach … länger noch zu kämpfen” (V, v, 2014).

Is it an accident that the two female characters express an appreciation for the totality of human existence while the two males construct an abstract compartmentalization of art and life, male and female? I think not, for Grillparzer has molded historically recognizable male and female types. Rhamnes and Phaon represent the dominant male culture which has ascribed positive value to the rational, the analytical, the objective, the instrumental. Alternatives associated with the female—intuitive, poetic, subjective, associative—have been labeled irrational or hysterical and are therefore seen as negative, both by the males in the play and by many of the critics. The dualistic conception of Sappho which is a product of this sort of thinking has dominated much of the Sappho criticism. In my attempt to understand Sappho's character, I hope to have shown that such abstractions are inaccurate, delusive or at best incomplete constructs which outline abstract ideas rather than doing justice to Grillparzer's representation of a character. Even though Grillparzer's criticism of his culture's dualistic evaluation of the male/female split is at best semiconscious, his text does criticize this duality precisely by presenting as his protagonist a woman who unsuccessfully attempts to hold the opposite poles of male and female, art and life together. To speak with Silvia Bovenschen, “reading against the grain” of the criticism, and to a lesser extent of the text, magnifies those aspects of Grillparzer's critique which continue to make his play so readable today.²⁴

Notes

1. There is a review of the literature in Joachim Müller, Franz Grillparzer, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1966), pp. 25-29; and in George Reinhardt, “A Reading of Grillparzer's Sappho,” in Studies in the German Drama: A Festschrift in Honor of Walter Silz, ed. Donald H. Crosby and George C. Schoolfield (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina, 1974), esp. pp. 125-27. Some of the critics who view Sappho as an artist are Roy Cowen, “Zur Struktur von Grillparzers Sappho,” Grillparzer Forum Forchtenstein 1 (1968), 66; on page 65 he states “die einzige mögliche Lösung” is what happens in the last act, “die Wiederherstellung des ursprünglichen Dualismus;” Michael Ossar, “Die Künstlergestalt in Goethes Tasso und Grillparzers Sappho,” GQ 45 (1972), 6; Keith Spaulding, ed., Sappho by Franz Grillparzer (London: Macmillan, 1965), p. xvii; Benno von Wiese, Deutsche Tragödie von Lessing bis Hebbel, 2nd ed. (Hamburg: Hoffmann & Campe, 1952), pp. 395, 396.

   Those who emphasize her human weaknesses are Joachim Müller, “Figur und Aktion in Grillparzers ‘Sappho’-Drama,” Grillparzer Forum Forchenstein 6 (1970), 8-43; Berndt Breitenbach, Ethik und Ethos bei Grillparzer, Quellen und Forschungen zur Sprache- und Kulturgeschichte der germanischen Völker,” N.F. 18 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1965), p. 142; Gert Kleinschmidt, Illusion und Untergang: Die Liebe im Drama Franz Grillparzers (Lahr/Schwarzenwald: Schauenbach, 1967), p. 78; Heinz Politzer, “Der unfruchtbare Lorbeer: Sappho” in Franz Grillparzer oder das abgründige Biedermeier (Vienna, Zurich, Munich: Molden, 1972), pp. 81-100.

2. This assumption is found in one very prominent work, Paul Kluckhohn, Die Auffassung der Liebe in der Literatur des 18. Jahrhunderts und in der deutschen Romantik, 3rd ed. (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1966).

3. Reinhardt, p. 127. Douglas Yates is another critic who makes an attempt to view Sappho as a whole person (p. 37) but he also says, “Sappho was by her poetic nature a woman of violent passions. She was a poetess by virtue of this fact, but only when she exercized restraint over her true nature” (p. 50) in Franz Grillparzer: A Critical Biography I (Oxford: Blackwell, 1946).

4. Politzer, p. 97.

5. Bovenschen, “Über die Frage: gibt es eine weibliche Ästhetik?,” Ästhetik und Kommunikation, 25 (1976), 62. Heinz Politzer says, for example, “Es ist ein Frauenschicksal, das Grillparzer hier darstellt, und ein Künstlerdrama nur insofern, als der Ruhm des Dichters [sic] dieser Frau lediglich als ein Makel oder wie ein körperliches Gebrechen anhaftet. Erst am Ende, wenn sie ihren Tod auf sich nimmt, vollendet sich diese Sappho als Dichterin [sic] und damit als tragische Figur” (p. 86).

6. All the quotations from Grillparzer's letters are taken from Karl Pörnbacher, ed., Dichter über ihre Dichtungen: Franz Grillparzer (Munich: Heimeran, 1970), here p. 103 ff.

7. All quotations from the play in Franz Grillparzer, Sämtliche Werke, ed. Peter Frank and Karl Pörnbacher, I (Munich: Hanser, 1960).

8. Schroeder later married a man twenty years her junior. See Yates, p. 45-46.

9. Friedrich Gentz' public affair with the dancer Fanny Elssler is but one example in Stella Muson, Vienna in the Age of Metternich: 1805-1848 (Boulder, Col.: Westview, 1975), p. 222.

10. Grillparzer wrote, “Ich konnte der Versuchung nicht widerstehen, die zweite der beiden übriggebliebenen Oden Sapphos, die mir zu passen schienen, in dem Stücke, das ihren Namen führt aufzunehmen, damit man mir doch nicht sagen könnte, es sei gar nichts von ihrem Geiste darin” (p. 106 in Pörnbacher). For an account of the historical Sappho, see Denys L. Page, Sappho and Alcaeus (Oxford: Clarendon, 1955); Sarah Pomeroy, Goddesses, Whores, Wives and Slaves: Women in Classical Antiquity (New York: Schocken, 1975), p. 56 ff; and most recently Judith Hallett, “Sappho and her Social Context: Sense and Sensuality,” Signs: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Women's Studies, 5 (1975), 447-64.

11. Hallett, p. 450.

12. Ossar, pp. 646-47.

13. Müller, “Figur und Aktion,” p. 20; Cowen agrees with one exception: “Ihr einziger Kontakt mit dem Leben ist bisher ihre Mutterrolle gewesen, nicht nur Melitta, sondern auch der Inselbevölkerung gegenüber” (p. 67); Politzer believes her love to be reciprocated here for the first time, “zumindest für die kurzen Stunden der Reise von Olympia nach Leukas” (p. 86).

14. Both Ulrike Prokop in Weiblicher Lebenszusammenhang: Von der Beschränktheit der Strategien und der Unangemessenheit der Wünsche (Frankfurt: Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 67 and Adrienne Rich in Of Woman Born: Motherhood as Experience and Institution (New York: Norton, 1976) talk about this dual quality of maternal love.

15. Sigmund Freud would have to be called the first to discuss the eroticization of the mother-child relationship, implied through his theories of infant sexuality, oedipal conflict, and choice of the first love object. For a discussion of Freudian theory applied to mothering see Alice Balint, “Love for the Mother and Mother-Love,” in Michael Balint, ed., Primary Love and Psycho-Analytic Technique (New York: Liveright, 1965); Nancy Chodorow, The Reproduction of Mothering (Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978). A popular book which makes mother the culprit is Nancy Friday, My Mother, My Self (New York: Dell, 1977).

16. Adrienne Rich has a very interesting discussion of this phenomenon, and Michael Cacoyanis' film Medea (1978) also deals with it.

17. Friedrich Sengle, Biedermeierzeit: Deutsche Literatur im Spannungsfeld zwischen Restauration und Revolution: 1815-1848 (Stuttgart: Metzler, 1971), I, 60.

18. The only article on Melitta is by Sylvia C. Harris, “The Figure of Melitta in Grillparzer's Sappho,” JEGP [Journal of English and Germanic Philology] 60 (1961), 102-10. She sees her only as Sappho's rival.

19. Phaon's rejection of Sappho certainly causes pain as evidenced in her exchanges with Melitta (III, v) and with Phaon at the end (V, iii) and by her own non-verbal gestures: her tears (III, vi, 1180); her rigid, uncomprehending stare (III, vi, after 1161 and 1177); her inability to meet Phaon's eyes (III, v, after 1673); and her painful shudder when she finally does (III, v, middle 1708). I think that the relationship has to be put into a broader context than it usually is.

20. Politzer sees Sappho as a Pygmalion to Melitta (p. 95).

21. Norbert Griesmeyer's book, Das Bild des Partners in Grillparzers Dramen, Wiener Arbeiten zur deutschen Literatur (Vienna: Braumüller, 1972) is useful in analyzing the self-deception involved in Sappho's and Phaon's perceptions of one another.

22. Phaon's own self-deception is nowhere more evident than in his relationship with Melitta whom he believes he treats as an equal. This never prevents him from ordering her around and treating her in general with a callousness of which Sappho at her worst was incapable.

23. According to Reinhardt, “The poetess does not admit this distinction between art and life,” p. 143.

24. Pat Russian, with whom I once spoke about many of the ideas expressed in this paper, provided one important impetus for my writing of it.