Transnational Lyrical Networks: Sappho, Mercedes Matamoros and Michael Field

Abstract

This article addresses the poetic reception of Sappho at the turn of the twentieth century as a transnational phenomenon, proposing a comparative reading of two collections: Michael Field’s Long Ago (1889) and Mercedes Matamoros’ El último amor de Safo (1902). The aim of this comparison is threefold: to depart from traditional criticism focused on national canons and direct intertextual linkages, to adopt a perspective more open to possible unsuspected transnational poetic networks and, more particularly, to reveal both the thematic correlations –around eroticism, ophidian symbolism, subversion of gender roles, homoerotic desire, and impulses of revenge– and the structural, material, and aesthetic differences between the two works. Ultimately, the present article seeks to diversify the study of Sappho's reception in such a way as to foster encounters between lyrical voices from distant latitudes and different cultures, yet united by the global reach of Sappho's legacy during the transition from the nineteenth to the twentieth century.