The president of the Association of Friends of Museums St. Lois, Suzanne Leclerc, before the painting by Gustave Moreau presented the theme of the conference
Philippe Brunet
already visited the museum last year, recited in ancient Greek to the famous painting by Corot, Homer and the Shepherds
after analyzing the composition of Iliad and Odyssey
(article OF on his verse translation , Editions du Seuil)
(links Homer + the to Greek)
"Sappho still alive
" Such is the paradoxical title chosen by Philippe Brunet for his conference, with singing and dancing.
Contrairement à L'Iliade et à l'Odyssée, aux Travaux d'Hésiode, à l'oeuvre de Pindare, le texte de Sappho ne nous est parvenu que d'une manière fragmentaire : it retains essentially the Hymn to Aphrodite , and an ode incomplete exceptional influence. Restitution, restoration, interpretations designed to fill holes in papyrus make random the book initial.La oral transmission could play a role in conservation because, unlike the epics of Homer, Sappho composed songs, and occasional pieces focus on personal feelings.
Yet, unlike Homer, whose existence is problematic, Sappho's life is known to us. We know she was born on the island of Lesbos, where the expression which means, "The Lesbian"-probably in Mytilene. We know the name of his father , One of his three brothers. She had a daughter she named Cleis, named after his own mother. She was accused of being a tribade, when in reality she was surrounded by a circle of young girls to whom she taught the art of poetry. During his lifetime (I VI century BC.), She was recognized as a poet on a par with Alcaeus. She is the creator of the stanza hendecasyllables called "Sapphic", consisting of 3 to hendecasyllables lesbian (or lesbian large) and an Adonis to 5 syllables. According to tradition, "Sappho threw herself into the sea from the rock of Leucate for love of Phaon, the Mytilien ", and that is the subject of the painting of Gustave Moreau, Death of Sappho , (1872) hangs at the Musée des Beaux-Arts de Saint-Lô, to whom Philippe Brunet sung on his lyre extracts from poems, and stressed the rhythm of the stressed syllable of a dancing step. Diverting values epic and manly Sappho's poetry glorifies the lyricism, desire, passion and its symptoms with realistic description or flood inspired Racine's Phedre horrors facing Hippolyte
"Because I hardly see you, I stay any dumb
and my tongue is like broken, slipped under my skin /
suddenly, a thin flame, and my eyes, blind /
empty, my ears ringing;:
Sweat runs down my limbs /
takes me a shiver; even more livid /
as grass yellowing, I think I feel death approaching "
(Fourth stanza of Ode Translation II -Philippe Brunet)
But beyond mere biography that covers the "I " and to whom are the sensual poems Sappho? "I will always virgin she writes, while qu'Alcée describes it as: " smiling Sappho, with purple braids, pure "- or" chaste "-more appropriate epithet for the goddess Aphrodite only one death, one daughter, as we know ...
Different recipients of his verse, the bride, a young girl exiled differently identified, this Phaon ( "The brilliant ", nickname of Apollo) which we know little, or Artemis Aphrodite, do they not solve all in the same ideal, that of Beauty?
Similarly, in the painting by Gustave Moreau Sappho's face do not confuse it with that of Orpheus and the light that bathes the scene Is not that of art?
MS
Bibliography:
Sappho, poems and fragments , bilingual edition, text established and translated by Philippe Brunet, Library The Age of Man (1991) / (print)
History Greek literature Suzanne Said, Monique Tredi Alain Boulluec, PUF (1991).
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P. BRUNET, the equal of the gods. Hundred versions of a poem by Sappho , foreword by K. HADDAD-WATLING Paris, Allia, 1998.
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The videos below have were performed by Enitram I warmly thank:
Philippe Brunet spoke style Psappho his juxtaposition of words which require translation freer than those who have hitherto been proposed.
" Hymn to Aphrodite and Ode to the beloved in Sapphic stanzas, that is to say
3 times and 11 syllables Insertions of 5 syllables.
- u - - - uu - u - -
then - su - -
- is a long syllable, u a short syllable.
All stanzas have the same rhythmic structure and orchestra, as I have shown that these worms will dance, I sing them, play them on the lyre and dance at the same time, which means that the three dimensions coexist 's perform at the same time. "
(Philippe Brunet)
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Philippe Brunet, remember, has published a verse translation of the Iliad Threshold Editions of . (500 pages)