Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 77, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 31 March 1914 — SAPPHO WAS GREATEST POET [ARTICLE]

SAPPHO WAS GREATEST POET

So Said Swinburne in a Glowing Appreciation of the Greek Poetess. London. —A hitherto unpublished appreciation by Swinburne of the Greek poetess Sappho appears in the Saturday Review. The appreciation, which is glowing in praise and apparently dates back to the middle period of Swinburne’s life, concludes thus: “Judging even from the mutilated fragments that have fallen within our reach from the broken altar of her sacrifice of song, I have always agreed with all Grecian tradition in thinking Sappho, beyond all question and comparison, the very greatest poet that ever lived. Aeschylus is the greatest poet who ever was, also a prophet. Shakespeare is the greatest dramatist who ever was, also a poet. But Sappho was simply nothing less, as she certainly was nothing more than the greatest poet who ever was at all.”