Copyright

William Hutchings

Published On

2023-12-19

Page Range

pp. 35–38

Language

  • English

Print Length

4 pages

2. Sappho to Phaon

  • William Hutchings (author)
Chapter of: ‘Wit’s Wild Dancing Light’: Reading the Poems of Alexander Pope (pp. 35–38)

Chapter 2. Sappho to Phaon is Pope’s early venture into the world of Ovid’s Heroides, verse epistles from heroines. An erotically charged beginning is gradually softened by its writer, the sixth century BCE Greek lyricist Sappho, adopting the gentler, more peaceful language of the Pastorals.

Contributors

William Hutchings

(author)
Honorary Research Fellow at University of Manchester

William Hutchings was formerly Senior Lecturer in English Literature and Director of the Centre for Excellence in Enquiry-Based Learning at the University of Manchester, UK and he is presently Honorary Research Fellow in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at that university. He now lectures regularly to public groups locally and nationally. He has a wealth of teaching experience on English Literature courses at undergraduate and postgraduate level, and is the editor of Andrew Marvell: Selected Poems, the author of The Poetry of William Cowper, and Literary Criticism: A Practical Guide for Students.