ABSTRACT
The formal problem facing Sappho was to find a way of presenting the female persona as an erotic subject. Culturally acceptable models presumably did not include woman's pursuing man. Sappho's solution, to direct the erotic impulse toward other women, was perhaps a traditional one. On the social plane quite possibly girls before marriage were encouraged to cultivate female poetry, friendships, liaisons, and among them Sappho may have found her audience.
