Tom Stoppard's 2006 play, Rock 'n' Roll, now on stage in DC (until the end of May), brings back Sappho's poetry as part of his evocation of the spirit of '68, thus Sappho as a sort of Muse of the Velvet Revolution...I'm all in favor. Here's part of the Washington Post's review:
...Stoppard's restlessly curious brain takes you down paths that will strike more than a few playgoers as exotic, even opaque. The Prague Spring and Velvet Revolution; the Czech leaders Alexander Dubcek and Gustav Husak; the poetry of Sappho and the music of an obscure underground band, the Plastic People of the Universe; all figure prominently in a story that has as a backdrop the gradual erosion and then rapid collapse of the Soviet empire.
See also DCist...which helpfully links to Lattimore's translation of the Sappho poem (31) in question.
Just for fun, here's some co-curricular Sapphic commentary I wrote for Valentine's Day:
http://collegiateway.org/news/2009-caritas-and-eros
Posted by: RJO | May 01, 2009 at 02:32 AM