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Sapphic verse

Form
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

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The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Poetry written in the Sapphic stanza, traditionally consisting of three hendecasyllabic lines followed by a pentasyllable

Detailed Definition
Sapphic verse traditionally refers to the four-line stanza form used by the ancient Greek poet Sappho, with three longer lines followed by a shorter adonic line; in English, it often adapts this structure with iambic or quantitative rhythms to evoke intimacy, desire, and lyrical intensity, influencing poets from Swinburne to contemporary writers exploring queer femininity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Sappho’s Fragment 31: “He seems to me equal to the gods that man...”; Anne Carson’s translations of Sappho in “If Not, Winter”; Algernon Charles Swinburne’s “Sapphics,” mimicking the quantitative meter; Modern adaptations like Marilyn Hacker’s “Sapphic” poems using stress-based approximation
Additional Notes
Sapphic verse uses the classical Sapphic stanza (three 11-syllable lines + one 5-syllable line) or evokes Sappho’s themes of love and longing; modern adaptations often retain emotional intensity over strict meter.
Also Known As
Sapphic Stanza Lesbian Lyric Aeolic Verse Four-Line Sapphic Greek lyric Lesbian verse
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