La mujer en Jorge Guillén : “Al Margen de Safo”

Abstract

Pocos datos biográficos sobre Safo pueden considerarse verídicos, ya que su fama fue tal que la realidad y la ficción sobre la poetisa se confunden. Partiendo de los escasos fragmentos de sus composiciones –seiscientos versos de unos diez mil atribuidos–, trazamos su perfil históricoliterario con el fin de explorar cómo Safo, incluso después de su fallecimiento, generación tras generación, ha sido juzgada y condenada por su valentía en inmortalizar el amor homosexual en sus versos. Ella ha ido desafiando y venciendo la figura del varón androcéntrico y al tiempo, hasta que el poeta vallisoletano Jorge Guillén (1893-1984) en el poema “Al margen de Safo. Ritmo a favor”, rinde tributo al ritmo de la poetisa y la reivindica para la eternidad

Very few biographical data are known about Sappho for certain. She enjoyed such a fame in Antiquity that fiction and reality about her mix. A reduced corpus of about 600 hundred lines, out of a supposed production of 10,000 lines, have reached our times by indirect transmission. In this paper, we survey the traditions transmitted about the poetess after her death, generation after generation. She has been rebuked and convicted because of her courage to eternize queer desire in her poetry. Her ideology and attitude have challenged male chauvinism and the spirit of times, until the poet Jorge Guillén reassess her. This poet shows a great appreciation of Sappho in his poem “Al margen de Safo. Ritmo a favor”, which introduces some motifs from the poetess and emulates the Eolic rhythm of her poetry. In this paper, we explore critically Guillen’s poem as a response to Sappho’s poetry and reputation through the times.