My study of Greek Lyric and Elegiac Poetry: Sappho and Theognis

I'm continuing my study of ancient Greek history with a focus on Greek lyric and elegiac poetry.  To that end I am breezing through these two short books on Sappho (Stung with Love: Poems and Fragments of Sappho) and Theognis (Elegies, translated by Dorothea Wender), both by Penguin Classics.

I've heard of Sappho many times, of course, the famed poetess from Lesbos.  Apparently she taught a school for upper-class young women, a sort of finishing school with a strong emphasis on lyric poetry.  She was widely heralded throughout the ancient world as one of the greats, but unfortunately only tiny fragments of her work (some resurrected from potsherds, or from wrappings of Egyptian mummies) survive.

Theognis I had not heard of, although many years ago I apparently purchased a book that included his work.  Because that book was entitled Hesiod and Theognis, I confused Theognis with Hesiod's work Theogony.  I didn't internalize that there was a writer of that name until I recently read Hesiod.  I can't imagine that I'm the first to make that mistake.

Theognis writes brash but short elegies, mostly a few lines each, in the didactic attempt to extoll his pearls of wisdom, some good, some bad, some just the rants of an angry old man.  They are fun to read, however!

Short as they are, both of these works are adding layers to my understanding of pre-classic life in the Aegean world.