Of all the ancient Greek female poets, perhaps only Sappho intrigues more than Erinna. For like the poetry of her predecessor and model, Erinna’s work primarily comprises a tantalizing yet spare set of fragments, from which both ancient and modern scholars attempt to reconstruct her biography, rendering it insecure at best. Most likely a writer of the fourth century bce, Erinna has bequeathed to us
three epigrams, two hexametrical lines quoted in Athenaeus, and a series of fragments from her chef-d’oeuvre, commonly known as the Distaff. Those few critics who have considered the body of Erinna’s poetry have typically focused on the Distaff rather than on the epigrams, yet understandably, despite the comparatively diligent attention that this text has received, because of its fragmentary state there has been no consensus as to its meaning.1 It has been read variously, as a traditional woman’s lament (Skinner 1982), an antihymenaeal verse (Arthur 1980), a combination of Sapphic themes and epic meter (Gutzwiller 1997), and most famously a poem of “exceptional ingenium” composed by a man (West 1977).2
These readings are provocative but tend to exclude epigrams attributed to Erinna, which provide additional clues to her poetic project. By examining the Distaff along with the epigrams, one observes an attempt by a female poet to define her identity as a Greek woman. This paper will first examine the techniques Erinna employs to establish a poetic identity in the Distaff and then consider similar strategies used in the epigrams. Emphasizing not only the elements
and tokens of female life but also the importance of voice as a means of fashioning the self, Erinna both depicts the value of interpersonal ties between women and shapes an identity and poetics of her own.
To argue for Erinna’s formulation of a poetic identity presupposes that one can postulate or theorize how identities—poetic or otherwise—are formed. One approach to this issue that provides a framework for considering questions about and problems of identity formation is the application of psychoanalytic theory, which
argues that a sense of identity, or individuation, comes into beingwhen the ego separates from, or rather brings into being, an external
reality. Various analysts theorize this moment in different ways. For Sigmund Freud (SE 19, 25) the ego does not encompass the id but
is situated between what we consciously perceive (reality) and the id itself, into which the ego merges. The ego therefore constitutes
the part of the id that has “been modified by direct influence of the external world.” The differentiation between ego and id grows more pronounced through the process of loss: Freud observed that depression, like mourning, manifests itself in those who, having lost an object, set it up again inside the ego. Subsequent theorists have modified Freud’s notions. D. W. Winnicott (1971, 1–6), for example, argues that the lost object is the mother’s breast, for which a transitional object must be found. Prior to that moment of separation from the breast, the infant’s ego is merged with that of the mother, providing not only a sense of union with another but also rendering the child’s nascent ego chaotic, unorganized, and undifferentiated.
Only through the process of separation does a child come to understand that she is an individual, that a “not-me” (e.g. the breast)
exists. Hans Loewald (1980, 11) takes a slightly different approach, observing that the ego functions as a barrier between an individual’s
interior world and external reality. Thus, the development of self, of the ego, is what brings about individuation, or as Loewald says, “the ego detaches from itself an outer world” (5). Nevertheless, the ego always desires reunion with that exterior,to become once again
a united whole. And Jacques Lacan, whose rewriting of Freud is so distinct and seemingly impenetrable, nevertheless recognizes the ego as an intermediary that produces false judgments or méconnaissance in its effort to cover over conflict.3 The process of ego formation is one of separation, of ordering and reordering, of moving from tiating a moment of loss that one will always strive to bridge but never fully close. Jonathan Lear (1990, 160) notes that Freud recognized that psychic development is dependent upon a “dialectic of love and loss,” specifically the tension between desire and the lost object of desire (and human insistence upon obscuring that conflict). Loss,
then, represents a fundamental experience of individuation, and the subsequent development of the ego is an attempt to work through
that first loss, to further organize and separate while simultaneously attempting to reunite with the other.
If we start from loss, both as a point of departure for the development of an identity (of an individual or of a poet) and as an experience
that has the potential to order our lives, then separation from other persons—through death, or physical distance, or emotional rupture—can critically inform identity. In this light Erinna’s Distaff reads as a prescription for the formulation of the ego, since the losses here are multiple. The poem details the split that has been created between two women, Baucis and “Erinna,” first by Baucis’ marriage, which leaves “Erinna” without her companion, and finally by her death, which separates them permanently.4 Adam Phillips (2001, 257) writes that “one of the ironies of the so-called mourning process is that it tends to make people even more self-absorbed than they usually are.” In this Phillips alludes to one of the paradoxes inherent not only in the progression of mourning, but more important, also in writing about the process of grief. For lament is inherently personal, and it is the personal that makes the individual
turn inward or assert a privileged position (“you can’t know what it’s like for me”). At the same time, mourning is universal, and thetraditional lament, or a poem like Erinna’s Distaff, only resonates with an audience because there is a common aspect to grief as well, a sense that all feel an investment in or understanding of the process of bereavement, even if they are poorly acquainted with a particular loss.
This paradox, the role of lament as both personal and public, compels the author to define herself as both individual and member
of her community: a loss that in no way seems personal will not stir an audience; a loss too personal will alienate them.