Caroline Kerr
Professor Carrico
GSI: Kuan
November 26, 2016
Rhetoric 103A
Figurative Analyzation
In Sapphos poem, Honey or Bee,
she explores the differences between necessity and desire for pleasure,
beauty, and anger. Honey within ancient greek beliefs is frequently
associated with Aphrodite who is the Greek goddess of love, beauty,
pleasure, and procreation (Bee Lore). Honey or Bee provides areas
of annotation which allows the reader to find different sources of
meaning, specifically the importance of the word honey, depicting if it
is either a desire or a necessity for oneself. With the frame work of
using honey before the usage of bee Sappho is stating that that we
first associate the outcome rather than the source due to this, we frame
things based off of its result rather than the steps it takes to
acquire these results.
The
affirmation of desire instead of the necessity for pleasure is shown by
Sappho with alliosis which is used to deny something in order to affirm
something else, an example of this is saying she needs neither the
honey nor the bee; it makes the reader question if she does need it
because she has addressed in a sense the elephant in the room. This is a
pivotal point of the poem where Sappho pulls the audiences thoughts in
by saying she does not need these pleasures causing the question of
desire to arise. When she does this it makes it so she is affirming the
desire she has for honey. Honey is the end result of a bee which is
showing she does not want to work for these benefits but she craves
these pleasures and will find a way to achieve love, beauty, and
everything else which is associated with honey. Sappho wants to address a
topic without directly addressing it so her audience has the change to
create meaning on their own because one is more likely to refute
information if we are forced to digest information without finding
meaning on our own. This is a strong rhetoric tactic because one becomes
so use to accepting facts when one is able to find significance in an
organic way, it will be reputable for future reflection.
An example of utilizing emphasis is the word usage of need. When Sappho is saying need
she means that there is not a necessity for this but there could be a
desire, she would not write about something if there was truly no
significance behind it, or want for it. One of the largest metaphors is
an ananamen with the usage of honey and bee. Simplistically, without a
bee you cannot have honey. Sappho highlights upon the fact that we are
not willing to take the bad with the good; a bee has a stinger which is
the anger/negatively we must endure to reach the sweet love of honey.
One of the largest human errors is one is not willing to take the bad
with the good, no matter what is occurring within ones life there will
always be something you must work for in order to achieve this end goal
of pleasure.
The Zeugma of the word need
connects both honey and bee together, which individually have two
separate meanings and are now directly related but with this connecting
verb, it properly connects them together creating a bridge between the
two terms reflecting a clear similarity of the two. Sappho did this
because honey and bee without the connection have two separate meanings
and do not show the underlying meaning but when connecting honey and bee
it provides a whole cause rather than two separate causes. Need
drives the desire of honey rather than the need for it, representing how
one cannot exist without the other, you cannot have a result without
the work required to access this point.
As
shown, with the frame work of using honey she roots back to the initial
meaning rooted within greek terminology and shows that humans are more
likely to want something directly for its end result rather than the
work required to achieve these goals.
Source Cited:
"Aphrodite and Her Melissae in Ancient Greece." Bee Lore. N.p., 21 Jan. 2008. Web. 26 Nov. 2016.
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