An example of ‘hyperbolic decoding’. Reframing the narrative of a greek symposium scene in the Erica Jong’s novel Sappho’s Leap

Abstract

The study is about the only greek symposium scene in the Erica Jong’s novel Sappho’s Leap. We intend to explore the relationship between linguistic rendering of greek fragments by the author and the original texts. We compare, through a linguistic-philological method, the ancient greek text and the novel through a semantic analysis intratextual and intertextual. The study identifies three main directions of decoding activated by Jong: linguistic reductions and / or additions in greek fragments; historical and biographical inventions about the characters, that ‘mistify’ the cultural period; adaptation of the story to the information of the fragments through an inferential reading. The article ‘discovers’ a new form of decoding from a literary text to a literary text, that I have called 'hyperbolic', a neologism that highlights the complexity of an infrequent and synchronous switching from ancient to modern, from one literary genre to another. We highlight contaminations and pastiche of a process not just “politically correct”, although demonstrating the relevance of the themes of ancient greek literature.