This dissertation argues that feminine voice can be found in Archaic Greek poetry. Attempting to answer this question, I tried to build a case for a feminine voice that is historically contextualized, since it is constructed within the context of archaic Greece. For this thesis, such a voice is not as a natural, physical voice but a constructed gendered voice. In the beginning, Sappho’s construction of feminine voice is considered as dialogic. Sappho re-reads, re-writes Homeric epic as a feminine epic: polyphonic, against dichotomies and hierarchies. In the case of Sappho, feminine voice is constructed as the voice of the persona loquens, be that Sappho or the female performer. In Homer, a similar feminine voice is constructed as the voice of Helen, a poetic female figure. Thus, Homer constructs a double, unfixed, polyphonic feminine voice that functions as an alternative poetic discourse within the Iliad. Finally, in Alcman the female voice of the chorus proves to be essentially masculine. Thus, emphasizing hierarchical models, or male models of desire, the chorus is reinforcing patriarchal structures.
Building on French feminist theory and late Bakhtinian discussions, this thesis attempts to map down polyphony, multiplicity, fluidity and mutability as the main characteristics of a feminine voice. By demonstrating how both male and female authors are able to construct a feminine voice with the aforementioned characteristics essentialist arguments are avoided. Hence, both Sappho and Homer produce a feminine voice, a multiple, dialogic, unfixed voice. The use of such a feminine voice is an ideological choice with sociopolitical implications. My objective was to explore a feminine voice that is neither essentialist nor victimized: if Sappho’s feminine voice is not anchored on her gender, it is a position in language rather than a biologically defined position, then, an écriture feminine can be composed by male writers as well. Moreover, if Sappho is able to speak at the same time within and against the specific androcentric society, then, indeed, the subaltern woman, and her voice, does exist.