It is when Sappho reconstructed the intimate relationship between man and woman by placing the female figure in more powerful position that she displayed what appeared to be a slight form of feminism. The infamous femme fatale Helen of Troy is used to exemplify the strength of woman's capability.
             the flower of the world's manhood-
             Warped to his will, forgetting (Sappho 41).
             Helen had the will to choose among the finest of men. She chose one whose strength surpassed many. Despite his intensity she was able to "warp his will" and purport the destruction of an entire nation. She indeed is a far cry from the subservient woman who exists only as an object of desire for the male element. An abundance of feminism, the belief in the social, political, and economic equality of the sexes, shines through in the poetry of both Gwendolyn Brooks and Bernadette Mayer who seem to carry on the subtle tradition of feminism in the lyricism of Sappho in a much larger way. They do battle with the traditional love sonnet, which places the woman in a role opposite to the one favored by Sappho.
             Brooks takes a cunning approach to invalidating the traditional sonnet by using the sonnet itself. This observation is made quite clear by Stacy Hubbard: "...for Brooks, the form's (the traditional sonnet) very associations with white cultural hegemony and male-dominated discourse make it an apt, if ironic, vehicle for protests against social injustice and the tyrannies of poetic tradition" (48). Brooks understood the rigid structure of the sonnet; therefore, it was not difficult to recognize its vulnerability to a change that would create a new role for women in society. Hubbard further observes: "Brooks challenges the traditional sonnet's representation of the subject by transforming its spoken woman into a speaking woman and by exploiting the form's restrictions in order to dramatize questions of inclusion and exclusion as they relate to ra...