“as reflected in ancient imitations created by male authors”.
Why restrict the study of the reception of Sappho to the male authors? Some very interesting reception of Sappho can be found in the few remains we have of female poets from the Hellenistic and Roman periods. Here I would like to plug my forthcoming article “Sappho as Anchor for Male and Female Poets in the Hellenistic and Roman Periods” (Lardinois f.c.), which I am happy to share with anyone interested, but there exist also older studies on the imitation of Sappho in poets such as Erinna (Rauk 1989, but already noted by Bowra in 1936), Nossis (Skinner 1989) and Julia Balbilla (Rosenmeyer 2007). Interesting about the reception of Sappho by the female poets is that they seem less obsessed by the erotic aspect of Sappho’s work than their male colleagues, with the prominent exception of Nossis (there are exceptions among the male poets too, e.g. Callimachus’ Lock of Bernice, which relies heavily on Sappho’s laments / farewell poems.)