by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | AN, EL
Hoot Elegies “Initially the elegy was not restricted to laments. On the contrary, there was the erotic elegy (brilliantly taken up by the Latin poet Ovid)” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 11 In long gone centuries elegies were hot With sex. The...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | LO, LU, RO
Atheism “The lyric had functions in religious and other terms.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 10 So what has changed? Nothing really, except We now make lust itself a god, divine Without the need of Venus. We have swept The gods...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | AN
Scholarly Blindness “Since before 450 BC there was no prose literature, [sic] our only windows on the ancient world are the poems.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 8 It only goes to show that scholars love To focus narrowly. He looked so hard At...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | BE, LO
The Venerable, Ancient Need “And Socrates the philosopher, who despised everything, was, for all that, subdued by the beauty of Alcibiades; as also was the venerable Aristotle by the beauty of his pupil Phaselites.” ~ Athenaeus, Deipnosophistae, XIII, 906 The never...
by phillipw | Apr 8, 2020 | GR, PO
Primal ………. “As early as 500 BC, if we credit the images on Greek pottery, Homer and other poets were being read, not merely performed, by individuals.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets,7 When poetry existed in the mind And air and...
