by phillipw | Jul 15, 2020 | AN, BO, Ho
Scholarly Blindness “Since before 450 BC there was no prose literature, 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 Greeks that he is...
by phillipw | Jul 14, 2020 | BO, BU, CE, SA
Sappho Wrote about Twelve Thousand Lines of Poetry Twelve thousands lines of poetry were torched By time and Christians. Piety increased The ravages, all this because she scorched With love for girls. Bishops made a feast Of male disgust that Sappho caused by fire...
by phillipw | Jul 13, 2020 | BI, BO, GA, HE, JE, JU, LO, MA, RA, ZE
The next two sonnets may offend some readers. If you think you may be offended, please do not read them. Painless Pleasure: Two contradictory versions of the myth of Ganymede “to be very eager in the pursuit of pleasure is to go hunting for pain…. ...
by phillipw | Jul 6, 2020 | BO, ER, GA, ZE
Some readers may find this next sonnet offensive. If you might be offended, do not read it. Divine = Human Equation Human = Divine Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “The matchless Ganymede, divinely fair, Whom Heaven, enamour’d...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | AN, AT, BO, CA, CL, CO, CY, HE, IS, PI, SA
Treasures from the Wreck of the Unrecoverable Modern poetry modern verse contemporary poetry contemporary verse “Athenaeus quotes more than ten thousand lines of verse in it, many not preserved or attested elsewhere.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets Ten...
by phillipw | Jul 5, 2020 | BO, PA, SC
Before the Internet in the Ancient World “Hellenistic culture was of necessity a culture of the book . . . : the age of the reader had arrived, and a poet was often a man speaking to a man, not to men.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 13 The audience grew smaller...
