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Watered Down Wine and Esthetics

Watered Down Wine and Esthetics “Gretchen Reydams-Shils (“Myth and Poetry in the Timaeus”) deals with Socrates’ puzzling remark that his description of an ideal state was like a painting.” ~ http://ndpr.nd.edu/news/plato-and-the-poets/ Socrates’...

Some Myths are Far More Real

Some Myths are Far More Real “Orpheus is a hero, not a god, and a hero more valuable than most gods, just as Prometheus was.” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 21 The gods are less than Orpheus of Thrace. Gods loomed up large but they were never real. Majestic for a...

Orpheus Sings

          Orpheus Sings Modern poetry  modern verse  contemporary poetry  contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “he sings to distract his shipmates from the irresistible lure of the Sirens onto the rocks” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 32 The Sirens...

Mixed Race Divinity and Humanity

Mixed Race Divinity and Humanity Socrates “builds up a picture of the poet as ‘a light, winged, holy creature’, who cannot compose until he is out of his mind and possessed . . . .  The god takes away the poet’s senses, and uses him . . . so that the poems he utters...

Misogyny (μισογυνία) is a Greek Word

Misogyny (μισογυνία) is a Greek Word Modern poetry  modern verse  contemporary poetry  contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “What would a man not give to engage in conversation with Orpheus?” ~ Plato That marble minded Plato thinks of men, Not women,...

Daedalus and Icarus

     Daedalus and Icarus Modern poetry  modern verse  contemporary poetry  contemporary verse modern poem contemporary poem “The natural rhythms of Greek [poetry] tend ‘downward,’ falling” ~ Michael Schmidt, The First Poets, 14 How strange it is to think that ancient...