Sappho : of Lesbos, greatest of early Greek lyricists. Plato called her the tenth Muse.
... perfect beauty waiting to be revealed. He may be as poignantly personal and fired with the body's hunger as Sappho and Catullus, yet the urge to his lyrical self-expression is not merely the joys and griefs of a personal libido: it is also an aspiration for a flawless magic of verbal form. Sappho and Catullus were not lovers grown vocal and nothing more: they were pre-eminently idealists of speech, their... simple in expression and rich in sound-texture. Sri Aurobindo, though preserving the gorgeous-sounding yet clear-phrased power of Sappho, introduces in the poignancy and the picturisation another note which is due not alone to the theme and experience being different. Sappho was passionate in a piercingly human way of love; Sri Aurobindo the mystic and the Yogi has turned the cry of the heart towards... senses, the feelings and the thoughts as though some concealed godhead were taking body through each poem. By answering that mysterious call of inspiration and not just the voice of Atthis or Lesbia, Sappho and Catullus wrote poetry. Whether they were intellectually conscious of serving a divinity in which they believed, is immaterial. All that was necessary for art was that they should be conscious of ...
... Classicism are Homer, Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Virgil and Lucretius. These six, all things considered, are indeed greater than the brilliant sextet: Pindar, Simonides, Sappho, Horace, Catullus, Ovid. There need be no quarrel on this score. But does Page 20 Homer belong exactly to the same p ...
... but the purdah is not likely to produce them, though there may be a lucky accident in the worst circumstances, but one can't count on accidents. A George Eliot, a George Sand, a Virginia Woolf, a Sappho, or even a Comtesse de Noailles grew up in other circumstances. May 1933? It is true that the removal of the sex-impulse in all its forms and, generally, of the vital woman-complex ...
... single surviving complete poem; he is known only by his fragments. But he is ranked as a great poet, second only to Pindar who is the greatest Greek lyricist. Nor has Pindar himself written very much. Sappho has come down to us in only one complete poem: the rest of her is in mere snatches. Still, she is hailed as a great poet. So there can be no fixed standard by which one can judge the greatness of a ...
... question? All depends on the poem. If a poet has written a few perfect lyrics he can be called great. Francis Thompson's "Hound of Heaven" makes him great. We spoke also of Sappho and Simonides. NIRODBARAN: Yes, I told Dilip about Sappho and about the fragments Simonides wrote. SRI AUROBINDO: Simonides did not write fragments, but only fragments are left of what he wrote. And from them one can judge ...
... 629 Rosa Mystica—A Colloquy 715 Rose-Red 364 Runner 554 Sages 409 Sakuntala's Farewell 15 Santo Riso 46 Sappho Silent 371 Saviour-Guide 255 Savitri 104 Seascape 610 Seated Above 227 Secret Ether 383 Secrets 717 Seer and ...
... polishing them up to perfection, just as Shakespeare stole all his plots from whoever he could find any worth stealing. But all the same, if that applies to Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, what about Alcaeus, Sappho, Catullus, Horace? They did a good deal of inventing or of transferring—introducing Greek metres into Latin, for example. I can't spot a precedent in modern European literature but there must be some ...
... Mah ā bh ā rata or Dante's Divina Commedia as a nightingale's song. Least of all would we normally associate this song with Paradise Lost. The nightingale reminds us of Catullus and Campion, Sappho and Sarojini Naidu. It is a symbol of lyricism. And in a very evident sense the grandioseness of Milton's chant is at the opposite pole to the lyrical. But Milton the epic poet par excellence has ...
... polishing them up to perfection, just as Shakespeare stole all his plots from wherever he could find any worth stealing. But all the same, if that applies to Shakespeare, Homer, Virgil, what about Alcaeus, Sappho, Catallus, Horace? they did a good deal of inventing or of transferring—introducing Greek metres into Latin, for example. I can't spot a precedent in modern European literature, but there must be some ...
... way of living is not likely to produce them. There may indeed be a lucky accident even in the worst circumstances—but one cannot count on accidents. A George Eliot, a George Sand, a Virginia Woolf, a Sappho, or even a Comtesse de Noailles grew up in other circumstances. 30 April 1933 What a stupidly rigid principle! 4 Can Buddhadev really write nothing except what he has seen or experienced? ...
... ing in this letter. He demands variety. SRI AUROBINDO: What does it matter if there is no variety? Homer has written only on war and action. Can Tagore say that he is a greater poet than Homer? Sappho wrote only on love: is she not a great poet? Milton also has no variety and yet he is one of the greatest poets. Mirabai has no variety either and she is still great. PURANI: What about the Upanishads ...
... Milton is not understood by many. He is not a great poet then?… What does it matter if there is no variety? Homer has written only on war and action. Can Tagore say that he is a greater poet than Homer? Sappho wrote only on love: is she not a great poet? Milton also has no variety and yet he is one of the greatest poets. Mirabai has no variety either and she is still great… Shakespeare too has his limitations… ...
... complete lack of interest in games must have lessened his enjoyment of the life of the place. His interests were in literature: among Greek poets for instance he once waxed enthusiastic over Sappho, and he had a nice feeling of English style. Yet for England itself he seemed to have small affection; it was not only the climate that he found trying: as an example, he became quite indignant ...
... Tagore does not raise the question of understanding but of variety. . Sri Aurobindo : r has written on war and action. Can one say that those who write on many subjects are greater than r? Sappho wrote only on one subject : therefore can we say she is not great? What about Milton and Mirabai? Disciple : What Tagore wants to say is that to be a perfect poet one must have variety. ...
... complete lack of interest in sports while at Cambridge and to his general attitude towards England: His interests were in literature: among Greek poets for instance he once waxed enthusiastic over Sappho, and he had a nice feeling of English style. Yet for England itself he seemed to have small affection; it was not only the climate that he found trying: as an example, he became quite indignant when ...
... An arctic or an alpine night Is silence, yet life never dims— But who shall wake her body's white, This lunar landscape of still limbs? The mouth is Sappho's but no fret Breaks over that rose of Helicon: "It's midnight and time passes"—yet In peace her body lies alone. Page 371 ...
... to denounce from the artistic standpoint a poem for the nature of the force expressed in it. The Victorians could not relish the beginning of Swinburne's Anactoria, where the poet voices Sappho's yearning in a mood of cruel and morbid exultation for the body of the girl Anactoria whom she loves — perhaps the most sadistic cry in English literature: I would find grievous ways to have ...
... dactylic tetrameter, and The Lost Boat in ionic a minore pentameter with an overflow of one short syllable. Descent in Sapphics is justly admired as being in, "the best of Pindar's style and Sappho's... coloured by a mystical experience of the 'overhead' type." 79 Here are two out of its seven marvellous stanzas: Swiftly, swiftly crossing the golden spaces Knowledge ...
... mother, plucking dewy apples from the lower boughs in a garden, he first saw Nysa and a fatal frenzy swept him off his feet, Sri Aurobindo adds a new turn to the story with a faint recollection of Sappho's "apple that reddens on the top branch" and concludes with a conceit of poignant whimsicality: Page 60 She asked for fruit long-stored in autumn's hold. These gave I; from the ...
... disclosed is beauty. So long as the intuition comes flawless, the divinity in art suffers no wrong; it consents to be worshipped in passionate Dionysiac temples as in fanes of Apollonian calm, to lust on Sappho's lips and deny the gods with Lucretius just as excellently as to weave Tagore's song-garlands for an immortal Beloved and, through Dante, hear even the mouth of hell declare God's mercy. Else it would ...
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