The music of the night is in the breeze,
A prelude borne by the airy musicians
Of the trees: the evening calls of the birds
That open for the cosmic symphony. — PoeticUniverse

Lovely. Feels cool.

The Music of the Night - Andrew Lloyd Webber's The Phantom of the Opera
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=77umP7IRxD4

Since we all become of this universe
Should we not ask who we are, whence we come?
Insight clefts night’s skirt with its radiance:
The Theory of Everything shines through! — PoeticUniverse

Clever Clefts. Keys opening the door to the mysteries. Or not...

The result is that there are two different kinds of readers of the dialogues. Those who image something grander, something higher, something transcendent, and those who, like Socrates himself, are grounded by self-knowledge, which includes the awareness that we know nothing of transcendent truths. — Fooloso4

Yes. I've noticed. The eternal magic roundabout. I blame Plato. He got what he wanted.
Philosophy will never end...with more than two involved in any interpretation...

My own bias no doubt shared by many, is that music that has stood at least some test of time keeps more of its promises as to what it offers. — tim wood

La musica è come il gelato :cool:

...having started this thread I can see that people clearly view the matter differently from me....

I believe that causality and chance may be far more complex than recognized within mainstream scientific thinking. — Jack Cummins

Perhaps you need to research further afield. Here's only one article I found quickly. There will be more.

On Serendipity in Science

‘Serendipity’ is a category used to describe discoveries in science that occur at the intersection of chance and wisdom. In this paper, I argue for understanding serendipity in science as an emergent property of scientific discovery, describing an oblique relationship between the outcome of a discovery process and the intentions that drove it forward. The recognition of serendipity is correlated with an acknowledgment of the limits of expectations about potential sources of knowledge. — On Serendipity: discovery at the intersection of chance and wisdom

Edit - another quickie:
https://undsci.berkeley.edu/article/0_0_0/serendipity

Stories of scientific discovery abound with lucky coincidences. It's true that serendipity and good fortune are often cited as key factors in making scientific innovations. But look closer. Even when scientists feel that they just got lucky — like Newton being hit on the head with his proverbial apple — the steps leading to a new finding or idea often tell a different story. It takes more than being in the right place, at the right time, to make a serendipitous discovery. Here are a few important attributes of scientists who turned a lucky break into a breakthrough: — Berkeley article: The Story of Serendipity

***

Serendipity: Towards a taxonomy and a theory
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0048733317301774

The purpose of this paper is to show that serendipity can come in different forms and come about in a variety of ways. The archives of Robert K Merton, who introduced the term to the social sciences, were used as a starting point for gathering literature and examples. I identify four types of serendipity (Walpolian, Mertonian, Bushian, Stephanian) together with four mechanisms of serendipity (Theory-led, Observer-led, Error-borne, Network-emergent). I also discuss implications of the different types and mechanisms for theory and policy. — Science Direct: Serendipity: Towards a taxonomy and a theory

If anyone interested, here's a free Open Yale 'Listening to Music' course
(video, transcripts and audio files of lectures):

https://oyc.yale.edu/music/musi-112/lecture-1

Professor Wright introduces the course by suggesting that “listening to music” is not simply a passive activity one can use to relax, but rather, an active and rewarding process. He argues that by learning about the basic elements of Western classical music, such as rhythm, melody, and form, one learns strategies that can be used to understand many different kinds of music in a more thorough and precise way – and further, one begins to understand the magnitude of human greatness. Professor Wright draws the music examples in this lecture from recordings of techno music, American musical theater, and works by Mozart, Beethoven, Debussy and Strauss, in order to introduce the issues that the course will explore in more depth throughout the semester. — Open Yale Course: Music 112

Sufficiently advanced order/patten/law is indistinguishable from disorder (chaos, randomness, anarchy, wildness) — Yohan

I don't understand this. Can you explain what you mean ?

"Chaos" is the materialist's Woo of the gaps.
— Yohan
I quite like that. — Banno

Why do you like it ?
What is meant by 'Chaos' ?

Chaos (Ancient Greek: χάος, romanized: kháos) is the mythological void state preceding the creation of the universe (the cosmos) in Greek creation myths. In Christian theology, the same term is used to refer to the gap created by the separation of heaven and earth.[1][2] — Wiki: Chaos

And what does this have to do with 'Synchronicity, Chance and Intention' ?

Can there be any knowledge in the absence of sensibles? — Fooloso4

I'm confused now - why would there be no 'sensibles' - whatever you mean by that ?

The Forms are hypotheticals. Images presented by Plato, cleverly presented as if one has been initiated into the mysteries of the truth. — Fooloso4

Understood. But shouldn't that be a bit grander: 'The Mysteries of the Truth' ?

Believing it is the truth itself is to mistake the image for the truth. But the truth is, they may insist that there are Forms, but they have no knowledge of Forms. Rather than being drawn closer to the truth their imagination takes them further away. — Fooloso4

Gotcha.
But many still argue the point. Endlessly.

Perhaps this is the concern of @Shawn

Why is this so? Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little? — Shawn

@Shawn - come back ! That is, if you have any real interest in the thread you started...

For most of us, music is mainly the experience of music, the time of hearing it. For musicians, the music is in their heads, with them. And no doubt most of us sometimes have a "song in our hearts," but no more as a musician does than most of us can run a sub-four-minute mile or a two-twenty marathon, or memorize and perform a syllable-perfect Shakespeare play. Which is to say that if nothing else, a solo classical performance is an exhibition of a world-class athleticism...

Hahn... about rendering the feeling in the music, seeking it, finding it, studying and understanding it, performing it.

As if, in going to church of a Sunday to hear a sermon, one encountered the voice of God itself! — tim wood

Thanks, for this; an exceptionally thoughtful listening piece.
So far, I've only clicked on Lark Ascending. So beautiful, clear and uplifting.

***
Your 'Sunday church-going' reminded me of 'Eleanor Rigby' - I talked of here:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/597807
Eleanor Rigby (Strings Only / Anthology 2 Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZA6jtxtTfQ&t=0s

[The first time my ears were stretched open to each instrument playing; linking the score to the lyrics for a deeper meaning. From simply hearing it as a pop song in 1966 to a careful listening decades later. I am grateful to the OU for that. How many get the chance to learn how to listen to music ? At the same time as attempting to interpret the meaning of lyrics...]

***
Since way back then, I have come to a greater appreciation of the mind/body connection.
A holistic view, if you like.

Music is a presencing. Of what exactly is not-so-easy to say. — tim wood

What do you mean by 'presencing' - being in the moment ?
Of what, then, would mean everything ? A deepening or enlarging of our senses/awareness...

Thanks to @tim wood - from discussion:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/11845/hillary-hahn-rosalyn-tureck-e-power-biggs

Hilary Hahn performs The Lark Ascending by Ralph Vaughan Williams at the George Enescu Festival.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IOWN5fQnzGk

Follow-up to:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/596844

Eleanor Rigby (Strings Only / Anthology 2 Version)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZA6jtxtTfQ&t=0s

Edit:
Been trying to find the score and lyrics combined. So far, only scored this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIs6J4XkOKQ

The Cave
BY PAUL TRAN
Someone standing at the mouth had
the idea to enter. To go further

than light or language could
go. As they followed
the idea, light and language followed

like two wolves—panting, hearing themselves
panting. A shapeless scent
in the damp air ...

Keep going, the idea said.

Someone kept going. Deeper and deeper, they saw
others had been there. Others had left

objects that couldn’t have found their way
there alone. Ocher-stained shells. Bird bones. Grounded
hematite. On the walls,

as if stepping into history, someone saw
their purpose: cows. Bulls. Bison. Deer. Horses—
some pregnant, some slaughtered.

The wild-
life seemed wild and alive, moving

when someone moved, casting their shadows
on the shadows stretching
in every direction. Keep going,

the idea said again. Go ...

Someone continued. They followed the idea so far inside that
outside was another idea.

Source: Poetry (October 2019)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/150941/the-cave-5d70274986958

If you look closely you can see I got baptised, too. — Banno

Ah yes - the sign of the cross on the forehead. I thought the sculpture markings were later accidents.
A baptism by fire ?

We do not attempt to escape because we do not know we are not free. The images whose shadows we see are:
... statues of men and other animals wrought from stone, wood, and every kind of material ... (514e-515a)
It should be noted that these images are not images of Forms, but of humans and other animals. — Fooloso4

Thanks for responding with your usual clarity with quotes from Plato's Republic.

It is said that it is "by nature" (515c) that one is freed from the wall, but it is by force that someone drags him out of the cave into the light of the sun. (515e) By nature I take him to mean the nature of that prisoner. It is not said who it is that drags him out. — Fooloso4

Interesting points to consider. Which translation are you using ?

Who the puppet-masters are, also remains in question. The puppets are images. Do the makers have knowledge of the originals, or do they mistake the images they make for the originals? — Fooloso4

Again - you pose thought-provoking questions. A deeper analysis...perhaps another Plato thread in the making :wink:

There is a problem with this analogy. The prisoner who escapes the cave does not see the Forms. She remains in the visible realm, culminating in the sight of heaven, the stars and moon at night, and the sun (516a) before returning to the cave. — Fooloso4

I find the whole analogy difficult to imagine. I need a visual...

Outside the cave one first sees reflections in water:

... the phantoms of the human beings and the other things in water; and, later, the things themselves.

What are here called the things themselves are the things of our ordinary experience. But according to the hypothesis of Forms (511b), these are not the things themselves, but images of the Forms. In that case, the shadows are not simply images of images, but images (shadows) of images (puppets) of images (humans and other things) of Forms (which are called the things themselves) — Fooloso4

Thanks, I get a better sense of what is going on - I think.
It reminds me of Russian dolls - the nesting of stories within stories within Dialogues.

The fire in the cave is the image of the sun, and the sun is the image of the Good. Where are we in this three-fold division? — Fooloso4

Trapped between a rock and a hard place ?

Both the fire and the sun correspond to the visible realm. By which light do we see? — Fooloso4

By the light of the silvery moon ?

To put it differently, how does this three-fold division, cave, light of sun, Forms, correspond to the two-fold division of visible and intelligible? Are the Forms themselves more than images or are they shadows in the mind cast by Plato the image maker? Does the image of escape from the cave to a light above the light of the sun bind us more firmly to the cave? — Fooloso4

I have no idea. Hadn't even thought of it in these terms.
Good questions. What and where are the answers, if any ?

And getting electrocuted by your guitar - what a way for a bassist to go! — Banno

So sayeth a stoned Greek goddess. You shape-shifter you... :smile:

From 1966:
The Beatles - Eleanor Rigby (From "Yellow Submarine")
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuS5NuXRb5Y

Ah, look at all the lonely people
Ah, look at all the lonely people
Eleanor Rigby
Picks up the rice in the church where a wedding has been
Lives in a dream
Waits at the window
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Father McKenzie
Writing the words of a sermon that no one will hear
No one comes near
Look at him working
Darning his socks in the night when there's nobody there
What does he care?

All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Ah, look at all the lonely people

Eleanor Rigby
Died in the church and was buried along with her name
Nobody came
Father McKenzie
Wiping the dirt from his hands as he walks from the grave
No one was saved

All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people (ah, look at all the lonely people)
Where do they all belong?

Songwriters: Lennon John Winston, Mccartney Paul James
For non-commercial use only.
Data from: Musixmatch

***
I had to analyse this song in an OU module 'Start Listening to Music'.
It proved to be an unbelievably exhausting and exhilarating exercise.
Really ear opening. Also, the community chat - never to be forgotten.
Unfortunately, such short modules were discontinued - as the OU changed...

I hadn't a clue when I heard it in 1966, exactly what it held. Extraordinary.
Learning how to really listen - so important in all aspects of life.

....Two string quartets – comprised of four violins, two cellos, and two violas, scored by George Martin – would become central to “Eleanor Rigby.” The biting sound that McCartney and George Martin sought was achieved with the help of engineer Geoff Emerick who, according to Rolling Stone, “was determined to capture the sound of bows striking strings with an immediacy previously unheard on any recording, classical or rock…” In order to achieve this, Emerick miked the instruments separately and had the musicians sit close to the mics. And the proof, as they say, is in the pudding, as the strings stand out on “Eleanor Rigby” – clearly audible, dominant, and not syrupy at all. The Beatles, however, do not play any instruments on “Eleanor Rigby;” the octet is the only music. McCartney provides the lead vocal, double-tracked, with Lennon and Harrison adding harmonies. — pophistory - eleanor rigby - beatles

https://www.pophistorydig.com/topics/eleanor-rigby-beatles/

Rock 'n' Roll Suicide - David Bowie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYNgptAux88

Time takes a cigarette, puts it in your mouth
You pull on your finger, then another finger, then your cigarette
The wall-to-wall is calling, it lingers, then you forget
Ohhh how how how, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

You're too old to lose it, too young to choose it
And the clocks waits so patiently on your song
You walk past a cafe but you don't eat when you've lived too long
Oh, no, no, no, you're a rock 'n' roll suicide

Chev brakes are snarling as you stumble across the road
But the day breaks instead so you hurry home
Don't let the sun blast your shadow
Don't let the milk float ride your mind
They're so natural - religiously unkind

Oh no love! you're not alone
You're watching yourself but you're too unfair
You got your head all tangled up but if I could only
make you care
Oh no love! you're not alone
No matter what or who you've been
No matter when or where you've seen
All the knives seem to lacerate your brain
I've had my share, I'll help you with the pain
You're not alone

Just turn on with me and you're not alone
Let's turn on with me and you're not alone (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful (wonderful)
Gimme your hands cause you're wonderful (wonderful)
Oh gimme your hands.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan. To turn towards China. Making defence pacts. Another potential disaster ?

No one – least of all Beijing – believes the denials. The new defence pact between the US, UK and Australia is unmistakably aimed at containing China. The question is how substantive it will prove to be.

Joe Biden appears to be realising Barack Obama’s pledge of a pivot to Asia, with US capacity freed by withdrawal from Afghanistan, and China’s behaviour ringing alarm bells internationally. The Aukus pact binds the UK and Australia more closely to the US position, and should augment US military power in the region (though France, Europe’s most significant Indo-Pacific player, is openly furious)...

While many herald Aukus as a momentous step, this is not a treaty but a statement of intent, with even the details of the submarine agreement 18 months away. Setting aside that project (and the real concerns it might open the door to proliferation), we cannot yet tell how significant the pact will be. Faith in US commitments is shakier in the wake of Mr Trump. What is certain is that this further sharpens the divide between China and the west. — The Guardian - the Aukus defence pact - taking on China

Comments BTL interesting...

An Analysis of the Shadows.

Excellent title of a captivating thread :cool:

Plato spoke of the shadows on the wall, upon which the chained would look upon. What Plato had in mind was the light upon which the figures or abstractions would appear.

Yet, the psychology of what Plato might latter call the ignorant and unenlightened was never apparent in his description of the ideas or forms which the figures would present themselves as imperfect shadows in Plato's cave...
The unenlightened suddenly become free to walk out of the shadowed cave by Platonic philosophers who would want them to enjoy themselves within the outside where one would contemplate the forms or ideas. — Shawn

Interesting to consider from the psychological perspective. Have not analysed Plato's Allegory of the Cave well or deeply enough to have an opinion on this aspect of the Ideas of Forms.
How did you come to that conclusion ? And is it an important consequence of accepting Plato's description, even if we have understood it correctly ? How would it change our lives and behaviour?
Is it about 'enjoying themselves within the outside where one could contemplate the forms or ideas' ? Within the outside...another 'cage' ?

Perhaps a quick reminder would help, either from other members such as @Fooloso4 or:
https://faculty.washington.edu/smcohen/320/cave.htm
https://graduateway.com/platos-allegory-cave-analysis-summary/

-----

Indeed, nowadays man has a tendency to resolve one's issues in the cave, conversing with a psychologist about the shadows on the figurative wall of their troubled mind, perhaps even laying on a sofa reasoning or even rather rationalizing their thoughts and conditioned behaviors to themselves. — Shawn

I see you answered my question...but the 'cave' here is our reality, no ?
'One's issues' - there are so many particular and global. Where do we begin ?
I don't think that that many tend to lie down talking to a psychologist. However, you are right, we can and do try to work things out with a view to a better life. Some rely on faith to help them, others politicians, governments...how many turn to philosophy ?

Why is this so? Why can't the prisoner unshackle and free himself? Why is philosophy still associated with no inherent value, or even more practically, valued so little? — Shawn

Why, why, why ?
Don't know. Because we're human ? You mention 'values'.
Some don't know what is of value; some values are relative. In philosophy, we can ask what does 'Value' mean ? Is that of value ? What do we find worthwhile, what is important. Sometimes this is tied to chains or rules/standards imposed on us by others. We are the puppets on a chain...

You have the wherewithal to declare what your values are, practice them, and defend them. If philosophy does anything, doesn't it enable you to think for yourself? — Bitter Crank

Good point. But not a lot of people know that...have the ability or capability.
The 'wherewithal' is limited; freedom restricted.

One example:

While in power in Afghanistan in the 1990s, the Taliban’s rights record was characterized by systematic violations against women and girls; cruel corporal punishments, including executions; and extreme suppression of freedom of religion, expression, and education. — Taliban restrictions - Education, Social and Justice

hell, print it on the currency -- YOU ARE ON YOUR OWN. THINK FOR YOURSELF. — Bitter Crank

:smile: Well, first you gotta get rid of 'In God We Trust'. Good Luck with that !

The idea of the perennial philosophy is that there is a kind of universal core of philosophy of which particular schools, including Platonism, are representatives or offshoots — Wayfarer

Influential members...representatives...they were all implacably opposed to modern Western culture, indeed, they wouldn't describe as 'a culture'.
...I wouldn't advocate for 'the perennialists' other than to say that their perspective is worth considering, as it's so remote from the usual run-of-the mill instrumentalism that passes for philosophy in today's academy. — Wayfarer

What interested me here is the idea of ' a universal core'. Then came their implacable opposition to a modern Western culture not even thought of as 'culture'. Wow. Where is the 'core' ?
It certainly is a 'remote' perspective.
Where do you see academic philosophy as 'run of the mill instrumentalism' ?

Secular culture retained the idea of the inherent worth of every human, which is the basis of human rights, while abandoning the belief in which it was originally grounded. So now the individual is the arbiter of value. The motto of liberalism is nihil ultra ego - nothing beyond the self; challenge it at your peril. — Wayfarer

I think we need to be clear as to the meaning of 'secular'.
Here's just one article which ends:

So, that’s what secular means. At least in a contemporary American context; what it means to be secular in Japan, India, Yemen, or the Brazilian rainforest, is a whole other ball of wax. And there are so many related terms, such as secularism, secularization, atheist, agnostic, humanist, freethinker, apostate, heretic, infidel, spiritual but not religious, etc., etc. — Psychology Today: The Secular Life

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-secular-life/201407/what-does-secular-mean

Then there is 'liberalism' - another 'Idea' or 'Form' ?
How can you say what the motto is ? There are so many definitions and meanings ? Casting shadows.

Widespread education, literacy, freedom to think (when and where possible) and communicate has unshackled masses of people; they've left the cave. I'd say we have made enough progress in the last few centuries, to have no one but ourselves to blame for our persistent collective problems...]We are not 100% free, of course, but we are sufficiently responsible of our own actions. We are, to varying degrees, active responsible agents. If we fuck up, we can, we shall, we must, we will take the blame. — Bitter Crank

Hmmm. Yes, we can make individual decisions as to how to behave or act, given our set of values.
If we have an all-round knowledge or understanding. Informed by reading, listening, reflecting.
Attempting to analyse, or distinguish, the real from the shadows.

Your qualifications, regarding degree, matters as to how much 'we' as individuals are to blame or can be held responsible for 'persistent collective problems'.

Like many, I am in despair over so much.
The most recent: AUKUS.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/16/the-guardian-view-on-the-aukus-defence-pact-taking-on-china

I wonder if there will ever be a universal core value which will hold against powerful governments.
I think not.

In the meantime.., within our own philosophy caves...we might enlighten ourselves with books such as this:
https://www.cambridge.org/gw/academic/subjects/religion/philosophy-religion/dissent-core-beliefs-religious-and-secular-perspectives

Committed to dialogue across cultures and traditions, the collection begins that dialogue with the common challenges facing all traditions: how to maintain cohesion and core values in the face of pluralism, and how to do this in a way that is consistent with the internal ethical principles of the traditions. — Cambridge subjects: religion, philosophy - dissent core beliefs

So many books we can get chained to...the ideas within...but of what use ?

This is an et al.
Have you met Frans Hals ?
Years ago, I had a strange attraction to his painting: Verdonck.
https://www.nationalgalleries.org/art-and-artists/artists/frans-hals
Later in London - the Laughing Cavalier.
But I'd pretty much forgotten Frans until I read this:

https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2021/sep/16/frissons-filth-frans-hals-laughing-cavalier

He painted portraits,” wrote Vincent van Gogh of Hals in 1888, “nothing nothing nothing but that!” He goes on in his letter to the French artist Émile Bernard to detail the kind of portraits his compatriot produced: “Portraits of soldiers, gatherings of officers, portraits of magistrates assembled for the business of the republic, portraits of matrons with pink or yellow skin, wearing white bonnets … he painted the tipsy drinker, the old fishwife full of a witch’s mirth, the beautiful Gypsy whore, babies in swaddling clothes, the gallant, bon vivant gentleman …”

Simplicity appealed to Van Gogh. So he responded with feeling to the straightforwardness of Hals. It was an enthusiasm he shared with the radical French artists Courbet and Manet, who painted copies of works by Hals...

Courbet was drawn to Hals’s portrait of an outsider but he didn’t know how radical this painting really was. The work he copied was thought in the 19th century to be an unknown woman or even a “tronie”, a kind of fictional portrait sometimes created as an experiment by Dutch artists. But the name Malle Babbe – “Mad Babs” – is written on it. 

Haarlem’s town archives reveal this was probably a real woman, named Barbara Claes, who was a patient in the local hospital for mental illness where one of Hals’s sons is also known to have lived. Courbet and Van Gogh felt her reality without knowing this. Malle Babbe is clearly “the old fishwife full of a witch’s mirth” Van Gogh describes....

...another painting that puts Hals at the very forefront of French modern art. La Bohémienne, or The Gipsy Girl, is Paris’s more disreputable Laughing Cavalier. This painting of a young woman in coarsely made, loosely painted clothes that mainly serve to set off her breasts as she grins broadly was left to the Louvre by Louis La Caze in 1869.

The driving force of French avant garde culture was reality. To see and acknowledge the actual world around them in all its filth and glory drove writers and artists alike.

...Hals has a couple of virtues Rembrandt doesn’t. He can make you laugh. And that lightness is the most modern thing about him of all, as we glance at his fast brushstrokes and catch an amused eye looking back. — The Guardian : Van Gogh’s hero: there’s more to Frans Hals than The Laughing Cavalier

***

The amused or wicked eye drew me in...even though I knew nothing about the artist, his subject or any kind of categorisation or label.
Imagine that connection...
Capturing a piece of someone's reality.

Nothing, nothing, nothing but painted portraits - Van Gogh.

This is about the Arsène Lupin character, of recent Netflix fame. — Olivier5

Another reason for me to subscribe to Netflix, I suppose.
I seem to miss out on so much fun...

I wonder if there is another kind of a 'steal' going on ?
Écoutez !

C'est le plus grand des voleurs

Kitty Kallen - If I Give My Heart to You (1959)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rERrLmR1FsU

If I give my heart to you

:hearts:

Robert Frost, Emily Dickenson, e. e. cummings. These three worth the dime obtaining complete collections of their poetry, usually in one volume, for long-term browsing. And worth a quick look at reviews of collections. If memory serves, and maybe it doesn't, with Dickenson and Frost there were some issues with editing. Not a biggie. — tim wood

Appreciate further thoughts and advice. Re editing issues. Yes a biggie, if it changes the rhythm, meaning or aesthetic appeal. I remember reading that one editor made Dickinson Dashless.

Frost wrote and lectured on his poetry and his approach to his craft. Among the things important to him was to catch what he called the sound of sentences, the meaningful sound of talk as if heard through a door, the words themselves obscured... — tim wood

I love it when writers share their insights, methods, etc.
Of Frost, I will be reading more; enjoyed the re-writing story.
The importance, of a comma. Or not.

Re: Home Burial
'Visceral vividness' of a certain kind. Yes. Captured there on the stairs - powerful intensity and tension.
Unforgettable scene. Burials; repression and oppression. Raises a lot of questions...

-----

I think I will leave this thread here. It's been amazing to read the thoughts and examples of personal creativity. @PoeticUniverse astounding.

The marriage of poetry, music and song when it sounds just right to someone's ears. Even if not to others'.

So, to end with a well-known poem sung worldwide at a certain time of year:

Cue Rabbie Burns.
( Warning: not the usual singalong version )

Eddi Reader - Auld Lang Syne
From her 'Sings The Songs Of Robert Burns' LP, 2003.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Ppqjbd_wHw

Less weel-kent excerpts of poems, songs with descriptions, here:

10 MOST FAMOUS POEMS AND SONGS BY ROBERT BURNS
Burns was one of the leaders of Romanticism and he had a major influence on the movement. Romantic writers emphasized on emotion and individualism; as well as glorification of all the past and of nature. — Robert Burns - Famous poems and songs

https://learnodo-newtonic.com/robert-burns-famous-poems

Slainte :party:

Thanks for all of these. Will listen later.

I think poems portray and communicate the many different ways in which life can be lived and how those ways of living make one feel. Obviously, certain poets can do this better than others and with an economy of just the right words. — charles ferraro

There's so much more to poetry than I ever thought.
I tend to think that poetry like philosophy is for all and any age.
Not all words in a poem are right but does that matter?
If the aim is to encourage creativity in any possible way to pose questions or paint a picture...
About life.

Done yet? Maybe your lute people could do it. — PoeticUniverse

I've been following the trail of John Drury. One of his poems is accompanied by a lutanist.
Unfortunately, the vid doesn't play for me.
https://www.ablemuse.com/v11/poetry/john-drury/ghazal-lutanist

The poem first appeared in Able Muse (Summer 2011) and was reprinted in John’s most recent book, Sea Level Rising (Able Muse Press, 2015). The book’s website includes a video in which the poet’s reading of the poem is accompanied by lutanist Rodney Stucky playing pieces by Dowland. Here’s the link.


Ghazal of the Lutanist

Ever Dowland, ever doleful, the lutanist says come again
to melancholy, whether he’s silent or plays “Come Again.”

Invitations that mention “deadly pain” and wail “out, alas”
won’t seduce anyone but a masochist who prays Come! Again!

Torches at court leave shadows for uneasy liaisons,
dark rooms where ladies-in-waiting, in silent lays, come again.

Courtiers whisper on back stairs, place notes in ruffled sleeves,
but the lutanist can’t catch the phrase. Come again?

The page rubs his eyes before stretching gut strings along the lute
and poking around for the tuning peg’s eye. Dark days come again.

When panes of leaded glass fill like goblets with tinted light,
John is fingering scales on his lute as sun rays come again.

John Drury — Ghazal of the Lutanist - John Drury

Why should you read James Joyce's "Ulysses"? - Sam Slote

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7FobPxu27M — Corvus

Have you read it ?
I think it is probably one of those books I thought I should read, but didn't.
This TED-Ed animation ( 6 mins ) almost makes me want to try again...
Almost.

I haven't clicked on to your other vids. More details might encourage...
Like this, as copied and pasted:

James Joyce's “Ulysses” is widely considered to be both a literary masterpiece and one of the hardest works of literature to read. It inspires such devotion that once a year, thousands of people all over the world dress up like the characters, take to the streets, and read the book aloud. So what is it about this novel that inspires so many people? Sam Slote uncovers the allure of this epic tome.

View full lesson: https://ed.ted.com/lessons/why-should... — Sam Slote - TED-Ed animation

More musings. Metaphysical or otherwise.
Poetry in music; music in poetry.
Opera. Not to everyone's taste.
But, here, an example of the inter-related artistic process: inspiration and creativity:

“Whitman noticed how the theater was filled with both the elite and the roughs,” Mr. Reynolds said. “He began to view opera as a way to bridge social gaps and bring people together on the level of beauty.”...

But no singer seems to have influenced Whitman more than Alboni, the contralto. She “opened the possibility of both ‘heart’ and ‘art’ music,” Mr. Reynolds said.

Alboni appears in Whitman’s reminiscences; “Leaves of Grass”; and his memoir “Specimen Days.” In the opera-rich poem “Proud Music of the Storm,” he mentions her by name:

The teeming lady comes,
The lustrous orb, Venus contralto, the blooming mother,
Sister of loftiest gods, Alboni’s self I hear.

Opera may have provided a way for Whitman to process the horrors of the Civil War. His slim book “Memoranda During the War,” which inspired “Crossing,” is fragmented into vignettes with operatic flourishes: observations, even grisly details, followed by sweeping, impassioned statements about broader subjects like youth, America and conflict...

In both his poetry and prose, Whitman wrote with a rhythm that took war “out of the realm of either the merely shocking or the distressingly gory,” Mr. Reynolds added. “He had always used poetry, ever since 1855, as a means of cleansing or uplifting the darker aspect of human existence.”...

And a few months before the poet died, nearly 40 years after he first heard Alboni sing, he described to Traubel a scene from “Lucia di Lammermoor”: leaning “way out of his chair — his gray hair shaken, his eye bright with fire, his voice deep and full of music.”
— NY Times: Music - Walt Whitman

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/29/arts/music/walt-whitman-leaves-of-grass-opera-crossing-aucoin.html

(Amity, please turn all this into something like a grand opera.) — PoeticUniverse

Just curious. Turning it around. Does opera inspire your poetry ?
What do you listen to when you write ?

About operatic influences.
According to Drury in 'Creating Poetry', p184:

Walt Whitman modelled his long, flowing lines partly on the recitatives and arias of Italian grand opera, (and partly on the Old Testament). — Drury

-----

Italian opera and opera singers were an important influence on Whitman's creative development during those crucial years in the early 1850s when Leaves of Grass was germinating. Probably no other single influence is more important than this one.

When we consider how many poems Whitman calls songs or chants, and how many references he makes to the voice and to singing, we come to realize that music and singing were central to the creation of his poetry. "But for the opera," he declared, "I could never have written Leaves of Grass " (qtd. in Trowbridge 166). — The Walt Whitman Archive

https://whitmanarchive.org/criticism/current/encyclopedia/entry_42.html#:~:text=The%20poem%20in%20which%20Whitman%20mentions%20opera%20most,of%20musical%20influences%20on%20his%20life%20and%20poetry.

From: 'Creating Poetry' - John Drury
Ch XI - Other Arts, Other Influences, p184

Poems can imitate musical forms.
Michael Harper uses jazz as both inspiration and subject matter in poems such as 'Dear John, Dear Coltrane' and 'A Love Supreme' ( title of Coltrane's four movement masterpiece).
— Drury

The music:
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme [Full Album] (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll3CMgiUPuU

The poem:

Dear John, Dear Coltrane
BY MICHAEL S. HARPER

a love supreme, a love supreme
a love supreme, a love supreme

Sex fingers toes
in the marketplace
near your father's church
in Hamlet, North Carolina—
witness to this love
in this calm fallow
of these minds,
there is no substitute for pain:
genitals gone or going,
seed burned out,
you tuck the roots in the earth,
turn back, and move
by river through the swamps,
singing: a love supreme, a love supreme;
what does it all mean?
Loss, so great each black
woman expects your failure
in mute change, the seed gone.
You plod up into the electric city—
your song now crystal and
the blues. You pick up the horn
with some will and blow
into the freezing night:
a love supreme, a love supreme—

Dawn comes and you cook
up the thick sin 'tween
impotence and death, fuel
the tenor sax cannibal
heart, genitals, and sweat
that makes you clean—
a love supreme, a love supreme—

Why you so black?
cause I am
why you so funky?
cause I am
why you so black?
cause I am
why you so sweet?
cause I am
why you so black?
cause I am
a love supreme, a love supreme:

So sick
you couldn't play Naima,
so flat we ached
for song you'd concealed
with your own blood,
your diseased liver gave
out its purity,
the inflated heart
pumps out, the tenor kiss,
tenor love:
a love supreme, a love supreme—
a love supreme, a love supreme—

Following 'Metaphysics of Poetry' discussion:
https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/592972

John Coltrane - A Love Supreme [Full Album] (1965)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ll3CMgiUPuU


From: 'Creating Poetry' - John Drury
Ch XI - Other Arts, Other Influences, p184

Poems can imitate musical forms.
Michael Harper uses jazz as both inspiration and subject matter in poems such as 'Dear John, Dear Coltrane' and 'A Love Supreme' ( title of Coltrane's four movement masterpiece). — Drury

Dear John
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/42827/dear-john-dear-coltrane

The Hermit

Hermit greeting time
Out for a leisurely stroll
Walking stick in hand.
— charles ferraro

Reading and rereading the poem you used as an example, it seems to me that the use of the technique of saving words, ends up also making it difficult to deconstruct the poem so that its metaphysical substance becomes evident - in a Sufi reading, obviously -. — Gus Lamarch

@charles ferraro
Would be interested to hear your, or others, thoughts on this reply.
In particular, is the haiku technique just about 'saving words' ?
Where does any 'metaphysical substance' lie in a haiku poem ?
Why would anyone want to deconstruct it - as 'in a Sufi reading' ?

Most likely, the technique also demonstrates that poetry has its own metaphysics, however, its method of analysis may be totally different from the poetic Sufi method, which I demonstrated in the original post. — Gus Lamarch

I've asked a few questions and made comments re this so-called 'authentic metaphysics'.
I wonder if there is a similar concern of @Gus Lamarch re what might be considered 'authentic poetry'.
It isn't spelled out as such...but some talk about 'good' or 'real' poetry as if it is something from on high.
Only for superior beings...
Is that right ?

I have noticed in too many poems online small, deliberate errors. I'm guessing a "branding" by the producer. I read that mapmakers would include small deliberate errors in their maps, to protect their intellectual property. But with poetry? — tim wood

Do you have any examples ? What kind of a 'small deliberate error' would be useful as a 'brand' ?
I have never heard of mapmakers making deliberate mistakes - wouldn't that be dangerous and have a negative effect on their reliability ?
Goodness sake, someone might even write a poem about their misadventure - but who would listen ?

Two by Robert Frost, one so short it's done before you've begun. The second best read slowly. — tim wood

Again, thanks. I'd never read or listened to either of these poems. I enjoyed them both.
First one. Short and perhaps a 'quickie' like a haiku, capturing a moment's thought. Or a beautiful distillation of what 'Devotion' means to Frost.
Second. Yes, a longer one but just right. And you're right- a slow read like a slow hand, covering a silky smooth line or curve. Love. Will read again...

Unfortunately, I have no great background knowledge or understanding of Frost.
Perhaps you can say more about what these poems meant to him, and to you.

-----

About the book you recommended 'Creating Poetry'. I've been reading the book back to front !
Fascinated by Drury's writing in Ch XI.
Appreciating and drawing inspiration from the the interrelationship among all the arts and sciences: everything that's vividly human

Also in Ch XII - Finishing - with its several senses of finishing.
In 'Failure, Irritations and Difficulties' p195:

He writes that it can be helpful for a poet

' to have enough confidence to be tough on his/her work, to feel at home with 'unsuccess'. One way is to emulate Keats's negative capability,

" that is, when a man is capable of being in uncertainties, mysteries, doubt, without any irritable reaching after fact and reason..."
— Drury

I'm curious as to when and why you bought this book. What does poetry mean to you ?
Reading, writing and reflection-wise ?

Done yet? Maybe your lute people could do it. — PoeticUniverse

Sent my spirit searching, searching...
Centuries of songs and places, spanned.
Gaming the galaxy of noughts and crosses.
Lutes lashed, lacking meta-physicality.
The bricolage of baubles and bubbles burst,
Outwards and onwards...
To the finale of the Grand Opera.

Applause and encore ?
Only if you agree.

In Harmony and Amity :sparkle:

An unusually good book on poetry, Creating Poetry, John Drury. — tim wood

Delivered today.
A quick overview and a Dickinson look-up in Index, already impressed. Thanks @tim wood :up: :100:
Drury is so engaging, informative with a great sense of humour.

An example, from Ch IV. Sound - Rhyme p57-59

Slant rhyme

'Emily Dickinson was a pioneer of slant rhyme..." she intentionally avoided the smoother and more usual rhymes"... she pairs 'wake' and 'crack', 'Pearl' and 'School', 'Score' and 'Her'...
Wilfred Owen...in 'Strange Meeting', the story of two enemy soldiers meeting in the underworld rhymes 'escaped' and 'scooped', 'groaned' and 'groined'...
-----
The presence of rhyme does not excuse the absence of imagery...does not compensate for slackness, abstractness, or excessive softness...

...poems on abstract subjects often work better in rhyme or meter, but overuse of abstraction is always a problem.
Who wants to seek his reading pleasure in a sensory deprivation tank ?
-----
In 'Out of Africa. Isak Dinesen describes how the East Africans working in her maize-field loved the sound of rhyme, "laughed at it when it came" and begged her: "Speak again. Speak like rain".

Good rhyme ( as well as good metaphor) often affects us with hilarity; we laugh because we are surprised and pleased - we get it.' — John Drury

There follows a set of exercises, advice and practical tools.
Not quite ready for that yet...

But hey. This book is an eye-opener to all kinds of poetic forms, patterns and traditions with definitions of terms. So good.
I love the humour - the 'sensory deprivation tank'.
I immediately thought of the physics poem but that might be unfair and says more about my ignorance.
If anybody cares to explain and persuade me otherwise - feel free :cool:

:monkey:

:smile:

My eyes glazed over.
But gave me a bit of insight.
Into my mental capabilities.
No marks for physics.
It turns me off...
As you say, some things leave you cold.
Or are we cold to start with...
Hmmm.
Brain warmth.

I don't write poetry but sometimes if I'm lazy, I write short.

Did you understand it ?
What did it mean?
I didn't have a clue.
Too dense.
No marks.

I may have some myself. — PoeticUniverse

Well, don't be shy. Sing us some with dance moves :cool:

!! ATTENTION all Physicists !!

An article re 'profound truths' about the universe and our place in it.

https://insidetheperimeter.ca/12-poignant-poems-and-one-bizarre-limerick-written-by-physicists-about-physics/

12 poignant poems (and one bizarre limerick) written by physicists about physics
Though they typically employ the language of mathematics to describe nature, physicists sometimes find ideas are better conveyed in verse.

It can be said that science and poetry share the common purpose of revealing profound truths about the universe and our place in it.

Physicist Paul Dirac, a known curmudgeon, would have dismissed that idea as hogwash.
“The aim of science is to make difficult things understandable in a simpler way; the aim of poetry is to state simple things in an incomprehensible way,” Dirac grouched to a colleague. “The two are incompatible.”

The colleague to whom Dirac was grumbling, J. Robert Oppenheimer, was a lover of poetry who dabbled in it himself — as did, it turns out, quite a few great physicists, past and present. Physicists have often turned to poetry to express ideas for which there are no equations...

Maxwell’s best-known poetic composition is “Rigid Body Sings,” a ditty he used to sing while playing guitar, which is based on the classic Robbie Burns poem “Comin’ Through the Rye” (the inspiration for the title of J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye). In terms of melding poetry and physics, however, Maxwell’s geekiest composition might be “A Problem in Dynamics,” which shows both his brilliance and sense of humour. — inside the perimeter - poems by physicists about physics

***
https://www.newscientist.com/article/1966905-a-problem-in-dynamics/

A Problem in Dynamics
By James Clerk Maxwell

An inextensible heavy chain
Lies on a smooth horizontal plane,
An impulsive force is applied at A,
Required the initial motion of K.

Let ds be the infinitesimal link,
Of which for the present we’ve only to think;
Let T be the tension, and T + dT
The same for the end that is nearest to B.
Let a be put, by a common convention,
For the angle at M ‘twixt OX and the tension;
Let Vt and Vn be ds‘s velocities,
Of which Vt along and Vn across it is;
Then Vn/Vt the tangent will equal,
Of the angle of starting worked out in the sequel.

In working the problem the first thing of course is
To equate the impressed and effectual forces.
K is tugged by two tensions, whose difference dT
Must equal the element’s mass into Vt.
Vn must be due to the force perpendicular
To ds‘s direction, which shows the particular
Advantage of using da to serve at your
Pleasure to estimate ds‘s curvature.
For Vn into mass of a unit of chain
Must equal the curvature into the strain.

Thus managing cause and effect to discriminate,
The student must fruitlessly try to eliminate,
And painfully learn, that in order to do it, he
Must find the Equation of Continuity.
The reason is this, that the tough little element,
Which the force of impulsion to beat to a jelly meant,
Was endowed with a property incomprehensible,
And was “given,” in the language of Shop, “inexten-sible.”
It therefore with such pertinacity odd defied
The force which the length of the chain should have modified,
That its stubborn example may possibly yet recall
These overgrown rhymes to their prosody metrical.
The condition is got by resolving again,
According to axes assumed in the plane.
If then you reduce to the tangent and normal,
You will find the equation more neat tho’ less formal.
The condition thus found after these preparations,
When duly combined with the former equations,
Will give you another, in which differentials
(When the chain forms a circle), become in essentials
No harder than those that we easily solve
In the time a T totum would take to revolve.

Now joyfully leaving ds to itself, a-
Ttend to the values of T and of a.
The chain undergoes a distorting convulsion,
Produced first at A by the force of impulsion.
In magnitude R, in direction tangential,
Equating this R to the form exponential,
Obtained for the tension when a is zero,
It will measure the tug, such a tug as the “hero
Plume-waving” experienced, tied to the chariot.
But when dragged by the heels his grim head could not carry aught,
So give a its due at the end of the chain,
And the tension ought there to be zero again.
From these two conditions we get three equations,
Which serve to determine the proper relations
Between the first impulse and each coefficient
In the form for the tension, and this is sufficient
To work out the problem, and then, if you choose,
You may turn it and twist it the Dons to amuse.

Read more: “Victorian scientists’ poetry: An anthology“ — New Scientist - A Problem in Dynamics

***

Marks out of 10 ?
For sense and sensibility...

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/590426

Thanks for all of this. So much to think about. Here's a starter:

Can you say that what impels her - is to elucidate 'fundamental truths of the human experience of life' ?
— Amity

Yes:

A poem is a truth fleshed in living words,
Which by showing unapprehended proof
Lifts the veil to reveal hidden beauty:
It’s life’s image drawn in eternal truth. — PoeticUniverse

I'm not sure what you mean by 'unapprehended proof'. Not perceived or understood. Proof: Evidence establishing a fact or truth. So, a poem might be 'a truth' showing 'hidden beauty' but not all poetry or poets are impelled to or can 'make something clear'. Sometimes, it's the very opposite.
Not all see human experience, in general or in particular, in terms of 'fundamental truths', whatever they are. What are they ?

As for 'eternal truth'...that sounds like an 'absolute truth' not a particular truth, relative to time, person or context.
Is that what you mean ? Is that your view of all kinds of poetry ?

***
The truth(s) of Poetry v the truth(s) of Reports. In war.
Similar scenes expressed in different ways. Powerful descriptions of a reality, from different perspectives. Our vision is not absolute. We hear sounds difficult to put in to words. We smell death.
Unimaginable for some; all too real for others.

***
Poetry and truth

The tension between poetry and truth gave Goethe the title of his autobiography, Aus meinem Leben: Dichtung und Wahrheit (“From My Life: Poetry and Truth”), written between 1811 and 1833. W. H. Auden borrowed Goethe’s title in 1959 for a prose sequence on love, and, in 1977, the poet Anthony Hecht (a great admirer of both poets) took the same title for a poem in which he considers, among other things, Goethe, the Second World War, and the thorny relationship between truth and art. Hecht conveyed the truth of his war experience as a poet not as a journalist or historian...

Poetry without music is a relatively recent development. A pronounced separation came around 1550, before which, Kirby-Smith notes, “the concept of a unified performance combining melody, words, and dance had never completely faded out.” The songlike cadence of poetry, in fact all of prosody, is in itself semantic and carries an emotional charge. Every syllable, every phoneme, is highly ordered in such a way as to communicate feeling...

What truths can poetry tell us and what could its real-world use possibly be? W. H. Auden wrote that “poetry makes nothing happen.” He understood that no poem had saved a single Jew from death at the hands of the Nazis. Still, he believed in the necessity of action. “Poetry is not concerned with telling people what to do,” he writes, “but with extending our knowledge of good and evil, perhaps making the necessity for action more urgent and its nature more clear, but only leading us to the point where it is possible for us to make a rational moral choice.”

In this respect, the poet Anthony Hecht possessed one of the most compelling moral visions in late-twentieth-century American poetry. In “Dichtung und Wahrheit,” he juxtaposes a marble statue and a photo from World War II:

The Discus Thrower’s marble heave,

Captured in mid-career,

That polished poise, that Parian arm

Sleeved only in the air,

Vesalian musculature, white

As the mid-winter moon—

This, and the clumsy snapshot of

An infantry platoon,

Those grubby and indifferent men,

Lounging in bivouac,

Their rifles aimless in their laps,

Stop history in its tracks.


If the documentary evidence, the photograph, does not contain the whole truth of experience, where, then, does the truth lie?...

Hecht’s poetry about the war is filled with echoes of Shakespeare, including the poems in his Pulitzer Prize-winning collection, The Hard Hours, which includes “More Light! More Light!” King Lear, in particular, recurs throughout the collection....

The second scene in the poem, quoted above, constitutes a tightly woven pattern of negatives. Goethe’s emphatic dying words become:

Not light from the shrine at Weimar beyond the hill
Nor light from heaven appeared.

And, then, two stanzas later:
No light, no light in the blue Polish eye.

The final image, again with an echo of Lear, is of sightless eyes:

and every day came mute
Ghosts from the ovens, sifting through crisp air,
And settled upon his eyes in a black soot.

The survivors of the camps, as Hecht himself witnessed, were naked, skeletal, their yellowed skin stretched over bony frames. As one soldier from C Company reported: “Many had died with their eyes wide open staring into space as if they were seeing over and over again all the torture the Germans had put them through—their mouths open, gasping for that last breath that might keep them alive.” When a prisoner died, one of his fellows would carry his body to the stack of bodies beside the incinerator. The smell, he added, was unimaginable...

If the poem has a “use” in the sense that Plato intends, then perhaps it is that those “mute ghosts from the ovens” are not entirely silenced.

Through Hecht’s poem, they instruct our emotions. To adopt Auden’s formulation, they extend our knowledge of good and evil, clarifying the nature of action, and leading us to a point where we can make a moral choice. — new criterion: poetry-truth

I agree that war poetry did so much to instruct emotions as opposed to the 'factual' ? propaganda-like media. It could even have led to a point of awakening of morals.
Thoughts moved.

I don't think we can make absolute generalisations from a particular poet or poem.
Sometimes, more important than the message communicated was the person's own need for expression and recording of memories - whether 'real' or 'false'.
It is their 'truth'.

Eternal themes - 'I don't care' - but then - 'love me'.

'They say
What they like
Let them say it
I don't care
Go on, love me
It does you good'

This poem pushes back the earliest appearance of stressed poetry by at least 300 years,” he said. “It has this sort of magnetic rhythm to it, four beats to the bar, a stress on the first beat, and weaker stress on the third beat, which is rock’n’roll and pop music as well.”

The theme of the poem “also feels preternaturally modern”, said Whitmarsh, comparing it to the Sex Pistols line: “We’re pretty a-pretty vacant / And we don’t care.” The poem reads: “Λέγουσιν They say / ἃ θέλουσιν What they like / λεγέτωσαν Let them say it / οὐ μέλι μοι I don’t care / σὺ φίλι με Go on, love me / συνφέρι σοι It does you good.”

“It’s the idea of not caring – this strident assertion of your individuality in a world that’s demanding things of you,” Whitmarsh said.

“We’ve known for a long time that there was popular poetry in ancient Greek, but a lot of what survives takes a similar form to traditional high poetics. This poem, on the other hand, points to a distinct and thriving culture, primarily oral, which fortunately for us in this case also found its way on to a number of gemstones,” said Whitmarsh.

“You didn’t need specialist poets to create this kind of musicalised language, and the diction is very simple, so this was clearly a democratising form of literature. We’re getting an exciting glimpse of a form of oral pop culture that lay under the surface of classical culture.”

Whitmarsh believes the verse, with its lines of four syllables, with a strong accent on the first and a weaker on the third, could represent a “missing link” between the lost world of ancient Mediterranean oral poetry and song, and the more modern forms that we know today. It is, he says, so far unparalleled in the classical world...

“The reason no one has thought about it as a poem before is because it’s not catalogued alongside works of literature, it’s catalogued as an inscription. We’ve got tens of thousands of inscriptions from antiquity, and I just think people weren’t looking for it.” — the guardian - classics - I don't care