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Pindar—The Function and Technique of Poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 January 2009

Extract

All writers are to some extent consciously interested in the technique of their art; many of them far more so than is generally realized. The majority follow the principle Ars maxima celare artem, and do not allow us more than a glimpse into their workshop; many a lyric that delights us by its apparent spontaneity has been hammered out slowly and shaped and altered until its final form contains hardly a trace of the original creation. The late W. B. Yeats in his Autobiography says:

‘Metrical composition is always very difficult to me. Nothing is done upon the first day, not one rhyme is in its place; and when at last the rhymes begin to come, the first rough draft of a six-line stanza takes the whole day. Sometimes a six-line stanza would take several days, and not seem finished even then.’

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © The Classical Association 1939

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