03-25-2012, 11:22 AM
I doubt that the first poems were love poems. More probable, is that they were family or clan histories, recording the places they had been, the battles fought, and who begat whom. To chant or sing that, the idea of meter and rhyme would have helped, and still does to this day in some parts of the world. I believe that this form was also useful for transmitting from generation to generation, such knowledge or science as they knew.
Sappho's lyrics were so-called because they were accompanied by the lyre. In time, it was realised you could dispense with the lyre, and fool around with the forms. Of course you had to have something to write about. Love, or in the case of a man leering at his paid-help, lust, being strong and v popular drives, could easily be used to peg a poem on. But the idea that Herrick was in a state of great arousal when encouraging people to gather rose-buds (nudge,nudge) or whether the Bard, whom Leanne so detests, was doing anything more than demonstrate his cleverness, when comparing to a Summer's day, seems, to me, improbable.
Leanne is right to say that poetry is the essence of the human; but I fancy it also incorporates Man's attempts, as much as possible, to abstract himself, by means of concentrating on form etc. So, from the most raw (which I cannot do) to the least. And it's 3-20 am, so if this is garbage...
As for getting laid, stick to Byron, and 'She walks in beauty'
Sappho's lyrics were so-called because they were accompanied by the lyre. In time, it was realised you could dispense with the lyre, and fool around with the forms. Of course you had to have something to write about. Love, or in the case of a man leering at his paid-help, lust, being strong and v popular drives, could easily be used to peg a poem on. But the idea that Herrick was in a state of great arousal when encouraging people to gather rose-buds (nudge,nudge) or whether the Bard, whom Leanne so detests, was doing anything more than demonstrate his cleverness, when comparing to a Summer's day, seems, to me, improbable.
Leanne is right to say that poetry is the essence of the human; but I fancy it also incorporates Man's attempts, as much as possible, to abstract himself, by means of concentrating on form etc. So, from the most raw (which I cannot do) to the least. And it's 3-20 am, so if this is garbage...
As for getting laid, stick to Byron, and 'She walks in beauty'