Thread: Homeric Simile
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Unread 03-15-2003, 12:23 PM
Joseph Bottum Joseph Bottum is offline
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Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Hot Springs, South Dakota
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Rhina--

I wonder if the echo of "void" in "On sky devoid of bird" is really sufficient reward to use what is essentially a verbless description. I think I'd rather see a past participle, indicating action, here: the sky wiped clear, swept free, squeegeed. Well, no, Ulysses probably didn't have any squeegees.

On "jib" I thought first of the sail and had to go back to the word when I reached "yaw," which slowed the poem down at the wrong place, but that may be an individual reaction. Can I vote in favor of "sea/see"? Normally not, of course, but here it actually complements the maritime/personal simile.

The 20th-century Grecians' anti-Latinism, which gives us "Ithaka" instead of "Ithaca," still puts my back up, but I suppose we're stuck with it nowadays. (Damn the 20th century, he said--then coughed, and called it fate, and kept on drinking).

Jody
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