A poem a day in April from Rutgers English PhD students and friends.

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

Poem found in the archives #3

Review of Osiris and the Egyptian Ressurection and Adonis and Esmun, 1912

The attention, then, of scholars all over Europe is now fully focussed on the year-gods      
     who die and live again
Everywhere, it would seem, the focus of attention has shifted from the canonical immortals
This focus of attention is but one phase, we think, of a wider movement

It is, however, an open secret
that we may expect shortly from the pen of our most learned Greek mythologist
a monograph on the Father of Gods and Men,
the Olympian,
Zeus himself.

We shall look eagerly to see whether behind the figure even of Zeus is
found to lurk
the shifting shape of a year-daimon,
a god who does not
‘live at ease’
but dies each year that he and his worshippers may live anew.

Small details of analogy or rather of identity are here perhaps more convincing
     than any large general comparison
they both express, though it would seem unconsciously: a tendency only just become articulate

3 comments:

  1. Wow, I guess that year-daimons thing was just a trend? Never heard of them! So wild.

    ReplyDelete
  2. The Canonical Immortals: A Dissertation by Mimz :D

    ReplyDelete
  3. alternative title: The Uncanonical Immortals, or Fleeting Scholarly Fads. It was all so grand!

    ReplyDelete