Breaking Off, with an example by Archilochus

The between space of poetics —- between the all-too-human and the mystery of creative being—- is broken off at both ends. Special attention is given by poets to beginnings (in the given particulars) and endings (the release of the subject into the agapeic space of art). The middle is composed of transitions, the so-called white spaces or gaps between syntactic units, stanzas, and other pieces of the dynamic whole which is ultimately an opening to the ‘more’ beyond the aesthetic whole, the ultimate source of its shimmering appearance.

Archilochus (mid-seventh century BC)


from The Oxford Book of Classical Verse edd. Poole and Maule (1995)