ANACREONTICS (from the name of the

See also:

• GREEK
• GREEK, ETRUSCAN AND

Greek poet

See also:

• ANACREON

Anacreon)  , the title given to short lyrical pieces, of an easy kind, dealing with love and wine . The English word appears to have been first used in 1656 by Abraham Cowley, who called a section of his poems " anacreontiques," because they were paraphrased out of the so-called writings of Anacreon into a familiar measure which was supposed to represent the metre of the Greek . Half a century later, when the form had been much cultivated, John Phillips (1631–1706) laid down the arbitrary rule that an anacreontic line " consists of seven syllables, without being tied to any certain law of quantity." In the 18th century, the antiquary William Oldys (1696–1761) was the author of a little piece which is the perfect type of an anacreontic: this begins: " Busy. curious, thirsty fly, Drink with me, and drink as I ; Freely welcome to my cup, Could'st thou sip and sip it up . Make the most of life you may; Life is short and wears away." In 1800 Tom Moore published a collection of erotic anacreontics which are also typical in form; Moore speaks of the necessity of catching " the careless facility with which Anacreon appears to have trifled," as a reason why anacreontics are often tame and worthless . He dwells, moreover, on the absurdity of writing " pious anacreontics," a feat, however, which was performed by several of the Greek Christian poets, and in particular by Gregory of Nazianzus and John of Damascus . (E .