Partidas & chegadas

“The Alexandrian tradition was a Grecian tradition: one of order (the cosmos), of proportion, of harmony, of the tautology of cause and effect (the Oedipus cycle) — a tradition of symmetry and the closed circle, of return to the origin. And it is Virgil’s concept of linear movement, his linear model of existence, that the elegists find so exasperating in him. The Greeks should not be idealized overmuch, but one cannot deny them their cosmic principle, informing celestial bodies and kitchen utensils alike. Virgil, it appears, was the first—in literature, at least—to apply the linear principle: his hero never returns; he always departs.”

Joseph Brodsky, Flight from Byzantium