[The Child of Pleasure by Gabriele D’Annunzio]@TWC D-Link book
The Child of Pleasure

CHAPTER VI
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The desire to give pleasure to his mistress by his literary or artistic efforts drove him to work.

He accordingly wrote _La Simona_, and executed his two engravings: _The Zodiac_ and _Alexander's Bowl_.
For the execution of his art, he chose by preference, the most difficult, exact, and incorruptible vehicles--verse and engraving; and he aimed at adhering strictly to, and reviving, the traditional Italian methods, by going back to the poets of the _stil novo_, and the painters who were precursors of the Renaissance.

His tendencies were essentially towards form; his mind more occupied by the expression of his thought than the thought itself.

Like Taine, he considered it a greater achievement to write three really fine lines, than to win a pitched battle.

His _Story of the Hermaphrodite_ imitated in its structure Poligiano's _Story of Orpheus_ and contained lines of extraordinary delicacy, power and melody, particularly in the choruses of hybrid monsters--the Centaurs, Sirens and Sphinxes.


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