Quotations and Literature Forum

“The naked and the nude" by Robert Graves is a poem I desperately need information on and cannot seem to find anything short of the actual poem. If any one has some interesting analysis or just general information please let me know! Thank you!

The Naked and the Nude

For me, the naked and the nude
(By lexicographers° construed
As synonyms that should express The same deficiency of dress
Or shelter) stand as wide apart
As love from lies, or truth from art.
Lovers without reproach will gaze On bodies naked and ablaze;
The Hippocratic° eye will see
In nakedness, anatomy;
And naked shines the Goddess when
She mounts her lion among men.

The nude are bold, the nude are sly
To hold each treasonable eye.
While draping by a showman's trick
Their dishabille° in rhetoric,
They grin a mock-religious grin
Of scorn at those of naked skin.

The naked, therefore, who compete
Against the nude may know defeat;
Yet when they both together tread
The briary pastures of the dead,
By Gorgons° with long whips pursued, How naked go the sometime nude!

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"If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through."

-Blackadder

It might be something about multiple views.

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.Ngeok.

Nakedness and Nudity are two different things. The naked are free but scorned upon by the people who are nude only when they have to be. The naked are the people who are unashamed to be in a state of undress. The nude are ashamed of thier bodies. Adam and Eve in the bible didn't wear clothes until they ate the forbidden fruit and became ashamed of themsleves and what they looked like. I hope this is kind of what you were looking for.

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Look me in the eyes
Tell me no more lies
Tell me why this must be
Torture to me

~Kosra~

i agree i do not think it has anything to do with being unclothed tho. i think it has to do with people who are free and others who are jelous of those people and stuff like that . an interesting poem thanks for sharing it.

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I am a member of mankind but denounce yet indulge in our common flaws and blessings - emotion.