Gradually, in what at first had been purely mechanical repetitions of the championship matches, an artistic, pleasurable understanding began to awaken in me. I learned to understand the subtleties of the game [chess], the tricks and ruses of attack and defense, I grasped the technique of thinking ahead, combination, counter-attack, and soon I could recognize the personal style of every grandmaster as infallibly from his own way of playing a game as you can identify a poet’s verses from only a few lines.
—Stefan Zweig, Chess (Penguin Mini Modern Classics, 2011: Copyright Stephan Zweig 1943; translation copyright by Anthea Bell, 2006)
2 comments:
Excellent analogy! Substitute "the poem" for "the game" and the point is just as valid.
Tricks, ruses and technique mark the poem as much as meter and rhyme.
I felt the same way, Conrad. But I failed to recast this quote into one of my "Substitution of Terms" posts...
http://ursprache.blogspot.com/search?q=substitution
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