When Poetry Fell in Love with Philosophy: Robert Bringhurst and Sophocles' Meditation on Human Nature

This article aims at shedding light on a poem entitled "Of the Snaring of Birds", one of the twelve pieces included in Canadian poet Robert Bringhurst's The Old in Their Knowing (2005). Dedicated to German philosopher Martin Heidegger, "Of the Snaring of Birds" turns out to be a most eloquent version, not a faithful rendering, of the original Greek text by Sophocles, as well as a probing meditation on what makes us truly human. Bringhurst finds literary sustenance in a 2,400-year-old text and makes it brand new for 21st-century readers who still care to listen to the insights of our ancestors.