/lit/ - Literature

>The erotic relation of men to youths was the necessary and sole preparation, to a degree unattainable to our comprehension, of all manly education (pretty much as for a long time all higher education of women was only attainable through love and marriage). All idealism of the strength of the Greek nature threw itself into that relation, and it is probable that never since have young men been treated so attentively, so lovingly, so entirely with a view to their welfare (virtus) as in the fifth and sixth centuries B.C.
—Friedrich Nietzche, Human, All Too Human, 259

>What does our chatter about the Greeks amount to! What do we understand of their art, the soul of which is passion for naked male beauty!
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Daybreak, Aphorism 170

>What stuffy and sickroom air arises from all that excited chatter about “redemption,” love, blessedness, faith, truth, “eternal life”! Take, on the other hand, a really pagan book, e.g., Petronius, where fundamentally nothing is done, said, desired and valued but what by peevish Christian standards is sin, mortal sin even. And yet how pleasant is the purer air, the superior spirituality of its quicker pace, the liberated and overflowing strength that feels sure of the future!
—Friedrich Nietzsche, Will to Power, 187

>Even the boldest remained still before Holbein's self-portrait in the hall of drawings! And I now struggled futilely in Nietzsche's presence to define the magical attraction of that wonderful portrait. It did not help that I so-to-speak traced line after line of that face. This approach was powerless to describe the expression of fully developed manhood combined with the charm of fresh youth (Holbein's self-portrait, as is known, presents him without a beard). And I failed to capture even the individual traits in their full value. I faltered when I came to the mouth. I could see the lips before me. So fully rounded yet so energetically closed! Not avid, yet as if created for pleasure!
>"A mouth . . .," I stammered bewilderedly.
>"A mouth to kiss!"
>Disconcertedly I looked aside. Truly, it was Nietzsche who had spoken, in an attitude and a tone which seemed to contrast most strangely with the mildly sensual coloration of his words. For leaning far back in his armchair, his head bowed onto his chest and his arms hanging limply on the armrests, he seemed to have spoken out of a dream rather than as a comment on my report.
—Ludwig von Scheffler's recollection of Nietzsche

Why are poets and novelists obsessed with these creatures?

I want to give Link a foot massage!