Work · Renaissance & Humanism
The Garden of Divine Songs
Thirty songs and poems written over several decades on inner freedom, the vanity of riches and the happiness of a simple life.
Introduction
“The Garden of Divine Songs, Sprung from the Seeds of Holy Scripture” collects thirty songs and poems that Skovoroda wrote between 1753 and 1785 and arranged as a cycle late in life. Each song starts from a biblical verse and turns it into a reflection on inner freedom, on the restlessness of those who chase wealth, rank and fame, and on the joy of a simple life close to nature. Skovoroda, a trained singer, wrote melodies for some of them. Several songs passed into oral tradition and were sung by wandering minstrels, among them the tenth, which sets the many occupations and vanities of the world against a clear conscience. The collection belongs to the history of Ukrainian poetry as well as of philosophy and is read as a poetic version of the ethics developed in the dialogues.
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