Clarity and Obscurity:The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared
Classical and modern poetry are inarguably different. Indeed, modernism’s chief boast is its break with classicism and tradition more...
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By Karel Vereycken
- 5 days ago
- 16 min
Van Eyck: True Beauty, a Foretaste Of Divine Wisdom
Jan Van Eyck (1390-1441). How might we grasp the intention of this great Flemish painter, despite the five hundred years separating us?...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
- Aug 1
- 4 min
Listening to "Little Gidding"
It would seem with the opening of “Little Gidding” that Eliot has relapsed once again into his habit of opaque language, obscure...
By David B. Gosselin
- Jul 24
- 11 min
Poetry, Art and Civilization Today: Reflections on Shelley's "A Defence of Poetry"
In honor of the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley's death, The Chained Muse is proud to present a month-long celebration of life...
By Adam Sedia
- Jul 7
- 5 min
Beyond the Lines: Shelley's "Ozymandias"
In honor of the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley's death, The Chained Muse is proud to present a month-long celebration of life...
By Daniel Leach
- Jul 6
- 20 min
P. B. Shelley and the Motivführung Principle in English Poetry
In honor of the 200th anniversary of Percy Bysshe Shelley's death, The Chained Muse is proud to present a month-long celebration of life...
By Johnny Payne
- Jul 1
- 7 min
The Endless Vitality of “Ode to the West Wind”
In commemoration of the 200th anniversary of the poet's death, The Chained Muse is proud to present a month-long celebration of Percy...
By David B. Gosselin
- Jun 28
- 8 min
Beyond the Lines: Keats' "Ode on Indolence"
Throughout the ages, scholars, academics, and scientists have wondered, “What is creativity?” In the spring of 1819, John Keats...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
- Jun 23
- 5 min
Listening to "Dry Salvages"
T.S. Eliot protested at the critics’ tendency to interpret literary works through the lens of the writer’s biography, but hypocritically,...
By Adam Sedia
- Jun 14
- 25 min
Beyond the Lines: Wordsworth’s “Ode” (Intimations of Immortality)
Wordsworth contends with Blake as “the poet of childhood.” His particular strain of Romanticism saw in the innocence of childhood a...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
- Jun 4
- 6 min
Listening to "East Coaker"
In the introduction to this five part series I proposed that there were three elements of Eliot’s poetry that were necessary to best...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
- May 27
- 5 min
Listening to "Burnt Norton"
I’m using the word “listening” in this series on Eliot’s Four Quartets to suggest not only that the poetry should be read aloud or...
By David B. Gosselin
- May 21
- 9 min
From the Beautiful to the Sublime: Schiller's "Guides of Life"
Two kinds of genius may escort you throughout life. True Goodness falls on him who lets them lead as one. Beauty enlivens and makes brief...
By Adam Sedia
- May 12
- 13 min
Profiles in Poetry: Robert Frost
“A poem begins in delight and ends in wisdom.” —Robert Frost To many in America, Robert Frost is the grandfatherly originator of “The...
By Mathew Ehret
- May 11
- 22 min
Edgar Allan Poe’s Metaphysics: Rediscovering “Eureka”
"What I here propound is true: — therefore it cannot die: — or if by any means it be now trodden down so that it die, it will “rise again...
By John H. B. Martin
- Apr 20
- 14 min
Beyond the Lines: Shakespeare's ''Phoenix and the Turtle''
This is a poem I have known and loved for as long as I can remember. It has exerted a charm and fascination for me simply by virtue of...
By David B. Gosselin
- Apr 13
- 14 min
The World Needs a Renaissance, Not a Reset
Humanity has always had a story and it always will. Depending on our understanding of that story, individuals or humanity as a whole,...
By Adam Sedia
- Apr 2
- 9 min
Why Amanda Gorman Is Not a Poet
Amanda Gorman became something of a phenomenon, fêted as a celebrity from the moment she read her poem, “The Hill We Climb,” amid the...
By Ryan Hamadeh
- Mar 31
- 17 min
Retracing Art
So long have historians traced the beginnings of man, so long have they found the traces of art alongside him. The story of art can also...
By Karel Vereycken
- Mar 27
- 6 min
Some Remarks on Chinese Painting and Its Influence on the West
Between 700 to 1700, and in particular during the Chinese Renaissance under the Song Dynasty (960-1279), China’s greatest contribution to...