An Evening in the "Simultaneity of Eternity"—with Shakespeare, Keats, and William Warfield
The following is a workshop and dialogue on the art of classical poetic recitation. We at The Chained Muse believe that a revival of...
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By Adam Sedia
- Oct 29
- 32 min
From Modernism to Subversion: William Carlos Williams and the Beat Poets
Although shocking for its time, Beat poetry was not unanticipated. It developed from modernist antecedents it readily acknowledged, most...
By John H. B. Martin
- Oct 13
- 8 min
Grace and Flavour: A Response to C.S. Lewis's "Christianity & Culture"
In a previous essay (De Gustibus (Et Pulchritudinis) I argued that Beauty is absolute and not relative, and is therefore not merely a...
By Daniel Leach
- Oct 6
- 3 min
Reflections by an American Poet in Florence
Standing atop the Florence’s famous cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore, looking out over the wide expanse of terracotta rooftops and...
By Daniel Leach
- Sep 27
- 4 min
Aesthetic Impressions of an American Poet in Rome
“Go thou to Rome, at once the paradise, the grave, the city and the wilderness,…” Percy Byssche Shelley wrote his beautiful elegy on the...
By David B. Gosselin
- Sep 7
- 10 min
Beyond the Lines: Robert Frost's "Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening"
A century after its composition, Robert Frost’s “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” continues to leave readers, academics, poetry...
By Adam Sedia
- Sep 1
- 7 min
Behind the Lines: Shakespeare’s Sonnet 142
The sonnet is inextricably intertwined with the Renaissance, and stands as one of the most powerful and enduring legacies of that time....
By David B. Gosselin
- Aug 23
- 14 min
Edgar Allan Poe and the Mask of the 20th Century
BUT for the cruel aspersions upon the character and life of America’s poetic genius, EDGAR ALLAN POE, this volume would have remained...
John H. B. Martin
- Aug 17
- 25 min
The Politics of Intimacy
"So intimate this Chopin that I think his soul Should be resurrected only among friends Some two or three, who will not touch the bloom...
By Adam Sedia
- Aug 12
- 23 min
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...
By Karel Vereycken
- Aug 9
- 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...