"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...

The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) remains...

It is absurd to think that the only way to tell if a poem is lasting is to wait and see if it lasts. The right reader of a good poem can...

The poetry scene, like every human activity, has its cant and its catchwords. As Robert Louis Stevenson said in his Virginibus...

From the beginning of mankind’s existence, as a truly human culture, Man has struggled to express the seemingly inexpressible—the idea...

Poetry, as we have discussed in earlier parts of this article series, depends upon the Muses and accessing the deeper self or soul within...

Anyone who has ever attended a commencement ceremony in the United States has certainly heard Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” often recited...

Although known as a unique poetic form with roots in Arabia, the ghazal’s history suggests it is also a cultural phenomenon with an...

Modernism produces obscure poetry because it denies the existence of absolute truth. Without a fundamental truth to reveal, poetry is...

BUT for the cruel aspersions upon the character and life of America’s poetic genius, EDGAR ALLAN POE, this volume would have remained...

It has long been observed that whilst the ego is useful in making daily and ordinary decisions in our life, it is less effective when it...

The Muses we understand from Part 1 of this article are the daughters of the future and the past, and more specifically of memory, light,...

Republished with permission from the author We live in a post-modernist world and its values are everywhere around us; and everywhere...

This article is reprinted with permission from the author St. Augustine, the founder of Western Christian civilization, wrote, of poetry:...

Contrary to the sundry definitions of metaphor proffered by school teachers and dictionaries, Metaphor is not some mere literary device;...

In his essay “A Defence of Poetry,” Shelley described a poem as “the very image of life expressed in its eternal truth.” His sweeping...

In my last essay, I discussed the difference between classical and modernist poetry as a difference of worldviews. Classicism views the...

This article is republished with permission from the author. When John Keats died in Rome on Feb. 23, 1821, at the age of 25, the world...

Today we commemorate the life of poet Paul Lawrence Dunbar, who passed away on February 9th, 1906. Dunbar was a great American poet who...

Classical and modern poetry are inarguably different. Indeed, modernism’s chief boast is its break with classicism and tradition more...