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...
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By Daniel Leach
- Jul 6, 2022
- 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, 2022
- 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
- May 21, 2022
- 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
- Apr 2, 2022
- 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 Daniel Leach
- Feb 25, 2022
- 10 min
Beyond the Lines: Shelley’s “Ode to the West Wind”
It was out of an atmosphere of intensive study of the classics, impassioned dialogue with his collaborators on creative method, and a...
By Adam Sedia
- Jan 25, 2022
- 11 min
The Spice of Life: Metric Variation in Formal Verse
In 1688, John Dryden, England’s first official poet laureate, was deprived of that title for remaining Catholic and replaced with the...
By Adam Sedia
- Oct 29, 2021
- 23 min
Whitman’s Curse: Contemporary Poetry as Solipsism
Contemporary poetry is plagued by several characteristic vices: obscurity, banality, nihilism—each a topic for examination in its own...
By Gerald Therrien
- Aug 21, 2021
- 10 min
Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic? Part III
At the end of part 2 of ‘Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic’, we came upon the proposition that poets either must be ‘possessed and...
By David B. Gosselin
- Aug 15, 2021
- 15 min
Lessons from a Grecian Urn Part II: The Paradox of the “One” and the “Many”
This is Part II to the series on Keats’ “Ode to a Grecian Urn”. Part I can be found here. Chapter II: What is Poetry? The yearning for...
By David B. Gosselin
- Aug 5, 2021
- 18 min
Lessons from a Grecian Urn Part I: Truth and Beauty in Art
An object is perfect, when everything manifold in it accords with the unity of its concept; it is beautiful, when its perfection appears...
By Gerald Therrien
- Jun 12, 2021
- 7 min
Shall We Allow the Poets in the Republic? Part II
At the end of the article – ‘Shall We Allow Poets in the Republic’ – we saw that reason obliged us to ban poetry from our republic, and...
By Adam Sedia
- Jan 27, 2021
- 6 min
Beyond the Lines: Ode on Melancholy
An ode on melancholy might conjure the worst stereotypes of poetry: restless youth agonizing over imagined existential crises – a...
By Cynthia Chung
- Oct 26, 2020
- 10 min
Why the Poetic Principle is Imperative for Statecraft
Today, perhaps more so than at any time in history, we are experiencing a divide between what is considered to be the “domain” or...
By David B. Gosselin
- Aug 28, 2020
- 9 min
Profiles in Poetry: Johann Wolfgang Goethe
"The decline of literature indicates the decline of a nation." —Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832) remains...
By Joseph S. Salemi
- Jul 18, 2020
- 6 min
Plain English
The poetry scene, like every human activity, has its cant and its catchwords. As Robert Louis Stevenson said in his Virginibus...
By Adam Sedia
- Mar 16, 2020
- 4 min
Beyond the Lines: Frost's "Fire and Ice"
Anyone who has ever attended a commencement ceremony in the United States has certainly heard Frost’s “The Road Not Taken,” often recited...
The Editors
- Jul 9, 2019
- 4 min
Profiles in Poetry: Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley (1792-1822) is widely regarded as one of the greatest poets in the English language. And while he is one of the most...
By David B. Gosselin
- Apr 22, 2019
- 12 min
The Power of Metaphor
Contrary to the sundry definitions of metaphor proffered by school teachers and dictionaries, Metaphor is not some mere literary device;...
By Adam Sedia
- Mar 17, 2019
- 20 min
Clarity and Obscurity: The Essences of Classicism and Modernism Compared Part II -''Concreteness''
In my last essay, I discussed the difference between classical and modernist poetry as a difference of worldviews. Classicism views the...
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