There is always room in the temple of poetry for another voice, another perspective, another way of tackling the great themes of humanity. So listen to me, now, you who will grace this earth 2000 years after I’m dead and gone: Be the person you were created to be. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, [...]
My friends of the future, you may think that the arts have changed radically between my age and yours, but they have not. The relationship between form and content remains constant and must ever be honored and obeyed if one is to earn the title of poet. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, [...]
Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given the gift, not only to peer into the twenty-first century, but to correspond with us who live in that most confusing and rudderless of centuries. Had it been in their [...]
For the scientist who knows how to read the face of nature, every object in our world can be explained by way of a cosmic dance. Given enough time and enough swerves, every mountain, every stream, every tree, every animal—even every human soul—will find its way from lifeless atom into living entity. And yet, [...]
Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given the gift, not only to peer into the twenty-first century, but to correspond with us who live in that most confusing and rudderless of centuries. Had it been in their [...]
Citizens of the twenty-first century, learn from us to respect and honor your traditions. You seem so fascinated with novel, untried ideas that you often overlook the wisdom of the past. If we forget that legacy, we cease to be who we are. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other [...]
You seem to think that history signifies nothing more than one meaningless event after another. But you only do so because you lack eyes to see. Behind that course of events that you dismiss as chaotic and haphazard is a hidden line of purpose that is moving us and our world toward a good [...]
Furor is the rage in the blood that turns justice into revenge and war into slaughter. Furor is the all-consuming lust that privileges private obsession over public service. Furor is the unadulterated avarice that shatters oaths and smashes kingdoms. It is the incarnate enemy of civilization; where it reigns, there can only be dissolution. Author’s [...]
Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, Rome, and the Middle Ages had been given the gift, not only to peer into the twenty-first century, but to correspond with us who live in that most confusing and rudderless of centuries. Had it been in their [...]
There are plenty of men who need to be taught virtue; plenty of pompous men who need to have their egos pricked, plenty of know-it-alls who need to be taken down a couple of notches. The best way to do that is through laughter. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great [...]
Our lives are marked by reversals and recognitions for which we are rarely prepared. That change will come is certain, whether on the stage or in your home. The only question is how you will receive it when it comes. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great poets of ancient Greece, [...]
The world is often unkind to women, using them as pawns in a masculine game of war and power and possession. But these wrongs will not be righted by inviting women to participate in the same game. They will be righted only when the voice of the feminine is allowed to be heard: in the [...]
On this earth, there is nothing more firm, more noble, more intransigent than the heroic character. I encourage you, children of the twenty-first century, to respect such heroes, even as you fear them and pray that your fate will not be like theirs. Author’s Introduction: Imagine if Homer, Virgil, Dante, Chaucer, and the other great [...]
The people of your age, just like the people of my own, want to cling to one of two false ideals: that we have no real choice; that we can choose but that our choices are simple, straightforward, and easily revoked. But neither is true to the deep reality that we are moral, ethical beings [...]