Paul Krause Follows in Dante's Footsteps

The world’s great poets not only wrote poetry still read and studied today, but they also helped shape the culture of their countries and indeed what we call Western civilization. Consider the greats of Greece and Rome – Homer, Virgil, Ovid and others. The great poets of English include Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton. Germany has its Goethe. Russia has Pushkin. And Italy has Dante. 

Many others belong to the category of “great poets,” of course, but as poet and author Paul Krause points out in his Dante’s Footsteps: Poems and Reflections of Poetry, it was poets and their works of poetry who led the way in language, culture, and ways of thinking and expression. 

 

One brief example cited by Krause: The word agape is well known in historic Christianity. It is the highest form of love. It is love that is selfless, sacrificial, and unconditional. The word come from the Greek, and it was Homer who first used it and perhaps invented it.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

This Craft of Verse – Alexander Fayne.

 

Putting the Poetry Back into Homer – James Sale at The Epoch Times.

 

“Autumn,” poem by David Baird – Malcolm Guite.

 

“The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” (excerpt), poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge – Every Day Poems.

 

Horses Moving on the Snow – poem by David Whyte.

 

“Nativity,” poem by John Donne – Sally Thomas at Poems Ancient and Modern.

 

Poetry Becomes Theater: “The Last Days of Troy” by Simon Armitage

Britain’s poet laureate Simon Armitage has long been interested in myth and legend. He’s published retellings of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, The Death of King Arthur, The Odyssey, and The Iliad, and he’s reached into the mists of medieval England to translate two famous poems, The Owl and the Nightingale and Pearl. What all of these works have in common is that they were originally created in poetry, the common language of myth.  

A few years ago, before he became poet laureate, his work with The Iliad led to the creation of a play, The Last Days of Troy. It was first performed at the Royal Exchange Theatre in Manchester before moving to Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London. Other productions have followed.

 

It’s a gripping piece of theater. It’s a griping piece of writing in general. Armitage doesn’t “improve upon” Homer; it’s more that he illuminates the great Greek story for a contemporary audience. 

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Some Tuesday Readings

 

Another Day – poem by Jerry Barrett at Gerald the Writer.

 

Poetry Prompt: I’m in Charge of Celebrations – L.L. Barkat at Tweetspeak Poetry. 

 

A forgotten writer of Pere Lachaise – Anthony Daniels at New Criterion on Enrique Gomez Carillo. 

 

“March,” poem by Ella Wheeler Wilcox – Joseph Bottum at Poems Ancient and Modern.

Tweetspeak Twitter Party: The Odyssey and The Wooded Isle, Part 2

Over the centuries, the epic poems The Odyssey and The Iliad by Homer have been translated scores of times. The English translators have included George Chapman, Thomas Hobbes, Alexander Pope, William Cowper, William Cullen Bryant, William Morris, Samuel Butler, Padraic Colum, T.E. Lawrence, W.H.D. Rouse, Robert Fitzgerald, Richmond Lattimore (the translation I first read), and Allen Mandelbaum, among many others. The most recent English translation was published by Oxford University Press in 2014.

In other words, Homer has lasted. And with good reason. The story of the siege and fall of the pf the city Troy and the (mostly) seagoing wanderings of Odysseus still captivates and enchants. And amid the sounds of battle before Troy and encounters with witches, sirens, and various monsters are several very different love stories, including Menelaus and Helen and Odysseus (or the Roman Ulysses) and Penelope.

Top continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Illustration: Odysseus and Calypso, from The Odyssey.

Tweetspeak Twitter Party: The Odyssey and The Wooded Isle, Part 1

The Odyssey by Homer is the second oldest book in the Western literary canon; Homer’s The Iliad wins the prize for the oldest. The works are believed to have been written sometime about the end of the 8^th century B.C. (or B.C.E., if you prefer). They describe the fall of the great city of Troy and its aftermath, which occurred about 400 years earlier. (Two scholarly camps argue about the identity of Homer; one says he is a single individual and the other says he is actually a group of individuals.)

The two works give us innumerable images and metaphors. The face that launched a thousand ships. The Trojan horse. Achilles’ heel. The judgment of Paris. The sirens’ song. The Cyclops. Circe the witch. Scylla and Charybdis.

The Odyssey (Robert Fitzgerald translation)was the source for the prompts for Tweetspeak Poetry’s most recent poetry party on Twitter, held Dec. 10, where 10 would-be Homers wrote their own epic poem.

To continue reading, please see my post today at Tweetspeak Poetry.

Photograph: A Hellenized version of what Homer may have looked like.