Walt Whitman was a poetic Visionary. He published the first edition of this monumental work in 1855 and began his magnum opus with the words, "America does not repel the past of what it has produced." He asserted in his declaration: America is "essentially the greatest poem." And he qualified this remark by stating that the "genius of the United States," that which is at the core, the essence of the poem of America, is "always most in the common people." Whitman wrote for and about the common people, and wanted his work to somehow bring about a political renewal that would truly represent the...

William Blake's first biographer, Alexander Gilchrist, wanted to believe that Blake was a "new kind of man; and hence his was a new kind of art, and a new kind of poetry." However, what sets William Blake apart as a great poet and artist was not that he was so "new," but that he was so "old." He was a part of a mytho-poetic and Vatic tradition as old as poetry itself. Blake was heir to a mytho-poetic tradition that can be traced back to the very foundations of human thought and speech. The extraordinary in William Blake was not the "man," but his Vision and how he expressed it. But most (if...

This volume collects the best of J. M. Beach's poetry and essays on the theory and practice of poetry.

If one were to describe George Bernard Shaw's position in the history of Western thought he might be called the witty, didactic English disciple of Nietzsche as well as a devoted socialist and playwright. Shaw was very much affected by the philosophy of Nietzsche and Marx, and Romantic poets like Blake, Shelley, Whitman and Thoreau. In a sense, G. B. Shaw was a disseminator and destroyer of the Romantic tradition in the Modern era. Shaw could be called the last English Romantic poet even though most critics would be more inclined to characterize him as a "playwright," "essayist," or...

Shelley took his place within the vatic history of mythopoetic bards and bore the Visionary legacy. He offered a simple "spark" of poetry to his audience while promising a raging fire would burn if the poetry was nurtured correctly. However, Shelley realized that most people cannot accept the poet's offering (for various reasons; ignoring, rejecting or misunderstanding) and they let that spark smolder into nothing. Shelley shouts into his written words, leaving his hard-earned knowledge of the human condition and his visionary plight for willing human ears. Shelley paints himself as the...

Byron is situated between Milton, whose suffering Satan retained more than a hint of nobility even though God's ways were supposedly justified, and Nietzsche's ubermench who in suffering the laughter of rejection and the pain of alienated righteousness, destroys the old gods and brings in the new. Byron's duality is couched within a will to do and the weakness to do not - always with the hanging question, does either path really matter? This conflict keeps Byron's humanity locked, like Pascal's paradoxical pronouncement, in "a mid-point between nothing and everything." Pope could assert in...

Growing out of the mytho-poetic devices of oral cultures, specifically within ancient Greece, came a conceptual tradition of "poetics" - often a formulaic activity whereby an analytical definition of poetry would be put forth followed by a discussion of how poetry worked and why it was (or wasn't) important. The two most influential poetics of the ancient world were authored by two Greek conceptual thinkers writing in a tradition that would come to be known as "philosophy: " Plato (a student of Socrates) and Plato's brilliant student-successor Aristotle. This book is a collection of famous...

Students without motivation or vision enroll in higher education because of social pressure and the imperative to conform. They enroll not because they want to learn, nor because they want to personally develop, but because they must earn a college degree if they want a chance at a decent job and entry into the middle class. Students have become capitalists. They are clients looking to invest their economic and human capital in order to secure their future. In such an environment, education as personal development is lost. Academic capitalism is corrupting higher education, especially with...

In 16th century Europe, poetry had lost much of its cultural value. It became known as a narrow and frivolous activity, much like it is now, and it was under attack by religious authorities because it was seen as licentious or subversive. So Sidney prepared "a legal defense" of poetry, trying to restore this sacred practice to its former glory. Sidney tried to argue that poetry was not the frivolous activity that many contemporary poets were practicing. Instead, he argued that it was an ancient epistemological tradition. He tried to prove that it was a serious intellectual endeavor that...

Shelley took his place within the vatic history of mythopoetic bards and bore the Visionary legacy. He offered a simple "spark" of poetry to his audience while promising a raging fire would burn if the poetry was nurtured correctly. However, Shelley realized that most people cannot accept the poet's offering (for various reasons; ignoring, rejecting or misunderstanding) and they let that spark smolder into nothing. Shelley shouts into his written words, leaving his hard-earned knowledge of the human condition and his visionary plight for willing human ears. Shelley paints himself as the...