Money?
A problematic statement, at any rate, even if one reverses it: "A country's
greatest age of imperial expansion is always concurrent with its greatest
age of poetry or immediately preceded by it." The implied causation in
either direction seems a stretch.
But even to suggest nothing more than coincidence one has to decide what a
country's greatest age of poetry is--and in some cases what it's greatest
age of imperial expnsion is. One also has to know where the borders around
ages fall. Let's take the US as example. Arguably, the greatest age of US
imperial expansion was the first 67 years of the 19th century, when our
land base (minus a Hawaii, Puerto Rico and a few other islands) exploded
astronomically. Not a lot of great poetry, tho, then or before. Or WW2 and
its aftermath, if imperial expansion is measured as economic
dominance--some great poetry. Or maybe both periods will be part of the
same imperial expansion when looked at 300 years from now.
How about the British Empire: Greatest expansion c. 1600 or c. 1850?
Greatest poetry c. ?
And how do we value Chaucer & Co.?
Would the rule hold for, say, Italy, or even Florence? Was Spain's greatest
poetry written in "The Golden Age" or the first 35 years of the 20th
century? What about the explosion of poetry in France between the wars?
Enough--history games anyone can play. The statement allows of too much
interpretation to be useful.
At 10:49 AM 7/22/2000 PDT, Jon Corelis wrote:
> Why is it that a nation's greatest age of poetry is almost always
>concurrent with or immediately subsequent to its greatest age of
>imperial expansion?
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