Great empires like Spain 1910-1935, almost every country in Latin America
since c. 1895, France since the Franco-Prussian War, Vienna in the waning
days of the Hapsburg Empire, Weimar Germany. How many exceptions before the
rule appears foolish?
At 07:58 PM 7/24/2000 PDT, you wrote:
>>From: "Chris Hayden" <[log in to unmask]>
>
>>suppose you are speaking of Athnes, Rome, The British Empire--what about
>>societies like Sparta, The Mongols, the Soviet Union?
>>
>
> Yes, there are exceptions and problems of definition. But let's look at
>some of the indisputably great ages of poetry like the ones you mention:
>
> Classical Athens: creation of the Athenian Empire.
>
> Early Hellenistic Greece: aftermath of Alexander's empire-building.
>
> Elizabethan/Jacobean England: beginnings of British Empire
>in Old and New worlds.
>
> Kipling said somewhere (can anyone remember the citation) that poetry
>never flourished but in a race of soldiers. I think there's something to
>that, though I'm not real happy about it.
>
>-
>
>But strength alone though of the Muses born
>Is like a fallen angel: trees uptorn,
>Darkness, and worms, and shrouds, and sepulchres
>Delight it; for it feeds upon the burrs
>And thorns of life; forgetting the great end
>Of poesy, that it should be a friend
>To soothe the cares and lift the thoughts of man.
> -- Keats
>
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>
>
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