>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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