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Essays

Home
Essays

10 Greatest Shakespeare Sonnets: An Immortal Series

The Society
April 8, 2018
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry, Shakespeare
9 Comments
By David B. Gosselin William Shakespeare (baptized April 26, 1564 - died April 23, 1616) is arguably the greatest writer in any language. His poetry is not only one of the most exalted examples of what an...

Essay: On George Herbert’s ‘Easter Wings’

The Society
March 25, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Shape Poems
5 Comments
by Jane Blanchard George Herbert was born into a well-to-do and well-doing family of Montgomery, Wales, in 1593. When he was three years old, his father died, leaving a wife and ten children. Herbert...

Essay: The Life, Death and Art of Rachel Wetzsteon

The Society
March 11, 2018
Essays, Poetry
15 Comments
By Con Chapman It has been a little more than eight years since poet Rachel Wetzsteon committed suicide at the age of 42 following the end of a three-year romance. At the time of her death Wetzsteon...

Thirty-one Sonnets: Renaissance to New Millennial

The Society
March 3, 2018
Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry, Poetry Forms
7 Comments
by Lew Icarus Bede "A sonnet is a coin: its face reveals The soul—its converse, to what Power 'tis due: Whether for tribute to the august appeals Of Life, or dower in Love's high retinue, It serve; or,...

Essay: On Edgar Allan Poe’s Search for Supernal Beauty and His Five Greatest Poems

The Society
February 12, 2018
Best Poems, Essays, Poetry, The Raven
6 Comments
. by David Bellemare Gosselin Today, seldom is Edgar Allan Poe's voice heard as it's drowned out by the popular notions of Poe as some sort of deranged man whose stories and poetry are simply the product of...

Essay: Unmerited Neglect: A Look at Three Longfellow Poems

The Society
February 5, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry
5 Comments
By Carter Davis Johnson In a period where American literature was considered peripheral and amateur, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807-1882) helped create a national literature to challenge European...

Rediscovering Percy Shelley’s Greatest Work: ‘Prometheus Unbound, with Other Poems’

The Society
January 25, 2018
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
8 Comments
By Brett Forester Writing but one fine, enduring poem is a remarkable achievement. Writing a book of great poems is an even rarer triumph. Yet in 1820, British Romantic poet Percy Bysshe Shelley (born...

Review: What Is Shen Yun All About?

The Society
January 19, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Human Rights in China, Music, Performing Arts, Poetry, Reviews
42 Comments
By Evan Mantyk Advertising for it is everywhere. If you haven’t seen it, you just haven’t been paying attention. A brilliantly colored image depicts a Chinese woman striking an airborne pose. But what is...

Essay: The Wit of William Cowper

The Society
January 14, 2018
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Humor, Poetry
17 Comments
By James A. Tweedie These days, William Cowper (November 26, 1731 - April 25, 1800) isn’t likely to be found on anyone’s list of “Top Twenty English Poets.” Fifty years after his death, however,...

10 Greatest Poems by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The Society
January 2, 2018
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Essays, Poetry
51 Comments
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (born February 27, 1807 - died March 24, 1882) was an American poet of the Romantic period. He served as a professor at Harvard University and was an adept linguist, traveling...

10 Greatest Poems by John Keats

The Society
December 22, 2017
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Essays, Poetry
20 Comments
by Annabelle Fuller John Keats (born October 31, 1795 - died February 23, 1821) began life as the son of a stable-owner, and ended it as an unmarried, poor and tuberculosis-ridden young man. Somewhere along...

Concepts on Classical Scalds: William Dunbar, Robert Burns, and More

The Society
December 14, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Translation
By Sam Gilliland The Poisoned Chalice Let he who lips me then beware, My potion’s more than honeyed mead, One sip, I shall your soul ensnare, Death conquers all, so take you heed! It is a foolhardy...

Essay: Put Down That Poem Before You Kill Yourself

The Society
December 11, 2017
Culture, Essays, Poetry
14 Comments
By Con Chapman Boston may no longer be the Hub of the Universe, but its Standard Metropolitan Statistical Area remains the undisputed capital of America in at least one respect—home of suicidal...

Essay: A Tribute to John Keats by Sam Gilliland

The Society
December 7, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry
1 Comment
Any treatise claiming critical review of verse, whether in the widest sense, or, as in this case, the result of compressed choice, purely down to the author’s own consideration, I hasten to add, is probably...

Essay: My Predecessor, Fray Angelico Chavez Part I by Joseph Charles MacKenzie

The Society
December 1, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry
4 Comments
The poetry of Fray Angelico Chavez can be read here. By Joseph Charles MacKenzie Fray Angélico Chávez, O.F.M. (1910-1996) remains the most important poet of New Mexico’s modern history. It is precisely...

Ten of the Best Poems by Robert Frost (that you’ve probably never read)

The Society
November 24, 2017
Beauty, Best Poems, Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry
18 Comments
by Dusty Grein The Man The American poet Robert Frost was born on March 26, 1874, in San Francisco, CA. He spent his first 40 years mostly unknown, and it wasn’t until after returning to the United...

10 Greatest Poems Written by John Milton

The Society
November 7, 2017
Best Poems, Culture, Epic, Essays, Poetry
9 Comments
John Milton (Born December 9, 1608 – died November 8, 1674) was an English poet of the late Renaissance period. He is most noted for his epic poem on the fall of Satan and Adam and Eve’s ejection from the...

Essay: Are Shakespeare and Dante Dead White European Males? (Part 1)

The Society
October 30, 2017
Beauty, Essays, Poetry, Shakespeare
5 Comments
By David Gosselin The answer to the above question is of course no. Shakespeare and Dante are not dead because every true poet is immortal. However, much of our contemporary thinkers seem to be under the...

Essay: ‘Poetry Matters’ by Bruce Wren LC

The Society
October 22, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry
3 Comments
An Introduction to Poetry and Its Place in an Integral Human Formation Introduction  It is well known to most sensible educators that one of the fundamental goals of their profession is the so-called...

Beatrice: Muse for One, Model for All (Essay)

The Society
October 1, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry
3 Comments
by Jane Blanchard Beatrice, Dante Alighieri’s second guide in La Divina Commedia (The Divine Comedy), makes her literary debut in an earlier work, La Vita Nuova (The New Life), a combination of prose and...

Book Review: Groans From Old Bones by William F.E. Morley (1920 – )

The Society
September 25, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
4 Comments
Click here to download the entire book as a pdf file. By Leonard Dabydeen In the fraternity of poetic minds we can luxuriate joyously on the richness of old age, or on becoming old but fresh as sunshine...

Interview with Samuel Gilliland: ‘The Finest Lyric Poet in Scotland’

The Society
September 17, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Interviews, Poetry
7 Comments
By Joseph Charles MacKenzie, for the Society of Classical Poets Born in 1939 Samuel Gilliland attended the ancient Dreghorn School in an old mining village on the right bank of the river Irvine, said...

Review: Wolfe and Other Poems by Donald Mace Williams, Wundor Editions, 2017

The Society
September 2, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
3 Comments
By James Sale Donald Mace Williams Wolfe and Other Poems is an extraordinarily good collection of poems, clearly written by a veteran writer. The underlying credo of the collection is very aptly summed...

Essay: ‘Poetry and the Muses Part 4’ by James Sale

The Society
August 24, 2017
Beauty, Essays, Poetry
19 Comments
Poetry, as we have discussed in earlier parts of this article series, depends upon the Muses and accessing the deeper self or soul within each person; this is not an easy thing to do. In the 18th century Lord...

Classical Book Review: The Icelandic Sagas: Tales of Kings and Heroes (Folio)

Joshua Philipp
August 16, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
By Joshua Philipp Abbie Farwell Brown described the far north in his 1902 book, "In The Days of Giants," as "the land of the midnight sun, where summer is green and pleasant, but winter is a terrible time...

Essay: Leo Yankevich: un Coup d’œil (A Glance)

The Society
July 27, 2017
Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Reviews
48 Comments
This essay was written in 2007 and has remained unpublished until now. by Ludiew E. Sarceb Few of the contemporary poets with whom I am familiar have any profound sense of history (and, therefore, of our...

Essay: ‘Poetry and the Muses Part 3’ by James Sale

The Society
July 22, 2017
Beauty, Essays, Poetry
18 Comments
It has long been observed that whilst the ego is useful in making daily and ordinary decisions in our life, it is less effective when it comes to more important issues; it is by nature competitive, and it...

Classical Book Review: John Keats: Poetry of Quiet Longing and Natural Beauty (Folio)

Joshua Philipp
July 12, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
2 Comments
By Joshua Philipp The poetry of John Keats is known for its light and dreamy nature. Even in his time, in the early 1800s, he was considered old-fashioned, both in his topics and in his style of writing. He...

Essay: ‘Poetry and the Muses Part 2’ by James Sale

The Society
June 24, 2017
Beauty, Culture, Essays, Poetry, Popular Poetry Archives
75 Comments
The Muses we understand from Part 1 of this article are the daughters of the future and the past, and more specifically of memory, light, truth and beauty; they are essential for the ‘good life’, and we...

Classical Book Review: Dante’s Vita Nuova and Reflections on Divine Love (Folio)

Joshua Philipp
June 20, 2017
Dante, Essays, Poetry, Reviews, Translation
4 Comments
By Joshua Philipp The Italian poet Dante Alighieri is best known for his journey into hell, purgatory, and heaven which he told of in his "Divine Comedy." But before he took that journey, he took a very...

Book Review: Hare Krishna by Mahathi, Prowess Publishing, 2017

The Society
June 14, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
7 Comments
By Sandeep Kumar Mishra There are two things that came to my mind when I read the book Hare Krishna by Mahathi: First, in this modern era in which every person thinks himself a poet, the shape, size and...

Review: The Lyre Speaks True, James Sale, 2016

The Society
June 5, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
2 Comments
By Joseph Charles MacKenzie James Sale, whom I happen to consider England’s best on the subject, states: “To write poetry with any degree of power, and to create true beauty without which the effort is...

Essay: ‘Poetry and the Muses Part 1’ by James Sale

The Society
May 23, 2017
Essays, Poetry
25 Comments
We live in a post-modernist world and its values are everywhere around us; and everywhere these values are almost largely unexamined, and because we have little to contrast our present state with we fail to...

Classical Book Review: A Brief Look at ‘The Kojiki’ (Tuttle)

Joshua Philipp
May 18, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews, Translation
3 Comments
By Joshua Philipp The Japanese creation story begins in a time of primordial chaos, and from this the god Izanagi and the goddess Izanami emerge to create the Japanese islands. This is the first tale in The...

‘A Spirit of Creativity’: Interview with Sally Cook

The Society
May 8, 2017
Essays, Interviews, Poetry
4 Comments
By Evan Mantyk A veritable Renaissance woman, Sally Cook is both an accomplished poet who's regularly published in National Review and an accomplished artist whose paintings are on display at the...

Review: In Hubble’s Shadow by Carol Smallwood, Shanti Arts Publishing, 2017

The Society
April 24, 2017
Essays, Poetry, Reviews
By Alex Phuong The night sky has served as the inspiration for many poets and writers, from Longfellow’s “The Light of Stars” to “Stars” by Robert Frost, and still does. Profoundly and...
history allegory

A Timeline of English Poetry Part I: The Song of Amergin, Caedmon’s Hymn, Bede’s Death Song, Deor’s Lament

The Society
April 21, 2017
Culture, Education, Essays, Poetry
16 Comments
By Sandeep Kumar Mishra and Evan Mantyk English poetry has a rich history dating back at least 1,400 years. Looking at poetry today, it is easy to get trapped into thinking that the flurry of poetic movements...

‘Rhetorical Power’: An Interview with Joseph S. Salemi

The Society
April 8, 2017
Deconstructing Communism, Essays, Interviews, Poetry
8 Comments
By Evan Mantyk In the sea of free verse, drifting downward into the bottomless whirlpool of aesthetic relativism, it is hard to not get lost; but poet, editor, and professor Joseph S. Salemi seems to have...

Review: Apocalypse by Frederick Turner, Ilium Press, 2016

The Society
March 19, 2017
Epic, Essays, Poetry, Reviews
30 Comments
By James Sale There are nine Muses of poetry, daughters of Zeus or some say Apollo, and the Titaness, Mnenosyne, goddess of memory, past and future. And of these nine the most important is Kalliope, she of...

Remaking Education From the Poetry Up

The Society
March 15, 2017
Deconstructing Communism, Education, Essays, Poetry
8 Comments
By Evan Mantyk Last year, the College Board released a significantly redesigned Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT). The SAT is used by millions of student applicants each year to gain admission to U.S. colleges...
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  1. Margaret Coats on ‘Roads of Potter County’: A Poem by Frank RableJune 5, 2025

    Frank, my dad's family is from the Pottsville area (Schuylkill County) where roads seem the same--until summer arrives and the…

  2. Margaret Coats on ‘Frivolity from Quality’ and Other Poems by Russel WinickJune 5, 2025

    Russel, there was a short-lived scandal now some years back, because high-prestige Oxford University Press fired editors to employ marketers.…

  3. Frank Rable on ‘Roads of Potter County’: A Poem by Frank RableJune 5, 2025

    Thank you, Stephanie! I 'm glad you enjoyed it, and I hope you dodge the potholes. All of them. Now…

  4. Margaret Coats on ‘The Institute of Peace: Constitution Avenue, N.E.’: A Poem by Michael CurtisJune 5, 2025

    It's hard to imagine a building of more hollow appearance. The poem depicts hard edges to the hunger of this…

  5. Stephanie Pickering on ‘Roads of Potter County’: A Poem by Frank RableJune 4, 2025

    I thoroughly enjoyed this, I close my eyes and can feel each pothole pitching the vehicle to and fro. It…

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