Aristotle
Aristotle’s Poetics and Epic Poetry
As of May 27, 2011, I’ve revised each book of The Parliament of Poets through Book VII, since finishing the full rough draft of the entire epic in early February. Past the half way mark of revision feels very good and inspires me to want to push on through the rest of it during the next several weeks, perhaps before the end of the summer, a readable draft of the entire book.
It was as a young poet, holed up in some rental room or house, choosing to live in poverty in order to have the time to study and write, in Detroit or in the country, none of my family or friends understanding what I was doing, that I first read Aristotle’s Poetics, some thirty-five years ago. I reread it many times, or parts of it, going back to it through the years. It is the touchstone of the literary art….
Now available in
The Myth of the Enlightenment: Essays
Forthcoming, September, 2014.
https://www.earthrisepress.net/myth_of_the_enlightenment.html
It is rare to find someone thinking the same as I think about narrative poetry as a vehicle for telling plot-rich tales of human action that illustrates the character of people exploring the world and seeking to survive and enjoy quality of life.
Sorry that it’s taken me so long to notice your post! I just fixed my blog settings!
Yes, it is rare to find someone seriously interested in epic… lyric has long dominated the poetic imagination, and of course prose… for over a hundred and fifty years. I’ve long believed that we have lived into a time whose experience can only be embraced in epic terms.