By David Gosselin [originally published on Antigone] “Trust me, the fountain of youth, it is no fable. It is running Truly and always. Ye ask, where? In poetical art.” —Friedrich Schiller, The Fountain of Second Youth There are prophecies in every age. The doom of empires and the fall of kings remain perennial themes because of their timeless reality. Poets have often been the bearers of these prophecies; in Western civilized culture, this gift of poetical prophecy is chiefly the preserve of the tragic, epic, and biblical traditions. The verses of David’s psalms, the dactyls of Homer and the tercets of Dante immortalized poets’ thoughts and ensured their transmission through enduring poetical forms.
Why We Need the Tragic: Schiller, Cassandra and the Rebirth of Tragedy
Why We Need the Tragic: Schiller, Cassandra…
Why We Need the Tragic: Schiller, Cassandra and the Rebirth of Tragedy
By David Gosselin [originally published on Antigone] “Trust me, the fountain of youth, it is no fable. It is running Truly and always. Ye ask, where? In poetical art.” —Friedrich Schiller, The Fountain of Second Youth There are prophecies in every age. The doom of empires and the fall of kings remain perennial themes because of their timeless reality. Poets have often been the bearers of these prophecies; in Western civilized culture, this gift of poetical prophecy is chiefly the preserve of the tragic, epic, and biblical traditions. The verses of David’s psalms, the dactyls of Homer and the tercets of Dante immortalized poets’ thoughts and ensured their transmission through enduring poetical forms.