Victorian Poems: Yeats
Here are three poems–I may add one or two more–of William Butler Yeats that show the influence of his lifelong interest in the occult.
Author: Thomas Fleming
If You Know, You Know
You know you are living in an ideological tyranny, when……Please fill in the blanks. I’ll start with a few.
Victorian Poems: Ernest Dowson
These are several poems of Ernest Dowson (1867-1902). Everyone who has any knowledge of English verse is familiar with his most famous poem, “Cynara,” which has suffered the indignity of being quoted in O’Neil’s play “Long Day’s Journey” and parodied by Cole Porter.
Darkness Visible: Newton, Conclusion–Alchemy
The 17th century in Europe was a bridge between the unbridled arrogance of the Renaissance and the technocratic self-confidence projected in the Enlightenment.
Italian II.0 UPDATED 06/11 and 06/16
Anyone who wishes to follow, in however desultory a fashion, this Italian course should register by June 10.
Darkness Visiible: Newton 3
The great English writers of the Elizabethan era and the 17th century owed a great deal to the Renascence of classical learning, which had taken place in Italy. One aspect of this Renaissance, however, involved an attempt to revive ancient paganism or rather anti-Christian neo-paganism.
Darkness Visible: Newton, part 2
Isaac Newton was deservedly knighted for his great accomplishments, but it is a mistake to minimize either his occult interests or his bad character.
Darkness Visible: Part I Sir Isaac Newton, Preface
This is the first section of the first part of a series of articles on the central significance of occultism . Like many of the fathers of modern science and Enlightenment–René Descartes, Francis Bacon, Elias Ashmole, and Robert Boyle–Isaac Newton was a devoted alchemist and occultist.
Ezra Pound on the Aesthetes: More Notes
Ezra Pound’s Hugh Selwyn Mauberley Ode is one of the masterpieces of 20th century English/American verse. Everything in the poem is difficult and elusive. The subtitle in French shows it is a kind of funeral homage to Pound himself, who features in the poem partly as Mauberley, a gentle disciple of the 1890’s who has to confront the realities of the literature business in London.
Poetry “The Blessed Damozel”
This decidedly Medievalizing poem by Dante Gabriel Rossetti s probably the best-known example of Pre-Raphaelite poetry. The P-R Brotherhood was a group of painters who challenged the Royal Academy by insisting on natural light, painting from nature, and meticulous care. They quite rightly deplored the excessive sentimentality and melodrama that had dominated painting since the early days of the Italian Manerists.
