Great Poets

  A Midsummer Night's Dream Whose dream are they, these four Athenian lovers whose mad misunderstandings mock each other? Moonstruck puppets in a fairy play, bemused and lovesick sleepwalkers astray across the borderlands of night and day, manipulated wits not rediscovered till horns halloo the dawn. till horns halloo the...

  Chaucer Announces His Desire to Retire Whan that passing years and Father Time’s made difficulty in my finding sounds… rhymes! that to the ear are similar; and ere a line’s complete I place an eye-rhyme here to mark its termination, but end up—oft seems— with six iambic feet, not...

  The Odyssey: Nolan and Solot Compared by Michael Curtis Michael Solot’s Odyssey translation is true to Homer, and because true, honorable.  Nolan’s Odyssey movie betrays Homer because it is true to the Progressive rather than to the Classive, the tradition initiated by the Iliad and Odyssey.  Nolan’s work is...

  The River Not Taken ---after Robert Frost The sloop’s main sail was hoisted tight But in the fog I now was lost; I reached where half the stream veered right The other left. Encroaching night Meant I must choose; but at what cost? I had no time and so...

  The SCP Edition of Homer's Odyssey, translated by Michael Solot, is now being released as a historic audiobook---marking the first fully dramatized version of The Odyssey. Listen to the first book for free here: https://www.odyssey-illustrated.com/audiobook A new book will be released every Sunday for twenty-four weeks.  The entire audiobook...

  Chaucer's Medieval Hangover Advice and Cure If you should quaff nocturnally too much, and waking, find your mouth’s a rabbit hutch in fragrance, while you’ve copiously been sick, raw eels and bitter almonds do the trick. Those eels and almonds cancel out what brew doth loiter in your guts,...

Cato of Utica: Canto I of Purgatory by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated from Italian by Stephen Binns Dante and Virgil emerge from the Inferno, having followed the course of the Lethe, the  river of forgetfulness. Here they are once again under sky and stars, though unfamiliar  stars: this is an...

  Home I wandered lonely, not so much a cloud As more a type of fog, as something cool And indistinct, ephemeral, endowed With little of that which an older school Would call of moment: willful, silly, proud. But things then shift somehow, by sudden grace Or simply desperation. Old...

  Hamlet's Lawyer Will Shakespeare? Here. These papers are for you. Aye, open them. A summons and complaint! Don’t grumble, sir! We have the right to sue, And Lord knows you are neither prince nor saint. You stand accused, you whoreson playwright bore! You recall nought? You do not give...

  Faust Foresees His End Now, as holy darkness falls And curfew reigns within the walls, To each gatehouse troops a guard. Behind their doorways locked and barred, Where warm domestic shadows creep Men take themselves to honest sleep. The wakeman sets off on his rounds; Down cobbled ways his...

  The Swan’s Song He brewed his words in cauldrons on the moors. They doubled as they bubbled to the brim. He conjured clifftop storms and sea-whipped shores On savage isles where wizards’ secrets swim. His words tamed shrews. They kindled gall and guilt. They silenced loyal lips with unhinged rage. They stoked...

  A Dear John Letter to Chaucer, in the Style of Chaucer Dear Geoff, I took the pilgrim’s springtime jaunt to Canterbury Cathedral, sacred haunt where Tom à Becket, blessed by God got sainted, whose blood and brains the Holy aisles once tainted. How can I, now that holy thoughts...

  Who Wrote Shakespeare?   It could not be the glover’s son; _it had to be the Earl. To know how courts and kingdoms run _is far beyond a churl. The poet knew Verona well, _the politics of Rome. How could a Stratford merchant tell _of things so far from...

  Beatrice Departs, St. Bernard Arrives: Canto XXXI of Paradise by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns It was in semblance of a bright white rose______Celestial Rose, holding souls in Heaven __that I was shown the sacred soldiery, ______the souls __which by the blood He shed Christ would espouse,______Church...

  The Tomb on the Hill The ancient tomb sits brooding all alone Atop a rocky hill, remote and bare. Perched like a vulture on a dismal throne, It overlooks a valley green and fair With baleful gaze, as if to guard its own. Dark, slippery steps of crumbling cobblestone...

  The Society of Classical Poets is proud to announce the publication of Homer's civilization-defining classic The Odyssey, translated by Michael Solot, edited by Andrew Benson Brown, and spectacularly illuminated with hand-drawn illustrations by Aedan Kennedy. Mr. Solot's enchanting metered and often alliterative translation and his dedication to effective storytelling...

    Milton’s Heavenly Muse words by John Milton (Dec. 9, 1608 - Nov. 8, 1674) musical interpretation for Milton's birthday by Gunny Markefka Of Man's first disobedience And the fruit Of that forbidden tree Whose mortal taste Brought death into the World And all our woe With loss of...

  A Genuine Petrarchan Note on William Wordsworth’s Ecclesiastical Sonnets How did it end, then, for Romantic Bill? He labored long on Church-of-England lines— Which had to be, fans thought, of all designs The most surprising. He pursued it still. Octave and sestet he worked hard to fill With pious...

  Swimming to the Waterfall at Uvongo In the heat of the early winter By the haunts of the southern strand. Filled with a lust for adventure We forwent the safety of land. But the cliffs watched on with suspicion, In silence they warned us and said: “Beware of the...

. Beyond "Daffodils" The British weather gets my goat. For once, upon a morning stroll, My path became a flooded moat, Whilst lightning’s flash and thunder’s roll Alarmed me with their blinding din - The downpour soaked me to the skin. I trudged through muck, avoided trees Lest I should...

  Longfellow I first met you in the schoolroom, _When I was but a child, And read your words and heard your voice _Sing out so sweet and mild. But as I grew, I saw your work _More cast off and despised, By those critics who now believe _History should...

  Parroting the Party Line   i. The Chorus of Consensus ---a triolet The talking heads squawk on and on. From dawn the hawks and parrots pound. They harp and hammer---LOUD and l o n g. The talking heads squawk on and on. They shape the sheep---a spellbound throng Ensorcelled...

  Emily Dickinson: A Brief Synopsis Emily Dickinson Wished Mr. Higginson Hadn’t been so loath Her poems to critique. Higginson, piqued At her rhyme and her syntax, Wished he could toss them Right into next week. Em then dissembled— She loved to seem small, for It lessened the hurt Of...

. The Hokey-Cokey---Chaucer Style With music was a dingy tavern blessed, In Southwark, where we stopped to take our rest. The Miller, Robin, on his bagpipes played A tune---the Hokey-Cokey---and he made Us pilgrims form a circle, where we put Each arm in first, then out, and then each foot....

. Eternal Rose, with Rows and Rows: Canto XXX of Paradise by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns Six thousand miles away, high overhead, __perhaps noon blazes, while our world’s shadow __inclines, almost, as on a level bed, ____it’s daybreak in Italy and heaven’s zenith now begins to show...

. Shakespeare The Master strolled upon the beach, __And stooped to find Among the shells washed up in heaps, __Mere husks of Mind— Selecting them to suit his sense __Of what would score To entertain an audience __That roared for more. But did he ever come to know __Whence flowed...

. The Dyer’s Second Tale---A Medieval Heist Here beginneth the Dyer’s Second Tale . Part I The Third Crusade had reached its bloody height,And all throughout the Holy Land the mightOf European soldiery held sway.I helped to keep the Saracens at bayWith Richard’s troops, apprenticed as a squireTo Shaun de...

. Book Reviewed: Doorway: The English Cantos, Volume III, by James Sale, 2025 by Cynthia Erlandson It’s been several years since I’ve read Dante’s Divine Comedy; yet as I read James Sale’s Doorway, memories of it echoed in my mind. Clearly, Sale has immersed himself in Dante’s masterpiece and has...

. Anachronistic Chaucer When April showers, forecast on TV,delayed our pilgrimage to Canterbury,an eating house, clept Hooters, we espiedbeside a leafy glade where we could bideour time in revelry and intercourse.Unto a cycle rack each tied their horseand entered Hooters, where a comely wenchcried: “Welcome! Here’s a menu! Take a...

. Bardic Bones Who dug the dust? Who didn’t spare the stones? Who churned the earth that festered with a curse? Who had the gall to judder bardic bones, To steal the skull from him who gilded verse? These rumours rouse a mirthless moorland scene Of cauldron-gathered hags of rasping...

. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare (1564-1616) Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day? Thou art more lovely and more temperate: Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May, And summer’s lease hath all too short a date: Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines, And often is...

. The Comedy of Rosalind ---As You Like It I show more mirth than I am mistress of. This forest and my folly prompted change Of sex, and my disguise dissembles love. I’m altered by men’s hose and doublet strange, While sweet Orlando carves on every tree The name I...

. The Dark Wood: Canto I of Dante’s Inferno by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns Midway along the journey of our days __I found myself astray in a dark wood, __for lost was right direction in that maze. How hard a thing to speak of how it stood:...

. Elusive Illusive Art Where are the pure, illusive works of artthat bubble upward from the deep unknown?Where in this world are worlds Art sets apart? Duct tape? A banana fresh from the cart?Renoir would recoil and Monet would moan.Where are the pure, illusive works of art? A gallery is...

. Imitating Shakespeare’s Sonnet 107 . Sonnet 107 __by William Shakespeare Not mine own fears, nor the prophetic soul Of the wide world dreaming on things to come, Can yet the lease of my true love control, Supposed as forfeit to a confined doom. The mortal moon hath her eclipse...

. Song of the Spirit After midnight slightly drowsy, Contemplating writing lousy, While the script-score I redacted, Something in my head reacted. Dreamed I heard a stirring curtain, Though my mind remained uncertain. Wondered whence had come the stir, As upon my feet upspringing, Heard a hissing and a whir,...

. Consideration in Friendship In The Inferno Canto Twenty-Nine, When Dante pauses, looks with longing for His uncle’s son amid the suffering line Of falsifiers---Virgil, growing sore, Asks brusquely if he means to count them all, To which Dante responds he merely sought His kin, and hopes Virgil will let...

. Nehemiah Questions Robert Frost About Walls “Something there is that doesn’t love a wall.” ---Robert Frost, “Mending Wall” “Jerusalem lies waste, and its gates are burnt with fire. Come and let us build the wall of Jerusalem, that we may no longer be a reproach.” ---Nehemiah 2:17 “I wonder...

. Dante in Modern Times If I were Dante, and the quest were mine To reprise chapters of his Comedie For modern times, perhaps no less Divine For being steeped in modern tragedie, I’d start with Hell, where sinners roast in fires Fueled by falsehoods told, retold and spun Into...

. Dante Enters Hell: Canto III of Dante's Inferno by Dante Alighieri (1265-1321) translated by Stephen Binns THROUGH ME YOU REACH THE CITY OF LAMENT. __THROUGH ME YOU PASS TO EVERLASTING PAIN. __THROUGH ME YOU GO WHERE ALL LOST SOULS ARE SENT. HIGH JUSTICE MOVED MY MAKER. THIS DOMAIN __WAS...