Date: Sun, 2 May 1999 22:48:43 -0400 (EDT)
From: Ozymandias [EMAIL PROTECTED]
X-Sender: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Since both state-sponsored poetry and national epic are essentially dead
forms, a modern poet similar to Virgil would be difficult to find. In
American history, Robert Frost and Walt Whitman
I keep on thinking that the 'epic energy' of these days has been
transferred, for good or ill, to films. There may be some point in
examining modern conceptions of political heroism in the Star Wars or
James Bond cycles. Not that I can think of a modern fictional character,
depicted in any
See Gareth Reeves' _T. S. Eliot: A Virgilian Poet_ (New York: St. Martin's
Press, 1989). Reeves references much of Eliot's own writing about Virgil,
especially Eliot's book, _What is a Classic?_ and Eliot's essays, What is
a Classic? (1944) and Virgil and the Christian World (1951), both
