Why the Classics (Masterplots II: Poetry, Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Zbigniew Herbert
- First Published: 1968
- Type of Work: Dramatic monologue
- Genres: Poetry, Dramatic monologue
- Subjects: Exile or expatriates, Art or artists, War, Historians, Greek or Roman times, Greece or Greek people, Peloponnesian War
The Poem
“Why the Classics” is a thirty-four line poem divided into three parts. It is characteristic of Zbigniew Herbert’s free verse and economical use of language. As the final poem in Selected Poems (1968), it is, so to speak, the poet’s signature, a justification of his classicism which attempts to put the present in perspective by invoking historic events, myths, and works of art.
The first part recalls the Greek historian Thucydides (c. 460-400 b.c.e.), who participated as a general in the Peloponnesian War (431-404 b.c.e.), the great conflict...
[The entire page is 1486 words long]
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