About

Age of Muses was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s unfinished struggle to establish a truly classical journal of art, culture, and literature—The Stylus. Poe viewed the establishment of a genuine classical culture in America as the ultimate bulwark against the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual subversions that have characterized oligarchical societies since time immemorial. Like Poe in America, Percy Bysshe Shelley in England recognized that subversive ideas were and always are planted in the imagination before taking root in the real world. Starting as small seeds, nourished and cultivated over time, these ideas spill over into the world of culture, education, politics, and finally, law.

The fact that evil has and always will function in this way lead Plato to dedicate the entirety of Book X of his Republic to the role of the poets and artists in society—the ‘‘image-makers.’’ Plato recognized that these image-makers, who were the most skilled at imitating reality, creating compelling narratives, and painting cathartic scenes, possessed the unique ability to shape and color the imaginations of audiences everywhere. Plato observed that most people were usually unaware of the degree to which the stories and narratives advanced by the poets and artists of the age actively shaped the collective identities and narratives of their society as a whole—much like mass media today.

Then as now, the means of reversing the effects of subversive ideas and oligarchical perversions remain essentially the same: the cultivation of a free and sovereign imagination animated by the innate human desire for Beauty, Truth, and Goodness.

Age of Muses serves to nurture and foster that desire in all its forms.

See also The Chained Muse for new poetic and creative offerings by both seasoned and promising new poets and writers.