By Gerald Therrien With all the hoopla about a new movie on Homer’s Odyssey, I decided it was time to correct certain errors in my presentation of Homer’s Odyssey first presented to The Rising Tide Foundation in 2022. In that earlier location, I had attempted to sort out all the different questions about whether or…
Tag: Poetry
Beyond the Lines: Shelley’s “Ozymandias”
By Adam Sedia Percy Bysshe Shelley’s “Ozymandias” is one of his shortest works, but also one of his best known, anthologized to the point of ubiquity. But it deserves every bit of the reputation it has gained. Short, yet powerful and descriptive, it illustrates the sonnet at its best. And it is one of the…
Beyond the Lines: Keats’ “Ode on Indolence”
By David Gosselin The question has been raised by many critics, academics, scientists, and artists, “What is Creativity?” In the spring of 1819, the poet John Keats experienced one of the greatest bursts of creativity in the history of art and science. When fully considered, the astounding poetic achievements of the spring of 1819 parallel…
Prometheus and Atlantis
By Gerald Therrien In Part 1 of my recently published Trilogy on the School of Athens (The Pre-Socratic Philosophers Explored), we read that, ‘Prometheus therefore, being at a loss to provide any means of salvation for man, stole from Hephaestus and Athena the gift of skill in the arts, together with fire, and bestowed it…
Beyond the Lines : ‘Mending Wall’ – Robert Frost and the Good Neighbor Poetry
by Gerald Therrien [The following is a transcript of the above lecture as part of the RTF symposium “The Role of Art in Shaping a Sovereign Citizenry“.] Mending Wall is a nice poem that also tells a fun little story, about someone, about his neighbor and about a wall. Frost takes this old saying, that…
On Geopolitics, War and the Role of the Poets (featuring Hall Gardner)
As modern poetry has often been stereotyped as focusing primarily on subjective concerns, this week’s RTF guest lecturer Hall Gardner will lecture briefly on the simple, but seemingly overlooked, fact that geopolitical issues and wars have influenced poets at least since the oral histories of “Homer” and the late Beowolf poet., among many others. He…
Geoffrey Chaucer and the Last Knight in England
Gerald Therrien sheds light on the real Geoffrey Chaucer as an epistemological warrior who used the power of the pen to shape entire kingdoms, subvert the growth of the Feudal Norman Barons and corrupting romanticism while also forming the english language. Watch Gerald Therrien’s accompanying lectures here: In Defense of King Arthur • In Defence of King Arthur [Gerald Therrien… Marlowe vs….
Insights into the Human Heart, Tragedy and Wisdom with Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressida
On Sunday March 1, 2026, The Rising Tide Foundation hosted the poet, philosopher, lawyer and essayist Carey Jobe in an examination of Shakespeare’s immortal tragedy ‘Troilus and Cresida’. Written in the early 1600s, at roughly the same time as Hamlet and King Lear, Troilus and Cressida is one of Shakespeare’s most challenging plays. It is…
Shakespeare’s Comedies and a Well Ordered Society
Many of Shakespeare’s comedies present a similar theme. Each begins in a sort of chaos and ends in marriage, which restores the proper order. In contrast, his tragedies have societies that are plagued with chaos and are never reordered with the correct priorities. By investigating some of Shakespeare’s most famous comedies, we will discuss what…
The Sublime as Spiritual Warfare (lecture by Daniel Leach)
On Sunday December 28 at 2pm Eastern Time, I am proud to announce that my friend, essayist and poet Daniel Leach will deliver a special holiday Rising Tide Foundation lecture on the title of ‘The Sublime as Spiritual Warfare’ followed by an interactive Q and A period. Daniel Leach is the author of two books…