About
Age of Muses was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe’s unfinished struggle to create a truly classical journal of arts and letters—The Stylus. Poe viewed the establishment of a genuine classical culture in America as the ultimate bulwark against the spiritual, cultural and intellectual subversions plaguing civilizations, both then and now. Like Poe in America, Percy Bysshe Shelley in England recognized that ideas were first planted in the imagination, before taking root in the real world. Starting as small seedlings and buds, then nourished and cultivated over time, these ideas spilled over into the world of culture, education, politics, and finally, law.
For this reason, Plato dedicated much of Book X of his Republic to the function of poets and artists in society. Plato recognized that the poets—the original “image-makers” of society—with divinely inspired talents conjured images of reality, and imitating the makings of both man and nature, both the real and the imagined world. Poets, therefore, possessed the unique ability to shape and color the imaginations of audiences everywhere. Such a power could either be used to bring others and oneself closer to Truth, Beauty and Goodness, or the very opposite.
The power of the muses was paramount.
And not much has changed!
Then as now, the means of reversing the effects of subversive ideas and fostering the the divine fruit of human creativity remains essentially the same: cultivating a free and sovereign imagination animated by an innate joy and enthusiasm for Beauty, Truth and Goodness in all its myriad forms across all spheres of human creative activity.
If you’d like to join us in creating such a new Age of Muses, you can support us in many different ways.
Ways to support our full-spectrum renaissance project
Become a paid subscriber: You’ll be able to access all previous issues of our print magazine, New Lyre
Read our magazine online:
become a paid subscriber to either Age of Muses or The Chained Muse
Order our print magazine:
directly from Amazon
Buy me a coffee (for individual donations): https://buymeacoffee.com/davidgosselin
