In Search of Cultural Confidence

" ... as if we were 'God's Spies' ..."

Please read some of my stories of cultural discoveries:

- On China's Cultural Confidence

“Culture is the soul of both a country and a nation. History and reality have proven that a nation which abandons or betrays its own history and culture cannot prosper, and is likely to end in tragedy.” - President Xi Jinping, November 30th 2016

- On the Tragedy of Atlantis

According to Plato’s Timaeus dialogue, the Atlantean people, in a wave of ‘conquest’ that was trying to enslave all of the peoples living along the Mediterranean sea of Europe, Libya, and Asia, were finally stopped by the ‘magnanimity’ [honor] of Athens.

- The Discovery of the School of Athens (in 12 parts)

The year, 2020, marked the 500^th anniversary of the death of the great Florentine artist Raffaello Sanzio. One of his most famous works is the fresco painted at the Vatican in the Stanza della Segnatura, originally called ‘Causarum Cognitio’ or ‘Knowledge of the Causes’, and today it is called the ‘School of Athens’. Let us then, in Raphael’s memory, take a new look at his fresco, in order to try to learn from one of the artists of the Florentine renaissance, how they succeeded in pulling their culture out of a dark age.

- Cicero and Cultural Confidence

Let’s take a look back in history to a time before the Roman Republic became the Roman Empire, and a look at someone named Cicero, who was trying to save Rome’s ‘cultural confidence’.

- In Defence of King Arthur (in 6 parts)

Was there a real King Arthur, or was he part of a romantic myth about the Round Table? A look at a book called the ‘History of the Kings of Britain’ written during the first half of the 11^th century by a Welsh teacher and cleric, named Geoffrey of Monmouth, may help us see the truth about Arthur.

- Geoffrey Chaucer and Cultural Confidence (in 3 parts)

Have you ever thought about where the English language, that we speak today, came from? Let’s take a look at the poet, Geoffrey Chaucer.

- God's Spies - Spenser and Marlowe (in 6 parts)

This is a story about ‘William Shakespeare’, and the theory that Christopher Marlowe was the actual author of Shakespeare’s plays, and a story that tries to unravel what is myth and what is possible, but one that might bring us a little closer to seeing the real ‘William Shakespeare’ and the real Christopher Marlowe.

- The Poetics of John Milton (in 21 parts)

A look at the writings and the heroic life of the poet, John Milton.

- Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (in 12 parts)

A look at the under-appreciated genius of Mary Shelley and her eerie masterpiece - ‘Frankenstein’.

- Poems of Poe (a work in progress)

- Robert Frost and Cultural Confidence (in 5 parts)

A look at some of the poetry of Robert Frost and the final part he played as President Kennedy’s envoy to Khrushchev during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

- Poems of Mao (in 39 parts)

A look at the complete poetry of Mao Tse-tung, in hopes of giving people a fresh look at a much-maligned and mis-understood poetical genius, who took mythical stories of China’s past that were connected to the geographical location where he was situated, and combined them to give an awareness of the reality that he faced.