Not Requiem for a Dream

So the poem is "Dover Beach," by Matthew Arnold. It is, however, a beautiful requiem for what Arnold regarded as a dream: faith, once so strong in Europe, has been abandoned. Nor can reason help: "Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light, nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain."

Arnold is therefore, of the moderns, the first to be postmodern--the first to see that reason could not fulfill the role of faith, and that, because he thought faith could not be regained, the world was sunk in darkness.

He is correct, of course, inasmuch as men cannot regain faith. But that is why faith is a supernatural gift, not a natural attainment.

Poem beneath the fold.

Waiting for the Barbarians

Philosophy is sometimes better expressed through the arts than through philosophy. With that in mind, I will present some important poem, work of prose, or piece of music each friday, so long as my knowledge of important or enjoyable works that a traditionalist might value does not run out.

The following poem was alluded to by Alasdair MacIntyre at the end of After Virtue, as he admitted in the third edition. I copied it from here.

And I realize my formatting isn't uniform; blogger is being a pain.  I'll settle on uniform formatting sometime soon, I hope.