Visit Our New Website: Age of Muses
—Metamorphoses 2.0—
O for a Muse of fire, that would ascend
The brightest heaven of invention
—Henry V, Shakespeare
To all readers of The Chained Muse, this is to notify everyone that we are in the midst of a great literary metamorphosis. Our foray into the world of arts and letters began in 2017 when we created The Chained Muse blog. Our young starry-eyed editor-in-chief, David Gosselin, knew surprisingly little about the wheeling and dealing of the contemporary literary world and its Faustian pact with the culture gods. But he firmly believed in art and poetry’s power and he understood that their more recent decline wasn’t due to any loss of true power, but rather society’s deliberate abandonment of the Muses and their ancient wisdom.
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Forsaking the timeless poetic principle that has manifested itself in every Golden Age or Renaissance throughout history is a big deal. It has had many unforeseen consequences for the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual well-being of modern man—to say nothing of the modern academy. The implications of this break with Western civilization’s most cherished poetical traditions went far beyond what even most respected scholars or critics were willing to admit, or what most devoted poetry lovers were capable of wholeheartedly articulating.
It became clear that a new kind of literary platform was needed to reawaken the timeless tradition that made possible the epics of a Homer, the classical Greek stage of an Aeschylus, Sophocles and Euripides, Dante’s Florence, Shakespeare and Shelley’s England, or the Weimar of Schiller and Goethe, among others. We therefore set out to create a new “safe space” for literature and poetry that had little regard for the hordes of contemporary literati groveling over the “big-name” journals and the latest Pobiz rags.
We were reminded of the poet Friedrich Schiller’s counsels to aspiring artists in any age:
“The Artist, it is true, is the son of his age; but pity him if he is its pupil, or even its favorite! Let some beneficent Divinity snatch him when a suckling from the breast of his mother, and nurse him with the milk of a better time that he may ripen to his full stature beneath a distant Grecian sky. And having grown to manhood, let him return, a foreign shape, into his century; not, however, to delight it by his presence; but terrible, like the son of Agamemnon, to purify it. The matter of his works he will take from the present; but their Form he will derive from a nobler time, nay from beyond all time, from the absolute unchanging unity of his nature. Here from the pure aether of his spiritual essence, flows down the Fountain of Beauty, uncontaminated by the pollutions of ages and generations, which roll to and fro in their turbid vortex far beneath it.”
—Friedrich Schiller, from Letters on the Aesthetic Education of Man
As described years ago in our about section, we were directly inspired by the unfinished work of Edgar Allan Poe, specifically, Poe’s vision for a truly independent journal of fine arts and letters, The Stylus.
Poe’s literary prospectus described the journal as follows:
“The Stylus will include about one hundred royal octavo pages, in single column, per month; forming two thick volumes per year. In its mechanical appearance — in its typography, paper and binding — it will far surpass all American journals of its kind . . . It will discuss not only the Belles-Lettres, but, very thoroughly, the Fine Arts, with the Drama: and, more in brief, will give, each month, a Retrospect of our Political History. It will enlist the loftiest talent, but employ it not always in the loftiest — at least not always in the most pompous or Puritanical way. It will aim at affording a fair and not dishonorable field for the true intellect of the land, without reference to the mere prestige of celebrated names. It will support the general interests of the Republic of Letters, and insist upon regarding the world at large as the sole proper audience for the author. It will resist the dictation of Foreign Reviews. It will eschew the stilted dullness of our own Quarterlies, and while it may, if necessary, be no less learned, will deem it wiser to be less anonymous, and difficult to be more dishonest, than they.”
Poe viewed the flourishing of the Belles Lettres and Fine Arts in America as one of the guarantors of the young republic’s spiritual, moral, and creative well-being— something that was indispensable for guarding against the subversive campaigns unleashed by those archaic forces of empire, who desired nothing less than an absolute dissolution of the great American experiment.
As Poe once himself declared:
“We know that the British bear us little but ill will—we know that in no case do they utter unbiased opinions of American books—we know that in the few instances in which our writers have been treated with common decency in England these writers have either paid homage to English institutions or have had lurking at the bottom of their hearts a secret principle at war with democracy. We do indeed demand the Nationality of Self-respect. In letters as in Government, we require a Declaration of Independence— a better thing still would be a Declaration of War.”
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, then nourished and cultivated over time, these ideas eventually grow into the real world of culture, education, politics, and finally, law.
So today a new chapter begins. Come what may, our sails are unfurled and we’re now charting a course that leads into a full-blown Age of Muses, where a new era of image-making will emerge.
There, we’ll be unchaining all the Muses and bringing them center stage, from Clio to Urania, Melpomene to Calliope, and all their divine sisters. They will all be firmly united under the same brilliant aegis, where they will rule, under the watchful eye of an ever-prescient Minerva. For in truth, the beloved Mnemosynian maids always work together—and they are always under the protection of the shield-bearing goddess.
So, we invite you all to join us over at Age of Muses, where our diverse activities will be harmonized under one roof—your one-stop-shop for original art, poetry, film, historical deep-dives, criticism and culture in all its forms.
Many new ground-breaking productions and works are already queued.
Some house-keeping
Up-coming Projects
Poesis
In light of these changes, a few notes on up-coming projects and productions, all of which are now picking up steam:
For starters, poetry proper will now be housed under the “Poesis” section of Age of Muses. Classing poetry under this particular heading is significant, given it harkens back to poetry’s true namesake: the art of making. Throughout history, poets have served as the sacred “image-makers” of society. Poems were never just finely crafted works fashioned out of mere beautiful words and delicate phrasings. Their images contained the very heart and soul of a people; and they preserved its most memorable wisdom—often crystalizing the best of a civilization.
We hope not only to renew an appreciation and awareness for the downstream effects of all great image-making, but also to foster an awareness and rediscovery of the rightful place of poets as the true divine image-makers of society. As Shelley reminds us, great poets were never mere aesthetes; they were also seers and shrewd observers who not only had their thumb on the pulse of a society and its psycho-cosmological matrix, but also shaped and fashioned it.
And that brings us to our next subject.
Film
Perhaps nowhere is the role of image-making clearer or more palpable in the modern world than in the realm of film-making. We believe poets have more than a minor role to play in the world of contemporary film, screenplays and narratives. So we have a new series of films underway, which will (among other things) bring into focus some of the great image-makers in history (both past and present).
Edgar Allan Poe: we’re currently working on a new documentary that will not only change everything people thought they knew about Edgar Allan Poe, but also bring to light the struggle for America’s literary and intellectual independence in face of those ancient forces of empire committed to subverting the young American republic. The historical context and many clues left by Poe in his literary works will prove crucial in not only resolving his murder (both in body and in soul), but also in understanding and repelling the modern-day spiritual and intellectual subversion of the USA and sovereign nations everywhere. (Film scheduled for mid-to late October)
Another one of our original films, The New Prometheans, will revive an ancient myth in a new visionary art form, and revisit its implications for our own times.
Profiles in Poetry films of Friedrich Schiller, Percy Bysshe Shelley and Robert Frost are also forth-coming.
Publications and Productions
New Lyre Magazine, our flagship print publication, will feature a special epic theme and focus for its fall-winter 2025 issue. Our issue is being overseen by our new poetry editor, Bob Zisk, an accomplished poet and very capable man. The issue will be published exclusively on Age of Muses (scheduled for mid-November)
New original productions of “The Second Snake: A Dialogue Featuring Adam and Eve” & a new complete dramatization of “Daedalus” (New Lyre - Fall 2024) are also in the works.
As part of our Renaissance Not Reset series, several new strategic exposes on the hidden history of the Renaissance will be published. We’ll delve into the continued subversive role of mystery cults and mystical Neoplatonism in perverting classical wisdom and the Western intellectual tradition from the Renaissance to our very own days.
Readers may have noticed a few changes since The Chained Muse’s early days. But those who have been regular followers will recognize that all those changes were made with the express purpose of propelling us forward in the same unchanging direction—guided by our ever-constant North Star: an age where the muses once again take center stage in the affairs of man—through great learning, culture, statecraft, poetry and classical education.
To Contributors
You should know that your published works, having been deemed worthy and noble in their content, artistry, and vision will now also find a second and more enduring life. We’ve published a lot of fine work over the years, and for that reason, we’ll continue featuring many of our best published contributions on a seasonal basis, or as accompaniments to future Age of Muses posts (it goes without saying that we look forward to your future contributions). Certain pieces will also make new appearances in our innovative productions, mixtapes, films and more.
After all, good poems are like good songs: we seldom only listen to them once; we regularly revisit them throughout the changing moments and seasons of our lives.
Therefore, rest assured that your work has only begun to be discovered.
To Subscribers
All Chained Muse subscribers who weren’t previously subscribed to Age of Muses have already been added to the subscriber list to ensure that you continue receiving updates.
Age of Muses has nearly twice as many subscribers as The Chained Muse (we recently broke the 4000 subscribers milestone). That means our talented contributors will also receive more of the readership they deserve. It also means we’ll avoid having overlapping posts across multiple substacks. Subscribers will in turn benefit from a much more expansive and constant array of content and creative productions.
If you’re currently a paid subscriber to The Chained Muse, first know your support has helped us build the foundation for a lasting poetic and cultural enterprise that is beginning to have a veritable ripple effect. Once the transition is complete, you’ll be contacted by email for cancellation (bear with us over the next few weeks). With that said, our efforts will continue to rely on the generous support of our subscribers. To pledge your continued support, discover our newly configured site and become a premium subscriber. Subscribers are welcome to proactively cancel their premium Chained Muse subscription and sign up to our new platform, if they so wish.
As a premium member, you’ll go to bed at night knowing you’re supporting a project that is at the forefront of a lasting cultural transformation, where all the muses make their triumphant comeback on the world stage.
The Nine Sisters are officially unchained.