An Epistle to Mr Philip Glass
An Epistle to Mr Philip Glass

Summary/Abstract: This is a partly philosophical, partly personal-reflective, and partly polemical piece addressed to the minimalist composer Philip Glass. It is one of a number of lengthy poems that I have written over the past five years as part of a project to revive that currently neglected literary form, the philosophical verse-essay. This was very much a staple genre during the English eighteenth century but has now falleninto near-total disuse, mainly as a consequence of its not fitting in with prevailing Imagist, Symbolist, Modernist, and other post-Romantic literary modes that reject the whole idea of arguing or reasoning – let alone philosophizing – in verse. If my poem is rather rude about Philip Glass’ music then in my view this is no more than the music deserves for insulting the listener’s musical intelligence. Here again it may be read as a recommendation that we revive something like the eighteenthcentury ethos of robust (on occasion hard-hitting) public debate in criticism of the arts as well as in politics and current affairs. In its mixture of relatively formal style and informal ethos the verse-essay is a natural medium for such communication.

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