Rulers without Culture and Without a Blind Poet
“When a Prince lacks a Homer, it means that he is not worthy of having one.” ~ François de Salignac de la Mothe-Fénelon
“He knows the application of the book
But not who wrote it; shuts it like a shot.
Rather than read he thinks that he will look” ~ Karl Shapiro, “Boy-Man”
Archbishop Fénelon rejected verse
Because Enlightenment had moved beyond
Such twaddle. Prose presented no such curse
So when he wrote Telemachus such fond
Stuff was abandoned. Think about that now.
He filled a gap in Homer with plain prose.
It wasn’t exactly The Golden Bough,
Now was it? Pedagogic with a nose
Stuck into Versailles’ court, his book appalled
The king. This tale was not exactly sly.
The nation and the world knew it had galled.
It said the state in France was vile, awry.
..The author left the epic far behind
….To preach that crown and coronet were blind.