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Nicholas Hagger Literary Author / Man of Letters |
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1. Poet / Verse Dramatist
D. Quotations from the Poetic Works of Nicholas Hagger
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A. Lyric and Reflective Poetry
Nicholas Hagger has sought to return poetry to its metaphysical roots. Writing in the sacred tradition of English poetry which held sway for 1200 years from Caedmon in the late 7th century to Tennyson (d.1892) at the end of the 19th, he has taken the reality of the spiritual quest as his guiding theme in several volumes of poems.
A Metaphysical's Way of Fire Published by Element in 1991
A Metaphysicals Way of Fire records a fascinating journey into the labyrinthine maze of the Mystic Way. Written over 30 years, the poems are arranged to describe the young poets turning away from the social world near London and his descent towards his centre, first in the West, then in the East in Japan, where he has his first glimpse of illumination. This leads to a Dark Night in North Africa where he undergoes a purgation, and, back in London, he has further experiences of illumination and visions. The Mystic Way is now an ascent through rapture, certainty and meaning to a unitive vision. The mature poet now understands the relationship between Existence, Being, Non-Being and the One. He has won through to a contemplative vision of meaning in a fourfold universe.
A Metaphysicals Way of Fire, Nicholas Haggers selection of his mystic poems, shows his growth towards the Light and a unitive vision which resulted in his unitive approach to history and philosophy, and to the One in literature. In art the metaphysical perspective manifests as the Baroque (a mixture of Classicism and Romanticism), and this work of Nicholas Haggers began a Baroque Revolution in poetry. It attracted the attention of the Poet Laureate Ted Hughes.
The poems follow the mystic path of Dante, St. John of the Cross, Blake, T.S. Eliot and Yeats. They enter territory that is scientific and cosmological as well as metaphysical as Nicholas Hagger advances his holistic/Universalist vision. There are over 60 pages of Notes the poet himself has written and there are two important Prefaces, one on the New Baroque Consciousness and the Redefinition of Poetry, and the other on the Metaphysical Revolution. The Notes and Prefaces take the reader deep into the author's metaphysical vision.
The rediscovery of the metaphysical vision in these highly accomplished poems effects a Metaphysical Revolution in our time.
The Collected Poems 1958-1993 Published by Element in 1994
A White Radiance (the title taken from Shelley, means the Light) contains 1,272 poems written between 1958 and 1993, a span of 35 years. They are arranged chronologically and include all the poems in Selected Poems and referred to in A Mystic Way and catch the movement in the self and the Age. The Silence (1965-6) is set in Japan, his prophetic vision of the end of Communism Archangel (1966) is set in Russia and China, his poem on decline Old Man in a Circle (1966-7) is set in Europe, and his American Liberty Quintet is set on the east coast of the USA. His themes are existential and Universalist, and many lyrics approach the universe and its metaphysical reality behind the universe in accomplished metres and rhyme, and reflect his Universalism. There are two Prefaces on the Baroque and Metaphysical Revolutions, and there is a Commentary. This work reinforces the themes of the Metaphysical Revolution. This is the entire poetic work up to 1993 of a major poet all Nicholas Haggers poems over 35 years, in chronological order an output which rivals that of many of the great 19th century poets, such as Wordsworth and Tennyson. Reflecting his journey towards the mystic Light which has only really been touched on by Yeats and Eliot among the 20th century poets Nicholas Haggers poetry approaches the universe and its metaphysical reality, catching both the movements of the Age and the movement within the self. Few modern poets have an Autobiography and Diaries which relate to their poems. Nicholas Haggers poems should be read in conjunction with his Autobiography, A Mystic Way, and volume 1 of his Diaries (1958-1967). His poetic felicities include a poetic mix of Eliot, Pound and Blake; the judicious invention of his own psychological terms to guide his progress; an unafraid nakedness, linked to philosophic and scientific adventurousness; genuine visionary leaning and occasional lyrical beauty. Sebastian Barker, Past Chairman of The Poetry Society.
Published by O Books in October 2006 ISBN 1905047940 Price £29.99/$59.95 Paperback
This includes the poems in A White Radiance and new works since 1994, including A Dandelion Clock, new lyrics, 1994-2005; Summoned by Truth, three political poems, 2000-2005 (see below); and Groans of the Muses, 2005. There are 30 volumes in all, with Notes at the end of each volume and an appendix entitled 'Vision and Technique in the Collected Poems'.
Summoned by Truth comprises three political poems expressing humanitarian concerns . Zeuss Ass Attack on America Shock and Awe
Zeuss Ass is about the visit of Tony Blair to address a Womens Institute conference, which barracked him. Zeus, the ruler of the world, wants the British public to accept his globalist plans for European (and world) unity, and via Hermes he chooses Blair to convey his message. He will lull the British people into vacuousness. It all goes wrong when the Women's Institute ladies wake up and see too truly. All is not lost, and Zeus prevails.
This work is in the mock-heroic idiom of Popes The Rape of the Lock and satirises the vacuousness of New Labour policy during its unassailable first parliament.
Attack on America is about the September 11th attacks and their aftermath in Afghanistan. Bush is using the attacks as an excuse to create a New World Order, and his intentions and their outcome are satirised in the poem. This work draws on the tradition of political satire developed by Dryden (in Absalom and Achitophel).
Shock and Awe is about the U.S. invasion of Iraq and the fall of Baghdad. Again U.S. motives are satirised.
These three poems are a biting and ironic reflection on the true motives of the Anglo-American alliance under Bush and Blair and echo themes developed in The Syndicate. They continue a 17th/18th century tradition created by Dryden and Pope.
The Back Cover Says Since the Second World War English poetry has become almost exclusively social and secular. It has lost contact with poetry's true task ancient, traditional and perennial of mirroring the contemplative, metaphysical vision of Reality or God.
Here is a new, distinctive and original metaphysical voice. Nicholas Hagger descends through the Dark Night to his centre, experiences illumination and ascends to a unitive vision of the One that so attracted poets like Dante and Eliot, Blake and Yeats. While doing so, he reflects the Age, focusing prophetically on the end of Communism, the decline of Europe, the heart of America and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Grounded both in the present day, and in history and philosophy, Collected Poems is a signpost to the life of the future, and essential reading for both poets and anyone with soul. Many of these poems are published here for the first time.
See press release at end.
New Selections from Collected Poems Visions of England finished but not yet published. A selection of poems about England that includes many descriptions of places of historical and religious importance.
Selected Poems 1(untitled) at conception/proposal stage. A selection from Collected Poems.
Selected Poems 2(untitled) at conception/proposal stage. Another selection from Collected Poems.
Thematic selections at conception/proposal stage. Poems of the Sea Poems of Wild Life Poems of the Woods Poems of the Stars Poems of Essex Poems of Suffolk Poems of Cornwall Poems of America Poems of the Universe
A book containing four volumes of odes published by O Books in October 2006 ISBN 1905047460 Price £29.95/$59.95 Paperback
These four volumes comprise: A Tudor Knot In Europes Ruins A Global Sway The Western Universe
These new poems, written between 1994 and 2005, cover the period of Nicholas Haggers tenure of Otley Hall in Suffolk and his growing interest in Elizabethan and Tudor themes. Many of the poems in this volume celebrate English history on the eve of and at the start of a new century. They locate specific places in the context of a single, evolving cultural tradition. The image of the knot is taken from the Knot Garden at Otley Hall (replicated at his new home), which is a symbol of the One.
What does it mean to be English in the 21st century? A Tudor Knot focuses on the traditional view of little or middle England. In Europes Ruins widens the perspective to focus on Europe and the ancient European civilizations of Greece, Rome and the Renaissance which shaped Britain. A Global Sway widens the perspective further to include our globalist identity in poems set outside Britain and Europe. The Western Universe defines our identity in terms of the universe and the One in poems set in everyday situations around Epping Forest, where the poet grew up and now lives.
These poems address the split in the British soul between Eurosceptic love of England and Europhile love of the European origins of the Celts, Romans, Saxons, Jutes, Normans who now make up the English race.
The Classical Ode form is 8- or 10-line stanzas, rhyming ababcdcd(ee), or more often abcbdefe(gg). Drawing on the concept of the classics (Greek, Roman and traditional English literature) and classicism (which is equated with order, beauty, reason and tradition, clarity, restraint and serenity), Nicholas Hagger has redefined the Ode as a reflective, philosophical and descriptive poem, rooted in places/a social situation, which is dignified and exalted in subject, feeling and style. In Nicholas Haggers hands, the Ode is able to reflect the conflict and underlying harmony of our Age: the decline of the monarchy, the British political system, the Church the traditional Establishment and of Britains world role and the quality of increasingly squalid contemporary life, which is contrasted with the dignity and order of the glorious classical /Tudor past.
The last poet to write four books of Odes was the Roman/Latin poet Horace, who also reflected his Age in everyday verses.
The Back Cover Says In Classical Odes Nicholas Hagger achieves a blend of poetry and history, of the traditions of Herodotus and Pausanias (both of whom visited classical sites) and of Virgil and Horace (who wrote of everyday life in the countryside). In the first four-book Odes since Horace, published here for the first time, he addresses the concerns regarding Western civilisation of Pound, Eliot and Yeats particularly, the concern Eliot had about the impact of Europe on the man of letters and finds a new way of carrying them forward. He catches the mood of our time: dismay at the end of the Great Britain of Churchill and Montgomery, elegiac feeling that Englishness is being superseded by Europeanness and globalism, and Britain's hesitant fumblings for a new identity in a time of transition. Never before has Western civilization's cultural legacy been captured in verse that has such contemporary relevance.
See press release at end.
5. A new collection of sonnets A conception/proposal stage
This book will be called The Tapestry.
6. A new philosophical quartet A conception/proposal stage
This will be about the order in the universe.
B. Epic Poetry
The Triumph of Light 1944-45 Published in four volumes by Element in 1995-7 One-volume edition published by O Books in October 2006 (see 2 below)
Volume 1, Books 1-2 From D-Day to the bomb plot to kill Hitler and its aftermath.
Volume 2, Books 3-6 The last year of World War 2, featuring Falaise, the failure at Arnhem, the Holocaust and the Ardennes campaign (or Battle of the Bulge). More were killed in the final year of the War than in all the previous years.
Volume 3, Books 7-9 The Yalta conference, the crossing of the Rhine and the squabbling during Hitlers defence of Berlin.
Volume 4, Books 10-12 The fall of Berlin and the death of Hitler, the Nazi surrender and the birth of the Atomic Age at Hiroshima.
At one level books 1-2 and 3-6 take the story of Eisenhowers advance towards Hitler through D-Day, the plot against Hitlers life, Falaise, Arnhem, the crossing of the Rhine and Hitlers defence of Berlin. At another level Eisenhower visits Hell, and the forces of Heaven under the Cosmic Christ repulse an invasion by the forces of Hell led by the Cosmic Satan, and counter-invade. In both the lower and higher worlds, the forces of Light have begun to triumph over the forces of Darkness during the long battle of Armageddon. Books 7-9 deal with the Yalta conference, the crossing of the Rhine and Hitlers defence of Berlin. Books 10-12 present the fall of Berlin (a contemporary Troy) and death of Hitler, the Nazi surrender and the birth of the atomic age at Hiroshima. At another level, Hell falls to Heavens invasion, and Satan, the power behind Hitler, now cut down to size, goes into exile and foments the Cold War with his new ally, Stalin. With the defeat of Hitler, the Antichrist, Armageddon is over, and the forces of Light foil Hells attempt to conquer Heaven, counter-invade Hell and neutralise the forces of Darkness and their leader, the Cosmic Satan. Eisenhower is permitted a vision of Paradise and of the coming millennium, the Cosmic Christs Thousand-Year Reign on earth and benevolent world government which triumphs over Satans plans for a new world order.
Nicholas Haggers Universalist epic reaches a triumphant conclusion with Eisenhowers defeat of Hitler and the Cosmic Christs victory over the Cosmic Satan, and a vision of the divine order behind the universe reconciles the Tolstoyan conflict between war and peace and the Michelangelesque contrast between Hell and Heaven. In Haggers classical unitive vision harmony and balance are restored between the eternally conflicting forces of Light and Darkness, with Light just predominating. Combining imagination, spiritual vision, a penetrating understanding of history and a powerful metaphysical eye that draws on the new science and philosophy, Nicholas Hagger has created an impressive work that towers above the contemporary European literary scene like a mountain half-hidden in cloud over a flat landscape. Conceived in 1969, and discussed with Ezra Pound in 1970, Overlord, the first major poetic epic in the English language since Miltons Paradise Lost (1667) has had the same gestation period as Miltons poem: some 25 years. It is in 12 books totalling 41,000 lines of blank verse. It is set in Europe in the last year of the Second World War. It narrates the conflict between Eisenhower and Hitler in terms that echo Homers Iliad, and the fall of Berlin is a latter-day fall of Troy. Just as the gods help the Greeks and the Trojans in the Iliad, Christ helps Eisenhower and Satan helps Hitler. The underlying struggle is between the forces of Good and the forces of Evil in the bitterest fight for civilization ever fought. The work has an encyclopaedic range with many references to cosmology, philosophy and science. Christ and Satan have rival New World Orders. Book 2 is about von Stauffenbergs bomb plot against Hitler, book 5 is on Auschwitz. The history of Western ideas is presented in invocations to poets, philosophers and mystics of the past, and the whole work is firmly in the tradition of Homer, Virgil, Dante and Milton in synthesizing religious, philosophical, political and scientific ideas into an integral renewal of the vision of the Fire at the heart of Christianity. Using the conflict between Eisenhower and Hitler in the last year of the Second World War as its narrative metaphor, the work explores the rival New World Orders of Christ and Satan. The poems narrative vitality was praised by the late poet laureate, Ted Hughes. It is, like Paradise Lost, a millenarian work. In the setting of World War 2 all the major themes of the 20th century are found: a European consciousness, American influence, the Atomic Age, the move toward a single world government and the rise of Russia in Eastern Europe. Overlord draws together the threads of intrigue and hidden power struggles to reveal the untold story of the last great war. Hagger describes Hitler, Stalin and Roosevelt as pawns of American-European internationalist forces seeking world domination, while Eisenhower in charge of the war struggles against these forces as he tries desperately to create a more decent world.
Inspired by Virgils Aeneid, Hagger sees Eisenhower as a modern-day Augustus seeking a universal peace and envisioning the heaven and hell inherent in the proposals for a world government a theme of Hagger's later study of the 20th century, The Syndicate. Like Virgils Aeneid, which celebrated Augustuss new order, Overlords underlying theme is the yearning for universal peace which can be found in contemporary attempts to create a world government to coincide with the new millennium. In a fast-paced narrative, Hagger unlocks the occult beliefs and attitudes of the main players, so we can begin to gain insight into the motivations behind even their most genocidal actions. A fundamental struggle between good and evil unfolds, and from the despair and reign of Darkness that was Auschwitz rises the millennial vision of Light. Renaissance critics regarded epic as the highest poetic form because of the encyclopaedic quality of its narrative. Homer, Virgil, Dante and Milton all synthesized religious, philosophical, political and scientific ideas into an integrated vision not only of their own beliefs but the beliefs of their respective cultures. Nicholas Hagger has performed the same feat despite the decline of Western culture, and has done so by renewing the vision of the Fire at the heart of Christianity In Greater Detail Written in blank verse with a panoramic visionary sweep that embraces higher and lower worlds within his Universalist scheme, Overlord is a contemporary epic poem in the tradition of Homers Iliad, Virgils Aeneid and Miltons Paradise Lost. Continuing the mystical vision of Dantes Divine Comedy and the concern for civilization of Pounds Cantos, the poem focuses on the last year of the Second World War, viewed from the higher world; and on its conflicting leaders, the Universalist Cosmic Christ and Cosmic Satan.
This epic about the most significant event of the 20th century records the struggle between Eisenhowers forces to defeat Hitler and, at another level, the Cosmic Christs struggle with Lucifer. It reflects the conflict between the forces of Light and order which seek to restore peace, and the forces of Darkness and devastation which lay behind the evil of Auschwitz. In the course of treating this hugely important, Tolstoyan metaphysical theme in a work that recalls Michelangelos Sistine Chapel ceiling, Nicholas Hagger reveals the laws that govern history and the ordering of the universe. Drawing on the hidden history of the 20th century and its myths, he tells the truth about the Second World War, how a modern siege of Troy took place, and reveals a universe ruled by the divine Light. The attempt by some of our contemporaries to create a world government centred on the UN in September 2000 may be as significant to our time as was Augustuss peace to Virgils time, and Overlord focuses on aspirations to create a universalist world government and contrasts the Cosmic Satans nightmare aspirations that led the world into war with the Cosmic Christs universal peace. Nicholas Hagger sees Hitler, Stalin and Roosevelt ass being manipulated by American-European internationalist forces that seek world domination, and his Aeneas, Eisenhower, who is in charge of the war, has to work within these forces as he tries to create a more decent world. While telling a fascinating story with strong narrative pull, Hagger gets inside their occult beliefs and attitudes so that even their most genocidal actions become imaginatively understandable. Behind the conflict between Light and Darkness in Overlord is the entire intellectual conflict of the 20th century, and by focusing on the events between D-Day and the fall of Berlin which have shaped the last fifty years (the rise of America, the decline of Europe, the expansion of Communism into Eastern Europe, the birth of the atomic age and the Cold War, and pressure for a UN-led world government) Haggers epic makes sense of the 20th century and gives new understanding of the present. The conflicts between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, Eisenhower and Montgomery, and Hitler and his Generals are handled with a Homeric mastery that moves easily between formal diplomacy and bitter antagonism. As the powerful forces who influenced the outcome at Yalta are still operating in our own time and seek to mark the millennium by creating a world government, Overlord makes sense of the 20th century and gives a new understanding of the present. Following the Elizabethans in finding his theme in historical events, taking his structure from classical epic and Milton, and reconciling classical balance, the Metaphysicals and Platonist Romantics One Spirit and the Modernists concern with civilization to unify many poetic traditions, in his Universalist epic Nicholas Hagger reveals a divine universe in which Light and Darkness are in perpetual conflict (but underlying harmony) and the forces of Light have to fight hard to retain their upper hand on earth. But fundamentally the epic is about the struggle between good and evil, Light and darkness, in war and peace that concerned Tolstoy, and out of the temporary triumph of Darkness in Auschwitz comes the Paradisal, millennial vision of Light at the end. With a theme that straddles Europe and America and a European-American sensibility that sets his work in every European country, Hagger relates the most important event of the 20th century to Nature, overt and hidden aspects of the Age, a divine universe, and Heaven and Hell. History, spiritual vision, imagination and a powerful metaphysical eye are all integrated in a unitive finale which presents the mysterious universe in all its layers and understands excesses of evil and killing in terms of a wonderful conception of the whole. Like Donne, Hagger reflects the new scientific and philosophical ferment of the Age, and his unitive vision has created a work that towers in size and scope like a mountain over a flat landscape. Haggers cosmos is one of two conflicting forces, an expanding Fire which is behind the creation and expansion of the universe, and a contracting force of Darkness, destruction and gravity, of Dark Matter and black holes. These opposites, which recall yang and yin, are held in balance by a transcendent and immanent God, a universal energy of Fire or Light, and it is under these divine powers that General Eisenhower, Supreme Commander of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Haggers Aeneas-like hero and homme moyen sensuel, defeats Hitler and dreams of a new world order of universal peace and world government. You hit a pace, a tilt, that really carries your reader along....Everything comes as a subordinate clause to your dramatic momentum a hand waving out of the express train window. Ted Hughes, then Poet Laureate
The Triumph of Light 1944-45 One-volume edition Published by O Books in October 2006 ISBN 1905047843 Price £29.99/$59.95 Paperback
The whole poem in one volume with an appendix entitled 'The 25-Year Gestation and Birth of Overlord'
The Back Cover Says Overlord is the first major poetic epic in the English language since Milton's Paradise Lost, presented in one volume here for the first time.
Written in blank verse, with a panoramic visionary sweep that embraces higher and lower worlds within a universalist scheme, it is a contemporary epic poem (as much American as English) in the tradition of Homer's Iliad and Virgil's Aeneid. Drawing as they do, on a single defining event for civilisation, it focuses on World War II and General Eisenhower's pursuit of Hitler and the fall of Berlin (our Troy); the battles and the suffering, and the hidden conflicts between Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill, Eisenhower and Montgomery, and Hitler and his generals.
In dealing with these powerful forces, still operating in our own time, Overlord makes sense of the 20th century and gives a new understanding of the present.
See press release at end.
3. Armageddon (a new epic poem) To be published by O Books on 27 November 2009 This is still being written.
C. Verse Drama
There are four verse plays. Two were published by Element in 1995 and 1999. One-volume edition of all four to be published in February 2007 (see 6 below).
From D-Day to Berlin Published by Element in 1995 In Collected Verse Plays (see 6 below), published by O Books in May 2007
Three and a half centuries after the form declined c.1640, Nicholas Hagger revived verse drama with The Warlords, a panoramic two-part drama which focuses on the fortunes of General Montgomery after D-Day, and his conflict with Eisenhower, and dramatizes the different ideologies of the other warlords, Hitler, Stalin and Churchill. Nicholas Haggers first verse drama was written to commemorate the 50th anniversary of VE Day, which fell in May 1995. The play covers the period from D-Day in June 1944 to November 1945, after the Nazi surrender, and focuses on the struggle between each of the principal characters Churchill, Eisenhower, Hitler and Stalin to be overlord of Europe and of the world. Behind the conflicts of the warlords can be seen the workings of the mystic Light in contemporary history. Written in the two-part tradition of Marlowes Tamburlaine the Great and Shakespeares Henry the Fourth, the play explores the role of an embryonic world government in shaping the outcome of the Second World War, and in particular its influence in cutting Britain down to size. With over two hundred characters, the play presents a Tolstoyan panorama of the last year of the War, and places contemporary European history within the context of the Christian Fire or Light, exemplified in this case by the illumined figure of Montgomery. This book presents the leadership of the religious, illumined Montgomery, Hitler (who is driven by a dark power) and the materialist Stalin and their commanders during a momentous year which threw up many of the issues that have dominated the last 50 years: the Russian domination of Eastern Europe; the atomic bomb; the rise of American world power; the decline of British world power, which can be dated back to the demotion of Montgomery on 1st September 1944; the dream of a unified Europe; the Final Solution of the Jewish problem which saw five million Jews killed; and the need for a world government. Those familiar with Nicholas Haggers earlier book The Fire and the Stones will know that he sees a metaphysical vision as being crucial to the growth of civilizations. By linking the metaphysical vision to the theme of war in the dramatic context of The Warlords, the appeal of his work is widened and his vision becomes more accessible to the general reader. The main issues are discussed in a prefatory essay. Like Tolstoy before him, Nicholas Hagger is concerned to understand the role of war in the metaphysical cosmos. The revival of verse drama, which looks back to T.S. Eliot and Christopher Fry, explores the universal theme of the relationship between power and good in contemporary history.
2. The Warlords - abridged version Published in Collected Verse Plays (see 6 below) by O Books in January 2007
This abridged version of the two parts of The Warlords can be performed in one evening as a normal-length play.
3. The Tragedy of Prince Tudor A Nightmare Published by Element in 1999 In Collected Verse Plays (see 6 below), published by O Books in May 2007
In Prince Tudor (1999), his second verse drama and another important contribution to the revival of the genre, Nicholas Hagger tells the story of a Princes heroic attempts to preserve the culture and identity of his disintegrating kingdom from the intrigues of globalists. He applies the theme of world government to contemporary Britain and so dramatizes what is set to become the burning issue of the 21st century Britains fight to preserve her national sovereignty. Written in the dramatic tradition of Sophocles, Shakespeare and the Elizabethans, Prince Tudor is a tragedy bristling with topical references that reveals the nightmare behind the national dream. Prince Tudor is a modern-day Hamlet, skilfully crafted to catch the conscience of the nation. There are also two new verse dramas, both of which develop and elaborate themes taken up in the previous two plays. Published in Collected Verse Plays (see 6 below), by O Books in May 2007 Ovid Banished answers the question of why Augustus banished or relegated Ovid to the Black Sea town of Tomis in AD 8, and dramatizes the Roman poets spiritual metamorphosis. As in Shakespeares Antony and Cleopatra, the play contrasts Romes sterile, imperial culture with the fertile wilderness of the perception raises interesting questions about the true nature of civilization. Banishment for Ovid, is a journey towards the Reality known by the soul. The theme of world government is also prominent, as it was the ruling ambition of Augustuss life. The imperialist state is shown to work against the sovereign poet, while the deification of the Emperor is presented as the ultimate symbol of secular humanism. Ovid, as poet and prophet, sees that, despite its material success, Rome is in spiritual decline and must ultimately give way to the hordes of barbarians within its borders. Ovid Banished is about the head of a world government (Augustus) banishing a leading artist and intellectual. It is about a censorship in our time. Echoes include the USSRs banishing of Solzhenitsyn.
5. The Rise of Oliver Cromwell Published in Collected Verse Plays (see 6 below), by O Books in May 2007 The Rise of Oliver Cromwell is an innovative play which explores the reasons for Cromwells extraordinary rise to dictatorship. It draws on material in The Secret History of the West, eg. the discovery of two letters that show that Cromwell was financed from Holland. The deal was that he would kill Charles I in return for financial support for his New Model Army, and that he would readmit the Jews (exiled in 1290 by Edward I) to England, which happened after the visit of Menasseh ben Israel in 1656. A new view of the Civil War is thus given. By uncovering the Rosicrucian and Freemasonic roots of Cromwell's power and vision Nicholas Hagger manages to solve a number of historical problems of the 17th century (such as why King Charles was executed, who acted as Cromwells ideological mentor, who funded the New Model Army and what was the true role of Holland in the Civil War). At a time when many consider that Tony Blair is attempting to complete the republican revolution begun by Cromwell, several themes of the play will have an uncanny resonance for modern audiences. For instance, the imperialist Cromwell split up the Kingdom into 12 administrative regions and subjugated British sovereignty to his Utopian vision of a worldwide confederation of states. The play presents an original view of Cromwell based on thorough historical research, and sheds light on the ancient spiritual conflicts that drive contemporary politics. These four plays by Nicholas Hagger mean that there is now a new movement of verse drama with unnaturalistic settings after the manner of Sophocles and Shakespeare, a revival of the verse play after 350 years (discounting once-off false starts by Drydens All for Love, 1678, and T. S. Eliots Murder in the Cathedral, 1935). Published by O Books in May 2007 ISBN 1846940265 Price £29.95/$59.95 Paperback
This book includes all the verse plays covered above, including the abridged version of The Warlords.
See press release at end.
D. Quotations from the Poetic Works of Nicholas Hagger
From Collected Poems:
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