Plato wanted poetry banned in his republic. Like many totalitarian reactionaries he saw poetry as essentially subversive. This book shows the relationship between poetry and three generations of a family which if not subversive were at the very least politically radical.
Thomas Paine is far less well known as a poet. This article seeks to place him in the tradition of English Radical Poetry and compare his work with some of his contemporaries and some of those who came after him.
In a sense this book, the screenplay written by Trevor Griffith’s for the proposed film in his life of Paine, well almost, as it does not take boyhood, saddens me, since its publication infers, to me at least, that the film may never be made.
BOOK REVIEW: These Are The Times, A Life Of Thomas Paine Read Post »
Paine: Hello Burkie, it’s a long time since we last met on planet earth, how have you been getting on in purgatory? Burke: Well bless my soul, it’s old Paine from cloud nine. They are not letting me out from purgatory yet, I got a pass for this meeting celebrating my bicentenary.
It is not my attention to review the poetry, this has been around for many years and Thomas Paine has been commented upon by many others, rather it is to commend this book to TPS members who will find much in it of Paine interest.
In 1792, Rickman met Thomas Paine with whom he had frequently corresponded. They soon became firm friends and Paine benefited from Rickman’s knowledge of languages and classical education. Paine lived with Rickman and his second wife and whilst there he completed the second part of Rights of Man.
Thomas “Clio” Rickman, Poet, Bookseller And Radical Publisher Read Post »
TPS member, Alan Rosenburg, has had a play written by him on Thomas Paine broadcast at peak listening time on French State Radio. Broadcast in several installments, the play seems to have been extremely well received.
THE tale of the recent discovery of the portrait of the celebrated propagandist, Thomas Paine, painted by the “Patriot-Artist,” Colonel Trumbull, for Thomas Jefferson—a picture which dropped out of sight over a century ago—is worth telling in some detail.
I suspect that Paine would not have agreed with being called an “Angel”, though when taking into account some of the other things he was called, such a description is innocuous enough. This book has no value as a historical work, but it certainly has value as a Paine curiosity.
Rodger became associated with working-class radical politics, writing political squibs for a journal called The Spirit of the Union. Shortly after joining the staff of the journal the editor was charged with sedition, found guilty, and sentenced to transportation for life.
Alexander Rodger’s Stanzas on Thomas Paine’s Death Read Post »
Surprisingly, in view of the apparent motivations of the author, the piece is in no sense a dramatisation of Paine’s career. Tom is represented on the stage (inordinately unappetisingly, as it happens), but Foster merely uses the man’s words and ideas as a springboard into dark pools of surrealist fantasy.
Tom Paine – The La Mama Production of Paul Foster’s Play Read Post »
IN the midst of the controversy over Silas Deane’s negotiations with the French government, the most sensational political scandal of the American Revolution, Thomas Paine brought forth several satirical pieces in verse and prose under a new pseudonym, Comus.
