Hassan - James Elroy Flecker

"Are all poets liars?" "Ya, Hassan, but we tell excellent lies." * Some great works of art appear as part of a wave or movement, in the mainstream of their times. Others arrive with no preceding ripples, but stir up currents in their wake as imitators rush to ape them. These are the norms, but just occasionally a work of art appears that conforms to neither archetype, but is like a flash flood, spurting out as if from nowhere only to recede as quickly, having deposited no more than the finest silt on our cultural memory, soon overgrown again. Hassan, or to give the play its full title "The Story of Hassan ...  Read the complete review