Theatrum Mundi

Theatrum Mundi Theatrum Mundi, derived from the Latin as: “Theater of the World,” was famously incorporated by William Shakespeare for his well-known metaphorical world-view often referred to under the rubric of “All the World’s a Stage,” as it applied to many of his famous romantic themes and works. For me, however, beyond the romance genre specifically, I take Theatrum Mundi a step further at a macro level and consider it under its more precise definition* as “the world thought of as a theatrical presentation of all aspects of human life,” while considering all of us who live in this world who are, in a sense, on a stage as our very own actors in different roles. I believe that many modern day poets tend to follow a multi-faceted approach to compelling and captivating themes and problems that form the verbal and written mosaic of what we call human life or the human experience. This is not so different from poets of a bygone age; yet, we tend now to be more influenced by the technological age we all live in, but this should not at all detract from our poetry and how we frame and stage human events on paper with our pens. Despite our technological prowess nowadays—courtesy of the twenty-first century—the genesis and exposition of what we poetically write and how we write it should continue to follow the traditional formats and structural methodologies passed on to us from poets of past centuries. In this sense, Ars Poetica (or the Art of Poetry) will always be in the same tradition; yet, it’s worth noting that the increased proliferation in the use of “free verse” is indeed more telling today in this modern literary age. That’s what makes writing poetry indeed so special today in comparison to strict prose and journalistic writing. Really good poetry invites the reader to think, and at times, for he or she to use their imaginations and to venture into the inner sanctum of allegory, assonance, imagery, metaphor, metonymy, onomatopoeia, and so on. And so, we poets tend to have a virtual unending group of themes and subjects to consider for our writes when we look at the vastness of the human experience in society today in this century. Theatrum Mundi is very much applicable to an all-inclusive view of themes and works across all genres when one considers the veritable magnitude of the human condition in today’s world. We poets are also actors on this global stage—and we’ll always have much to observe, discuss, and write about—no doubt whatsoever. Gary Bateman, Copyright © All Rights Reserved (May 3, 2015) (Narrative Essay) *This definition is taken from The Oxford Dictionary of Foreign Words & Phrases (New York: Oxford University Press Inc., 1998), 431. (Release Date of this poem in my new book was on February 11, 2015)