Flute Dream

"If what this subtle clever old bard was singing in his muted voice was true, then all my songs were only nonsense and silly child's play." When Hesse turned thirteen he wanted to be a poet. In the words of John Keating, the character played by Robin Williams in the Dead Poets Society, a poet sucks the marrow out of life without choking on the bone. A bard, on the other hand, is a professional poet employed to compose eulogies for his lord. In Scotland in the 16th century it was a derogator...