Old Soldiers

A narrative poem imagining the varied reactions among senior army officers to the appointment of a Jewish general as Superintendent of West Point. In his Preface Richard Nason describes this as an epic, although it is a dramatic monolog spoken by one retired officer to another. Old Soldiers is written mostly in hexameters in admiration of Homer and Virgil, and as a remonstrance against what Nason criticizes as his contemporaries' perceived ignorance of history, the epic, and poetic craft.