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About this poem

Herbert Marcuse (1898-1979) was a German-American philosopher, sociologist, and political theorist. As an undergraduate major of sociology and languages, I became a little familiar with his Frankfurt School philosophy, anchored in my mind by his use of the phrase, “One-Dimensional Man.” Some of his strident philosophical propositions and commentaries seem so relevant today where, because of the prevalence and even dominance of “alternative truths” operating in the halls of government, many of us conclude, either falsely or correctly, that we have come to inhabit a world informed by “matter-of-fact-cynicism” and with many of us as citizens, not confronting falsity, but instead, choosing to look the other way when the emperor, be he president or prime minister, in all his haughtiness, is exposed to be stark naked before his subjects and wearing no ironclad clothing. An historical background to the poem is in order. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-1875) was a Danish author and a prolific writer of many plays, novels, and poems. This poem, “If the Emperor Wears No Clothes,” adapts its title from Andersen’s 1837 story, “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” a literary folktale composed by Andersen about a vainglorious emperor who stands literally and metaphorically exposed before his loyal subjects. With the scales of ignorance eventually removed from their eyes, they finally see him for what he really is; a tyrant, empty of substance, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing of moral value. more »