A quiet notice V2Melody closes at midnight on , Spanish time.

Closes

A note from Richard

V2Melody will close at midnight on 20 January 2028

This site has been a retirement project in musical poetry: poems chosen with care and set to music, offered freely for as long as it felt right to keep the garden open.

The work no longer holds the place it once did in my life. I have gone as far with it as I wish to go. Like a sand mandala, it was made to be completed and then released. I am not attached to its permanence, and I do not believe any of it needs to last beyond the time it was given. The poems were already here before I arrived and began to experiment with them. They will still be here when these musical experiments, and indeed myself, have been swept away, like the sand of a mandala. Nothing has been lost.

I want a simpler end to my life, days of simple love and enjoyment with my wonderful wife of 20 years. The work of maintaining a server, the monitoring, and the residual obligations that come with keeping a site alive no longer fit that life.

From 4 November 2026 I will not be adding new poems or musical poems to the site.

The experimental music I am making now is on my Suno profile. Those pieces stay there, and are not added to this site.

Until midnight on 20 January 2028, Spanish time, everything remains available exactly as it is. That is when my VPS server contract comes to an end, and it will not be renewed. After that, the server will be switched off and the site will disappear.

The Mandala Is Finished explains this more fully.

Thank you to anyone who found a poem, a track, or a quiet moment here.

The pleasure was in the making.

Richard

Home › Glossary › Letter D

dramatic genius cult

Concept
Pronunciation

Understanding ARPABET Pronunciation

Want to hear it? Click the Listen button to hear the browser speak the word using text-to-speech!

The pronunciation guide uses the ARPABET phonetic system—the same system used in speech recognition and text-to-speech applications.

Vowel Examples:
AE1 = cat, bat
EH1 = bed, head
IY1 = see, me
OW1 = go, boat
UW1 = boot, do
Stress Numbers:
0 = no stress (unstressed)
1 = primary stress (loud)
2 = secondary stress (medium)
Example:
AH0 TH IY1 N AH0
= a-THEE-na (Athena)

The stressed syllable (marked with 1) is pronounced louder and clearer than others.

Quick Definition

Excessive elevation of dramatists or poets as near-divine geniuses.

Detailed Definition
Dramatic genius cult refers to the Romantic-era veneration of the poet as a solitary, prophetic, or divinely inspired figure whose creative power transcends ordinary humanity; this cultural phenomenon, centered on figures like Byron or Shelley, elevated the poet to near-mythic status, influencing poetic self-presentation and audience expectations for originality and intensity.
Example
Example in poetry:
Dramatic genius cult celebrates poetic figures as near-mythic creators: Byron’s self-fashioning as “mad, bad, and dangerous to know”; Plath’s posthumous mythologizing as tragic genius; Contemporary “poet as rockstar” culture around figures like Amanda Gorman; Romantic era elevated poets like Shelley to prophetic status; The cult appears in biopics and literary pilgrimages; Critics like Harold Bloom theorize the “anxiety of influence” around such figures.
Additional Notes
dramatic genius cult: An over-veneration or excessive focus on the dramatic and often turbulent lives of certain poets (e.g., Byron, Shelley, Plath), sometimes overshadowing the careful analysis of their actual work. Usage Tip: Caution students against biographical fallacy.
Also Known As
Cult of dramatic genius Worship of dramatists Heroic dramatist cult Genius-dramatist ideal Bardolatry
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