...what humanity most desperately needs is not the creation of new worlds but the recreation in terms of human comprehension of the world we have, and it is for this reason that arts go on from generation to generation in spite of the fact that Phidias has already carved and Homer has already sung. The creation, we are informed, was accomplished in seven days with Sunday off, but the recreation will never be accomplished because it is always to be accomplished anew for each generation of living men [sic]. thus spoke Archibald MacLeish.