There is an old story about an analytic philosopher who became exasperated with the shocking neglect of history in his field. He decided to give a lecture on the Meaning of Truth, and prefaced it by saying that, this time, he would go back to the very origins of the problem. Then the lecture proper began: ‘In 1910 Bertrand Russell …’

A part of me finds that story quite sympathetic. Reflecting on the scholarly field of literary careers, I might follow the same route back to the very origins of the problem. The study of poetic careers began one January day in 1981, in Santa Barbara, California, when I gave a talk that drew on my forthcoming book The Life of the Poet, and that evening took part in an informal seminar where Richard Helgerson described his work in progress on laureate poets. Together we made history that day – though no one then seemed to notice. Eventually our ranks would swell and others would join the conversation, until a whole new discourse was born. Or so goes my story, which seems as plausible as most that scholars tell about their own importance.

But even in a personal view, that history might be just a bit self-serving. Perhaps one ought to go back a little – say three millennia or so. Instead of starting in Santa Barbara, then, the story would begin on the mountain of Helicon.