I like how he knows that the words of the poet will outlive him. It was, in some ways, Howard connecting with me across time acknowledging that he was in part writing to communicate with an unknown future audience.
That is, if Howard's commentary was actually reflective of his own beliefs.
You forget though that Howard regarded barbarism as natural and civilization as temporary. Conan also as the 'Barbarian Archetype' is the character meant to come in be less 'civiliized' than those around him, reset the civilization to its core values then leave that is to say in the various short-stories.
One could look at what he does as a kind of revitalizing action that restores a culture to its core values. In this way I'm not sure we should be lumping all barbarians together, as for example in history Zeno did rescue the Eastern Empire and he was a barbarian, and there's Charlemagne who rescued Civilization so to speak and he was a barbarian, there is also the likes of Taira no Kiyomori in Japanese history who rescued civilization and he was a barbarian.
Conan does not bother with the arts! He does, however, has Aquilonia’s treasury to find him such talents and put coins in their palms…
I like how he knows that the words of the poet will outlive him. It was, in some ways, Howard connecting with me across time acknowledging that he was in part writing to communicate with an unknown future audience.
That is, if Howard's commentary was actually reflective of his own beliefs.
You forget though that Howard regarded barbarism as natural and civilization as temporary. Conan also as the 'Barbarian Archetype' is the character meant to come in be less 'civiliized' than those around him, reset the civilization to its core values then leave that is to say in the various short-stories.
One could look at what he does as a kind of revitalizing action that restores a culture to its core values. In this way I'm not sure we should be lumping all barbarians together, as for example in history Zeno did rescue the Eastern Empire and he was a barbarian, and there's Charlemagne who rescued Civilization so to speak and he was a barbarian, there is also the likes of Taira no Kiyomori in Japanese history who rescued civilization and he was a barbarian.