What is open era?

Famous quotes containing the words open and/or era:

    I perceive I have not really understood any thing, not a single
    object, and that no man ever can,
    Nature here in sight of the sea taking advantage of me to dart upon me and sting me,
    Because I have dared to open my mouth to sing at all.
    Walt Whitman (1819–1892)

    It is not the literal past that rules us, save, possibly, in a biological sense. It is images of the past.... Each new historical era mirrors itself in the picture and active mythology of its past or of a past borrowed from other cultures. It tests its sense of identity, of regress or new achievement against that past.
    George Steiner (b. 1929)