In a letter to Boccaccio, Petrarch extolled the virtue of poetry and letters for promoting an understanding of both human nature and morals. Th e letter was designed to console him after hearing a prediction that he was soon to die and that he ought to renounce poetry. Th e prophecy came from an elder renowned for his piety, but Petrarch admonished that too often dishonesty and fraud are couched in religious sentiments. Nothing, not even death, according to Petrarch, ought to divert us from literature. For Petrarch, Virgil was the source for understanding how literary studies not only promote...
In a letter to Boccaccio, Petrarch extolled the virtue of poetry and letters for promoting an understanding of both human nature and morals. Th e lett...
The essays grouped together in this volume look from differing angles at the crisis of condence faced by the contemporary state. What we see is the decline of the authority once associated with the Western nation-state as a source of public order and as a defender of cultural identity. Multiplying and contradictory rights claims, the breakdown of a shared political frame of reference, and attempts by public administration to micromanage society have all contributed to the threat to authority. What remains to be asked is whether the Western paradigm of the state can be restored to the...
The essays grouped together in this volume look from differing angles at the crisis of condence faced by the contemporary state. What we see is th...
This is the twenty-ninth volume in This World, a series on religion and public affairs. It focuses on theological and moral questions of deep significance for our time. The lines of division separating secular and religious outlooks, modernity and postmodernism, and romantic and classical styles of thought are some of the topics treated in this volume. Additional features are an exchange of opinions and a position paper intended to generate further discussion. This ongoing series of volumes seeks to provide a wide-ranging forum for differing views on religious and ethical...
This is the twenty-ninth volume in This World, a series on religion and public affairs. It focuses on theological and moral questions of d...
