As the title suggests, we are here addressing the most fundamental questions: Who is man? What is art? What is the bond that unites man, nature and art? The argument at the heart of this book is that what should be common to all men and women-a natural affinity with the sacred that holds out the promise of spiritual experience in everyday life- is in fact made all but impossible by the very nature of modern society. For what the modern world has set in place is nothing other than a pattern of life that prevents us from being what we truly are. The destruction of man that is part and parcel of...

At a time when poetry has little regard for anything beyond the commonplace realities of everyday perception and sentiment, these studies propose a restoration of balance as between outer and inner worlds. For too long, in the wake of our attempt at a rational, scientific civilization, it has been readily assumed that the centre of gravity of reality and truth falls within the realm of the physical world. But for the poets discussed in these pages the opposite is the case. For them the centre of gravity of the Real and the True decidedly falls within the spiritual world, the other, hidden...

FOR MORE THAN THIRTY YEARS, Brian Keeble's writings have made a most rare and valuable contribution to elucidating the applications of the philosophia perennis to our understanding of art and work--to the activities, in short, that sustain everyday life and economy. Daily Bread: Art and Work in the Reign of Quantity is a selection of pieces from Keeble's prose publications, intended to bring this important oeuvre to new readers and to consolidate it in a single volume for those already familiar with Keeble's work.

Inclusive of several previously uncollected essays by the author, the volume...