Ten years after publishing his first collection of lyric poetry, "Odes I-III," Horace (65 B.C.-8 B.C.) returned to lyric and published another book of fifteen odes, "Odes IV." These later lyrics, which praise Augustus, the imperial family, and other political insiders, have often been treated more as propaganda than art. But in "A Symposion of Praise," Timothy Johnson examines the richly textured ambiguities of "Odes IV" that engage the audience in the communal or "sympotic" formulation of Horace's praise. Surpassing propaganda, "Odes IV" reflects the finely nuanced and imaginative poetry of...

Medieval Franciscans prayed in hermitages and churches, on the road and in the piazza, with song and silence. The unique stories of these men and women, as their engaging texts, stunning architecture and breath-taking artwork suggest, are narratives of souls, enfleshed in their respective worlds of the leprosarium, university, or itinerant preaching. The essays in this book foster a nuanced perspective on Franciscan beliefs and spiritual practices by resisting the temptation to reduce their myriad accounts of prayer to an exclusive, univocal spirituality. By displaying the breadth and depth...