on the Inside

“That winter is washed away”
Poetry Editor Thomas D'Evelyn has once again chosen a poem from the pen of the 20th century American poet Wallace Stevens. In this poem Stevens looks at Homer's Odyssey and imagines Penelope's thoughts while she awaits the return of Ulysses.  Read in Poetry this week “The World as Meditation.”

Community and the Ethics of Responsibility
William French concludes his extended review of Glenn Moots' Politics Reformed by highlighting the spiritual foundations of political society: “Religious community takes . . . priority over citizenship, and sustainable political order requires communities . . . to supply civil society with that which society cannot itself supply: love.” Today read part 2 of “The Mystery of God’s Survival in Political Order.” (And part 1 may be read HERE.)

“Who is the winner? Macchiavelli?”
We welcome Anastasios Moulakis to VoegelinView. Professor Moulakis reviews for us Philippe Bénéton's The Kingdom Suffereth Violence, an imaginary dialogue among Machiavelli, Erasmus and St. Thomas More based on their writings: “In considering texts so ‘overloaded with interpretations’ as those of the three authors treated here, Bénéton wants to lead back to the suggestive complexity of their style and away from reductive foreshortened interpretations . . .” Read in Book Reviews this week “Wary of the Systematizing Spirit.”

Escaping from the Eye of Judgment
Glenn Hughes returns to VoegelinView with his review of Roger Scruton's latest book, The Face of God. Hughes sums up Scruton's arguement: “What blocks our recognition of the world and ourselves as gifts of a transcendent God is, above all, our fear of being accountable: for ourselves, for others, for the earth, and to God. And this shows itself in all the desecrations and degradations that we visit upon each other and the environment, as well as in our relentless turning of persons, sex, natural objects, food, etc., into mere objects for consumption.”Read in Book Reviews this week “Escaping from the Eye of Judgment.”