have the eternal and universal attraction of story as does thenballad. For this reason the great mass of the popular songs ofnmedieval times are lost to us, or — as Sir Edmund Chambersnputs it— “There must have been popular songs … forn[Chaucer’s] Absolon to sing to his rudible, but edacious timenhas reduced them to tantalizing fragments.”nBut medieval lyric belongs also to the Church and thenCourt — above all to the Church — and not merely to thenpeople as an abstract mass. So the lyric of these times is anwritten lyric to some considerable extent and thus has beennpreserved, however scatteringly, in documents. It has notnbeen so completely subject, as the ballad has been, to thenaccidents and vagaries of oral tradition. In the hands ofnwriters like Chaucer and the Scottish “Chaucerians” itnbecomes “literary” poetry and achieves a new status. Evennso, it remains in some essential features the lyric of tradition.nIt is still pre-Renaissance, prescientific, preindustrial. Mostnimportant of all, it precedes the age of prindng — of thenprinted book and the broadside sheet. It belongs to a societynthat even in its decline was still in many ways traditional andntherefore culturally nearer to the northern Europe of thenEddas and sagas — or perhaps ancient Greece — than to thenmechanized society of our time. In that older society thenhigh place of poetry was conceded, as today it is not.nThe poetry of tradition is rooted in human occupationsnas they are pursued from dawn to dark, from season tonseason, on land and sea, through harvest and winter, in warnor peace. It is associated with festivals and rituals, bothnAutobiographicalnReflectionsnEric VoegelinnEdited, with annIntroduction, bynEllis Sandozn”Autobiographical Reflectionsnis a valuable introductionnfor any studentnof Voegelin, being, as itnis, notning less thannVoegelin’s ovs’n account of the intellectual influencesnthat went into the making of his greatnvs^ork. Order and History.” Walker Percyn”It is hard to imagine a more lustrous and alsonengrossmg memoir. -Robert Nisbetn”[Voegelin’s] Autobiographical Reflections isnerhaps the most warm and engaging of allnEis books and probably constitutes the bestnand most readable introduction to his work.”n—Cleanth Brooksn$16.95n22/CHRONICLESnInLSUT PressnLouisiana State University PressnBaton Rouge 70893nnnsacred and secular; and the distance between sacred andnsecular is not forbiddingly immense, as in our modern times.nIt is an art designed for oral performance, preserved innhuman memory and the oral tradition that also preservesnballad and folk song; and maybe it is lost for that very reason.nAnd even when written by known poets, great poets indeed,nit still reflects the standards and qualities of a poetry sung ornspoken rather than a poetry read with the eye only. It has anplace in life, a use in life; it is not a fancy thing, not a luxury,nnot a toy, not sheer entertainment — though it has thenfaculty, all the same, in Sidney’s phrase, of holding childrennfrom play and old men from the chimney corner. It is anrecognized function of civilized life, and the lyric of thenMiddle Ages, more than other literary forms, is “functional”nin the favorable sense given to that term in modern times.nAbove all it is part of the continuity of life — the tie thatnbinds generation to generation. We should not forget, too,nthat it joins with the great tradition of Western civilization —nthe classic tradition. We can know from it — distant thoughnwe may be from those times — what that tradition means asna nonbookish, even nonliterary element in our life.nWhen the poet of the Renaissance rejectedn”medievalism” in favor of the New Poetry of the 16thncentury, he may be said to have improved the “art” ofnpoetry. But it would now seem that he did so at the cost,nultimately, of alienating the poetic art and himself from thenmainstream of public and private life. Thus, while declaringnthe primacy of poetry, as Sidney did, he unknowingly votednfor its subordination. nA Government of LawsnPolitical Theory, Religion, and thenAmerican FoundingnEllis Sandozn”Ellis Sandoz has written a profound andnsearching study of the patterns of thoughtnknown to and elaborated on by the AmericannFounders.” —Ralph Ketchamn”The comprehensiveness and openness ofnEllis Sandoz’s approach to the political and religiousnfoundations of the American constitutionalnorder guarantee that A Government ofnLaws will occupy a high, distinctive, andnpermanent place among the works of thisn^ ‘^ ,• —George W. Careyn”Sandoz has written a trenchant, highlynilluminating argument. . . . There is preciousnlittle to compete with this book.”n—Donald S. Lutzn$37.50n