Interview in groups of 3 to 4, and be prepared to
introduce someone else you talked to about their:
Name
Major
What kinds of things do you like to
read?
Course Introduction: HONP 101 (Great
Books/Ideas II): Making Modern Worlds
What does progress mean before 1900, from
the Early Modern (Renaissance, Restoration) period
through the early nineteenth century (eighteenth
century, Storm and Stress, Romanticism)?
“Making Modern Worlds”
charts authors' engagement with creating new scientific,
utopian, psychological, and colonial worlds. Authors
include Francis Bacon (New Atlantis), Margaret
Cavendish (The Blazing World), Voltaire (Candide),
Rousseau (Confessions), and Goethe (Sufferings
of Young Werther and Faust).
Familiarity
with most of these authors traditionally constitutes
membership to an educated community, but we will query
what makes these texts "great" (or not) and also prepare
students for next semester's focus on modern literature.
In what ways does
technological, scientific, social, and political progress
change human relations, and what it means to be human?
We will try to see if these authors propose any solutions to
the formation of identity through gender, class, and
racial roles.
Course Goals
Attain membership to a community of thinkers who
know what the following terms and authors refer to: Early
Modern era, eighteenth century, Storm and Stress,
Romanticism, Bacon, Cavendish, Goethe, Faust, Voltaire, and
Candide;
Become stronger critical thinkers, or adults able to
reason, argue, and make intelligent analyses about cultural
issues;
Improve technical writing skills;
And move students from being consumers of knowledge to
becoming producers of knowledge, by encouraging original
literary analysis in essays, exams, and class participation.
What would your ideal
utopia look like?
Part II: Expand on
this--How could science and technology possibly make the
goals you laid out possible?
Review
3 Corrections:
- Writing you did last Thursday resembles an essay exam
more than a close analysis
- Bacon's text written under rule of King James I (of
the King James Bible) in 1626
- we should refer to his utopia by its name, Bensalem
Ques. from lecture
What is the proper way to cite a passage from the bible
in MLA format?
Bible. Editor's name, ed. Place of
publication: Publisher, Year.
In-text: (Matt 5:10).
What do you think the significance of the travelers being
anonymous might be?
Do you think Bacon is aware that his utopia might very well
undermine traditional Christian beliefs? In what ways does he
try to defend against that in his text?
How much do you think Bacon kept the Queen in mind when he was
writing this, and do you think he added anything else to
appease her?
Review
Historical Background:
- Protestant revolution: Henry 8
dissolves Catholic Church, fight over succession related
to Protestant (Queen Elizabeth) vs. Catholic (her sister
Mary, cousin James)
- Charles I (Catholic) beheaded and
deposed by Cromwell and the Puritans
- His son (Charles II) went with his
French mother back to France
- Restored to throne in 1660, along with
his followers
- Cavendish was among these exiled
followers; parallel in BW (132)?
Cavendish's Solution for World
Peace
- the importance of monarchy, one
religion for one country (134)
- seeks to appropriate the Jews' cabbala (Kabbalah) (166)
- one ruler, one law, one language (201)
- clearly an allegory for England (214)
Cavendish & Science
- neither empirical nor reliable (138)
- microscopes (142-43), submarines (206)
- longevity cure (155)
Review
Close Analyses
John: Do you think Cavendish would use democracy as her form of
government in The Blazing World if she lived in modern America
since she would be influenced by the government?
Abby: If Margaret Cavendish believed that having one religion,
one monarchy and one language was the best way to achieve peace
in a society, why did she not also create a society of
homogeneous peoples as well?
Heather -- If Voltaire's French, why does he
make Candide German?
John --
During the lecture you mentioned that Rousseau and
Voltaire were actually quite big enemies because of their
differing view points. Did the two ever directly answer each
other's argument through writing? And, does that mean that at
one time Rousseau supported the "cause and effect" thinking or
the idea that everything happens for the best?
- see p. 83
What are your own
thoughts on why there is suffering & evil in the world?
money, competition for it
greed
desire for power
selfish desires
death, losing someone
not following the purpose that you already have
Candide's death count:
2 monkeys
Grand Inquisitor
Jew
Deism > God as watchmaker
Cacambo
Martin > Voltaire's voice/point of view (cynical)
Cunegonde > less free will than Candide?
"Occupy
Rousseau: Inequality & Social Justice." New York
Public Library. Stephen A. Schwarzmann Building, New York, NY. 9
March 2012. Roundtable Discussion.
Need to mix w/ people who aren't like you (cited
experience in the army)
We used to fight our own wars / war by proxy
Questions
about Faust lecture:
John: You mentioned that Valentine curses his sister right
before he dies. How does a fulfilled curse change the reader's
view of how God intervene's in one's life? Are readers supposed
to believe that this was a coincidence, or there is really
divine intervention.
Redemption
Complicity / Culpability > German history and culture
(Mittäterschaft)
Sarah: male, alive, not Mephistopheles/Wagner, kind of a
scientist
John to Sam: "I agree with you that both Faust
and Wagner take on the ambitious role of "playing God," and you
make an interesting point that Wagner different substantially
from Faust because he is not assisted by Mephistopheles. What do
you think Goethe's implications here are? Do you think that
Faust is any more at fault than Wagner because he took help from
Mephistopheles, or are both men considered sinners because of
their overambitious tendencies?"
Would you defend or prosecute
Faust in a court of law?
What's useful about this genre of writing?
What's challenging about it?
What success(es) did you have
with it?
What would you like and dislike about living in the 18th and
19th centuries (the period that Candide and Faust were written in)?