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[{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "The Tragedy of Romeo and Juliet", "intro_essay": " '<p>To read Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet is to enter a world of sex and danger and violence. It is a world in which parents force their thirteen-year-old daughter to marry; in which attending a party without being invited can get you killed; in which a single gesture ignites a deadly street-fight. Blood pools in the streets and smears everyone’s hands. “You men, you beasts,” screams Prince Escalus, the ruler of Verona, as men stab and gut each other in a public square-</p>\\r\\n<blockquote><p>You men, you beasts,<br />\\r\\nThat quench the fire of your pernicious rage<br />\\r\\nWith purple fountains issuing from your veins!<br />\\r\\nOn pain of torture, from those bloody hands<br />\\r\\n\\r\\nThrow your mistempered weapons to the ground<br />\\r\\nAnd hear the sentence of your moved prince.<br />\\r\\n(Act 1, Scene 1, LINE #’s from e-text)</p></blockquote>\\r\\n<p>So horrific is this violence that, in a desperate attempt to keep the peace, the Prince issues the death-penalty to anyone who provokes another fight: “If ever you disturb our streets again / Your lives shall pay the forfeit of the peace,” he tells the mob. But enforcing the law cannot stem the blood that bursts and gushes like something out of a Renaissance Kill Bill. Three times throughout the play violence explodes and blood coats the stage, and each time the Prince arrives after the bodies have fallen, in time only to lecture the survivors. This uncontrollable violence is the result of an ages-old feud between two rich families, the Montagues and the Capulets, who together dominate Veronese society. Thanks to the enmity (one of Shakespeare’s words) between these families, Verona’s citizens can’t so much as step out of their homes without a firm grip on their swords. Everyday life in Verona is about survival, about picking one’s way through piled bodies-or slitting someone’s throat to save your own.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p>But let’s not forget about the sex. Between the explosions of violence, there’s a lot of it. In fact, the sex and the violence often occur at the same time. Of course, we’re not talking about actually getting it on on stage-remember, Shakespeare wrote his plays for a public theater, and his cast was all male-but sometimes Shakespeare cuts it pretty close: in one scene (Act 3, scene 5), we see Romeo and Juliet just after they get out of bed, and for much of the play, the two lovers can barely keep their hands off of each other. But more than the magnetic attraction between the two stars, the play is charged with sexual energy in its language-the way characters speak. From the very beginning of Romeo and Juliet, almost every character indulges in sexual puns (double entendres). A pun, you remember, is an expression that has more than one meaning; Shakespeare’s sexual puns are innocuous, everyday expressions that, interpreted literally, have no sexual meaning-but when understood fully, are often extremely explicit, “hard-core” references to sexual acts. Through double entendres, everyday conversation in Romeo and Juliet becomes pregnant with an undercurrent of barely controlled sexual energy. No topic of discussion is too mundane-or too elevated-to elicit sexual language. (When Lady Capulet asks the Nurse to tell her Juliet’s age, the Nurse can count the years only by recalling a dirty joke her husband made about the infant Juliet [1.3].) In Verona, sex is on the brain.</p>\\r\\n<p>Violence and sex are the two dominant forces in Veronese society. In fact, in Shakespeare’s Verona, it’s hard to separate the two. From the very beginning of the play, violence and sex seem to be interchangeable. Both are releases of energy requiring not thought, but rather a surrender to a powerful, sensual urge. But in Verona, the connection runs deeper than that. In the first scene of act one, Sampson and Gregory, loyal servants of the Capulets, eagerly discuss the feud with the Montagues. But as they boast of the Capulets’ superiority and their own bravery, their conversation is drawn, as if by magnetic force, towards sex:</p>\\r\\n<blockquote><p><strong>Sampson</strong>. I will take the wall of any man or maid of Montague’s. [I.e.: “I will take the best place on the sidewalk from any Montague.”]<br />\\r\\n\\r\\n<strong>Gregory</strong>. That shows thee a weak slave; for the weakest goes to the wall.<br />\\r\\n<strong>Sampson</strong>. ‘Tis true; and therefore women, being the weaker vessels, are ever thrust<br />\\r\\nto the wall. Therefore I will push Montague’s men from the wall and thrust his maids to the wall.</p></blockquote>\\r\\n<p>The boasts have turned ugly. By “thrust his maids to the wall,” Sampson doesn’t just mean “push the maids against the wall”-he means that he will rape them. Perhaps, sadly, it is not too surprising that a male discussion of superiority in fighting veers towards a (perverted) discussion of sexual prowess. But when the talk veers back to fighting, something strange happens. Still referring to the Montagues’ maids, Sampson boasts about the size of his, ummmm … endowment:</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<blockquote><p><strong>Sampson</strong>. Me they shall feel while I am able to stand [i.e., while I have an erection];<br />\\r\\nand ’tis known I am a pretty piece of flesh [”piece of flesh” means penis].<br />\\r\\n<strong>Gregory</strong>. ‘Tis well thou art not fish; if thou hadst, thou hadst been poor-John.<br />\\r\\nDraw thy tool! Here comes two of the house of Montagues.</p></blockquote>\\r\\n<p>As Gregory responds to Sampson’s crude male boast about “how big” he is, two of the Montague men arrive on the scene-and so Gregory, eager to pick a fight, tells Sampson to draw his sword. But Gregory doesn’t say, “Draw your sword!”-rather, he exclaims “Draw your tool!” The word tool, especially in the context of their conversation, has strong sexual overtones-here, it becomes a pun referring both to a sword and to a penis. Through the double-meaning of a pun, the language of fighting and violence has become the same as the language for sex. Sampson’s response to Gregory confirms the merging of the vocabularies of sex and violence:</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<blockquote><p><strong>Sampson</strong>. My naked weapon is out. Quarrel! I will back thee.</p></blockquote>\\r\\n<p>Sampson clearly understands Gregory’s pun on “tool”-for with “naked weapon,” Sampson refers not only to his sword, but also to his penis. (Of course, Sampson doesn’t expose himself on stage-the punning is figurative, not literal.) Sex and fighting become interchangeable: the penis becomes a weapon just as the sword becomes a sexual organ. For these men, it’s impossible to think of fighting without thinking of sex-a brutal and debased sort of sex-and it’s just as impossible to think of sex without thinking of fighting. Sex becomes a contest of “thrusting against the wall,” of violence; and violence involves the same sort of thrill, the same pleasure, as sex. In the world of Verona, the feud between the Montagues and Capulets continues because both sides find in it a pleasure akin to that of sex; indeed, when Romeo arrives after the opening fight, he recognizes just why the brawl broke out in the first place: “Here’s much to do with hate, but more with love” (1.1.lines). The Montagues and Capulets may hate each other, but they’ve grown to love hating each other-to love the rush and release of violence. In the true sense of the word, their Verona is a world of bloodlust.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p>What terrible kind of world is this? And why should we care about it? Well, for one, it’s the kind of place that Hollywood loves to put on the big screen. While it’s very much a play written by a Renaissance dramatist for a Renaissance audience, Romeo and Juliet offers the same sort of scenario that has driven many a blockbuster to box-office success: violence, drugs (well-a sleeping drug and some poison), and sex….and, for good measure, throw in a dose of teenage angst, overbearing parents, and parties. It’s like CSI:Miami-meets-American-Pie. Or at least that’s the take of director Baz Luhrmann, who, in his loud and ludicrous William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet, starring then-teen-hunk Leonardo di Caprio and the doe-eyed Claire Danes, does his very best to reduce Shakespeare’s drama into Bad Boys III. Luhrmann’s basic idea-setting the play in a 1990’s riot-stricken Florida beach-city (”Verona Beach”) and casting teen heartthrobs in the title roles-might have worked, but for one tiny problem: he chose to keep Shakespeare’s script.</p>\\r\\n<p>With a glitzy Miami-like backdrop, and in the mouths of actors who don’t really know how to say them, Shakespeare’s words stick out like a helicopter in Renaissance Italy. Sometimes a modern setting for a play of Shakespeare can help to make the play relevant to us, or can help to emphasize certain themes (Ian McKellen’s 1930’s-era Richard III, for instance); but the universe of Luhrmann’s Romeo and Juliet is not a realistic modern-day setting-it’s a caricature of a TV-set, with lead actors (especially di Caprio) who speak with about as much panache as soap-opera stars. Luhrmann would have done better to drop Shakespeare’s words-which seem, in this setting, like caviar and champagne served at McDonald’s-and replace them with modern slang. “Romeo, Romeo, why the heck are you Romeo?” Or: “But yo!-is that a light in Juliet’s window? No!-it’s Juliet! And she is glowing, man!” Rather than making Romeo and Juliet modern and relevant, Luhrmann makes it ridiculous-and the inclusion of Shakespeare’s language, as powerful and beautiful as it has been for four hundred years, simply makes Luhrmann’s soap-opera antics all the more ridiculous.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p>But for all the histrionic excesses of the movie, it does make us realize one important point: for all his fiddling-frenetic film editing; making the “Prince” into Captain Prince of the police force; an awful revision of the play’s ending-Luhrmann doesn’t fundamentally change the basic structure of the play. In other words, he layers some pretty ugly mascara onto the play-and with the revised ending, he gives it a nose-job-but, ridiculous as it looks in the make-up, it’s still, somehow, Shakespeare’s play. What we realize is both that Shakespeare’s drama does lie close enough to the recipe for a Hollywood blockbuster that Luhrmann can put it on the big screen without performing anything more than minor plot- or character-surgery; and also that, despite Luhrmann’s soap-opera-on-crack treatment, something in Shakespeare’s play remains untouched by the gimmicks.</p>\\r\\n<p>So what we really need to ask is: given the blood and the sex-which make Romeo and Juliet pretty much on par for a typical Hollywood summer flick-what elevates this play above the blockbuster? Why have people all around the world, and for over four hundred years, found in Romeo and Juliet the ultimate expression of romantic love?</p>\\r\\n<p align="center">***</p>\\r\\n<p> My own love for Romeo and Juliet-and for Shakespeare-grew out of a sense that Shakespeare’s characters are very, very real; in fact, that somehow, these characters are more real even than we are. Let me explain a bit.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p>I first came to Romeo and Juliet-and to Shakespeare-as a freshman in high-school. There’s a story here. My English teacher, a twenty-year veteran of the high-school classroom, cleverly decided to introduce our reading of Romeo and Juliet by showing us Franco Zeffirelli’s very traditional 1968 movie of the play. Although watching a movie was a treat that everyone in the class relished, no one was too excited about the prospect of a 138-minute, G-rated 1960’s film of a play by Shakespeare. (Okay; I was excited, and so were one or two of my friends….But most of the class, anticipating a nice opportunity for some shut-eye, arranged their binders to serve as pillows.) From the beginning, I was riveted; but my classmates, especially some of the boys, quickly dozed off. Our teacher sat at her desk, back to the TV, grading papers, trying-in vain-to make sure that all of us stayed awake. Only a few of us were actually watching by the time, getting towards the end of the play, that Romeo and Juliet enjoy their one night together as a married couple. At one point, Romeo and Juliet are lying in bed together (the guy behind me was snoring softly, so the bedroom setting seemed quite apt), swaddled in white sheets. Our teacher still had her back to the TV. Then it happened: Juliet went topless. Very briefly. But it had happened. Only three or four boys were awake; but you can be very sure that, within seconds, every male in the classroom had his eyes glued to the TV. Juliet kept her clothes on for the rest of the film-but everybody (or at least, every guy) remained wide awake.</p>\\r\\n<p>Perhaps the close attention everyone paid to the rest of the film was merely in hopes of another glimpse of bare breasts; but I’d like to think that the nude scene had a deeper significance than as an illicit thrill. Seeing Juliet-and Romeo, too, for that matter (we see his bare backside)-without their clothes had an impact beyond the salacious. Beneath the Renaissance costumes, Romeo’s and Juliet’s bodies were no different from ours. Take away language, take away clothes-at the most basic level, the human body is what we all share. While the immediate impact of a nude scene is to make us think of sex, after a moment, an exposed body attains a dignity and a certain fragility that render it uniquely and indelibly human. What is exposed is not just the body, but also the naked human soul. An illicit thrill is what makes us sit up and take notice at the beginning of the scene; what makes us keep watching is a sense that the person we see has suddenly become more dignified, more fragile-has become human. Seeing Romeo and Juliet naked made them more real to me. As I watched the rest of the film, my hormones hoped that Juliet might again go topless; but my mind and heart sensed, beneath the intricate costume, the dignified, fragile, naked Juliet.</p>\\r\\n<p>Shakespeare has no nude scene in his play. Like Luhrmann, Zeffirelli exercised his power as director to shape Shakespeare’s drama; but unlike Luhrmann, Zeffirelli’s choice is to use the unique advantages of his artistic medium-the film-to draw out and emphasize themes that Shakespeare encoded in his play. For the enduring greatness of Romeo and Juliet, what has made it the greatest love-story in Western culture, lies in Shakespeare’s ability to make Romeo and Juliet stand naked before us. Exposed to our eyes are the most intimate secrets and hopes and sensations and fears of a boy and girl discovering love, life, and, ultimately, death. Romeo and Juliet may wear clothes, but their humanity-flawed as all humanity must be-is made naked to us.</p>\\r\\n<p align="center">***</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p> How does Shakespeare do it? Words, words, words. Sculptors sculpt in clay or stone; painters paint in oils or watercolors; writers write in words. All that remains of Shakespeare’s plays is their scripts; so whatever we draw from Shakespeare is drawn from the language he composed four hundred years ago. And just as art-critics examine the smoothness or roughness of a sculpture, or the direction and size of brush-strokes in a painting, we, as attentive and critical students of Shakespeare’s plays, must examine the qualities of Shakespeare’s words-the images they evoke, their patterns, their sounds, their sense.</p>\\r\\n<p>In Romeo and Juliet, as in his other great plays, Shakespeare’s words retain the power to shock, stun, and startle. These are words remarkable not so much for their beauty (though at times they can be very beautiful), but rather for their strangeness. Listen, for instance, to these words, Benvolio’s advice to Romeo about Rosaline, the girl Romeo likes (but who doesn’t like him). Try reading this passage out loud:</p>\\r\\n<blockquote><p>Tut! you saw her fair, none else being by,<br />\\r\\nHerself poised with herself in either eye;<br />\\r\\nBut in that crystal scales let there be weighed<br />\\r\\n\\r\\nYour lady’s love against some other maid<br />\\r\\nThat I will show you shining at this feast,<br />\\r\\nAnd she shall scant show well that now seems best.<br />\\r\\n(1.2.lines)</p></blockquote>\\r\\n<p>Benvolio is telling Romeo that Rosaline only seems pretty because Romeo hasn’t compared her to any other girls; at tonight’s party, Benvolio says, Romeo will be able to find a girl so pretty she’ll make Rosaline look unattractive. Well-that’s what Benvolio means. But how does he say it? First, he uses a metaphor for Romeo’s eyes-he calls them crystal scales. “Scales” is an Elizabethan term for the balance-scale (you’ll remember this device from high-school science, I’m sure). What a very strange image!-Benvolio says that Romeo’s eyes are balance-scales made of crystal. How does this metaphor work? In a figurative sense, Benvolio can call Romeo’s eyes scales because they judge beauty, and the scales of justice are a traditional symbol of impartial judgment. But this metaphor is strangely mixed: by adding the qualifying adjective crystal, Benvolio makes reference not merely to the figurative balance-scale of Justice, but rather to the literal appearance of human eyes. As soon as we realize that the figurative metaphor of scales-of-justice for eyes-as-judging-beauty also has a literal dimension-crystal scales for white eyes-we realize that the literal dimension of the metaphor is, in fact, more fully developed than the figurative. Before he introduces the image of crystal scales, Benvolio says something a bit odd: “you saw her fair, none else being by, / Herself poised with herself in either eye.” What Benvolio means is that the image of Rosaline-”herself”-appeared in both of Romeo’s eyes (imagine looking closely into someone’s eyes so that you can see your reflection in both eyes); but the verb he uses, “poised,” means balanced. Benvolio’s description of the two images of Rosaline balanced in Romeo’s eyes thus anticipates and makes literal the metaphor of the eyes as crystal scales: just as a balance-scale has two trays in which one places two objects to determine which is heavier, on Romeo’s face there are two eyes in which are placed two Rosalines. And although by “herself,” Benvolio figuratively means “image of Rosaline,” his language is actually very literal-”Herself poised with herself in either eye,” as though two Rosalines are actually standing in Romeo’s face. Suddenly, Romeo’s eyes become crystalline scales with women standing in them. Shakespeare’s language metamorphoses the human eyes into objects strange, alien, almost unrecognizable.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p>I’ve spent a few moments discussing that metaphor to show you just how richly strange Shakespeare’s language is-how exciting and rewarding it is to probe that language. With language like this does Shakespeare give us the naked humanity of Romeo and Juliet-he captures, with all the transfiguring strangeness of his words, the unfathomable mystery of sexual awakening. Precisely how he does that is a question that can only be answered by reading the play-which you’re about to do.</p>\\r\\n<p align="center">***</p>\\r\\n<p> The richly strange language-the essence of Shakespeare-is also the greatest challenge in reading his plays. Some pointers as you begin to read: first, don’t be intimidated. Even professors find some difficulty in understanding every word written by Shakespeare; after all, he lived four hundred years ago. If parents sometimes have trouble understanding their children’s language (”instant messaging? huh?”), and vice versa (”gnarly?! huh?”), then imagine how many words and expressions have changed throughout the four centuries since Shakespeare lived. But one of the reasons that Shakespeare is often considered the greatest writer in the English language is that, despite the four-hundred-year age-gap separating him from modern readers, so much of his language-and his ideas-remain accessible to us.</p>\\r\\n<p>Read Romeo and Juliet slowly, and you’ll probably be surprised by how much of it you can understand! When you encounter expressions that seem forbidding or completely alien, consult any standard printed edition of the play, where the editor will provide what’s called a “gloss”-an explanation of an obscure word or a re-statement in modern English of a difficult phrase. What you should always remember is that, just because Shakespeare remains the most famous writer in the English language, you shouldn’t think that every line he wrote is perfect. If you don’t like a phrase or sentence or line, try to articulate what qualities displease you; inversely, if you find a line beautiful or particularly powerful, ask yourself why.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p>It is indeed a good idea, as my wise English teacher realized, to watch the Zeffirelli film before you read the play: while Zeffirelli cuts out some of the action and makes a few very minor changes to the plot, the movie will give you a good idea of what actually occurs in the play. Then, when you encounter Shakespeare’s difficult language on the page, you won’t have to spend as much time figuring out what’s actually happening, and can spend more time marveling at the beauty and profundity and strangeness of Shakespeare’s words.</p>\\r\\n<p>Finally, although you don’t need any reminder of this, here it is, anyway: Shakespeare is not easy. In fact, reading Shakespeare is about as hard as reading anything written in the English language. But if you’re persistent and patient, reading Shakespeare can also be more exciting than anything else-video games, movies, sports-you name it. I mean this seriously, and I hope you’ll come to see what I mean. So here’s a strategy that’s always helped me in reading Shakespeare, and I suggest that you try it, too. As you read a scene for the first time, try to figure out exactly what’s going on. The action can be fairly complex; so your first challenge will be to gain a mental image of who’s doing what, and how, and when, and where. (Again, watching the film can help.) Once you figure out what’s happening-which is usually pretty exciting!-you can start to think about what ideas Shakespeare is presenting, and why. This may not sound too exciting, but follow me!-and I think you’ll see just how thrilling reading Shakespeare can be.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p align="center">***</p>\\r\\n<p> Earlier I asked, but never really fully or directly answered, these questions: What kind of a world is the world of Romeo and Juliet? And why should we care about it? In a universe where violence and sex feed off of each other in a perverted, brutal symbiosis, Romeo and Juliet-two adolescents discovering their own sexuality and, thus, what it means to be alive as human beings-promise to disrupt that vicious bond. Their love-sexual but not violent-will end the feud that fuses sex and violence; this love promises to replace the power of destruction with the power of creation. In his richly strange language, Shakespeare makes them and their miraculous, healing love as real to us as anything we will ever know.</p>\\r\\n'", "summary": " 'Romeo and Juliet is an early tragedy by William Shakespeare about two teenage \\\\"star-cross\\\\''d lovers\\\\" whose \\\\"untimely deaths\\\\" ultimately unite their rival households. The play has been highly praised by literary critics for its language and dramatic effect. It was among Shakespeare\\\\''s most popular plays during his lifetime and, along with Hamlet, is one of his most frequently performed plays. It is considered by many to be the world\\\\''s most iconic love story.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-06 22:16:56'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 2671", "id": 4, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=3'"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Hamlet", "intro_essay": " '<p>Whenever I have to write about <em>Hamlet</em>, I always wish I could obey Hamlet’s last words - “the rest is silence” - and just shut up, letting the play do all the talking. But Hamlet is one of those great cultural artifacts (like <em>Ulysses</em> <em>or Meet the Beatles</em>) that seem to say it all and yet leave so much to be discussed, and <em>Hamlet</em> has been the subject of a continuous discussion by scholars around the world, since its first performance around 1601.</p><p>I will here give some history of the play, some fascinating odds and ends about Shakespeare’s life around the time of its composition, brief descriptions of some of the more compelling critical approaches (from Coleridge, Hazlitt, Goethe, Eliot, Greenblatt, and a few others), while including throughout some modest ideas of my own.Curtain up.</p><p>****</p><p><strong>Part I: “Who’s there?”</strong></p><p align="center"> - In which the reader, aided by a brisk and entertaining plot summary,recalls what happens in this play, and graciously accepts a suggestionfrom the author as to how the play might be read -For the first-time reader of the play, it may help to know what, exactly, happens in it. Even returning readers may find it helpful to reacquaint themselves with the plot and characters.</p><p><em>Hamlet</em> looks, at first glance, like a revenge tragedy in the strictest sense. The play takes its plot from an Icelandic myth of the 11th century - of which more in the annotations - and its premise is very basic.</p><p>Before the play begins, Denmark is ruled by King Hamlet. This king has a wife named Gertrude, and together they have a son whose name is also Hamlet (”Hamlet Junior,” so to speak). But the king also has a jealous, evil brother, named Claudius, and Claudius wants two things that the king has: his throne, and his wife. So Claudius concocts a scheme to murder his brother in his sleep by pouring poison into his ear. Then, he plans to marry Gertrude, with whom, it must be assumed, he has been having an affair for quite a while <strong>[1]</strong>. Claudius’s plan comes off perfectly. King Hamlet goes to sleep one day in his orchard, as is his “custom always in the afternoon,” and, falling victim to Claudius’s fatal elixir, never wakes up.</p><p>At this point the action of the play begins, and Claudius is all set to marry Gertrude. By doing so, he will become king of Denmark - the title that should by all rights be Hamlet’s upon his father’s death. Claudius is riding high, but not for long.</p><p>Soon enough, King Hamlet’s ghost makes the schlep from Purgatory back to Elsinore Castle (the seat of the Danish monarchy in this play) to tell his son what’s happened to him. Hamlet now has a mission: to avenge his father’s death by killing Claudius.</p><p>To this end, Hamlet pretends to be mad (he puts on an “antic disposition,” in his own words) to throw Claudius off the trail and give himself some time to plan <strong>[2]</strong>. Letting only his friend Horatio (who is, in many ways, his only friend) into his confidence, Hamlet proceeds to terrorize his love(r) Ophelia, his mother Gertrude, the courtier Polonius, and just about everyone else who comes in his line of fire. And yet for all of Hamlet’s cruelty and confusion - and indeed there is much of it - there’s one thing that he’s unable to do for a very long time: take revenge on Claudius for the murder of his father. In one memorable scene, Hamlet has the chance to kill Claudius but he spares him because Claudius is praying, and Hamlet doesn’t want to do him the “favor” of sending his soul to heaven, as happens to a soul murdered in prayer. Most critics don’t buy Hamlet’s excuse here, though, and read the scene as indicative of Hamlet’s habit to “resolve to do, yet do nothing but resolve” (Coleridge’s words).</p><p>One thing that delays the revenge is that Hamlet wants to be sure the ghost is telling him the truth. This wasn’t an entirely irrelevant concern in England at the time of the play, because evil spirits sometimes took the forms of benevolent ones with the goal of tricking you into hell. To try to be as sure as he can that Claudius really is a murderer, Hamlet stages a play with a visiting troupe of actors. Hamlet’s play is modeled after the murder of his father by Claudius, and he plans to watch Claudius’s reaction to the play as a means of determining his guilt or innocence. If he really freaks out, which he does, then Hamlet will know that the ghost speaks truth.</p><p>Claudius responds to the play exactly as an unconfessed murderer would; by breaking up the show and screaming “Give me some light. Away!” And then Hamlet takes out his sword and impales this jerk, right? <em>Wrong</em>. It takes Hamlet two more acts to kill Claudius, and when he finally does, in a chaotic duel in the final scene, it looks nothing like the perfect revenge killing we’ve imagined back when the ghost first told Hamlet to avenge his “foul and most unnatural murder.”</p><p>You’ll notice, of course, that I’m pushing a particular reading of Hamlet, focusing on the things that Hamlet <em>doesn’t</em> do rather than the things that he <em>does</em>. I’m doing this for a reason. When I first read Hamlet in high school, I wish that someone had told me that the plot of the play isn’t in the revenge plot so much as in Hamlet’s inability to execute it, in his haltings, in his doubts - in other words, the plot of this play is in the mind of the character whom some critics call Shakespeare’s “genius.” As Stephen Greenblatt puts it in his book <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHamlet-Purgatory-Stephen-Greenblatt%2Fdp%2F0691102570%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201726014%26sr%3D8-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">Hamlet in Purgatory</a></em><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" />, which is required reading for all those who will be unsatisfied, as they should be, with the limited scope of this introductory essay, the ghost’s insistence that Hamlet “remember me” resonates more deeply than his order to avenge.</p><p>This play looks like a revenge play, sure, but the play is about remembering and not about “revenging.” I want to end this first section with a few lines from Hamlet in Purgatory. Take it away, Greenblatt:</p><blockquote><p> Hamlet will complain that conscience - here consciousness itself - “does make cowards of us all”…This corrosive inwardness - the hallmark of the entire play and the cause of its astonishing, worldwide renown - is glimpsed even in his first frantic response to the Ghost, and it is reinforced by the Ghosts’s command, “Remember me.” From this perspective, what is at skate in the shift of emphasis from vengeance to remembrance is nothing less than the whole play (Greenblatt 208).</p></blockquote><p>So how did it happen, the writing of this play with worldwide renown? What has been the response to it? For answers to these questions and more, we continue now to…</p><p><strong>Part II: “This Piece of Work”</strong></p><p align="center"> - In which are explained the circumstances of the play’s composition, asbest as are known to us, and in which the reader learns of the play’stroubled publishing history-</p><p>Any discussion of the historical circumstances of <em>Hamlet</em>’s composition will by its nature owe a debt to Greenblatt and the critical school that has come to be called New Historicism. Anyone interesting in learning about the man behind the curtain, as it were, would do well to pick up Greenblatt’s <em>Hamlet in Purgatory</em>, or his newer <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FWill-World-How-Shakespeare-Became%2Fdp%2F039332737X%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201726315%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">Will in the World</a></em><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" />. Both provide succulent morsels of Shakespeare biography, a few of which I will include here.</p><p>Shakespeare likely wrote <em>Hamlet</em> in 1601. In the chronology of Shakespeare’s plays, this puts it after Julius Caesar but before the great run of tragedies that included Othello, Macbeth, King Lear, and Antony and Cleopatra.</p><p>In the chronology of Shakespeare’s life, though, the play is situated more interestingly. First things first: Shakespeare had a son whose name was Hamnet (a variation of Hamlet), and Hamnet died around age 11, in 1596. Five years later - the year that <em>Hamlet</em> was composed - Shakespeare suffered another loss, the death of his father John Shakespeare, who is certainly the glove-maker to whom humanity owes the greatest debt. Without making too much of this pun (although Shakespeare himself makes a similar one in <em>Hamlet</em> and elsewhere), death was very alive for Shakespeare in the deepest sense in these few years.</p><p>It’s not inconceivable - and here I am unapologetically borrowing from Greenblatt - that Shakespeare would have been haunted by the same demons that haunt Hamlet. Namely, the fear of a father (and a son?) trapped in purgatory and dependent for salvation on the prayers of the living, as King Hamlet is, could have struck a chord with him for more reasons than simply artistic ones. This is not to suggest that Shakespeare was a believing Christian, and I would further caution readers from assuming that Shakespeare’s plays put all that much stock in the metaphysical. It seems silly to say that a play like Hamlet, which has, for heaven’s sake, a ghost, is not a metaphysical play. But it tends to be more productive to read Shakespeare as a rational, this-world playwright than to read him as a kind of mad sorcerer. More on this later, in the annotations.</p><p>Returning to our narrative we fast-forward to 1757, when renovations were being undertaken on the house where Shakespeare was born, in Stratford-upon-Avon. In the course of making improvements on the roof, the workers found a document that is of interest to us in our present New Historical mode, because Greenblatt makes it a piece of his argument in <em>Hamlet in Purgatory</em>. In it, John asks his survivors to pray for him, should he wind up “a long while in Purgatory,” so that his soul can eventually be saved (Greenblatt 249). The document bears more than passing resemblance to the ghost’s speech in act one.</p><p>Taken together, the death of Hamnet and subsequent death of John (with all of its attendant complications, like the “spiritual testament”), point to a writer in the grip of unique circumstances at the time he was composing his greatest work.Back to 1601: Shakespeare finishes the play and The King’s Men, his playing company, put it on. Richard Burbage, the actor who first played some of Shakespeare’s greatest roles - he’d just played Brutus in <em>Caesar</em> - would have been Hamlet, and we can be reasonable sure that our date for the first performance (1599? 1601?) is close, because a number of English diarists and writers mention it in their writing around that time.</p><p>As for the textual history of the play, something must of course be said. For a more detailed history of the <em>Hamlet</em> manuscripts than can reasonably be provided here, the introduction to the Oxford edition is a good place to start, and for the very curious, Thomas Clayton’s <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHamlet-First-Published-Origins-Intertextualities%2Fdp%2F0874134277%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201726562%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">The Hamlet First Published</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" /></em> a good place to finish. The text of the play first appeared in print around 1603 in Quarto form, which Clayton calls “the day’s paperback.” Strangely, the First Quarto was rediscovered by modern scholars <em>after</em> the Second Quarto and the Folio version of 1623, leading, as you can imagine, to intriguing questions for scholars.</p><p>What becomes immediately clear when we read about manuscript history is that the copies of <em>Hamlet</em> we read today are not necessarily authoritative - they are the admirable efforts by scholars and editors to provide us with a copy of the play that we can live with, that seems to make sense.</p><p>There are still maddening questions about some of Shakespeare’s words, which tend not to go away. Compare Hamlet’s final words in these three versions:</p><p>First Quarto of 1603: Farewell Horatio, heaven receive my soul. <em>Ham. dies.</em></p><p>Second Quarto of 1604: the rest is silence</p><p>Folio of 1623: The rest is silence. O, o, o, o, <em>Dyes</em>.</p><p>Oxford Shakespeare edition: the rest is silence. <em>He gives a long sigh and dies</em>(Quarto text from Clayton p. 34)</p><p>And believe it or not, these are some of the <em>less</em> contested lines in the play. What really ices the cake as far as textual inconsistencies are concerned is the “to be or not to be” monologue (3.1.57-91). You may want to refresh your memory by reading the text of the Folio version (<a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/permalink.php?annotation=1240" title="Hamlet" target="_blank" class="standard">the one on this website</a>) first, just so you can see how messed up the following really is:</p><p><strong>First Quarto:</strong></p><blockquote></blockquote><blockquote><p>To be, or not to be, I there’s the point,To Die, to sleepe, is that all? I all:No, to sleepe, to dreame, I mary there it goes,For in that dreame of death, when wee awake,And borne before an everlasting Judge,From whence no passenger ever retur’ndTo undiscovered country, at whose sightThe happy smile, and the accursed damn’d.</p></blockquote><p>The infelicities of this abomination are too numerous to count. One critic aptly calls it “this farrago of nonsense,” and finds it hard to believe that Shakespeare could actually have written it. To be sure, the mangled syntax, inelegant interjections - “I there’s the point” - and all-around <em>averageness</em> of the fantasy it presents of the Christian afterlife, makes it hard to believe that the same author that produced it is also responsible for its more beautiful sister in the Folio.</p><p>But suggesting that the Quarto is some how a forgery, and that Shakespeare didn’t have a hand in it, precludes us from coming to a more reasonable conclusion about the Quarto text’s origins. The First Quarto of <em>Hamlet</em> is not by a long shot the only “bad” text attributed to Shakespeare. <em>Timon of Athens</em>, which also contains much rough versification, even has many passages that are simply lifted directly from Shakespeare’s Latin sources, with no modifications made to them. The Timon manuscript is therefore often regarded as a draft by Shakespeare, a glimpse into his method of working on plays. Can the same be said of the First Quarto of <em>Hamlet</em>?</p><p>No. The First Quarto is so different from the Folio that it can’t reasonably be thought of as a work-in-progress. What may help explain the ubiquity of mediocre manuscripts by Shakespeare (though I can make no claim to historically explain the First Quarto specifically - scholarship is still undecided) is the process by which cash-hungry London printers in the early 17th century sought to make money off Shakespeare’s wildly popular plays.</p><p>Printers often found members of Shakespeare’s company who played minor roles and were willing, for a couple of beers and some cash, to try to remember as much as they could of the text and recite it to a company scribe. Then, the printers would take their “pirated” Shakespeare to press and sell it for a quick profit. Given this trend, it’s no wonder that Shakespeare’s company’s versions of the plays bear promises on their title pages that they are official and true to the original.</p><p>It would take 20 years - until the publication of the great Folio of 1623, for the printed version of the play (of all the plays) to do justice to the genius of their author.</p><p>It may well be asked, at this point, how readers received the play, and what some of Shakespeare’s greatest critics have made of it. For these insights and more, we must turn to…</p><p><strong>Part III: “Wild and whirling words”</strong></p><p align="center"> - In which the author says a few words about his favorite criticsof the play, and presumes with great insolence to respond totheir theories -</p><p>We have spent some time by now with Stephen Greenblatt’s scholarship, which I’m sure you will agree has enriched us and fortified us considerably. But Greenblatt is just one in a long line of <em>Hamlet</em> scholars, and I want to turn our attention to a kind of golden age of Hamlet scholarship, the era in which “Bardolatry” began in earnest. I’m talking about the period from about 1790 to about 1840, when the Germans J. W. Goethe and Ludwig Tieck were writing along with the Englishmen Samuel Coleridge and William Hazlitt (among many, many others). I make use of the work of all four of these men in my annotations, and so I would do well to provide an introduction to their work at this point.</p><p>This period - the early 19th century - saw the emergence of a new kind of Hamlet. As T. S. Eliot notes, and as Hazlitt noted many years before him, each generation of scholars has the tendency to make Hamlet into a suitable focal point for their particular theoretical energies. But because I happen to like very much the Hamlet that these critics have handed down to us, I think it’s well worth describing him here, thereby committing the very pleasurable crime that Eliot describes in his essay (<a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=29&section_id=836" title="Hamlet and his Problems" target="_blank" class="standard">available on this website</a>) and that let Hazlitt to observe, “We are Hamlet.”</p><p>Hamlet in the early 19th century becomes more Romantic. He becomes gentler, more brooding, less suited to action. He develops an active internal life that precludes him from making big moves in the world outside the self. In short, he becomes a genius. And he does all these things thanks to a newly internationalized school of <em>Hamlet</em> criticism, as evidenced by the presence of those two great continental philosophers - Goethe and Tieck - in my choice of critics to present in this essay. Without further ado, I will introduce the work of…</p><p><strong>J. W. Goethe</strong></p><p>Goethe (1749-1832) may well be the most influential reader of <em>Hamlet</em> to ever put pen to paper. In 1796 Goethe wrote a Bildungsroman (”coming of age novel,” more or less) called <em>The Apprenticeship of Wilhelm Meister</em>, about a well-born and theater-obsessed boy named Wilhelm, who resembles his author in certain important ways and yet is not to be confused with him altogether. In the section of relevance to us, Wilhelm joins a theater troupe and persuades them to put on <em>Hamlet</em>, with himself in the leading role.</p><p>Immediately, Wilhelm finds it difficult to reconcile certain “inconsistencies” in the character. “The farther I advanced,” he says, “the more difficult did it become for me to form any image of the whole, in its general bearings; till at last it seemed as if impossible.” To try to get at an actable conception of his character, Wilhelm performs an elegant thought experiment, imagining what Hamlet was like before the beginning of the play, before the murder of his father. He wants to “distinguish” the essential parts of his character from the damaging repercussions of the traumatic event at the center of the play. What Wilhelm finds is that the teenage Hamlet would have been riding high. He had a nice girl named Ophelia, he was handsome, he was set to inherit the throne, he was smart as hell. Much of the inconsistencies we observe in Hamlet’s character (and, as will be seen when we discuss Coleridge, there are many indeed) can be seen as incomplete efforts to reconcile these two disparate lives into the elusive “whole” that Wilhelm the actor needs to play Hamlet.</p><p>Wilhelm follows his work through to the other characters in the play, and has especially sympathetic things to say about Ophelia, who suffers more than anyone else from the “inversion” of Hamlet’s affections - from love to spiteful madness - after his father’s death. Ophelia’s suicide becomes for Goethe a kind of collapse of the self in the wake of two traumatic events, abandonment by Hamlet and the death of Polonius. He writes, “Her heart breaks. The whole structure of her being is loosened from its joinings; her father’s death strikes fiercely against it; and the fair edifice altogether crumbles into fragments.” Not bad.Wilhelm Meister also offers an interesting discussion about the ethics of cutting the play for performance, and many more observations.<strong>S. T. Coleridge</strong></p><p>Coleridge (1772-1835) is the man when it comes to a particularly strange element of Hamlet’s character: the way he talks about revenge but doesn’t take it. One of Coleridge’s most compelling insights is this: That hamlet “mistakes the seeing his chains for the breaking them.”</p><p>Hamlet shouts, “that this too solid flesh would melt!” - he knows he wants somehow to escape from the body, from life, from the villainy at Elsinore - but he seems unable to <em>do</em> it. With Coleridge’s maxim in mind, much of the rest of the play makes more sense.</p><p>Hamlet is a man to whom every conceivable motive for drastic action has been provided. He has to revenge his father, a usurper is on his throne, a foreign invasion is imminent. Why, then, doesn’t he do anything until the very end, and even then only because he is manipulated into a messy duel that he cannot win?</p><p>Coleridge finds the answer in Hamlet’s internality: “[Hamlet] is a man living in meditation, called upon to act by every motive human and divine, but the great object of his life is defeated by continually resolving to do, yet doing nothing but resolve.” For Hamlet, to resolve is to act.</p><p>Coleridge puts Hamlet on the couch, then, in an interesting way. He sees in Hamlet a man with a highly perfected and complex mental life who is unable to translate his vision of the world onto the world itself. Hamlet has “that aversion to action which prevails among such as have a world in themselves.”</p><p>As for that “world” itself, Coleridge provides us with a vocabulary to talk about the way that Hamlet’s mind works. Specifically, in a phrase that will recur throughout my annotations, Coleridge describes something that he calls the “science of method.” By this he means the gift of Hamlet to assemble and associate things in a compressed, efficient, <em>relational</em> way. Hamlet does not see things in terms of how they <em>are</em> so much as in how they <em>relate</em> to each other:</p><blockquote><p> “method becomes natural to the mind which has been accustomed to contemplate not things only, or for their own sake alone, but likewise and chiefly the relations of things, either their relations to each other, or to the observer, or to the state and apprehension of the hearers.”</p></blockquote><p>When this tendency is combined with Hamlet’s mental energy and natural intelligence (recall that we are in the period of criticism in which Hamlet becomes a genius), it’s no wonder that Hamlet’s “world unto himself” is vivid and complex enough to out-real the real world.<strong>William Hazlitt</strong></p><p>I will take a page from Polonius’s book and make a “short tale” of this section, because I rely more heavily on Greenblatt, Goethe, and Coleridge than on these other two critics in my annotations.</p><p>Hazlitt (1778-1830) was Coleridge’s buddy and frequently wrote reviews of <em>Hamlet</em> in which he turns the most exacting of eyes on every detail of the performances. In one such review, of the actor Edmund Kean (the Richard Burbage of early 19th century England), Hazlitt takes issue with a finer point. “His pronunciation of the word ‘contumely’ in the last of these [soliloquies] is, we apprehend, not authorized by custom, or by the metre,” he wrote.</p><p>Hazlitt agreed with Coleridge about Hamlet’s all-around lack of resolution, and shared his reading of scene 3.3, in which Hamlet has the chance to slay Claudius but decides against it because he is praying (3.3.70-90). Both men agree that Hamlet’s nod to the notion that a man who dies in prayer goes straight to heaven - “this is hire and salary,” he says, “not revenge” - is merely a smoke-and-mirrors act to excuse his own cowardice and indecision.</p><p>Hazlitt also gave us the chestnut “it is we who are Hamlet” and provides a clear elaboration of some of Coleridge’s ideas, especially of the “world unto himself.” “Because he cannot have his revenge perfect,” Hazlitt writes, “according to the most refined idea his wish can form, he declines it altogether.”</p><p>Hazlitt would have agreed with Wilhelm on the point that acting the part of Hamlet is a very, very daunting task, like trying to “embody a shadow.”<strong>Ludwig Tieck</strong>One of the most distinguished German critics of his time, Ludwig Tieck (1773-1853) provides insights on Ophelia in his <em>Observations on some Characters in Hamlet</em> of which I make considerable use in <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/permalink.php?annotation=2402" title="Hamlet Act IV scene 5" target="_blank" class="standard">my annotations of her mad scene</a>.</p><p>He also, like Hazlitt, notes that Hamlet is “charming” even at his most crazy, a note that fits nicely with Hazlitt’s characterization of Hamlet as the “most amiable of misanthropes.”</p><p>As for his observations on Hamlet himself, Tieck is as impressive a reader as any of his contemporaries. Since we’ve discussed the evolution of the “to be or not to be” speech in three manuscript versions, I will quote Tieck’s take on it (incidentally, “Tieck’s Take” would have been a great title for his weekly gossip column, if only he’d had one):</p><blockquote><p> “It all depends, he says to himself…whether the individual lives or does not live, that is to say, I do not dare more than life itself and then lose; therefore it is all a matter of life, whether I want to go to it! For he who does not fear death has nothing left to fear.”</p></blockquote><p>Tieck leaves no doubt as to the life-and-death stakes of Hamlet’s monologues, and I encourage you to return to this excerpt when you’ve read the “to be or not to be” speech in its context.</p><p>Having laid some important critical foundation, we now turn to…<strong>Part IV: “Let us haste to hear it”</strong></p><p align="center">- in which the reader, who, like Fortinbras in 5.2, is by this time eager to come to thepoint already (and begin reading the play), puts up with the author’sfinal words on his annotations, and is well rewarded for his patience -</p><p>It should be abundantly clear by now that there is a wealth of scholarship about this play, much of it very good, some of it astonishingly brilliant. What on earth, then, is the purpose of one more set of annotations? What’s the use?</p><p>In annotating this play, I have sought to combine some of the great readings of <em>Hamlet</em> that precede us with some new and unlikely insights. You will find links to YouTube videos sharing space with bits of Goethe and Coleridge, and Bob Dylan lyrics rubbing up against Stephen Greenblatt. In some cases I present readings of the play with which you may not agree. I hope that such disagreement will be productive and interesting, and I encourage you to join in the discussion by posting responses to the annotations.</p><p>Where I borrow from published work I always note it parenthetically, and the reader will find it helpful to consult the bibliography at the end of this essay to facilitate further reading.</p><p>But this is much ado about nothing! I hope you enjoy meeting Hamlet for the first time, if you are a new reader, and I hope that returning readers will find many things here to deepen their appreciation of what is perhaps the greatest English play of all time.<strong>NOTES:</strong>[1] The careful reader will see the affair between Claudius and Gertrude \u00e2\u20ac\u201c if indeed it has been going on for a long time \u00e2\u20ac\u201c leads to a dizzying possibility: is Hamlet Claudius’s son?</p><p>[2] Whether or not this device is necessary at all is up for debate. You might say that Hamlet’s plan \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to pretend to be a madman \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is itself the work of a madman.</p><p><strong>Further Reading (works cited)</strong></p><p>Hibbard, G. R. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHamlet-Oxford-Classics-William-Shakespeare%2Fdp%2F0192834169%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201728031%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">Oxford World’s Classics: Hamlet</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" />. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. (”OC” in annotations)</p><p>Clayton, Thomas, ed. <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHamlet-First-Published-Origins-Intertextualities%2Fdp%2F0874134277%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201726562%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">The Hamlet First Published</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" /></em> a good place to finish. The text of the play first appeared in print around 1603 in Quarto form, which Clayton calls “the day’s paperback.” Strangely, the First Quarto was rediscovered by modern scholars <em>after</em>. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 1992.</p><p>Greenblatt, Stephen. <em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHamlet-Purgatory-Stephen-Greenblatt%2Fdp%2F0691102570%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201726014%26sr%3D8-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">Hamlet in Purgatory</a></em><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" />. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001.</p><p>For Goethe, Coleridge, Tieck, Hazlitt, and others, consult the excellent series “Critical Responses to Hamlet,” which comes in many volumes. Volume 2 covers 1790-1838:Farley-Hills, David, ed. The Hamlet Collection: Critical Responses to Hamlet 1600-1900. New York: AMS Press, 1996.</p><p>For a silly but entertaining mock trial of the characters in Hamlet, courtesy of the New York State Bar Association, try “The Elsinore Appeal.” Burr, David, ed. The Elsinore Appeal: People v. Hamlet. USA: St. Martin’s Press, 1996.</p><p>Bloom, Harold. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FHamlet-Poem-Unlimited-Harold-Bloom%2Fdp%2FB000ESSRPS%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201727694%26sr%3D1-1&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">Hamlet: Poem Unlimited</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" />. New York: Riverhead Books, 2003.</p><p>For cool drawings of characters in the play, go to “Hamlet and the Visual Arts.”Young, Alan R. Hamlet and the Visual Arts, 1709-1900. Newark: University of Delaware Press, 2002.</p><p>As for different editions, I recommend <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2FArden-Shakespeare-Complete-Works%2Fdp%2F1903436397%3Fie%3DUTF8%26s%3Dbooks%26qid%3D1201727780%26sr%3D1-2&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325">The Arden Shakespeare</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" /> or <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/redirect.html?ie=UTF8&location=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.amazon.com%2Fs%3Furl%3Dsearch-alias%253Dstripbooks%26field-keywords%3Doxford%2Bclassic%2Bshakespeare%26x%3D0%26y%3D0&tag=thficl03-20&linkCode=ur2&camp=1789&creative=9325" target="_blank" class="standard">The Oxford Classics</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thficl03-20&l=ur2&o=1" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important" border="0" height="1" width="1" />.</p>'", "summary": " 'This play tells the story of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, who yearns to take revenge on his uncle (the current king) for killing his father (the former king). The main conflict of the play, however, is internal to Hamlet as he must decide how to proceed. Eventually, the protagonist drifts toward insanity (feigned or real, it is unclear). \\r\\nHamlet is one of Shakespeare\\\\''s best-known and most-quoted plays. It is generally included on lists of the world\\\\''s greatest literature, and many critics (T.S. Eliot excluded) consider it Shakespeare\\\\''s best work.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-07 12:08:11'", "year": " 1601", "page_views": " 10926", "id": 5, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=10'"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "The Tragedy of Macbeth", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Shakespeare\\\\''s \\\\"Scottish tragedy\\\\" was first performed a few years after James, King of Scotland, had succeeded Queen Elizabeth to become also King of England. It tells the story of Macbeth, a nobleman who (prompted by his ambitious wife) kills his king and usurps the crown. Driven to madness by their crimes, Macbeth and his wife are besieged by natural and supernatural forces until their corrupt reign collapses.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-11 18:03:25'", "year": " 1606", "page_views": " 10711", "id": 7, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Henry James'", "title": "Portrait of a Lady", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Portrait of a Lady is a novel by Henry James, first published as a serial in The Atlantic Monthly and Macmillan\\\\''s Magazine in 1880-1881 and then as a book in 1881. It is the story of a spirited young American woman, Isabel Archer, who \\\\"affronts her destiny\\\\" and finds it overwhelming. She inherits a large amount of money and subsequently becomes the victim of Machiavellian scheming by two American expatriates. Like many of James\\\\'' novels, it is set mostly in Europe, notably England and Italy. Generally regarded as the masterpiece of his early phase of writing, this novel reflects James\\\\''s absorbing interest in the differences between the New World and the Old. It also treats in a profound way the themes of personal freedom, responsibility, betrayal, and sexuality.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-17 13:20:25'", "year": " 1899", "page_views": " 2044", "id": 8, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Thomas De Quincey'", "title": "Miscellaneous Essays", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'CONTENTS: ON THE KNOCKING AT THE GATE, IN MACBETH; MURDER, CONSIDERED AS ONE OF THE FINE ARTS; SECOND PAPER ON MURDER; JOAN OF ARC; THE ENGLISH MAIL-COACH; THE VISION OF SUDDEN DEATH; DINNER, REAL AND REPUTED\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-09-21 12:53:29'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 235", "id": 9, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jane Austen'", "title": "Emma", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Emma is a comic novel by Jane Austen, first published in 1816, about the perils of misconstrued romance. The main character, Emma Woodhouse, is described in the opening paragraph as \\\\"handsome, clever, and rich\\\\" but is also rather spoiled. Prior to starting the novel, Austen wrote, \\\\"I am going to take a heroine whom no-one but myself will much like.\\\\" — Excerpted from Emma on Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 11:54:14'", "year": " 1816", "page_views": " 4370", "id": 10, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Niccolo Machiavelli'", "title": "The Prince", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Prince is widely regarded as one of the most influential books on politics, especially on the acquisition, perpetuation, and use of political power. Machiavelli\\\\''s observations continue to resonate with politicians, students, and scholars. '", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 12:17:18'", "year": " 1513", "page_views": " 930", "id": 11, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Sherwood Anderson'", "title": "Winesburg, Ohio", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A critically acclaimed work of fiction by the American author Sherwood Anderson, the book, published in 1919, is a collection of related short stories, which could be loosely defined as a novel. The stories are centered on the protagonist George Willard and the fictional inhabitants of the town of Winesburg, Ohio (not the actual unincorporated town of Winesburg in Holmes County).'", "created_on": " '2008-01-10 22:21:22'", "year": " 1919", "page_views": " 854", "id": 195, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dante Alighieri'", "title": "Divine Comedy (Longfellow translation)", "intro_essay": " '<div style="text-align: left;"><strong>INFERNO</strong></div><p> The first part of Dante’s poem is, as I’ve suggested above, the most famous. Popular interest about the nature of the hereafter, it seems, is not particular to the Middle Ages. Everyone is curious about what will happen after death. Only Dante offers us a perhaps startlingly complete portrait. Look at the following diagram for example (Figure 1). One can immediately understand that Dante’s hell is thematically arranged from less grave sins to more indelible transgressions. Just as the severity of sins and punishments increase, so does the cavern of hell narrow from under the known world, until, at the very center of the earth, Dante finally encounters Satan, less a master of the realm than its chief prisoner, locked in an ice created by the beating of his own wings. Inferno’s distinctions and divisions will make more sense to you as you go along (especially after Virgil explains their reasoning in Inf. XI) though one should refer back frequently to this chart to keep your bearings.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img width="350" height="559" src="/upload/userfiles/Hell-Diagram.gif" alt="" />Figure 1</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Dante’s hell is a curious blend of both Christian Hell and pagan Hades. Its characters include both Lucifer and Charon, both the biblical giant Nimrod and Cerberus, the three headed dog from Greek mythology. At first, this mixture of Christian and pagan elements seems strange, but Dante’s sense of syncretism was so strong and so specific that he manages to make these two traditions, diametrically opposed in origin and belief, cohere in the same textual space. It will continue until the very end of the poem, even into Heaven. In fact, a certain equality is given to these two traditions, the pagan Eagle and the sacred Cross. Watch out for it as you travel along with the Dante the Pilgrim.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Briefly, the plot begins with Dante, lost in the dark woods. It is the spring of 1300, near to Easter, a fact which only reinforces the symbolic registers of the poem. Unable to escape the woods (and the dangerous animals which guard it), Dante feels a certain despair that is both physical and moral, for these woods as we find out, are not simply literal woods, but simultaneous representatives of Dante’s internal moral confusion. Likewise, this Dante is not simply Dante, but the image of an Everyman, the sense of moral confusion that permeates the soul of any pilgrim of this life. These two forms, Dante the Florentine poet and the exemplar Everyman he writes into being poetically, share the same body, alternate in visibility and reinforce each other. Related to this is that Dante writes the poem primarily in the narrative past. “In a dark wood, <i>I found</i> myself” the haunting opening line began. That is, we must even bifurcate the figure of Dante, from that of the “fictional” Dante the Pilgrim who travels through the entirety of the Christian afterlife, and the voice of Dante as poet writing down from “memory” this very same journey. The poem as one can tell grows necessarily complex (but rich) with these reflections and refractions of its principal character.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Dante’s feeling of utter abandonment (like the Augustinian “region of unlikeness” in the <i>Confessions</i>) goes unabated until a stranger approaches him. It turns out to be the soul of the Roman poet Virgil, one of Dante’s poetic heroes. He explains that he has been sent by Beatrice (Dante’s first true love, a young Florentine girl who died young) to guide him through Hell. Why would Beatrice, who is in Heaven, send a dead pagan poet to play travel guide through infernal punishment? Because only by descending, and learning of how the dead are punished, will Dante be able to save himself and to lift himself up morally. It is a truly Christian symmetry: one must descend to ascend, just as Christ died and was resurrected.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Terrified and lacking self-confidence, Dante agrees to the journey and Virgil becomes Dante’s guide. As a Virtuous Pagan consigned to Hell, and as the poet of Aeneas’s journey to Hades in the Aeneid (Book VI), Virgil is particularly suited to this job. As becomes clear, however, Virgil is also an expert in ethics and Aristotelian morality, and explains to Dante along the way (and generally in Inf. XI) how the whole substructure of Inferno is organized according to moral categories. That may sound dry, but it isn’t, for such divisions gives rhyme and reason to Inferno’s grotesque punishments. They illuminate the substructure of a realm that would otherwise be a simply disturbing manifestation of God’s justice. Though all sin is abhorrent to God, he is subtle enough to allow that certain sins are of greater or lesser weight, and those qualifications form the backbone of Inferno’s subdivisions.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I do not want to take any more pleasure away from you as a first reader, and I will limit myself to draw more one important moral distinction about Inferno. What divides upper hell from the lowest darkest regions closer to Satan is whether the sinner committed his principal sin maliciously or out of passion (what in Aristotelian ethical language is called incontinence). The first third of hell punishes precisely these incontinent souls, those who could not control themselves from sinning, like one of Inferno’s most famous sinners, Francesca da Rimini (Circle of the Lustful, Inf. V). The bottom portion of hell, by contrast, punishes those who acted with premeditation and malice in their hearts. This includes all varieties of fraudulent behavior, simony (the number of Catholic clergy in hell can be astonishing), deceit, as well as what Dante considered to be the deepest and most egregious sin: betrayal. More severe than murder, betrayal (or treason as we call it in politics) involves harming another by treacherously breaking a bond of special faith. This is why Judas Iscariot (betrayer of Jesus) and the conspirators against Julius Caesar, Brutus and Cassius, find themselves in the very jowls of Satan. Satan himself proudly betrayed God by leading a rebellion of fallen angels.</p><p> </p><div><strong>PURGATORY</strong></div><p>The first and most important thing to understand about Dante’s Purgatory is its location. Living before the Age of Discovery, Dante had little idea of what lay outside the Straights of Gibraltar. From Ptolemaic astronomy, he understand the earth to be spherical, but even medieval maps which included rudimentary calculations of India and Africa were at a loss for what was on the other side of the earth, that hemisphere today of the Americas and the Pacific. Dante, like many others, held it to be near endless ocean and completely uninhabited. Dante added a twist to this geographical thinking, however; the only thing on the other side of the known world was a single mountain, rising high above the sea. At its very top lay the original Garden of Eden, from which man had been expelled (to the other side of the world) for eating from the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. This opposition of the world of man and the original pristine garden form an important moral symmetry (see Figure 2). Interestingly, a tunnel from the center of the earth out to this mountain in endless ocean was created when Lucifer was cast from heaven, and reached his present location at the center of the earth’s gravity and the bottom of Inferno.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img width="350" height="411" src="/upload/userfiles/MapofEarth.gif" alt="" />Figure 2</p><p> What, however, is the purpose of this mountain? As it turns out, all souls who die saved as Christians in the inhabited world, instead of falling to Inferno like sinners to be judged by Minos, land in angelic boats at the shore of this mountain. Though assured of their salvation, these souls may still have the residue of their earthly sin. As such, they must slowly purge and cleanse themselves before entering Paradise. This is the explicit function of Dante’s Purgatory. What distinguishes Dante’s vision of this intermediary zone from the Catholic version established by dogma is perhaps only that Dante imagined it in much more concrete detail. Christian souls slowly climb the mountain, purging their sins for determined amounts of times in different ritualistic denials. The mountain is thus naturally purgative, and its asceticism has the power to restore freedom and purity to Christians who have, as all souls, been embroiled in sin. Of course, it makes abundant sense that the end of each Pilgrim’s self-purifying journey up the mountain should terminate in the Terrestrial Paradise, that is, the Garden of Eden, mentioned above. Cleansed souls return to the pure state in which God first created man. This indeed is the whole purpose of Purgatory, to prepare the soul to enter Paradise unblemished.</p><p> A word should be added about Mt. Purgatory’s organization (see Figure 3). As in Inferno, a rather rigid series of moral categories informs the terraces and zones of the mountain. The lower reaches of the mountain before Purgatory officially begins thus hold those who died excommunicated (but believing) and those who repented late (like the famous Pia in Purg. V). Then, after the angel-guarded gates of Purgatory proper, the mountain slopes upward, ribbed by seven terraces (corresponding to the famous seven deadly sins). The last terrace, that of the Lustful, marks the termination of punitive purgation, and Dante leaps dramatically through one final flame before coming to the outskirts of the forest of the Terrestrial Paradise. To give anything about what happens there would be a sin against you, reader, so I remain silent here.</p><p style="text-align: center;"><img width="350" height="577" src="/upload/userfiles/Purgatory-Diagram(1).gif" alt="" />Figure 3</p><p> The last thing I would like to say is that readers often get bogged down in Purgatory. They finish Inferno eagerly seeking more of the phantasmagoric special effects of that underground lair, and are often disappointed even by the more grotesque purgations on the mountain. I would like to suggest, instead, that Purgatory is among the most interesting of the three books. It is the only really human book (caught between heaven and hell). It is the only realm in which human will, in a qualified way, remains operative. That is to say, great sinners and saints, and the places they live, are determined. They damned or beatified, and fixed there for all eternity. Only the dead souls on Mt. Purgatory, having not yet reached the eternal lights of Paradise, retain therefore a certain transitory quality of earthiness. They are slowly metamorphosing between the Earth and the Heavenly Kingdom, and that transition, in my opinion, is among the most fascinating portraits the poem can really offer. Souls in Purgatory will their own punishments, their own fires and blindness, so that they can reach Heaven as soon as possible. It is the moral reckoning and motivated personal action to remedy these wrongs which makes Purgatory so interesting. Give it a chance, reader. You won’t be disappointed.</p><div> </div><div><strong>PARADISE</strong></div><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">Finally, Dante the Pilgrim leaves all trace of the earth. He rises with his beloved Beatrice to the celestial spheres high above the earth. In some sense, this is the most difficult of the book to understand concretely. Dante, a student of Ptolemaic astronomy, is rising from Earth at the center of the universe through the various planets and distant stars, and then beyond that, to the dimensionless, timeless place where God dwells, called the Empyrean (see Figure 4). What is immediately difficult about this is understanding that Dante’s pre-Galilean conception of the universe put Earth at the center. He also believed that all the planets were more or less gaseous balls like the stars, though closer to Earth. They moved like great clock parts in harmonious synchronization over the Earth (producing the famous “music of the spheres”). Even the moon is not a rock, but a strangely discolored ball of gas (see Par. II).</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in; text-align: center;"><img width="350" height="535" src="/upload/userfiles/Paradiso-Diagram.gif" alt="" />Figure 4</p><p> Complicating all this is the fact that Dante’s conversation with souls in different spheres may lend a reader the misguided belief that such souls actually live in the moon or Jupiter. As Beatrice explains in Par. IV, however, this is only a device to teach Dante. In fact, all blessed souls live in the Empyrean together with God, in a giant Rose built like a stadium. They appear in these separate spheres to teach Dante the difficult lesson of how some souls have larger or smaller portions of God’s grace in Paradise. Those of less grace “appear” closer to the Earth, and as low as the moon, while the greatest Saints and Holy Men show themselves to Dante in the highest echelons of the planets and fixed stars. These divisions are sometimes related to a soul’s merit on Earth and sometimes simply to the choosing of God, whose predestination is often beyond human comprehension.</p><p> This admittedly difficult device does allow Dante to give an order and rising complexity to his narrative of paradise. If Dante had simply risen to the Empyrean and interrogated souls for thirty-three cantos, many readers would quickly lose interest. By dividing the souls into rationally ordered categories (just as he had done in Inferno and Purgatory), Dante gives a system to latch on to and a way of sorting his encyclopedic catalog of different blessed souls, theologians, kings, lovers, angels and saints. Indeed, the name of the game for a poem about paradise must almost necessarily be making the ineffable into something coherent for mortal minds.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">St. Paul is said to have had a vision, but he claimed that what he saw in heaven was unspeakable (II Corinthians 12). Dante, as it were, takes it upon himself to try and say what those sublime visions were exactly. Of course, for Dante, this is often achieved by eschewing the possibility of describing what he saw, even as he does. It is a brilliant rhetorical maneuver and one which only increases in poetic skill and magnificence the closer Dante draws to his final Beatific Vision of God. I have marked these moments of sublimity in my notes and hope that you take Dante’s rhetorical addresses here as the truly wonderful and think about this final long section of the poem. There are other moments when Paradise drags, when nods to Scholasticism become long and involved diatribes about metaphysics and finer theological points.</p><p style="text-indent: 0.5in;">I warn you now that these moments will, despite all the swirling lights and fireworks, seem to you at first tremendously dull. When you learn to connect them more coherently to the architecture of the poem they may acquire more interest for you, but until that happens, have patience. They bear fruit in time and with reflection. They give shadow and context to the entire poem, but only when one has been able, like Dante looking back over the earth from heaven, to see the poem in its overwhelming totality. The famous Dante critic, Charles Singleton, called this critical feeling, the “vista in retrospect” and I could not give it any better name. I have marked in my notes, however, the numerous interconnections which light up and give the poem meaning across its more than 14,000 lines. This is what truly makes the poem great, and which I hope you will begin to see the longer and deeper you read it. For the rest of Paradise, sit back and watch the show.</p><div> </div><div align="right">Chris Van Buren</div><div align="right">Grand Rapids, MI</div><div align="right">September 2008</div><div><i> </i><i> </i></div><div><i> </i></div><div align="center"><i>Diagrams adapted from:</i></div><div><i> </i></div><p>Musa, Mark, trans. <i>Dante, Volume 1: Inferno</i>. New York: Penguin Books, 1984.</p><p style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt; line-height: 120%;">———, trans. <i>Dante, Volume 2: Purgatorio</i>. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.</p><p style="margin-left: 22.5pt; text-indent: -22.5pt; line-height: 120%;">———, trans. <i>Dante, Volume3: Paradise</i>. New York: Penguin Books, 1986.</p>'", "summary": " 'The Divine Comedy (titled by Giovanni Boccaccio), written by Dante Alighieri between 1308 and his death in 1321, is widely considered the central epic poem of Italian literature, and is seen as one of the greatest works of world literature. A culmination of the medieval world-view of the afterlife, it helped establish the Tuscan dialect, in which it is written, as the Italian standard.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 14:30:12'", "year": " 1320", "page_views": " 4766", "id": 12, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "The Tempest", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 15:37:36'", "year": " 1611", "page_views": " 1262", "id": 14, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Christopher Marlowe'", "title": "The Tragedy of Doctor Faustus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus is a play by Christopher Marlowe, based on the Latin story of Faustus, in which a man sells his soul to the devil for power and knowledge. Doctor Faustus was first published in 1604, eleven years after Marlowe\\\\''s death and at least twelve years after the first performance of the play.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 15:40:57'", "year": " 1592", "page_views": " 2", "id": 15, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "A Midsummer Night 's Dream", "intro_essay": " '<p style="text-align: left; "><u>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</u> delighted me as a child, captivated me as a teenager, and intrigues me as an adult. It is one of Shakespeare’s most-performed plays, one on which budding thespians often cut their teeth. As a result, this is an easy play to underestimate as a simple romp through Fairyland. Though never straying far from its state of reverie, the play is a lucid dream, one in which the status of dreaming itself (along with its collaborators: love, theater, the imagination) is always under investigation.</p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">This play and <u>Romeo and Juliet</u> were written nearly simultaneously, and it is often remarked (by Marjorie Garber in <u>Shakespeare After All</u>, for example) that the two plays are near-inverses of one another.<span> </span>Both plays have overbearing fathers, daughters who claim the right to choose their own lovers (and plan to run away), and strong rulers who wish to impose order. Both plays use similar imagery: the lark and the nightingale, the transformative power of night, the comparison of love to lightning. Also, each play has the other contained within it in miniature: Pyramus and Thisbe are a burlesque of Romeo and Juliet, and Mercutio’s speech about the fairy Queen Mab recalls Titania and her train. </p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">But while <u>Romeo and Juliet</u> is a tragedy that could easily (but for one misdirected letter) have been a comedy, <u>A Midsummer Night’s Dream</u>, though it contains some important threats and obstacles, assures us of its comedic resolution from the beginning. “Now, fair Hippolyta, our nuptial hour / Draws on apace:” Theseus begins the play with a prediction of its happy end. What is it, then, that drives the play forward?</p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Shakespeare uses a three-part structure to organize the plot, as he does in many of his plays. The play opens in a world of apparent order and civilization, but one that has some seeds of unrest (Hermia’s desire to disobey her father and choose her own husband, for example). The second stage sees the main characters enter a kind of transformative place, often a forest, where disorder rules: people wear masks or disguises, there is sometimes magic involved, the social hierarchy can be disrupted.<span> </span>(The title of the play refers to the folk culture idea of “midsummer madness,” a period of misrule and enchantment that happens around the summer solstice: see C. L. Barber’s classic work <u>Shakespeare’s Festive Comedy</u> (1959) for further discussion of this idea.)<span> </span>After undergoing some personal transformation, the characters rejoin the “real” world, better equipped to participate in society. (This kind of structure is typical of medieval romance: think of quest literature and fairy tales.)</p><div style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"> </div><div style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b>“Am not I Hermia? Are not you Lysander?”</b></div><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Hermia asks this question at the height of the play’s disorder.<span> </span>Variations of this question appear throughout Shakespeare (think of Lear’s “Who is it who can tell me who I am?” or one of the twin Dromios’ “Am I Dromio? Am I your man? Am I myself?” in <u>The Comedy of Errors</u> or, more malevolently, Iago’s “I am not what I am”). In this play, it is the Athenian wood that both strips the characters of who they thought they were, and (paradoxically) transforms them into something that more closely resembles their true identities. </p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">We might remark (fairly, I think) that there are very few distinguishing characteristics that set Demetrius apart from Lysander. One reason for this might be that Puck and Oberon’s manipulations would be more difficult for an audience to accept if we did know more about them: as it is, they switch places as the faithful lover and the deserter, and end as faithful lovers both. The women, however, do not need to be magically compelled in order to transform, as they both do in this play, from barely sexualized adolescents into adults. They give over their all-encompassing friendship in favor of sexual love, and though Helena quite rightly recognizes this as a loss, she finds Demetrius “like a jewel, / Mine own, and not mine own.” That is, there is something precious about sexual love that lies in its fundamental strangeness—while Helena and Hermia were double cherries on a single stem, the lovers necessarily remain somewhat separated from one another. Demetrius is the only character who remains under the influence of the magic flower</p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">While Oberon plans the transformation of Demetrius out of pity for Helena, his goal in transforming Titania is to “make her full of hateful fantasies” and steal her changeling boy. Yet the way in which the discord between the fairies is portrayed does not set up Titania as an object of the audience’s sympathy (and one of the challenges of playing this role is to <i>avoid</i><span style="font-style:normal"> sympathy). Titania, in forswearing Oberon’s bed and company, has brought this unnatural abstinence and barrenness into the natural world as well, as we see from her long speech in Act II Scene 1. The problem is that the Fairy Queen makes the changeling “all her joy”—that is, she dotes on him in excess, and to the exclusion of her sexual duties to Oberon. It is only the excess with which she dotes on the transfigured Bottom that lets us see the danger of doting on an inappropriate object. The changeling boy, according to the play, belongs in a masculine environment, as knight of Oberon’s train; once he is there, Titania can be released from her artificial dotage. It is significant that she is not angry with Oberon for having taken the boy (even though he does so rather cruelly, by his own report): by substituting one inappropriate object of desire for another, Oberon can eventually reassert his own proper place in Titania’s love.</span></p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">Bottom’s metamorphosis comes from Puck, rather than Oberon, and instead of being instigated in order to right some wrong, it is done purely for Puck’s own sport (and, dramatically, to provide an appropriate “monster” for Titania to love). One of the highest comedic moments in the play is when Bottom volunteers to play virtually every role in the “Pyramus and Thisbe” play—Thisbe and the Lion as well as Pyramus. Bottom’s insistence on his own transformative capabilities (“let me play Thisbe too. I’ll speak in a monstrous little voice”) is what makes Puck’s later transformation of him so funny. What makes it even funnier is that the transmogrification literalizes what Bottom has already shown himself to be: an ass.</p><div style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"> </div><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b>“A fair vestal, throned by the West”</b></p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">These transformations are set against the one figure in this play that cannot be transformed: the imperial virgin, or “fair vestal,” who is immune to Cupid’s arrow. To set this play into historical perspective, it is important to remember that Elizabeth I, the Virgin Queen, was ruling England when this play was written. Besides the vestal, Elizabeth is also reflected through the figures of Titania, Hippolyta, and Theseus.</p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">In 1590, Edmund Spenser published the first three books of “The Faerie Queene,” an epic poem written partly in homage to Elizabeth. The Fairy’s line “And I do serve the Fairy Queen” would have recalled this very famous poem to the audience. More explicitly, however, Hippolyta, the Amazon Queen, reminds us of Elizabeth, who was often compared to an Amazon.<span> </span>In Renaissance England, the world of the Amazons, in which women ruled over men, was a topsy-turvy emblem of disorder. Interestingly, Elizabeth is also present in the characterization of Theseus. She often referred to herself publicly as a “prince,” for she was an anomaly in a world where most power inhered in men.<span> </span>Theseus, like Elizabeth, is a benevolent monarch who rules, at least nominally, according to constitutional law (he cannot by any means extenuate the law of Athens that yields the disobedient Hermia up to her father’s whim, he says—the monarch is thus subject to the law). </p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">But what do we make, then, of Theseus’s description of what must happen to Hermia should she refuse to marry Demetrius: “To live a barren sister all your life, / Chanting faint hymns to the cold fruitless moon.”?<span> </span>Elizabeth remained a virgin, after all. Yet while virginity would disempower Hermia, leaving her subject to her father, it reinforced Elizabeth’s power. If she had married, she would have been (as all wives were) subject to her husband, and therefore something less than the absolute ruler of England.<span> </span>Furthermore, her marriageable state did quite a bit to help her foreign policy, at least during the earlier years of her reign. The marriage of Theseus and Hippolyta, I think, works to minimize the implicit criticism of virginity—Elizabeth often claimed that she was married to the state (she wore a wedding ring), and if we read Theseus as an embodiment of the state, then Hippolyta is also so married.</p><div style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"> </div><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt"><b>“The best in this kind are but shadows”</b></p><p style="margin-bottom:12.0pt">One of the most interesting facets of this play is how it deals with drama and performance. At several moments we find ourselves watching people watching other people: framed audiences are one of Shakespeare’s favorite devices, and in this play he uses them to great effect. Some things to think about while reading this: What, if anything, does this play tell us about how audiences should respond to the theater?<span> </span>What’s the difference between the real world, the “dream” world, and the “play” world? How dangerous are our eyes—and how likely are they to mislead us into illusion? How does role-playing work? And to what extent are the fairies like actors (they do, after all, create this ‘dream’ of an alternative reality)?</p>'", "summary": " 'A Midsummer Night\\\\''s Dream portrays the adventures of four young Athenian lovers and a group of amateur actors, their interactions with the Duke and Duchess of Athens, Theseus and Hippolyta, and with fairies who inhabit a moonlit forest. The play is one of Shakespeare\\\\''s most popular works for the stage and is widely performed across the world.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 16:00:46'", "year": " 1595", "page_views": " 1604", "id": 16, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Donne'", "title": "Poetry and Prose of John Donne", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'John Donne (b.1572 - d.1631) was a Jacobean poet and preacher, representative of the metaphysical poets of the period. His works, notable for their realistic and sensual style, include sonnets, love poetry, religious poems, Latin translations, epigrams, elegies, songs, satires and sermons. His poetry is noted for its vibrancy of language and immediacy of metaphor, compared with that of his contemporaries.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 16:09:15'", "year": " 1592", "page_views": " 1909", "id": 17, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Othello", "intro_essay": " '<p> </p><p>The Tragedy of Othello, the Moor of Venice, by William Shakespeare</p><p><u>Othello</u> is one of a string of masterful tragedies that Shakespeare wrote between about 1599 and 1608, and it is for this group of plays (<u>Julius Caesar</u>, <u>Hamlet</u>, <u>Othello</u>, <u>King Lear</u>, <u>Macbeth</u>, <u>Antony and Cleopatra</u>, and <u>Coriolanus</u>) that he is acknowledged to be the greatest playwright in the English language. Yet while <u>Othello</u> has a clear and interesting plot, two phenomenal characters, a heartbreaking final scene, and incredibly moving poetry, and although it is by far the most exciting of the tragedies, it is usually either <u>Hamlet</u> or <u>King Lear</u> that is considered to be Shakespeare’s greatest play.</p><div> </div><p>Those of us with an appreciation for what we might call the aesthetics of the unbearable (I’m thinking of television shows like “The Office” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” where it’s difficult to bring yourself to watch what’s unfolding on the screen) will have a special fondness for <u>Othello</u>. Iago’s plot produces an unremitting anxiety in the audience that is, I think, unparalleled in Shakespeare’s work. The three issues most central to this anxiety are not that different from those that provoke anxiety in us today, especially when political leaders are involved: they are race, sex, and religion. </p><div> </div><p>The most celebrated critique of Othello is by Thomas Rymer, who wrote his <u>Short View of Tragedy</u> in 1695. After describing the plot of the play, he lays out the “morals” of the play: “First, this may be a caution to all Maidens of Quality how, without their Parents consent, they run away with Blackamoors. Secondly, this may be a warning to all good Wives, that they look well to their Linens. Thirdly, this may be a lesson to Husbands, that before their Jealousie be Tragical, the proofs be Mathematical.” </p><div> </div><p>Shakespeare probably wrote <u>Othello</u> in late 1601 or 1602, immediately after <u>Hamlet</u> and before <u>King Lear</u>. A translation of Pliny’s <u>History of the World</u> that appeared early in 1601 almost certainly provided him with many of the details of Othello’s alien and exotic early life (for more on this, see Kenneth Muir, <u>The Sources of Shakespeare’s Plays</u> (1977)). There’s also a record of the play being performed at court on November 1, 1604: the play had to have been written in between these two dates.</p><div> </div><p>Very few of Shakespeare’s plays are fully original stories. The source material for <u>Othello</u> is a short story in Giraldi Cinthio’s <u>Hecatommithi</u> (1565), in which “a Moorish Captain takes to wife a Venetian lady [named Disdemona], and his Ensign accuses her to her husband of adultery; he desires the Ensign to kill the man whom he believes to be the adulterer; the Captain kills his wife and is accused by the Ensign. The Moor does not confess, but on clear indications of his guilt he is banished; and the scoundrelly Ensign, thinking to injure others, brings a miserable end on himself.” (For a translation of Cinthio, see Geoffrey Bullough’s <u>Narrative and Dramatic Sources of Shakespeare</u>, vol. 7.) Shakespeare invented the whole Roderigo plot, but more importantly, he compressed and concentrated the action, and turned the flat Disdemona, Moor, and Ensign into the vibrant Desdemona, Othello, and Iago.</p><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><div>RACE</div><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><p>But why write a play about a Moor in the first place? And what, exactly, is meant by the word “Moor”? And what associations would Shakespeare’s audiences have had with Moors? In the Christmas season of 1600-1601, Shakespeare’s company, the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, performed at court while Queen Elizabeth hosted the Moorish ambassador to the King of Barbary—this encounter may have been what inspired Shakespeare to revisit Cinthio.<span> </span>The word “Moor” was used to refer both to lighter-skinned North Africans and darker Africans. While Aaron the Moor in <u>Titus Andronicus</u> was “coal-black,” Cleopatra also refers to herself as black, so the word “black” alone doesn’t tell us anything. There was a portrait painted of the Moorish ambassador that clearly depicts him as an olive-skinned North African, but that is no evidence that Othello was meant to be so. While the debate about Othello’s origins remains open, his skin color is clear: Othello was white. That is, the actor playing Othello in Shakespeare’s company was white, as were all the actors. The part was played in blackface makeup, as it was also played by Lawrence Olivier, Orson Welles, and any number of other white actors. (For more about the cultural history of blackface and colorblind casting, see Ayanna Thompson’s <u>Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance</u>.)</p><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><p>What’s important about the Moor of Venice is that he is <i>Other</i>; he is different in a marked way from everyone else. He comes from a strange world, a world beyond the reach of his noble Venetian colleagues, a world so different that Desdemona is seduced by tales of its mysteries. Othello considers himself a Venetian and a Christian, but this identification only highlights how different he is from the other Venetians in the play.<span> </span><u>Othello</u> treats the prejudices in cross-cultural communication: just as Europeans saw themselves as mature, calm, and rational (and non-European peoples as childlike, passionate, and lascivious), so Iago sees Othello as “changeable,” easily fooled, etc. For much more about this idea, have a look at the work of Edward Said (<u>Orientalism</u>, 1978), Stephen Greenblatt (<u>Shakespearean Negotiations</u>, 1988; <u>Learning to Curse</u>, 1990), and Tzvetan Todorov (<u>The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other</u>, 1982).</p><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><div>SEX</div><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><p>The great actor Paul Robeson played Othello at the Savoy Theatre in London in 1930, long before any American company would cast a black actor in the role. The issue, of course, was that he had to kiss Desdemona, and the image of a black man kissing a white woman was the source of a good deal of American anxiety over miscegenation. It’s this same combination of racism and sexual prurience that inspires so many of Iago’s most memorable lines (eg, Othello as an “old black ram tupping [Brabantio’s] white ewe”).</p><div><u> </u></div><p><u>Othello</u> is an exploration of the psychology of sex. Iago is obsessed with sex, most often in an animalistic or bestial way. Othello seems inexperienced and immature (think of how he worships Desdemona). Emilia thinks her husband is cheating on her, and thinks wives should be able to cheat on their husbands. Bianca is a prostitute in love with her customer, Cassio; Cassio toys with Bianca but adores “the divine Desdemona.”<span> </span>Only Desdemona herself seems sexually uncomplicated, unable even to understand what she is being accused of until it is too late.</p><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><p>We hear so much about sex in this play—Iago’s indelible image of the “beast with two backs;” Cassio’s wish that Othello arrive safely to “make love’s quick pants in Desdemona’s arms;” Othello’s horrible fantasy that “the general camp…had tasted her sweet body.” By the time the marriage bed itself appears on stage, sex and violence have become so intertwined that the murder of Desdemona—Othello smothering her on a bed—resembles nothing so much as a rape. It is the way sexual jealousy infects the mind that leads to the real tragedy of the play, and Shakespeare describes this so vividly that any of us unfortunate enough to have experienced this emotion will sicken in recall: “By the world, I think my wife be honest, and think she is not…If there be cords or knives, poison, fire, or suffocating streams, I’ll not endure it. Would I were satisfied!” (3.3.386-393).</p><div> </div><p>Stephen Greenblatt’s explanation of Othello’s sexual anxiety is based on the idea of Protestant marital chastity: theologians condemned sexual pleasure, even within marriage.<span> </span>To love one’s wife too ardently, according to St. Jerome, is to commit adultery (for one must love God above all). For more on this, see <u>Renaissance Self-Fashioning</u> (232-254), and, for arguments against Greenblatt, see Susan Zimmerman, <u>Erotic Politics: Desire on the Renaissance Stage</u> (1992).</p><div style="text-indent:.5in"> </div><div>RELIGION</div><div> </div><p>Can we believe what we see? What kind of evidence, and how much of it, is sufficient to prove something? Are there things we should believe in that can’t be seen with the eyes? These questions connect this play to its Christian context within the discourse of the Protestant Reformation. At the beginning of the seventeenth century, England was the site of much (and often violent) religious controversy over the question of whether we can trust what we see with our physical eyes. The central issue was whether the Communion wafer is bread because it looks like bread (as the Protestants believed), or whether the fact that it looks like bread is misleading because it <i>really </i>is the body of Christ (as the Catholics believed).</p><div> </div><p>This idea might seem quite far removed from Iago''s anger about not getting the</p><p>lieutenant position, and it is: much of the play, however, is concerned with "ocular proof," so keep an eye out for permutations of this idea, especially as it relates to faith.</p>'", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 16:23:44'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 2989", "id": 20, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Much Ado About Nothing", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare\\\\''s most enduring plays on stage. Stylistically, it shares many characteristics with modern romantic comedies including two pairs of lovers: the romantic leads, Claudio and Hero, and their comic counterparts, Benedick and Beatrice.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 16:18:47'", "year": " 1600", "page_views": " 661", "id": 19, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "King Lear", "intro_essay": " '<div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Introducing<i> King Lear</i></span></div><div><b><i><span style="font-size: 14pt;"> </span></i></b></div><div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Part I: “This is most strange”</span></div><div align="center" style="text-align: center;">-What makes <i>Lear</i> so hard?-</div><div> </div><p> <span style="font-size: larger;"> </span><span style="font-size: medium;">The English critic Charles Lamb wrote an essay in 1812 that considered Shakespeare’s tragedies “with reference to their fitness for stage representation.” He wrote:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: small;"> It may seem a paradox, but I cannot help being of opinion that the plays of Shakespeare are less calculated for performance on a stage than those of almost any other dramatist whatever. Their distinguished excellence is a reason that they should be so. There is so much in them, which comes not under the province of acting, with which eye, and tone, and gesture, have nothing to do.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">When it comes to <i>Lear</i>, Lamb finds that the drama is so far outside the realm of the actor as to be un-performable. “The Lear of Shakespeare,” he writes, “cannot be acted.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Lamb isn’t the only one to write, in effect, that<i> Lear</i> is too good to be performed. There’s something about the perfection of the tragedy of <i>Lear</i> along with the unpredictability of Lear’s madness – operating fathoms below the surface of the text – that make the whole Lear an elusive thing for the actor. “The whole Lear” means the Lear who exhibits the inconsistencies of his character but is not inconsistent as an individual. He does unbelievable things and yet we believe him. Still today, when an actor pulls off a good Lear, critics shake their heads in disbelief (at the very believability of the whole thing). Ben Brantley wrote of Christopher Plummer’s Lear at Lincoln Center:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;">This is an organically complete Lear whose end is glimpsed in his first majestic appearance…This achievement is all the more impressive when you consider that even the greatest actors, including Laurence Olivier, have stumbled in taking on Lear. Often they come to the role too young to understand it or too old to have the strength for it. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> So that’s one problem: Lear is hard to act. Another problem is that Lear is hard to understand.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> It’s almost impossible to say with any certainty, for instance, why Lear divides his kingdom in the way he does (those who jump to the simple answer – “Lear’s deceived!” – will be especially interested to read below about Stanley Cavell). Why must Gloucester be <i>blinded</i> (and not, say, burned or beaten)? Why, when she survived in Shakespeare’s sources, does Cordelia have to die? We’ll look at these questions and others in the annotations.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> This introduction will present a summary of the play, its textual history, and some of the difficulties of the play along with a few of the major critical responses to them. </span></p><div> </div><div> </div><div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Part II: “As I am ignorant…”</span></div><p align="center" style="text-align: center;">-Understanding the setup-</p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> When <i>Lear</i> begins, the old king, who has no male heir, has decided to give up his throne and divide his kingdom between his three daughters. But he doesn’t plan to divide it in three equal parts; he will give the largest portion to the daughter who loves him the most. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The problem is that the daughters who express their love most eloquently are also the ones who love Lear the least: Regan and Goneril, the monstrous older sisters to Cordelia. Cordelia, the youngest, seems to love Lear sincerely, but she is unable to express her love to him, and winds up losing her share of the kingdom.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> This is the single event – the wrongful allocation of the kingdom to Regan and Goneril – that animates the play, releasing what Stephen Greenblatt calls the “force of evil” that rages unstoppably through the following acts. It’s worth considering why on earth Lear makes such a catastrophic error. Some critics have called Lear’s behavior in scene one evidence of a kind of infantile solipsism that is characteristic of all Shakespearean monarchs, and, perhaps, of all monarchs in general. Perhaps this is true, but if we agree with Stanley Cavell and say that infantilism cannot be the <i>reason</i> someone does something – it can only be a description of what they do – then we have to look for another reason. Is it that Lear has already begun to go mad? Is it that he is genuinely deceived by Regan and Goneril’s shows of love? Is it, as Cavell suggests in an essay that we will discuss below, that he actually doesn’t <i>want</i> to be loved sincerely? These are the kinds of questions that we have to ask of Lear every time we return to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> After she loses her share of the kingdom, Cordelia accepts the King of France’s offer of marriage, the Duke of Burgundy having refused her after seeing her disinherited, and takes off across the channel to live in France. This sets up the invasion of England by France.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> So, from its earliest moments, <i>Lear</i> is a play about parents and children. The Gloucester subplot runs parallel to the main plot of the play in that it deals with these questions of family loyalty and deception.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The Earl of Gloucester has two sons, Edmund, who was born out of wedlock, and Edmund, who is legitimate. Gloucester has a terrible habit of reminding everyone in the court that Edmund is not his legitimate child (“His breeding, Sir, hath been at my charge: I have so often blush’d to acknowledge him, that now I am braz’d to’t,” he tells Kent in 1.1). Edmund is keenly aware of the slight, as well as the looming injustice that will befall him when, after his father’s death, Edgar inherits most of his land. The famous speech he delivers – “Gods, stand up for bastards!” – sets the tone for his tactics in the rest of the play. By hook or by crook, Edmund intends to right the wrong that Gloucester has inflicted on him. Tragically, Gloucester misjudges everything: when he should be sensitive to Edmund, he mocks him; when he should be suspicious of him, he trusts him. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Gloucester and Lear suffer badly for their mistakes. Gloucester is betrayed – Edmund exposes his collusion with the invading French army (that is, with Lear) – and for that he loses his eyes. Lear is thrown out by his daughters into a terrible storm, where he wanders, his madness at its height, with his fool, and will suffer much more before the play is over. Both men are acutely aware that the “natural” bond of obligation between children and parents has been broken. As Gloucester tells Edmund:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">These late eclipses in the sun and moon portend</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">no good to us: though the wisdom of nature can</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">reason it thus and thus, yet nature finds itself</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">scourged by the sequent effects: love cools,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">friendship falls off, brothers divide: in</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">cities, mutinies; in countries, discord; in</span><span style="font-size: 10pt;"> </span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">palaces, treason; and the bond cracked ''twixt son</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">and father.</span></p><div> </div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> And, Lear would add, between father and daughter.</span></p><div> </div><div> </div><div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Part III: “Disordered Rabble”</span></div><p align="center" style="text-align: center;">-Textual history and the history of the Lear story-<span style="font-size: medium;"><br type="_moz" /></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> By the time Shakespeare wrote his version of it, Lear was an old story in England. Geoffrey of Monmouth’s <i>Historia Regum Britanniae </i>(c. 1135), which included both popular legend and history, recounts the story of “old King Leir.” The King Leir in Monmouth fares better than the Lear of Shakespeare; he escapes to France to live with Cordelia (“Cordeilla” in Monmouth), and stays there for three happy years after the end of the story. Those who read the Monmouth version will notice that Shakespeare cut a number of characters, notably the evil cousins Cunedag and Margan, Goneril and Regan’s trouble-making sons.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Other appearances of “King Leir” include:</span></p><p style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">· </span>Holinshed’s chronicles, a source of so many Shakespearean plots. Holinshed, like Shakespeare, got rid of Cunedag and Margan.</span></p><p style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">· </span>A 1590’s play called <i>The True Chronicle History of King Leir</i>, which was performed in London.</span></p><p style="margin-left: 1in; text-indent: -0.25in;"><span style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Symbol;">· </span>Spenser’s <i>Faerie Queene</i>, published at the same time as the above, includes an account of “King Leyr” that is very much in the mold of Monmouth’s, in that Spenser doesn’t kill Leyr before his throne is restored to him; that was an invention of Shakespeare’s, and would come to be one of the features of the tragedy that audiences and directors considered too unbearable to present on stage. (Even good old Charles Lamb, who found Lear so difficult to swallow, would have seen the 1681 version by Tate – although he may have seen others, too - in which Lear and Gloucester survive and Cordelia marries Edgar.) From Spenser:</span></p><div> </div><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">He to Cordelia him self addrest,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">Who with entire affection him receau''d,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">As for her Syre and king her seemed best;</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">And after all an army strong she leau''d,</span></p><p><span style="font-size: 10pt;">To war on those, which him had of his realme bereau''d.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">So to his crowne she him restor''d againe,</span></div><div> </div><div><span style="font-size: 10pt;">In which he dyde, made ripe for death by eld,</span></div><div> </div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> It should be clear that the Lear story would have been fairly well known to Elizabethan and Jacobean audiences. Greenblatt tells us that it wasn’t unusual, in fact, for parents to tell their ungrateful children: “Remember the story of old King Leir.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Shakespeare leaned heavily on Monmouth and Holinshed, but, as is typical of all of Shakespeare’s adaptations, the things that are most memorable about <i>Lear</i> are those which do not come from other sources. It’s impossible to imagine <i>Lear</i> without the hideous blinding of Gloucester, which many people consider to be the cruelest scene Shakespeare ever wrote. And yet Gloucester doesn’t appear in Holinshed or Monmouth. He plays a role in Philip Sidney’s <i>The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia</i> (1590), but of course the blinding is Shakespeare’s. Imagining a <i>Lear</i> in which the king doesn’t go mad is also impossible, yet the “Leir” of old didn’t suffer from madness. Noticing places in which Shakespeare departed from sources can help us uncover Shakespeare particular interests and intentions at the moment of a play’s composition.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b> </b></span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Lear has a complicated textual history, with many different versions and significant variation among them. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Shakespeare probably wrote <i>Lear</i> in 1605 and 1606, but a printed version didn’t appear until 1608. This was the First Quarto version, a junky copy often referred to as the “Pied Bull Quarto” after the imprint on its title page.</span><a title="" href="#_ftn1"><span style="font-size: medium;" target="_blank" class="standard">[1]</span></a><span style="font-size: medium;"> No other copy appeared until the Second Quarto of 1619, which was a reprint of Q1 disguised as an improvement upon it. Both copies had lots of errors and are now considered to be corruptions.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Finally, in 1623, the Folio appeared. The F text of <i>Lear</i> was so different from both Q1 and Q2 that it was almost an entirely different play. For one thing, the F version was 200 lines shorter than the Quarto versions. This is pretty significant when you consider that, in <i>Hamlet</i>, Hamlet speaks less than 400 lines in total: 200 lines do matter. Certain characters seemed also to have changed from the Q versions to the F. J. Halio notes that Goneril actually seems <i>meaner</i> – closer to Regan, presumably – in Q1 than she does in F.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Then there are big differences in individual lines that are worth looking at in their own right. One notable one is the great 5.3.307, from Lear’s final monologue: “Never, never, never, never, never.” This moving, memorable line appears truncated in Q1 – “Never, never, never” – leading us to ask what happened between the Quartos and the Folios to effect such a change. Did Shakespeare go back and make changes?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> One theory is that both the Q versions and the Folio are corruptions of an original, now lost, that was reprinted with varying degrees of accuracy. Many modern critics think that Shakespeare did in fact make corrections on Q1, some of which made it into the Folio version. Q2 is largely disregarded at this point.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> If, on the other hand, we stick with the theory of the lost original, which would have been part of Shakespeare’s lost “Foul Papers,” then we give ourselves permission to conflate Q1 and F. This is the tack taken by many modern editions, which pick the best lines - like F’s 5.3.307 – from each version. </span></p><div> </div><div><b> </b></div><div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Part IV: “What mean''st by this?”</span></div><p align="center" style="text-align: center;">-Critical and interpretative history-</p><div><b> </b></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> <b>Samuel Johnson</b></span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Let’s begin with Dr. Johnson’s “Notes from the plays of William Shakespeare” (1765).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> At the time Johnson was writing, his friend Thomas Warton published an essay in the magazine <i>Adventurer</i> in which he wrote that <i>Lear</i> was “too savage and shocking.” Johnson wrote in response that the violence in <i>Lear</i> was perhaps shocking, but that the overall effect of the play was to “fill the mind with a perpetual tumult of indignation, pity, and hope.” Nevertheless, he found it difficult to explain to Warton why Gloucester’s eyes needed to be taken out. “I am not able to apologize,” he wrote, “with equal plausibility for the extrusion of Gloucester’s eyes, which seems an act too horrid to be endured in dramatic exhibition.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Dr. Johnson reminds us that the violence in <i>Lear</i> was really unlike most of the other fare to be found on the Elizabethan stage. “I was many years ago so shocked by Cordelia’s death,” Johnson wrote, “that I know not whether I ever endured to read again the last scenes of the play till I undertook to revise them as an editor.” Reading Johnson, it’s no mystery why some directors chose to alter the ending of the play to make it suitable for more squeamish theatergoers. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Johnson also recognized the barbarity of Lear’s decision in 1.1. “Such preference of one daughter to another, or resignation of dominion on such conditions, would be yet credible if told of a petty prince of Guinea or Madagascar.” In other words, King Lear’s behavior is jarring, strange, and in some ways not even English. If we cut through the colonialist nonsense of Johnson’s remark and get at the emotion behind it, we see that Johnson really was onto something by comparing Lear to the princes of countries thought to be heathen and barbaric.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Greenblatt calls <i>Lear </i>a kind of inversion of the Hobbesian state of nature, meaning that it presents a world in which the “brutish” life is what humanity moves <i>towards</i> rather than <i>from</i>. By evoking Guinea and Madagascar Johnson hints at the uncomfortable proximity of the barbaric to the civilized that is evoked by this play.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> <b>Samuel Coleridge</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Coleridge’s unpublished “Notes on King Lear” (1817), is too short to get into the play very deeply. It does contain some valuable insights on the character of Edmund, though, which are notable for their sympathetic attitude towards him.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Edmund suffers, Coleridge wrote, from the “gnawing conviction that every show of respect is an effort of courtesy which recalls while it represses a contrary feeling.” In other words, because Edmund is treated dismissively by his father and the rest of the court, he comes to assume that any gesture of respect is in fact a gesture of derision dressed up and disguised. Edmund is the play’s great skeptic, doubting astrology, Christianity, love, and family, and Coleridge’s observation can be useful in connecting the philosophical skepticism that characterizes Edmund intellectually with the emotional circumstances that may have contributed to it.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> As for Lear himself, Coleridge hands down the usual king-as-infant diagnosis, writing: “The inveterate habits of sovereignty convert the wish into claim and positive right, and the incompliance with it into crime and treason.” By this point in time, readers of Shakespearean criticism (and of Freudian separation-from-the-mother psychology) have heard enough of this kind of thing to last a lifetime. It’s still good to keep it in mind, though, because Stanley Cavell, in an essay which we’ll look at below, will pick it up and run with it.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>William Hazlitt</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Hazlitt really liked <i>Lear</i>. “It is the best of Shakespeare’s plays,” he wrote, “for it is the one in which he was the most in earnest. He was here fairly caught in the web of his own imagination.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Other chestnuts from Hazlitt include:</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Of Goneril and Regan: “We do not even like to repeat their names.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> On genius: “The greatest strength of genius is shown in describing the strongest passions.”</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> And, finally, on Lear and Edgar: “Nothing can be more complete than the distinction between Lear’s real and Edgar’s assumed madness.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> As with Coleridge, Hazlitt’s criticism will find itself thrown under Stanley Cavell’s buss more than a hundred years later, and for that reason it’s useful to us. Much of Cavell’s effectiveness in addressing the problems of <i>Lear</i> comes from his ability to dismantle the myths about the play that have grown up and become entrenched throughout the course of its critical-interpretive history. When Hazlitt says of Lear’s behavior in act one, “It is his rash haste, his violent impetuosity, his blindness to everything but the dictates of his passions or affections, that produces all his misfortunes,” we can imagine Cavell putting up his finger – “wait just a second, now” – and reframing the whole debate.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>John Keats</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Keats didn’t write much about <i>Lear</i>, but he did leave us an excellent sonnet that bears reprinting. Keats sent the sonnet to his brother with a letter, in which he wrote, “The excellence of art is its intensity, capable of making all disagreeables evaporate, from their being in close relationship with beauty and truth.” </span></p><p> “On Sitting Down to Read King Lear Once Again”: </p><p>O golden-tongued Romance, with serene lute!</p><p>Fair plumed syren, queen of far-away!</p><p>Leave melodizing on this wintry day,</p><p>Shut up thine olden pages, and be mute.</p><p>Adieu! for, once again, the fierce dispute</p><p>Betwixt damnation and impassion''d clay</p><p>Must I burn through; once more humbly assay</p><p>The bitter-sweet of this Shakespearean fruit.</p><p>Chief Poet! and ye clouds of Albion,</p><p>Begetters of our deep eternal theme!</p><p>When through the old oak forest I am gone,</p><p>Let me not wander in a barren dream:</p><p>But, when I am consumed in the fire,</p><p>Give me new phoenix wings to fly at my desire. </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;">Let’s now move ahead to two 20<sup>th</sup> century interpretations, Stanley Cavell’s and Stephen Greenblatt’s.</span></p><div> </div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Stanley Cavell</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Stanley Cavell is a film critic and philosopher whose essay on <i>Lear</i>, “The Avoidance of Love,” considers the problem of evil in the play.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The essay is well worth reading in its entirety, but I will summarize a few of the most mindblowing points below.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> His reading of the blinding of Gloucester is a good place to start. Cavell looks at the blinding not as a scene of “torture” in the abstract but rather as a scene of “blinding” specifically. The significance of this is not initially obvious. Johnson called the blinding “too horrid to be endured,” but he did not consider why Shakespeare might have chosen that form of torture specifically, rather than any other. The representation onstage of a character being garroted, or burned, or whipped, might well have elicited the same response from Dr. Johnson – the point, for him, was that the violence itself was somehow unbearable. Cavell goes one step further, and asks the all-important question: what does the blinding <i>mean</i>?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> He writes, in answer, “The physical cruelty symbolizes the psychic cruelty which pervades the play; but what this particular act of cruelty means is that cruelty cannot bear to be seen. It literalizes evil’s ancient love of darkness” (Adelman 72). Evil, that is, cannot bear to be seen. Regardless of whether or not this is true across the board (and of course it is not; evil always devises ways of making the sight of itself terrifying, and of putting itself in plain view), it is absolutely true of the evil in <i>Lear</i>, which, as typified by the awful Cornwall, does seem to have an instinctive desire to be invisible, or at least to do its work without having to suffer another character’s recognition. Why blind Gloucester? Because Gloucester can see.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Carrying this notion of recognition over to Lear himself, Cavell uncovers a similar fear of recognition as a driving force behind Lear’s character. The $100 question about this play is, “What makes Lear mess up so badly in act one,” and Cavell’s answer is: “[Lear] feels unworthy of love when the reality of lost power comes over him…and he wards it off for the reason for which people do ward off being loved, because it presents itself to them as a demand” (Adelman 82). Real love does make demands on us. It demands, firstly, that we reciprocate the love (though, of course, we may not reciprocate it at all), and secondly that we are recognized as the object of the love. This second demand is nearly inescapable, and it is the one that Lear finds most difficult to accept. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> For this reason, Regan and Goneril’s love is easier for him to live with than Cordelia’s: “Their <i>not</i> offering love is exactly what he wants” (Adelman 83). Lear is a man who does not want to be known, and, because loving is a form of knowing, this means that he does not want to be loved. Cavell connects the end of Lear’s rule over England as a source of his anxiety and fear about love. Because he is no longer a powerful man, he can’t endure the loss of power symbolized by a woman’s love and a woman’s knowledge of him as a man.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Here we are beginning to get into Freud and the problem, for the male child, of separation from the mother. Briefly, this is the idea that the infant doesn’t differentiate between subject and object because all of his or her desires are fulfilled by the mother, who therefore constitutes an extension of the infant’s subject. Only later, when old enough to have agency of his or her own – and therefore to have desires that cannot or will not be fulfilled by the mother – does the child differentiate the subject from the object. For the male child, this is a necessary step to “becoming a man,” but it is also sexually confusing, because the initial object of our love, the mother, is an inappropriate sexual object for us. Cavell writes, “Men do not just naturally not love, they learn not to. And our lives begin by having to accept under the name of love whatever closeness is offered, and then by having to forgo its object” (Adelman 86). As the fool will observe, Lear has made his daughters his mothers, and so has connected them with this confusion of female categories. Perhaps Cavell’s insight here can also help us understand Lear’s revulsion at female sexuality generally, and at the blurring of these categories of mother and daughter more specifically.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> The final moments of the play, in which Lear and Cordelia retreat to the tower to become, in Lear’s words, “God’s spies,” then becomes a moment of non-recognition by Lear that affords him the only real love in the play. It’s tempting to read these lines of Lear’s as a kind of lovely acceptance of his fate and an acceptance of Cordelia; they can love despite their circumstances. But Cavell rejects that reading, and with good reason. “[Lear’s] tone is not: we will love <i>even though</i> we are in prison; but: because we are hidden together we can love” (Adelman 84). Only when he doesn’t risk recognition can Lear surrender himself to love. </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Cavell’s fascinating takes on Edgar and Gloucester are included a number of times in the annotations, as are many of the insights we have discussed above.</span></p><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"><b>Stephen Greenblatt</b></span></div><div><span style="font-size: medium;"> </span></div><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> In 1603, a man named Samuel Harsnett published a pamphlet called “A declaration of egregious popish impostures.” The pamphlet was meant to debunk the performances of those who claimed to be possessed by the devil; it was a how-to manual to detect fake exorcisms. Much of Edgar’s mad speeches as Tom O’Bedlam are lifted directly from this manual, and Greenblatt, in his essay “Shakespeare and the Exorcists,” unpacks the significance of exorcism for Shakespeare and for <i>Lear</i> in particular.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> In early Renaissance England, exorcisms were spectacles. You could go to a church and watch one just like it was a play. Exorcisms were part of the culture of the time, and Greenblatt notes that many mad characters in Shakespeare are often mistaken for the possessed, as in <i>Twelfth Night</i> when Maria says of the crazily dressed Malvolio, “Pray God he be not bewitched” (Halio 105). And Hamlet is well aware, when he follows the ghost, that it might be a demon in disguise.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> So, exorcisms haunted Shakespeare’s world. But Greenblatt writes that Shakespeare “had clearly marked out possession and exorcism as frauds” (Halio 105). So what’s the role of exorcism in <i>Lear</i>?</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Greenblatt reads Edgar’s deception of Gloucester, making him believe that he is on the cliffs of Dover, as a kind of metaphor for the artifice of the theater. When Edgar pretends to “discover” Gloucester after Gloucester’s “fall” from the “cliff,” he essentially describes having seen a demon depart from him (Halio 108). “Edgar tries to create in Gloucester an experience of awe and wonder so intense that it can shatter his suicidal despair and restore his faith in the benevolence of the gods: ‘thy life’s a miracle’” (Halio 108). </span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> In this light, Gloucester is a metaphor for the audience and Edgar a metaphor for the playwright, or for the theater more generally. When we see a play, we are being asked to dismiss the sensory evidence that we receive and simply believe what’s being shown to us. We’re asked, in other words, to mistake a flat stage for a steep cliff (108).</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Greenblatt then moves on to discuss ritual in <i>Lear</i>, and suggests that the play “is haunted by a sense of rituals and beliefs that are no longer efficacious, that have been <i>emptied out</i> (Halio 108). One such ritual might be the transfer of sovereignty, and one such belief would be the obligation of the parent to the child. There’s also the sense that Gloucester’s wishy-washy astrology is an inadequate response to the crisis at hand, and, in that vein, that Lear’s madness is purely natural rather than supernatural. Greenblatt always favors a reading in which the supernatural is reserved for the characters and the natural for the playwright.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Shakespeare’s double take on Harsnett, then, is like this. Whereas Shakespeare doesn’t believe in exorcisms for a minute, he is well aware that other people do believe in them, and that characters who can play off the beliefs of others wield power. Edgar’s possession is a fake, but he fakes it because he needs to disguise himself in order to survive. The idea of the supernatural is manipulated by the naturalists in <i>Lear</i> in order to achieve practical, worldly ends.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> Finally, Greenblatt considers the question of meaning, as in, “What does this story <i>mean</i>?” One of the things that makes <i>Lear</i> so difficult to watch is that it refuses to give up meaning in the final scene. Lear and Cordelia are both wronged, yet they are the ones who have to suffer. Goneril and Regan get off just fine. How can this be? If Cordelia survives, as she did in the sources, then Lear’s suffering could be interpreted as significant in that a kind of supernatural equilibrium would have been restored (Halio 111). Not so in <i>Lear</i>. </span></p><div> </div><div> </div><div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">Part V: “Good sir, no more.”</span></div><p align="center" style="text-align: center;">-final words on the annotations- </p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> In the annotations of <i>Lear</i>, you’ll find all of these critical interpretations considered alongside each other. There are also many ideas of my own, with which you may disagree. My hope is that disagreement will be as intellectually rewarding as agreement.</span></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"> I’ve also included lots of links to maps, Youtube videos, and other images. Because <i>Lear</i> has inspired a long tradition of wonderful visual interpretations by great painters, I’ve included lots of images here. The mix of old, time-tested insights with new, untested ones, should make these annotations rewarding for new readers and returning readers alike. Curtain up.</span></p><div> </div><div> </div><div> </div><div>Further reading (works cited)</div><div> </div><p>Halio, Jay L. <u>The Tragedy of King Lear</u>. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.</p><p>Adelman, Janet, Ed.<span> </span><u>Twentieth Century Interpretations of King Lear</u>. New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 1978.</p><p>Halio, Jay L, Ed.<span> </span><u>Critical Essays on Shakespeare’s King Lear</u>. New York: G.K. Hall, 1996. (“Shakespeare and the Exorcists” is included here.)</p><p>Muir, Kenneth, Ed.<span> </span><u>King Lear: Critical Essays</u>.<span> </span>New York: Garland Publishers, 1984.</p><div><br clear="all" /><hr width="33%" size="1" align="left" /></div><p><a title="" target="_blank" class="standard" href="#_ftnref"><span>[1]</span></a> It reads: “London, / Printed for <i>Nathaniel Butter</i>, and are to be sold at his shop in <i>Pauls</i> / Church-yard at the signe of the Pide Bull neere / St. <i>Austins</i> Gate.<span> </span>1608” (Muir xiii). </p>'", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 16:29:57'", "year": " 1606", "page_views": " 3427", "id": 21, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Taming of the Shrew", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 16:45:45'", "year": " 1593", "page_views": " 461", "id": 22, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Geoffrey Chaucer'", "title": "Canterbury Tales ", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 17:03:08'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 82", "id": 23, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "The Tragedy of Julius Caesar", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Tragedy of Julius Caesar portrays the conspiracy against the Roman dictator, Julius Caesar, his assassination and its aftermath. It is the first of his Roman plays, based on true events from Roman history. It is followed by Antony and Cleopatra.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 17:10:32'", "year": " 1599", "page_views": " 643", "id": 24, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jane Austen'", "title": "Pride and Prejudice", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Pride and Prejudice is the most famous of Jane Austen\\\\''s novels, and its opening is one of the most famous lines in English literature—\\\\"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife.\\\\" Its manuscript was initially called First Impressions, but was never published under that title. Following revisions it was published on 28 January 1813, and, like both its predecessor Sense and Sensibility and Northanger Abbey, it was written at Steventon Rectory.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 17:23:27'", "year": " 1813", "page_views": " 1885", "id": 25, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Andrew Magliozzi'", "title": "The Syzygy", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'This is a story about contemporary high school honors students and their overly ambitious substitute physics teacher. As the story progresses, chaotic entropy permeates the school.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 17:43:43'", "year": " 2007", "page_views": " 166", "id": 26, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "All 's Well That Ends Well", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 19:31:57'", "year": " 1601", "page_views": " 739", "id": 27, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "As You Like It", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'As You Like It is a pastoral comedy, often characterized as one of Shakespeare\\\\''s mature works.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-23 19:57:26'", "year": " 1599", "page_views": " 757", "id": 28, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'T.S. Eliot (Thomas Sterns)'", "title": "Poetry and Prose of TS Eliot", "intro_essay": " '<p>The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four Quartets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a meditative poem written by the great Modernist poet T. S. Eliot in the anxious limbo between the World Wars. True to the musical resonances of the title, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Quartets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is a kaleidoscopic array of several motifs, which flow into each other with the seamless grace of the maestro\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s bow. As you read on, you notice that past, present, and future become uncanny mirrors of each other; that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153what might have been\u00e2\u20ac\u009d, the limbo realm of fantasy and dream, often points to the lapidary certainty of the past; that Christian, Buddhist, and Hindu symbols blend into each other under the glimmer of mystical illumination. Although Eliot wrote this startling poem after his conversion to Anglicanism, the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four Quartets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is not a repository of Christian doctrine and ideas. Rather, Eliot uses the mobility of poetic language and its rich ambiguities to relate the full potential of spiritual, individual, and artistic transformation. And this transformation is always punctured by irreverent, childish laughter.</p><p>Curiously enough, Eliot resorts to traditional notions of time, identity, and spirituality only to subvert them, to show that behind every myth or archetype lurks the shadow of paradox. He inverts conventional temporality by envisioning parallel universes that exist only in our consciousness and invoking the idea of Divine Time that subsumes and annuls chronological time. Furthermore, he likens individual identity to a mystical journey, where dispossession and emptiness are necessary catalysts of illumination. In addition, he shows that true illumination can only happen within the confines of perfectly ordinary experience; becoming enlightened is merely a matter of perception.</p><p>If the journey is a metaphor for spiritual or inner transformation, then Eliot’s point is that we should not aspire to any fixed or static goal in our endeavor. Like the river whose turbulent currents undergo constant transformations, the dynamism of life always bursts through the “shell” or “husk” of abstract or conventional meaning that we ascribe to it. If you think back to any life-changing experience, you will see that “the purpose is beyond the end you figured and is altered in fulfillment”. What is the point of falling in love, studying art, writing a poem? As you will see, Eliot is very critical of linear thinking; because of the limitless connections between real and possible temporal networks, your purpose in any given experience can be altered in a myriad ways. Plus, factor in the people you may meet that may also alter this so-called “purpose”. Of course, the “alteration” of purpose is only cause for wonder and celebration, the celebration of the sheer dynamism and unpredictability of human existence. In a journey of inner transformation, you would have to put off common sense and conventional wisdom to come to surprising insights about self and world.</p><p>The \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four Quartets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has such a powerful impact on the reader because of its dialogic structure. The dialogues within the poem make its artistic effect more palpable; see the utterances of the bird in the magic garden, the dialogue between the narrator and his phantom double, a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153familiar, compound ghost\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reminiscent of Dante. Of course, the poem is also meant to be read as dialogue with the reader. Even the discourse of prayer is a hidden form of dialogue. Prayer is a chance to experience pure wonder, because it is a conversation with an Interlocutor who is always silent. And in His silence ring a thousand voices.In the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Four Quartets\u00e2\u20ac\u009d poetry and desire could be seen as mirrors reflecting each other’s image; poetry is often written with an aim to fuel someone else’s desire, and desire is often the raison d’etre of poetry. Furthermore, both poetry and desire come to fruition through the act of transformation; poetry transforms ordinary language through metaphor and the music of rhyme, while desire transforms our understanding of ourselves, blurring the borders between self and other with the numinous power of love.</p>'", "summary": " 'T.S. Eliot is one of the greatest poets as well as literary critics in American academic history.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-24 06:56:41'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 2755", "id": 29, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=7'"},{"author": " 'Charles S. Peirce'", "title": "The Fixation of Belief", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'In “The Fixation of Belief,” published in Popular Science Monthly in November 1877, Peirce proposes the practice of “inquiry.” For Peirce, inquiry is a sort of scientific justification for everything, an empirical process that seeks to have a replication of results. Inquiry is not an individual endeavor, but rather a community effort or group project.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-24 08:48:00'", "year": " 1877", "page_views": " 194", "id": 30, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Stuart Mill'", "title": "Utilitarianism", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'This philosophy within this book is based on Jeremy Bentham\\\\''s preexisting work on Utilitarianism. Mill’s famous formulation is known as the \\\\"greatest happiness principle.\\\\" It holds that one must always act so as to produce the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people. One of Mill\\\\''s major contributions to Utilitarianism is his argument for the qualitative separation of pleasures.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-26 07:54:56'", "year": " 1863", "page_views": " 321", "id": 31, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jeremy Bentham'", "title": "An Introduction to the Principles of Morals and Legislation", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'One of Bentham’s most important works in which he develops his theory of ‘utility’ at considerable length and discusses how the penal system (especially punishments) could be based on this theory. One of the founding texts of the 19th century school of Utilitarianism.'", "created_on": " '2007-09-26 09:29:41'", "year": " 1823", "page_views": " 76", "id": 32, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'E. M. Forster'", "title": "Howard 's End", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-09-27 06:25:01'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 0", "id": 33, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Sophocles'", "title": "Antigone", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Antigone (Greek: \u00e1\u00bc\u02c6ντιγόνη) is a tragedy written before or in 442 BC by Sophocles. It is chronologically the third of the three Theban plays but was written first.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 06:30:06'", "year": " 442", "page_views": " 173", "id": 86, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Guy Debord'", "title": "The Society of the Spectacle", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'In two hundred and twenty-one theses divided into nine chapters, Debord traces the development of a modern society in which \\\\"All that was once directly lived has become mere representation.\\\\" Debord argues that the history of social life can be understood as \\\\"the decline of being into having, and having into merely appearing.\\\\" This condition in which authentic social life has been replaced with its image represents, according to Debord, that \\\\"historical moment at which the commodity completes its colonization of social life.\\\\" The spectacle is the inverted image of society in which relations between commodities have supplanted relations between people, in which passive identification with the spectacle supplants genuine activity. \\\\"The spectacle is not a collection of images,\\\\" Debord writes. \\\\"rather, it is a social relationship between people that is mediated by images.\\\\"'", "created_on": " '2007-09-28 07:07:40'", "year": " 1967", "page_views": " 365", "id": 36, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Theodore Dreiser'", "title": "Sister Carrie", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Sister Carrie (1900) is a novel by Theodore Dreiser about a young country girl who moves to the big city where she starts realizing her own American Dream by first becoming a mistress to powerful men and later as a famous actress.\\r\\n\\r\\nAt the time of its first publication, the novel caused a minor scandal and Dreiser had difficulty finding a publisher for it. This was due to the blurred division line between good and bad in the plot. Although Dreiser\\\\''s moralising narrator does assert that, despite the fame and the money she has amassed, Carrie will not be able to achieve peace of mind in her life, the apparent lack of poetic justice -- the notion that immorality should pay in the end, even if only up to a point -- was a concept the reading public were altogether unused to at the time.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-09-28 09:50:57'", "year": " 1900", "page_views": " 1465", "id": 37, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'James Joyce'", "title": "A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916. It depicts the formative years in the life of Stephen Dedalus, a fictional alter ego of Joyce and a pointed allusion to the consummate craftsman of Greek mythology, Daedalus.'", "created_on": " '2008-05-30 12:30:19'", "year": " 1916", "page_views": " 380", "id": 317, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Rene Descartes'", "title": "Discourse on the Method", "intro_essay": " '<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><em>Discourse on the Method of Rightly conducting the Reason and seeking for Truth in the Sciences</em> by Descartes, published in 1637 is a foundational text not only of modern philosophy, but also of modern thought in general. Whether or not Descartes can justifiably be called the "father of modern philosophy," it is beyond doubt that he is the first important philosopher of the modern age. Quite apart from that, he was also one of the greatest mathematicians of all times.</p>\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Rene Descartes (1596-1650) was born in La Haye, a small town in Touraine, France on March 31, 1596. At Ulm in Germany, on the night of November 10,1619 he had a series of dreams, which he interpreted as a divine sign that it was his destiny to found a unified science of nature based on mathematics. This vision he tried to formulate in his first substantial treatise <em>Regulae ad Directionen Ingenii </em>(<em>Rules for the Direction of the Mind</em>), on which he worked from 1619-28. It was supposed to have 36 rules - in 3 parts of 12 rules each. He had completed part I, and rules xiv-xvii in part II and possibly also xviii, and also settled on the titles for xix-xviii. This is where it ends (1628/29). Part III was never written. Hence, the project was never completed and it was published posthumously in 1701 - in it he laid down a method, inspired essentially by mathematics, for the advancement of natural science and all rational inquiry in any subject matter. The <em>Discourse</em> is the enunciation of these rules in general semi-popular terms. It was meant, as he said in a letter to Mersenne: "not to teach a method, but only to converse about it."</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">From then on he worked on drafts of the <em>Dioptrique</em> (the <em>Optics</em>), the <em>Meteors</em> (<em>Meteorology</em>) and the <em>Traite de l’homme</em> (<em>Treatise on Man</em>), which were very likely intended to be a part of a larger work, <em>Le Monde</em> (<em>The World</em>). In 1633, the same year that <em>The World</em> had become ready for publication, Descartes heard of the Church’s condemnation of Galileo (1564-1642) and decided against its publication. For the world system he had adopted in the book assumed, as did Galileo’s, the heliocentric Copernican model. In a letter to Mersenne, dated November 1633, Descartes expresses his fear that were he to publish <em>The World</em>, he would be met with the same fate that befell Galileo.<em> The World</em> appears to have been constituted of several smaller, but related, works: a treatise on physics, a treatise on mechanics (machines), a treatise on animals, and a treatise on man. Although much of <em>The World</em> has been lost, some of it seems to have survived in the form of essays and were published posthumously.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">In 1637, he published his first book - in French and anonymously - containing three treatises on mathematics and physical sciences - the <em>Geometry</em>, the <em>Dioptrix</em> and the <em>Meteors</em>. <em>Discourse on Method</em> was the preface to it and the three works that are attached to it are apparently added so as to exemplify the method of inquiry it develops, although it is not clearly stated as to how the method is applied in these essays. In 1644, a Latin version was published under his name and an English translation followed in 1649.</p>\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Apart from the philosophical significance of <em>Discourse</em>, which we shall examine in greater detail below, it needs to be noted that in these essays he makes an important connection between geometry and algebra, which allowed for the solving of geometrical problems by way of algebraic equations and also promoted a new conception of matter, which allowed for the accounting of physical phenomena by way of mechanical explanations, thus laying the foundation for modern mathematics and physics. The significance of the connection that Descartes made between geometry and algebra was great indeed, for without it the mathematization of the physics and the development of the calculus might not have happened when they did occur a generation later via Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727). And the various concepts that lead to analytic geometry are found for the first time in the <em>Geometry</em>, and <em>Geometry’s</em> mathematical notation is still used today. It should be noted, however, that groundbreaking as this work may be, contrary to common belief , nowhere in the <em>Geometry</em> is a "Cartesian Coordinate System" ever developed (that is, the <em>x</em>-<em>y</em> coordinate system taught to today’s students of algebra), nor is he the originator of other mathematical concepts that bear his name, for example, the "Cartesian Product." And hence, though the claim that Descartes is the originator of analytic geometry, at least as we understand it today, overstates the case, this does not in any manner diminish the importance of Descartes work in the history of mathematics.</p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">The method advocated is seen as analytical or heuristic, one that proceeds by resolving a problem into a number of constituent elements. The model here is the resolution of a complex curve or curvilinear motion by the use of coordinate geometry. Descartes thought that the advantage of this method was that it was a method of discovery. He opposed his \u2018analytic'' method to the \u2018synthetic,'' which was characterized by the formal deductive method exemplified in Euclidean geometry. But more importantly, this method is intended not only for scientific inquiry, but for all forms of rational inquiry. This was the articulation of the vision that he saw in his dream, of the unity of all knowledge - philosophical and scientific - that he expressed in the image of the Tree of Knowledge, whose roots were metaphysics, trunk was physics and the branches were the other sciences, including medicine and ethics.</p>\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">It should be pointed, as we shall see in greater detail, that the very form of the <em>Discourse</em> is intrinsically connected to the content of its claims. It is remarkable for three reasons: first, its autobiographical tone and the centering of the individual, second, as a concise expression of the Cartesian system and third, for it is written in French, at a time when scholarly works were invariably written in Latin - this shift to the common everyday language is something he shares with two of his contemporaries, Galileo and Hobbes. This shift in all their cases is a conscious and deliberate one in order to appeal directly to the sensibility of everyman, circumventing the authority of the Church and its learned schoolmen, which in the case of Descartes is founded on his metaphysics. In fact, the French style of <em>Discourse</em> set the standard for the expression of abstract thought for later writers.</p>\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">Descartes'' <em>Discourse</em> is his most famous and widely read work and not just among students of philosophy, but also among lay people. One could hazard a guess that perhaps it is the most widely read philosophical text of modern times. And with good reason; for it not only inaugurates and encapsulates the basic principles and assumptions of modern life, but also its paradoxes. Although the confrontation with the church as the sole guardian and authority on all knowledge that was the principle issue of the times, in which matter Descartes, unlike his contemporary Galileo, has been accused of compromise and opportunism, is no longer at center stage and by and large the scientific view of the natural world is the received wisdom, the questions he raised and the views he expressed about the origin and nature of life and the relation of animal and human life to the rest of nature, and its bearing on medical advancements continue to haunt us even today. Similarly his views on human intelligence and its relation to language inform contemporary debates on issues such as linguistic theory, computer translations, artificial intelligence and robotics. </p>\\r\\n\\r\\n<p></p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">A beguilingly simple text, told as he himself admits as an autobiographical fable, the <em>Discourse</em> contains in it the insights that have contributed to the making of modern life and also the paradoxes that haunt it and for which reason it invites the readers attention - and has justly been granted that attention - like perhaps no other modern philosophical text.</p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt">For more information on Descartes and other philosophical matters, check out the following sites:</p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"> </p>\\r\\n<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><a href="http://plato.stanford.edu/" target="_blank">Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy</a> : http://plato.stanford.edu/<br />\\r\\n<a href="http://www.iep.utm.edu/" target="_blank">Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy </a>: http://www.iep.utm.edu/</p>\\r\\n'", "summary": " 'The Discourse on the Method is one of the most influential works in the history of modern science. It is a method which gives a solid platform from which all modern natural sciences could evolve. In this work, Descartes tackles the problem of skepticism which had been revived from the ancients by contemporary authors such as Michel de Montaigne. Descartes modified it to account for a truth that he found to be incontrovertible. Descartes started his line of reasoning by doubting everything, so as to assess the world from a fresh perspective, clear of any preconceived notions.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-03 07:59:00'", "year": " 1637", "page_views": " 1254", "id": 40, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=4'"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "Pragmatism: A New Name for Some Old Ways of Thinking", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'William James\\\\'' classic text describing his views on philosophical pragmatism.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-03 11:39:07'", "year": " 1907", "page_views": " 376", "id": 41, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "The Meaning of Truth", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'William James\\\\'' sequel to his treatise on the philosophical concept of pragmatism.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-03 12:31:15'", "year": " 1907", "page_views": " 527", "id": 42, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "A Pluralistic Universe", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-04 06:43:38'", "year": " 1909", "page_views": " 475", "id": 43, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "The Will to Believe", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-04 07:17:06'", "year": " 1897", "page_views": " 394", "id": 44, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-04 07:44:57'", "year": " 1902", "page_views": " 466", "id": 46, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Christopher Marlowe'", "title": "Doctor Faustus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-04 12:23:16'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 524", "id": 47, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "On a Certain Blindness in Human Beings", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 06:32:57'", "year": " 1899", "page_views": " 57", "id": 48, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William James'", "title": "What Makes a Life Significant", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 06:44:33'", "year": " 1900", "page_views": " 54", "id": 49, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Dewey'", "title": "My Pedagogoic Creed", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 06:50:22'", "year": " 1897", "page_views": " 118", "id": 50, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Dewey'", "title": "Democracy and Education", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 07:10:46'", "year": " 1916", "page_views": " 785", "id": 51, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Common'", "title": "Like Water for Chocolate", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'This album was a considerable commercial breakthrough for the rapper, selling 70,000 copies in its first week. The video for \\\\"The Light\\\\" was frequently shown on MTV, adding to Common\\\\''s exposure.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe album also marked the coming together of the Soulquarians; a collective composed of ?uestlove (of The Roots), the late Jay Dee (formerly of Slum Village), keyboardist James Poyser, and bassist Pino Palladino among numerous other collaborators. '", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 12:24:17'", "year": " 2000", "page_views": " 101", "id": 52, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gertrude Stein'", "title": "A Long Gay Book", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 13:04:55'", "year": " 1909", "page_views": " 147", "id": 53, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gertrude Stein'", "title": "Many Many Women", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 13:20:34'", "year": " 1910", "page_views": " 58", "id": 54, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gertrude Stein'", "title": "G.M.P", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 13:27:07'", "year": " 1912", "page_views": " 80", "id": 55, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gertrude Stein'", "title": "Tender Buttons", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 13:35:09'", "year": " 1914", "page_views": " 90", "id": 56, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gertrude Stein'", "title": "Stories of The Good Anna, Melanctha and The Gentle Lena", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-05 13:49:35'", "year": " 1909", "page_views": " 106", "id": 57, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Emily Dickinson'", "title": "Poetry Collections", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-06 13:17:50'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1194", "id": 59, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Mark Twain'", "title": "A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur 's Court", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-06 14:08:23'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1423", "id": 61, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Edith Wharton'", "title": "House of Mirth", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-06 14:50:30'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1020", "id": 62, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Aeschylus'", "title": "The Oresteia", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Oresteia is a trilogy of tragedies about the end of the curse on the House of Atreus, written by Aeschylus.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe trilogy was originally performed at the Dionysia festival in Athens in 458 BC, where it won first prize.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-07 07:34:32'", "year": " 458", "page_views": " 539", "id": 63, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "The Souls of Black Folk", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-08 16:09:10'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1455", "id": 64, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Unknown'", "title": "The Bhagavad Gita", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Bhagavad Gita (or, \\\\"Song of God\\\\") is a Sanskrit text from the Bhishma Parva of the Mahabharata epic. The content of the text is a conversation between Krishna and Arjuna taking place on the battlefield of Kurukshetra just prior to the start of a climactic war. Responding to Arjuna\\\\''s confusion and moral dilemma, Krishna explains to Arjuna his duties as a warrior and Prince and elaborates on a number of different Yogic and Vedantic philosophies, with examples and analogies. This has led to the Gita often being described as a concise guide to Hindu philosophy and also as a practical, self-contained guide to life. During the discourse, Krishna reveals his identity as the Supreme Being Himself (Bhagavan), blessing Arjuna with an awe-inspiring glimpse of His divine absolute form.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-08 16:18:18'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1365", "id": 65, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Richard III", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-09 17:13:56'", "year": " 1587", "page_views": " 1074", "id": 66, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gertrude Stein'", "title": "Three Lives", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-10 06:36:39'", "year": " 1909", "page_views": " 234", "id": 67, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jane Addams'", "title": "Twenty Years at Hull-House, with Autobiographical Notes", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-10 08:31:06'", "year": " 1910", "page_views": " 669", "id": 71, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "The Black of the North: A Social Study", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:28:42'", "year": " 1901", "page_views": " 34", "id": 72, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "The Conservation of Races", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:32:58'", "year": " 1897", "page_views": " 43", "id": 73, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "The Freedmen 's Bureau", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:35:52'", "year": " 1901", "page_views": " 37", "id": 74, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "Of the Training of Black Men", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:37:33'", "year": " 1902", "page_views": " 35", "id": 75, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "A Negro Schoolmaster in the New South", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:39:12'", "year": " 1899", "page_views": " 39", "id": 76, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "Strivings of the Negro People", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:40:44'", "year": " 1897", "page_views": " 41", "id": 77, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'W.E.B. DuBois'", "title": "The Talented Tenth", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:41:51'", "year": " 1903", "page_views": " 35", "id": 78, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Nathaniel Hawthorne'", "title": "The Scarlet Letter", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 13:49:11'", "year": " 1850", "page_views": " 826", "id": 79, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Emily Bronte'", "title": "Wuthering Heights", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-12 16:24:15'", "year": " 1847", "page_views": " 0", "id": 80, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Joseph Conrad'", "title": "Heart of Darkness", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Heart of Darkness is a novella by Polish-born writer Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski). Before its 1902 publication, it appeared as a three-part series (1899) in Blackwood\\\\''s Magazine. It is widely regarded as a significant work of English literature and part of the Western canon.\\r\\n\\r\\nThis highly symbolic story is actually a story within a story, or frame narrative. It follows Charles Marlow as he recounts, from dusk through to late night, his adventure into the Congo to a group of men aboard a ship anchored in the Thames Estuary.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe story details an incident when Marlow, an Englishman, took a foreign assignment as a ferry-boat captain, employed by a Belgian trading company, on what readers may assume is the Congo River, in the Congo Free State, a private colony of King Leopold II; the country is never specifically named. Though his job is transporting ivory downriver, Marlow quickly develops an intense interest in investigating Kurtz, an ivory-procurement agent in the employ of the government. Kurtz has a reputation throughout the region.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-01-24 00:46:08'", "year": " 1902", "page_views": " 373", "id": 199, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Mark Twain'", "title": "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn", "intro_essay": " '<p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> endures as the most celebrated work by American author Mark Twain.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The novel continues along the trajectory set by Twain’s previous work, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</i>, but is decidedly more complex in both tone and topic.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>While both works explore the lives of young boys in the 1840-50s American South, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</i> is whimsical by nature, whereas <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> deals more extensively with substantial issues, such as religion and slavery.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Another key difference is the use of dialect in the latter novel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> is written from Huck Finn’s own perspective, rather than from a polished, authorial remove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thus, the reader experiences Huck Finn’s journey as seen through the eyes of a precocious and conflicted young rascal.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Of course, as with most successful literature that deals with controversial topics, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> has been the subject of a contentious battle ever since its first printing in 1884.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While at one extreme, the novel has been hailed as the great American novel, at the other extreme, it has been panned as racist and obscene and has a history of being one of the most frequently banned books in America.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Individual reactions will certainly always vary, but the novel is undoubtedly established as one of the most important and influential texts in the history of American Literature.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To best understand the novel in this role, then, three interwoven facets of the text must be explored: its historical context, plot and themes, and critical reception.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level:1">HISTORICAL CONTEXT</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Born in 1835, Samuel Clemens (who would later take the pen name Mark Twain – a Mississippi riverboat term referring to the depth of water over which a boat can safely navigate) grew up in small towns in Missouri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hannibal, where his family settled when Twain was four, would eventually become the fictional St. Petersburg, Missouri, in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Adventures of Tom Sawyer </i>and<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"> Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Missouri was a slave-holding state at the time, prominent because of its central role in the Missouri Compromise of 1820, which prohibited slavery North of the Louisiana territory with the exception of the territory of Missouri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In effect, this division of the country was responsible for isolating the two halves of the nation into what would become the two opposing factions of the Civil War.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Though a slave-holding state when the Civil War broke out in 1861, Missouri was claimed by both the Union and the Confederacy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ultimately, the state became fragmented internally with representatives being sent to both sides.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Mark Twain’s own attitudes towards race and slavery have certain parallels with the complicated history of Missouri.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Twain was briefly part of a Confederate militia, though the militia disbanded after only a few weeks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Then, rather than taking part in the war, Twain avoided the matter altogether by traveling west with his brother.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Later in life, Twain became a very strong supporter of equal rights, and acknowledged that his personal ideologies evolved over a lifetime of reflection.</p><p class="MsoNormal">An avid traveler throughout his life, Twain experienced first-hand many of the most historically significant events and regions of the nineteenth-century.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Before the Civil War began, he worked as a river boat pilot on the Mississippi river.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>After traveling west, he partook in the late stages of the Californian gold rush.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He later toured Europe extensively.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Throughout his life, Twain made acquaintanceships with many of the most prominent figures of the day, including abolitionist writers Frederick Douglass and Harriet Beecher Stowe, scientist Nikola Tesla, and the prominent industrialist Henry H. Rogers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His experiences during these times are chronicled not only in his novels (which include <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Roughing It</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Innocents Abroad</i>, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Prince and the Pauper</i>, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court</i>), but also in the huge body of work comprised of the countless newspaper articles and speeches that he composed throughout his life.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level:1">PLOT AND THEMES</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Though the novel reacts to many of the issues affecting contemporary Southern rural life in the late 1840s and early 1850s, it was not published until 1884.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Because it was composed after the end of the Civil War and the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment, which permanently abolished slavery, the novel treats the institution from a historical remove.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Slavery is one facet of the major theme that underlies much of the novel’s plot – individual liberty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The novel sets up several contrasts, which show the extremes between freedom and constraint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The following are but a few examples: the physical ownership of humans versus the inherency of individual freedom, the restrictions of society versus the liberties of the natural world, and the limitations of imposed ideas versus the expansiveness of personal reflection.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">All of these issues unfold during Huck’s journey.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His raft trip down the Mississippi, in the company of the runaway slave Jim, has come to embody in the minds of many a composite of the several freedoms discussed above.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>During their journey, they meet many of the characters that have since come to typify both the time and the places concerned with the novel, such as the Duke and the King, and the Grangerford and Shepherdson families.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In this sense, the novel can be called picaresque, meaning that it follows a central hero (often, as in this case, a conflicted, roguish youth) through an episodic series of adventures.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Ultimately, the episodes in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i> create an expansive overview of life that is in turns funny and heartbreaking.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Indeed, as a noted humorist, Twain displays his wit in almost all of his writings, including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Twain is very sophisticated in his use of humor; often, he creates a funny situation in order to criticize something, be it a behavior, an attitude, or an accepted belief.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>For example, Huck’s struggle with doing the right thing, most forcefully displayed when he feels the need to choose between his religious upbringing on one hand and his independently derived beliefs on the other, is often framed by humorous dialogue.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>One such instance is when Huck determines to help Jim escape from slavery, despite believing that such an action constitutes stealing.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He famously concludes, “All right then, I’ll go to hell.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This use of irony, where Huck does a good deed even though he is wrongly convinced that it is immoral helps to reinforce Twain’s indictment of some of the hypocritical religious teachings of the day.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">The underlying theme of religion plays a big part in the novel in several ways.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Most basically, the novel explores issues where a character (frequently Huck, as in the previous example) must make a moral decision, and frequently the decision hinges on a religious conviction.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Twain lambastes those who use Christian teachings to defend immoral decisions, just as he criticizes anyone who follows a belief system without being personally convinced of its incontrovertibility.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>His caustic approach towards much of the accepted Christian dogma of the time is one of the reasons why the novel has so frequently been banned in the United States and elsewhere.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-outline-level:1">CRITICAL RECEPTION</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">When the novel was first published, it immediately evoked strong, diametrically opposed reactions.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Besides having controversial content, the novel was unique in several ways that garnered it much attention.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>First, as mentioned above, it is from the perspective of a child.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The novel immediately grabs one’s attention with the opening sentence: “You don’t know about me without you have read a book by the name of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, but that ain’t no matter.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This use of fragmented, seemingly careless prose was unprecedented at the time, and has since been frequently emulated to various extents.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Besides being original, Twain’s use of vernacular speech throughout the novel reveals a mastery over the form that has yet to be surpassed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Second, the novel was written from the viewpoint of Huck, rather than from an omniscient, authorial viewpoint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Thus, there is increased intimacy between the reader and the character.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It creates a confessional tone, much in the lines of works like Jean Jacques Rousseau’s “Confessions.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>However, unlike Rousseau’s work, Twain’s account is largely fictional, and is intentionally unpolished in its narrative voice.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">As a result of these innovations, as well as due to the tight structure and compelling storyline, the novel has generally received high praise over the last 120 years from both casual readers and critics alike.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many subsequent authors have affirmed the novel’s greatness, such as Ernest Hemingway.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Hemingway claimed, “All modern American literature comes from one book by Mark Twain called Huckleberry Finn.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There was nothing before.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>There has been nothing as good since.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Norman Mailer, another renowned twentieth-century author, said, “I supposed I am the ten millionth reader to say that Huckleberry Finn is an extraordinary work.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Perhaps the novel’s strongest supporter was poet and critic T.S. Eliot, who asserted that Huckleberry Finn is “not unworthy to take a place with Ulysses, Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Hamlet and other great discoveries that man has made about himself.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Eliot is one of the few critics who has supported the novel in entirety.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Many others find the ending to be highly problematic, because it suddenly devolves into a disappointing series of misadventures that threaten to undermine the cumulative lessons of all the preceding chapters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, it is not just the ending that troubles some readers, it is Twain’s use of idiomatic speech.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The use of the word “nigger,’ appears 213 times.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This raises the question of whether a book can be a work of art when it repeatedly uses vile language.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Nor is it possible to defend the usage by saying that the word was inoffensive at the time – it has always had a derogatory meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>At best, it can be defended as being a term in common usage at the time. Even if Twain intended to overuse the term in order to highlight the unthinking attitude of Southerners towards slaves, it is difficult not to wince in certain exchanges like the following, when Huck and Aunt Sally discuss a steamboat explosion: “Good gracious! Anybody hurt?” Aunt Sally asks.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“No’m.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Killed a nigger,” Huck replies.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Aunt Sally says, “Well, it’s lucky, because sometimes people do get hurt.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While the unthinking attitude betrayed by both Aunt Sally and Huck – that a black person is not really a person – may be intended to reflect satirically on those who hold such notions, Twain’s reasons for including such passages will forever create controversy.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">It is not only the novel’s language, but also its portrayal of slaves, that has incensed many readers over the years.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The typical slave is represented as being foolish and superstitious, and he or she generally speaks in a drawling, uneducated dialect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In an article entitled “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Huckleberry Finn </i>Is Offensive,” critic John H. Wallace says that the book “speaks of black Americans with implications that they are not honest, they are not as intelligent as whites and they are not human.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Wallace points to several instances of unflattering portrayals of black Americans.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>To this argument, some respond that most of the characters in the novel are presented in a negative light, regardless of race.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Indeed, the vast majority of white characters, young and old, are either hypocrites, uneducated country folk, dishonest swindlers, or temperamental hotheads.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In fact, one of the only characters entirely above reproach is Jim.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>While Jim may be simple minded and overly passive, he is still much more sympathetic than most other characters.</p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent:.5in">Yet, regardless of which side one takes in the battle over Huck Finn as masterpiece or as racist novel, one must ultimately agree with Toni Morrisson’s assessment of the debate: “For a hundred years, the argument that this novel <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">is</i> [a masterpiece] has been identified, re-identified, examined, waged, and advanced.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What it cannot be is dismissed.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is classic literature, which is to say it heaves, manifests, and lasts.”</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">Further Reading:</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p class="MsoNormal">By Mark Twain:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-The Innocents Abroad</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-Roughing It</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-The Prince and the Pauper</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-Life on the Mississippi</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Adventures of Tom Sawyer</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court</i></p><p class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-Tom Sawyer Abroad</i><br style="mso-special-character:line-break" /></p><p class="MsoNormal">Criticism:</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-T.S. Eliot, “Introduction,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. </i>New York: Chanticleer Press, 1950.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-Leslie Fiedler, “Come Back to the Raft Ag’in, Huck Honey!” first appeared in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Partisan Review</i>, 15, No. 6 (June 1948).</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-John H. Wallace, “<i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">Huckleberry Finn</i> is Offensive,” <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Washington Post</i>, 11 April 1982.</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>-Michael Patrick Hearn, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style:normal">The Annotated Huckleberry Finn</i>.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1981.</p><p class="MsoNormal"> </p><p> </p>'", "summary": " 'Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) by Mark Twain is commonly accounted as one of the first Great American Novels. It was also one of the first major American novels ever written using Local Color Realism or the vernacular, or common speech, being told in the first person by the eponymous Huckleberry \\\\"Huck\\\\" Finn, best friend of Tom Sawyer (hero of three other Mark Twain books). The book was first published in 1884.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe book is noted for its innocent young protagonist, its colorful description of people and places along the Mississippi River, and its sober and often scathing look at entrenched attitudes, particularly racism, of the time. The drifting journey of Huckleberry Finn and his friend Jim, a runaway slave, down the Mississippi River on their raft may be one of the most enduring images of escape and freedom in all of American literature.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe book has been popular with young readers since its publication, and taken as a sequel to the comparatively innocuous The Adventures of Tom Sawyer (which had no particular social message), it has also been the continued object of study by serious literary critics. Although the Southern society it satirized was already a quarter-century in the past by the time of publication, the book immediately became controversial, and has remained so to this day.\\r\\n [Textual Summary from Wikipedia]'", "created_on": " '2007-10-17 12:07:00'", "year": " 1884", "page_views": " 4274", "id": 82, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Locke'", "title": "The Second Treatise of Government", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Two Treatises of Government (or Two Treatises of Government: In the Former, The False Principles and Foundation of Sir Robert Filmer, And His Followers, are Detected and Overthrown. The Latter is an Essay concerning The True Original, Extent, and End of Civil-Government) is a work of political philosophy published anonymously in 1689 by John Locke. The First Treatise attacks patriarchalism in the form of sentence-by-sentence refutation of Robert Filmer\\\\''s Patriarcha and the Second Treatise outlines a theory of civil society based on natural rights and contract theory.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-18 08:46:40'", "year": " 1689", "page_views": " 2850", "id": 83, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Sophocles'", "title": "Oedipus the King", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Oedipus the King (Oedipus Tyrannus, or “Oedipus the Tyrant”), also known as Oedipus Rex, is a Greek tragedy, written by Sophocles and first performed ca. 429 BC. The play was the second of Sophocles’ three Theban plays to be produced, but comes first in the internal chronology of the plays, followed by Oedipus a Colonus and then Antigone. Over the centuries it has come to be regarded by many as the Greek tragedy par excellence.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-18 11:08:41'", "year": " 429", "page_views": " 175", "id": 84, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Sophocles'", "title": "Oedipus at Colonus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Oedipus at Colonus (also Oedipus Coloneus) is one of the three Theban plays of the Athenian tragedian Sophocles. It was written before Sophocles’ death in 406 BC and produced by his grandson (also called Sophocles) at the Festival of Dionysus in 401 BC.\\r\\n\\r\\nIn the timeline of the plays, the events of Oedipus at Colonus occur after Oedipus the King and before Antigone. The play describes the end of Oedipus’ tragic life. Legends differ as to the site of Oedipus’ death; Sophocles set the place at Colonus, a village near Athens and also Sophocles’ own birthplace, where the blinded Oedipus has come with his daughters Antigone and Ismene as suppliants of the Eumenides and of Theseus, the king of Athens.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-10-18 12:03:30'", "year": " 401", "page_views": " 170", "id": 85, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Immanuel Kant'", "title": "Fundamental Principles of the Metaphysic of Morals", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Groundwork of the Metaphysics of Morals (Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785), Immanuel Kant\\\\''s first contribution to moral philosophy, argues for an a priori basis for morality. Where the Critique of Pure Reason laid out Kant\\\\''s metaphysical and epistemological ideas, this relatively short, primarily meta-ethical, work was intended to outline and define the concepts and arguments shaping his future work The Metaphysics of Morals. However, the latter work is much less read than the Groundwork.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Groundwork is notable for its explanation of the categorical imperative, which is the central concept of Kant’s moral philosophy.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Groundwork is broken into a preface, followed by three sections. Kant\\\\''s argument works from common reason up to the supreme unconditional law, in order to identify its existence. He then works backwards from there to prove the relevance and weight of the moral law. The third and final section of the book is famously obscure, and it is partly because of this that Kant later, in 1788, decides to publish the Critique of Practical Reason.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 07:07:26'", "year": " 1785", "page_views": " 415", "id": 87, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Immanuel Kant'", "title": "Perpetual Peace: A Philosophical Sketch", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The other modern plans for a perpetual peace descend from Immanuel Kant\\\\''s 1795 essay, Project for a Perpetual Peace. In this essay, Kant described his proposed peace program as containing two steps. The \\\\"Preliminary Articles\\\\" described the steps that should be taken immediately, or with all deliberate speed.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 08:08:50'", "year": " 1795", "page_views": " 316", "id": 88, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "The Comedy of Errors", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare\\\\''s early plays, written between 1592 and 1594. It is his shortest and one of his most farcical: for a major part of the humour comes from slapstick and mistaken identity, added to the puns and wordplay. The Comedy of Errors (along with The Tempest) is one of only two of Shakespeare\\\\''s plays to observe the classical unities.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Comedy of Errors tells the story of two sets of identical twins. Antipholus of Syracuse and his servant, Dromio of Syracuse, arrive in Ephesus, which turns out to be the home of their twin brothers, Antipholus of Ephesus and his servant, Dromio of Ephesus. When the Syracusans encounter the friends and families of their twins, a series of wild mishaps based on mistaken identities lead to wrongful beatings, a near-incestuous seduction, the arrest of Antipholus of Ephesus, and accusations of infidelity, theft, madness, and demonic possession.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 13:29:40'", "year": " 1592", "page_views": " 444", "id": 89, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Alexander Pope'", "title": "Rape of the Lock", "intro_essay": " '<p> </p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">THE BRITISH HAVE A SAYING, which I like very much and I think is relevant to Pope; it is:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“taking the piss.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Brits say it when we would say something like, “you’re kidding, right?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Saturday Night Live, for instance, “takes the piss” out of politicians, in that it pokes fun at our leaders. Desperate Housewives “takes the piss” out of suburban living in that it exaggerates it. The New Jersey Governor holding a press conference with his wife by his side to admit that he is gay is “taking the piss.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Dick Cheney shooting his good friend in the face is “taking the piss.”</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">On a smaller, every-day scale, if I wear a huge fruit-basket Carmen-Miranda hat with a little spaghetti-strap dress to summer garden party, that is “taking the piss.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When I leave the library the very second my friend shows up, and we order up our books and get our desks set up with all of our notes, only to then immediately leave for the pub, we are said to be “taking the piss.” </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">To “take the piss” is to be <b>ironic</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">, and this is key to understanding the serviceable and frequent use of the expression in British English.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Brits have a wonderfully ironic temperament. They think we Americans don’t understand irony, but we do; I think they really mean that we don’t love it and employ it as much.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Alexander Pope is all about irony. <b>Irony</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> is often defined as saying one thing while meaning another. But “one thing” often gets lost in translation for the sake of the other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Critic William Empson said <span style="color:black">that it is the nature of irony to be <i>at once</i></span><span style="color:black"> true in <i>two</i></span><span style="color:black"> senses.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Consider this couplet from the Rape of the Lock:</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;color:black"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span><a><span style="mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK11">A heav’nly image in the glass appears,</span></a></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK12"><span style="mso-bookmark:OLE_LINK11"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;color:black"><span style="mso-tab-count:1"> </span>To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears;</span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;color:black">The “glass” is the mirror of Belinda’s dressing table and the irony is revealed to be a woman and her vanity (and I mean “vanity” in both senses!).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The image is “heavenly” because Belinda is beautiful, but the word is religious.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Her reflection is called an “image” to remind us again of divinity (God created man in his own “image”).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>She “bends” because she is sitting down, but it hints at kneeling and worship; this hint is strengthened by how “she rears” her eyes at the image.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So, is Pope merely describing a beautiful woman, sitting down at her dressing table, preparing to put on her make-up?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or is he commenting on the self-worship and vanity of a woman’s idea of beauty?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If he is making a societal comment, does that necessarily discount Belinda’s genuine beauty and her beauty routine?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>These are very complex issues, and Pope’s sly irony can do the double duty of </span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">preserving his moral disapproval without denying Belinda’s genuine beauty and charm.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Real-Life Story<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">In the Rape of the Lock, Pope is taking the piss out of the social situation that allowed a trivial incident to grow into an angry quarrel between two prominent local families.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>At some date in in 1711, at Hampton Court, the young Lord Petre cut a lock from the head of his distant relative Arabella Fermor, a young lady renowned for her beauty.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The story had its repercussions among the Roman Catholic families grouped around it, and Pope would later recount in a letter to his friend Joseph Spence:</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left:.5in"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The stealing of Miss Belle Fermor’s hair, was taken too seriously, and caused an estrangement between the two families, though they had loved so long in great friendship before. A common acquaintance and well-wisher to both [i.e. John Caryl, Pope’s friend and patron], desired me to write a poem to make a jest of it, and laugh them together again. It was with this view that I wrote the Rape of the Lock. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Pope, who was 22 in 1711, wrote the commissioned poem “fast” and in “less than a fortnight’s time.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The first edition of the poem in two cantos was published in 1712. Encouraged by favorable reaction, Pope published an expanded version in 1714 adding the divine machinery, the card battle, and the cave of spleen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In 1717 the speech of Clarissa was added to Canto V in response to criticism that the poem lacked a moral.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Pope’s readers would have known the topical setting story and understood the literary allusions. The invention of the printing press had democratically levelled the classes and created a coffee-house society of journals, newspapers, and gossip. Information travelled fast.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Eighteenth-Century Life and Manners</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Manners</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Pope often gets accused of colluding in the very society he is trying to poke fun at.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So did Jane Austen.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> Austen was c</span>riticized for flattering the very urbane society she was supposedly attacking, but William Empson defended her civility:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Politeness is the outward sign of more serious values less often called on.” If manners are the fabric of civilisation and govern the way people behave and react to one another, and if they can turn silly if overdone or disastrous if overlooked, then maybe it is significant that its Latin origins, <i>mos</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> or <i>mores</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> in plural, carry both ideas of manners and morals.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Our English derivative for “manners” (as conduct) comes from an assimilation of Latin roots (modus + mos/mores).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But our words for “moral” and “immoral” come directly out of mos/mores.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>So if manners and morals are linked, a sense of right and wrong underlies the reasons for a code of behaviour.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>These ideas are deeply held in the neoclassical eighteenth century.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Augustan</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> style:<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>used in this period of English literature to denote qualities of urbanity, poise, refinement and restraint embodied in the Roman poets and aspired to by English poets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The term is derived from the name of Rome’s first emperor who ruled from 27BC to AD 14, a time of peace and prosperity in which the leading poets Virgil and Horace were patronized by the regime to which they gave their support.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The return of the House of Stuart to the throne with Charles II after the unrest of the civil wars, followed by Queen Anne (of Pope’s early period) was labelled “Augustan.” This looking back to the classical period as a golden age has led to this early 18<sup>th</sup> century period of English literature as <b>Neoclassical</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The <b>heroic couplet</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> characterized this period; it was propounded by John Dryden, as a reaction to the messy earthiness of the Elizabethans, and it achieved its perfection in the poems of Alexander Pope. The heroic couplet consists of two lines of iambic pentameter (five beats of weak-then-strong stresses) in rhymed pairs; in this period, they tend to be closed couplets, or end-stopped-- where the end of a line coincides with an essential grammatical pause.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Because of their balance, heroic couplets are seen (and heard) as predictable, see-saw, sing-song, boring rhymes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But if you read Pope closely (as you should all poets), you will find very clever work going on inside these couplets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In fact, I think blank verse or free verse is easier: anyone can win a game with no rules.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But, as Pope said in <i>An Essay on Criticism</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">, a horse “shows most true mettle when you check his course.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Again, the eighteenth-century restraint.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Think of a couplet as “containing” and think of “containing” as a holding-in and a holding-out...Think, then, of the achievement of that couplet we thought about earlier: “<span style="color:black">A heav’nly image in the glass appears, / To that she bends, to that her eyes she rears.”</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The <i>Rape of the Lock</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> calls itself an “heroi-comical poem” (see my annotation at the title page). This is a better description than the one academics have devised, “mock heroic,” which suggests that poem is mainly designed to <b>mock epic</b></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Pope’s mockery of epic motifs is not the main point; the poet is juxtaposing ancient ideals the present-day ones, so that we may judge the gap.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>The meaning is in the difference.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is about <span style="color:black">the link to a poetic tradition, but also to point out the gap between his own time and the past.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Alongside the story of Belinda and her lock are two other narratives running parallel, both of an epic kind.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>First, what we might call Belinda’s “heroic” plot is the story of the education of a mighty warrior who is the darling of the gods (Homer’s Achilles, Virgil’s Aeneas).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The second narrative we might read as the “fall” of Belinda along the lines of Milton’s Paradise Lost and the story of Adam and Eve’s disobedience. The Rape of the Lock inherits the themes of great epics and some of its incidents are the direct descendants of memorable moments in the epics of Homer, Virgil, and Milton transposed into the 18<sup>th</sup> century drawing room.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;color:black">The fascination and appeal of the Rape of the Lock stems from the constant shifting in perspective and tone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The miniaturization (almost rococo and baroque in the Rape of the Lock) of the epic original has a comic effect, but recognition of the source actually intensifies the seriousness of the parody. <span style="color:black">The comic disproportion mirrors the seriousness with which this world views its own rituals.</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">So, what of Belinda’s honor as compared with Achilles’ for instance?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>I’ll offer some of my own thoughts, but you are encouraged to offer your own.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Belinda’s Honor</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">When Achilles pouts over his offended honour, Homer takes it seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When Pamela considers her honour too seriously, Fielding mocks it in “Shamela.”<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>In comparing Belinda’s honour to that of Achilles, Pope does both: mocks it and takes it seriously.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>It is a balancing act of censure and pacification; an understanding of the complexity of the eighteenth-century woman specifically and of human beings generally; and an awareness that the modern age is necessarily both arrived at through and a confrontation with ancient ideals.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Little things matter (and always have), and the <i>Rape of the Lock</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> is a diminutive epic as an enactment of extremes.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>When politeness turns to vanity, when personal honour turns coy and offence gives way to fury, Pope is called on to put things into perspective.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The poem’s tiny-ness is Pope’s <i>Lilliput</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">, but where Swift miniaturises in order to demean, Pope’s is a baroque pursuit, which both examines and treasures its world.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>It is a poem both enchanted and disenchanted, and the result is a brilliance that can’t, hardly..., give offence.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The sense of honor in the Rape of the Lock, particularly the Baron’s, has a Greek feel to it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>If Belinda rejects him, if she beats him at cards, then he feels somehow vindicated by taking her lock.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>“Let wreaths triumph now my temples twine”, he says, “long my honour, name and praise shall live!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Honor, in quantifiable terms, is a Greek concept.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The <i>Iliad</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> opens with the contention of Agamemnon and Achilles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Each was awarded a woman as a victory prize after a successful raid.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>Now, in order to stop a sudden deadly plague, Agamemnon must return his girl to Apollo.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>So he repays himself by taking Achilles’ girl.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Now Achilles is down.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The issue here (and throughout the <i>Iliad</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">) is balance and reciprocity, well suited to the <i>Rape of the Lock</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>the idea of tim</span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Symbol;mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol"><span style="mso-char-type:symbol;mso-symbol-font-family:Symbol">`</span></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">e, quantifiable amounts of honour.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Achilles is a killer, yes, but there is one area in which his sensibilities are more finely tuned than the antennae of a radar screen, that of honour among men.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Achilles spends two-thirds of the story sulking in his tent: a fine point of reference for Belinda’s tantrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But his, like hers, is more than mere childish behaviour; his fate, like hers, is very real.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He is a “hero”, both god and mortal (where Belinda is both goddess and coquette), and he will not get his glory if he does not fight.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>But if he does fight, he will die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>He has to choose: either die in battle and his glory live, or live and his glory die. Belinda, Clarissa tells her, is doomed to decay (Pope, we shall see, will make her glory immortal).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Meantime, for Achilles, there <i>is</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> no glory in a world where “the best” is not the best.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span>He will not fight for a place where status is based on hierarchy and birth, rather than merit.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Agamemnon may be king, but the Greeks will lose without Achilles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>As it stands, Agamemnon is “the best” simply because he is king; Achilles wants to the best because he <i>is</i></span><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> the best.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Now this may not be Belinda’s aristocratic view, but it could be Pope’s... considering his exclusion from university, political office, London domicile all because of his religion.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The course of Achilles’ rage is furthered by the death of his dear friend, and it is this that brings him back into battle.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>In the end, his rehabilitation, his new-found compassion are the same hopes that Pope has for Belinda.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The affront to Achilles’ honour causes a stand-off, the likes of which makes the Fermors’ and the Petres’ look mild.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The issue, then, is the worthiness of the honour to cause such an uproar.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Pope, in his prefatory epistle to Mrs Fermor explains the reasons for his heroic “machinery”: “for the ancient poets are in one respect like many modern ladies: let an action be never so trivial in itself, they always make it appear of the utmost importance.” But it seems to me he’s got that backwards: modern ladies are behaving like the ancients.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Homer wrote 24 books on Achilles’ little tantrum.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>The Trojan War itself started with a corrupt beauty contest and marital infidelity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Whose honor is more valuable?</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Some Ideas for Essays</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">College is where you start to think about the form of literature. It is no longer just about themes, but how the form (the poem, the play, the novel) expresses that theme.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Find a line or a couplet or a passage that you think expresses one of the themes of the poem, and show us how the poet does it.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>This is called relating the part to the whole.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Or, take a ---- from Pope, in his Essay on Criticism, where he said “the sound must seem an echo to the sense” and look for instances in the poem where the versification itself reflects the meaning.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Pick an annotation and argue with it:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span><span style="color:black">For instance, there are many interpretations of Clarissa’s “moral of the story.” I have offered of some of my own, but you are encouraged to read closely, interpret, and then backup your interpretation with examples from the text. Or, another way to your point might be to argue against my interpretation. For instance, there are critics who read a Miltonic moral into Clarissa’s speech. And I would argue that Pope directly points us to Homer, and further, that Clarissa speaks not of redemptive motherhood but of self-protection and survival....<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>What do you think?</span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial;color:black"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial"><b>Further Reading</b></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">The popular journals of the time --Tatler, The Spectator, and The Guardian-- are witty, interesting, and insightful. They are available in anthologies and in college libraries.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">An Assistant Professor at Princeton, Sophie Gee, has written a novel on the events that inspired The Rape of the Lock called Scandal of the Season.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>A pleasurable way to learn the background of the story.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Anything by Jasper Griffin or Richard Jenkyns on the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Aeneid will be enjoyable, learned, and accessible.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Christopher Ricks, Allusion to the Poets, especially the chapter on Dryden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Poets</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN-GB" style="font-family:Arial">Some of my favorite Pope critics:<span style="mso-spacerun: yes"> </span>Roger Lonsdale, David Fairer, Dustin Griffin, Valerie Rumbold, Maynard Mack, </span></p>'", "summary": " 'The Rape of the Lock is a mock-heroic narrative poem written by Alexander Pope, first published anonymously in Lintot\\\\''s Miscellany in May 1712 in two cantos (334 lines), but then revised, expanded and reissued under Pope\\\\''s name on March 2, 1714, in a much-expanded 5-canto version (794 lines).'", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 13:55:00'", "year": " 1714", "page_views": " 1226", "id": 90, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Henri Bergson'", "title": "Laughter: A Essay on the Meaning of Comic", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 14:13:52'", "year": " 1900", "page_views": " 506", "id": 91, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Saint John of the Cross'", "title": "Dark Night of the Soul", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-19 14:33:18'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1322", "id": 92, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Alexander Hamilton, James Madison and John Jay'", "title": "The Federalist Papers", "intro_essay": " '<p align="center"><strong><em>The Federalist</em>: Propaganda for America’s Second Revolution</strong></p><p>Revolution was brewing again.</p><p>The year was 1786; less than five years had passed since American revolutionaries had wrested away most of the western territory of the mighty British Empire. War hero George Washington, who might have declared himself emperor, had instead returned command of the patriot armies to civilian leaders. Thanks to this incorruptible self-restraint, the man who could have been an American King now ruled only a failing farm in eastern Virginia.</p><p>With no monarch, sovereign command of the newly-won territory rested uneasily in the hands of thirteen squabbling and incompetent state governments — which, taken together as a confederacy, formed the largest confederate republic that modernity had ever seen. And in September 1786, the continent’s two most brilliant minds met quietly in Annapolis, Maryland to discard that nascent American republic and replace it with a new one.</p><p>It was there that James Madison and Alexander Hamilton conceived an embryonic regime that would one day mature into the colossus we know as the American government. Fearing that their political enemies would abort this audacious scheme before it could be carried to term, the nervous parents went on to design a propaganda campaign to advocate the Constitution which would establish their revolutionary new government. This propaganda would be published as the Federalist Papers.</p><p>Without the Federalist as its midwife, the U.S. Constitution might very well have been stillborn — and so in many respects, we can — and we will — trace the modern political order to arguments presented in the essays of the Federalist Papers.</p><p align="center"> </p><p><em><strong>Important concepts for readers of the Federalist (also called the Federalist Papers)</strong></em></p><p><strong>State</strong>Originally, “state” just meant “government”. Before the U.S. Constitution tied them together, the 13 American polities were called “states” precisely because they functioned as independent governments, akin to the Ancient states of Athens and Sparta or the separate states in the European regions now known as German and Italy.</p><p><strong>Federalism</strong>Governments, or states, that enter into an alliance with one another retain almost all their autonomy. States that enter into a confederation are slightly more constrained: slightly more subject to one another’s mutual authority. States that enter into a federation are even more tightly bound to one another.</p><p>“Federalism” is a degree of federation in which states are so tightly bound to one another, and so fully subordinated to the authority that organizes them, that for practical purposes they cease to function as independent governments and even begin to resemble administrative departments of the joint authority.(A federal government, however, should not be confused with a unitary government, which is the ultimate degree of union. States united under a federal government are still permitted to pursue some independent policies, even when the central authority disapproves of those policies. States subsumed into a unitary government, by contrast, obey the central authority in all matters.)</p><p>Since 1781, the American states had been bound in a very loose confederation, ordained by a document called the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_Confederation" target="_blank" class="standard">Articles of Confederation</a>. Under the Articles of Confederation, the states were ineffectual in establishing diplomatic credibility, negotiating lucrative trade agreements through Spanish- and French-controlled territory, fending off British military pressure from Canada and hostile Indians in the West, and obtaining foreign credit. They also tended to exact selfish and inefficient taxes on one another’s commerce.</p><p>Madison, Hamilton, and Jay called themselves “federalists” because they wanted America to replace the 1781 confederation with a new, more tightly binding federal Constitution that might more efficiently manage the statecraft at which the separate states were failing. It was to persuade America that this change was a good idea that they wrote the Federalist Papers.</p><p><strong>Democracy</strong>“Democracy” is not as simple a word as you might suspect. The word refers to several related concepts, and over time its meaning has evolved.</p><blockquote><p>1) The literal meaning of “democracy” is “government by the people.”</p><p>2) Formally speaking, a government is not a pure democracy unless every one of its citizens votes on every government decision. This would obviously be impractical at the national level.</p><p>3) In modern common usage, any country whose government is chosen by free and regular popular elections is called a “democracy”.</p><p>This does not mean the people will always get their way. Once duly elected, the government might ignore the preferences of the majorities who elected it. After all, voters do not always understand or condone every detail of the policies that are genuinely in their own best interests, and their values are often faddish, inconsistent, or unjust towards political minorities. Even if an elected government ignores many popular preferences, the government is still considered “democratic” in the modern sense of the word.</p><p>4) The word “democracy” once had another connotation which has been obscured over time. In the 18th century (as well as in antiquity), the word referred to the proposition that the majority of the common people — no matter how ignorant or inconsistent or short-sighted or bigoted they might be — should always get their way. Democracy was considered a recipe for injustice and misrule.</p><p>Both Hamilton and Madison were keenly aware of the democratic paradox: they wholeheartedly believed that every citizen should be given input into the political process, but they also believed that uneducated and unintelligent citizens could not be trusted to make wise decisions, to treat one another ethically, or to plan for the long term. The struggle to strike a balance these incompatible beliefs — to guarantee good governance while still respecting the people’s questionable input — is the most complicated and the most historically momentous tension in the Constitution and in the Federalist Papers.</p></blockquote><p><strong>Republic</strong>The word “republic” carries even more historical baggage than the word “democracy.”</p><blockquote><p>1) The most basic definition of a republic is this: a republic is a government where the people do not govern, but do choose officials to govern on their behalf.Under this definition, the 21st-century United States is unquestionably a republic.</p><p>2) Historically, however, the “republic” has usually been understood as a much more specific form of political and social organization.</p><p>In a well-ordered republic, according to political theorists ranging from Aristotle to Machiavelli to Thomas Jefferson, each citizen instinctively places the public welfare above his own needs and wants. Furthermore, every republican citizen should expect to spend part of his life as a politician, part of his life as an amateur soldier, and the remainder of his time as a selfless contributor to the economic and social life of the community.</p><p>Clearly, this does not describe the United States today! Very few of us run for political office. Those who do hold office usually spend their lives as career politicians, never returning to their old professions. Those of us who join the military do so voluntarily and professionally, receiving pay for their work, and usually spending years or decades in the armed forces. Finally, Americans who are neither politicians nor soldiers do not consider themselves to be public servants. Rather, we consider ourselves to be private citizens, with the right and the prerogative to spend our time, our money, and our energy on our own interests rather than in the service of the collective.</p><p>3) Many 18th-century republicans proposed an even more elaborate definition for the word “republic”. To republicans like Thomas Jefferson, a republic was only a proper republic if:</p><blockquote><p> - the overwhelming majority of its citizens were farmers- it included no factories, but accomplished all its manufacturing in inefficient farm-based operations- citizens were discouraged from becoming bankers, traders, or merchants- it called up amateur armies whenever it was invaded, but during peacetime lacked any form of organized defense- it owed no money.</p></blockquote></blockquote><p>Although modern America has not actually become a republic (in the older senses of the word), many 18th-century Americans saw themselves as the first participants in a glorious republican experiment that would eventually sweep the globe. Founders including Jefferson and Patrick Henry held this view. To a lesser extent, James Madison did, too — although, as we will see, Madison’s vision of an American republic was far less simplistic than Jefferson’s or Henry’s. Alexander Hamilton, however, decidedly did not.</p><p>The tension between Madison’s quasi-republicanism and Hamilton’s anti-republicanism would eventually make them bitter rivals. At the time of the Federalist Papers, while Hamilton and Madison still remained partners and friends, that tension takes the form of a quiet but ominously disharmonious undercurrent throughout the Papers. By tracing Hamilton and Madison’s nascent disagreements through the Federalist, we will enrich our understanding of 18th-century politics, of the Founders’ respective ideologies, and of the complex origins of today’s political order.</p><p><strong>Sovereignty</strong>“Sovereignty” means supreme legal authority in a given region.</p><p>One of the essential tasks the Federalist attempted was to persuade readers that the states could retain the sovereignty they prized while nonetheless submitting to a sovereign people considered at the federal level. The deliberate incompleteness with which the authors deployed this blatantly paradoxical argument will be interesting to observe, especially in light of the fact that this unanswered question — whether states that had joined the Constitutional union retained sovereignty — would not be resolved except by the violence of the American Civil War four generations later.</p><p><strong>Faction</strong>In the 21st century, it seems inescapable that self-interested political parties will compete to control every aspect of government. In the 18th century, however, parties were a new and unwelcome concept.</p><p>Madison and his contemporaries believed that, in a rational republic, ethical legislators had no business organizing self-serving coalitions to promote the petty interests of their own constituents — rather, they felt that each legislator must approach each political issue as a thoughtful independent, and work selflessly to promote the general public welfare.</p><p>The word “faction” referred to an insidious cabal of citizens who plotted to promote their own immediate interests by subverting the common good. The prospect that a faction might come to control part of the government terrified Madison. Most of his Constitutional input was intended to hobble the evils of faction.</p><p>But Madison failed in this project. Faction has become so pervasive in our political system that today we think of it as an essential part of the process by which we are governed: of course the poor will petition together to increase government benefits; of course logging companies will collaborate to fight environmental legislation; of course the residents of any given state will work together to snatch up valuable federal infrastructure projects for their own towns and economies. As we study the Federalist Papers, particularly the numbers Madison wrote, it will be enlightening to look for Madison’s miscalculations: his incorrect predictions and unrealized arguments that explain why he wrongly believed the Constitution would suppress faction.</p><p><strong>The Enlightenment</strong>“The Enlightenment” (or “The Age of Reason”, or “The Age of Enlightenment”) describes a period in 17th- and 18th century European history when increasing literacy rates intersected with increasing economic prosperity. As a result, more and more people suddenly had both the intellectual preparation and the leisure time necessary to explore science, mathematics, and philosophy.</p><p>The most characteristic premise in Enlightenment thought was the axiom that every human problem can be analyzed systematically and rationally.</p><p>Enlightenment-era political philosophers — mostly Scots, Brits, and Frenchmen; including Voltaire, David Hume, Jeremy Bentham, Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and Adam Smith — expounded new social and political theories in which the perfectible, rational common man was supposed to play an increasingly pivotal role. They rejected earlier philosophical trends which had suggested that monarchs, traditions, and religious leaders were required to control and direct the subservient human masses.</p><p>Enlightenment political beliefs would become the basis for the U.S. Constitution and indeed for modern Western political organization more generally. Both Hamilton and Madison were extremely well read in contemporary philosophy, and both were strongly influenced by Enlightenment ideas. Throughout the Federalist, we will encounter passages in which they apply, expand, and refute the arguments of their Enlightenment forebears.</p><p align="center"> </p><p><strong><em>Strategies for reading the Federalist</em></strong></p><p><em>“Who is writing this essay?”</em>Hamilton, Madison, and Jay wrote the Federalist very hurriedly; as soon as each essay was done, they submitted it to be published in New York newspapers. They had little time to discuss or revise one another’s work. Each essay, therefore, retains undiluted traces of its author’s intellectual style and political leanings.</p><p>A careless or lazy reader might disregard the differences between the authors; he might breeze through the Federalist without paying attention to who had written each essay. Avoid this mistake! There is no better way to reach the incorrect conclusion that the book is boring and dry.</p><p>Later in this introductory essay, you will find a discussion of the personalities and worldviews of timid James Madison and audacious Alexander Hamilton. Review that section carefully. If, as you read the Federalist Papers, you think of Madison and Hamilton not as interchangeable disembodied lecturers, but rather as two unique characters who played very different central roles in a vast political drama — then you will not only appreciate the rich and colorful backdrop against which the Federalist was written, but you will also come to understand the political tensions that pervade the Federalist, that pervade the Constitution which the Federalist advocated, and that persist into our modern political discourse under that Constitution.</p><p><em>“What is this argument intended to accomplish?”</em>Unlike other political philosophers you may have read, Madison and Hamilton were not primarily interested in presenting a coherent work of political philosophy. They had a much more immediate goal: they needed to convince New Yorkers to adopt the new Constitution. We will notice several points where the authors present arguments or recommend mechanisms of government which they themselves do not find persuasive!If we keep track of which of the authors’ arguments were sincere, which arguments were reluctant compromises with the Constitution’s other Framers, and which arguments were disingenuous attempts to trick the authors’ political enemies into endorsing the Constitution — if we keep track of which arguments fall into each of these categories, we will be able to appreciate both the genuine belief systems of the authors, and the inconvenient political realities which they were forced to navigate.</p><p><em>“In what ways were these ideas influenced by Enlightenment philosophers?”</em>In order to build a sense of historical context for the Federalist, we will watch for places where Hamilton and Madison were directly influenced by the Enlightenment-era political thinkers whom both authors had studied voraciously. The more connections you are able to draw between Federalist reasoning and contemporary philosophical discourse, the more fully you will come to appreciate both sources — and the more easily you will be able to apply them to real-world politics.</p><p><em>“Was this prediction correct?”</em>Because the authors of the Federalist hope to persuade America to adopt a form of government that has not yet been tried, they often make optimistic predictions about how that new government will operate. Unlike Madison and Hamilton, we modern readers know exactly how the Constitution government has turned out. This provides us with an excellent way to engage the text.</p><p>Whenever you notice that an author is basing his arguments on a prediction — a prediction, for example, about which branches of government will have the most power in which situations, or a prediction about the social patterns that will emerge under a Constitution government — take the time to consider whether his prediction accurately describes American political life as you know it.</p><p>Not only will this give you a concrete means of understanding the authors’ abstract arguments, you will also begin to notice patterns in the authors’ miscalculations that reveal valuable insights into their respective mindsets and worldviews.</p><p align="center"> </p><p><em><strong>The authors, their backgrounds, and their beliefs</strong></em></p><p>Let us at last introduce the protagonists in the drama we are about to explore. Who were these two unlikely subversives?</p><p><strong>Madison</strong>The first was James Madison, 35-year-old Virginian and a shy career politician with the temperament of an academic. A sickly, shrimpy, sheltered, quiet youth whose wealthy parents would support him during more than half of his lifetime, Madison spent his twenties and thirties devouring every book he could find about two topics: political theory and historical confederacies. No other Founder shared his expertise in either of these obviously-relevant fields.</p><p>In an age when popular Enlightenment ideas trumpeted the supposedly-infinite human capacity for rational cooperation and for the thoughtful resolution of political disagreements, Madison was cynical about the abilities and rationality of his fellow man. An early experience in running for political office, in which Madison was defeated by a far less qualified candidate who on Election Day had bribed voters with free beer, left Madison with the firm belief that the common man could not be trusted to make responsible choices. (Of course, Madison’s reasons for this conviction were academic as well as personal.) His unabashed distrust of the unwashed masses was the most important theme in Madison’s political career and intellectual life.</p><p>Almost as important was Madison’s passionate commitment to individual liberties. Like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and (probably) Hamilton, Madison was a Deist who did not believe in the Christian version of God. He found it unjust and tyrannical that a government might try to encourage him to convert to a different faith (remember why the Pilgrims left Anglican England in the first place?), and from this fiercely independent impulse, Madison would extrapolate an entire constellation of personal rights he viewed as sacred. It was Madison who would later write the Bill of Rights.</p><p>The third major theme in Madison’s intellectual identity was not a belief, but rather a profound personal flaw: James Madison was terrible at analyzing people. To be sure, he was brilliant when it came to negotiating compromises or rallying his political allies — but when called upon to guess the motivations of his enemies, Madison invariably failed.</p><p>All three of these habits — distrust of the masses, zealous concern for the rights of individuals, and inability to discern what made others tick — will surface again and again in Madison’s contributions to the Federalist. Watch for them, and you will be rewarded both with a nuanced understanding of the mind of one of America’s greatest geniuses, and with insight into the ways his personal quirks shaped the Constitution.</p><p><strong>Hamilton</strong>Madison’s collaborator was Alexander Hamilton, a 31-year-old army officer who had immigrated to America from the pirate-infested slaver islands of the West Indies. Unlike James Madison, Hamilton — whose mother was a destitute serial adulteress and father was (probably) an itinerant Scottish lord — began his life with almost no resources. Nonetheless, Hamilton’s brilliance manifested in a meteoric rise to power, prominence, and prosperity. By 1786, the illegitimate outsider had moved to New York, made a reputation as an orator, climbed almost to the highest rank in the American army, established himself as General Washington’s most intimate confidante, impressed and then married into the Schuyler family’s formidable political dynasty, built a lucrative legal practice, taught himself history and finance so tirelessly that he probably became the country’s foremost financial expert, and won a reputation as New York City’s war hero and favorite son.</p><p>Hamilton was a fascinating psychological specimen; his political beliefs stemmed from complex psychological soil. Although justifiably arrogant, Hamilton was also the touchy bearer of a deeply felt inferiority complex, which likely stemmed from his illegitimate origins. Understandably, therefore, meritocracy — the principle that intelligent people should be able to seize power, while their unintelligent counterparts should be deprived of influence — was a lodestar both in his personal narrative and in his notions of the ideal political order.</p><p>In some ways, this made Hamilton Madison’s natural partner: neither of them trusted the average man with power.</p><p>Another paradox of personal psychology which influenced Hamilton’s political beliefs lay in Hamilton’s complicated relationship with his own moral principles. In his public and professional life, Hamilton was scrupulously ethical: throughout his career, he continually sacrificed wealth and popularity in order to do what he thought was just, such as when he lobbied to restore property to its rightful British owners after the Revolutionary War. In his social life, Hamilton took his obsession with principle to a pettish and perverse extreme: he went so far as willfully alienating friends and patrons whenever he thought they were wrong. In his private life, Hamilton was unable to adhere even to basic ethical standards, as when he repeatedly cheated on his devoted wife.</p><p>It is unclear just how ambitious Hamilton was; his enemies, at any rate, believed that he intended to establish himself as an American tyrant. Did Hamilton’s incorruptible streak prevent him from contemplating such an egregious breach of the public trust? Or would the same man who often yielded to personal temptation, and who was contemptuously certain of his own wisdom and others’ stupidity, have permitted himself to seize power? These questions are unanswerable, but Hamilton’s abiding interest in centralized executive power may indeed have originated in the unprincipled fantasy that he would one day become that powerful executive.</p><p>Then again, Hamilton’s enthusiasm for organized central power might also have originated in his many unpleasant personal encounters with anarchy. On the dystopian slaver islands where Hamilton was raised, criminals settled conflicts with swords and pistols; slavers who respected no earthly authority suppressed insubordination with brutal violence. As Washington’s most trusted proxy during the Revolution, Hamilton observed countless occasions when insufficient military coordination led to tactical failures and even to the ruin of New York City — and he also observed instances in which Washington’s unyielding authority restored order and saved American lives. Hamilton’s conviction that America needed a single powerful leader may have arisen not from lust for personal glory but from direct observation of the evils of lawlessness.</p><p>Unlike the other Founding Fathers, Hamilton studied finance, and he did so obsessively and tirelessly. In time, his expertise would both save the republic — (without Hamilton’s programs as Secretary of the Treasury, the American experiment very likely would have failed) — and also alienate him from the other founders, including Madison, whose near-superstitious distrust of English-style financial professions led them to downright illogical political conclusions. Hamilton’s interest in mastering finance speaks not only to his analytical nature, but also to his instinctive preference for pragmatic, responsible governance over irresponsible ideological posturing. Hamilton reserved impatient contempt for politicians who would let America collapse rather than violate abstract republican principles.</p><p>Social meritocracy; powerful central authority; and practical, rational government: these are the three keystones of Hamilton’s political beliefs and the three most common themes in the essays he contributed to the Federalist. Watch for them, and you will be rewarded both with a nuanced understanding of the mind of one of America’s greatest geniuses, and with insight into the ways his personal quirks shaped the Constitution.</p><p><strong>Jay</strong>The Federalist had a third author, John Jay. Although Jay played a pivotal role in the new nation’s early years, he was a second-tier founding father whose greatest contributions to his country were made as a diplomat, not as a political theorist. Jay only contributed 6% of the Federalist project; when we get to the essays he wrote, we will discuss him in less detail than we devote to his two collaborators.</p><p align="center"> </p><p><strong><em>Why should you read the Federalist?</em></strong>Historians will gain unparalleled insights into the politics, ideologies, and social theories that inspired America’s founders to raze and rebuild the young republic \u00e2\u20ac\u201c</p><p>Political theorists and lawyers will watch the outright apotheosis of abstract political models into a working system of governance \u00e2\u20ac\u201c</p><p>Literature enthusiasts will appreciate the epic struggle between two incompatible personalities and two incompatible worldviews that historical circumstances have forced into uneasy alliance \u00e2\u20ac\u201c</p><p>Progressives will be heartened by the timelessness of the American instinct to reform and rationalize old social orders \u00e2\u20ac\u201c</p><p>Conservatives will be heartened by classic and passionate defenses of individual rights \u00e2\u20ac\u201c</p><p>Leaders will learn theories for decisive management and efficient organization in the face of the harshest opposition \u00e2\u20ac\u201c</p><p>Social butterflies will watch two masterful manipulators flatter and finesse their way towards popularity –</p><p>Any American can observe just how drastically his or her nation has diverged from its “original plan”, and will nonetheless be startled by the relevance that the bitter political debates of the 18th-century retain today.</p>'", "summary": " 'The Federalist Papers are a series of 85 articles advocating the ratification of the United States Constitution. Seventy-seven of the essays were published serially in The Independent Journal and The New York Packet between October 1787 and August 1788 . A compilation of these and eight others, called The Federalist, was published in 1788 by J. and A. M’Lean.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-25 04:22:31'", "year": " 1787", "page_views": " 7981", "id": 93, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=5'"},{"author": " 'Washington, et al.'", "title": "Constitution of the United States of America", "intro_essay": " '<p align="center"><strong>The <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/work-overview.php?work_id=94" title="The US Constitution on TheFinalClub.org">U.S. Constitution</a> and the <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/work-overview.php?work_id=95" title="The Bill of Rights on TheFinalClub.org" target="_blank" class="standard">U.S. Bill of Rights</a></strong></p><p><strong>Historical origins of the U.S. Constitution:</strong><em>A Shadow Government Replaces a Useless Government</em></p><p>1786. The Revolutionary War against the perceived tyranny of British rule had been over for several years, but its fallout was still settling — and already, political upheaval in the young United States was again on the horizon.</p><p>The nine-year-old <em>Articles of Confederation</em> — a document somewhere between a federal constitution and a collective security treaty — remained the shared law that bound together the several states. Although unquestionably the legitimate offspring of the Continental Congress, the Articles were nonetheless somewhat misbegotten. An (unelected) Congress had hastily thrown them together (over the course of a year) during the middle of the Revolutionary War, while much of their attention was distracted by the logistical problems of funding and supplying the foundering American armies. And now the constitutional deficiencies of the ill-conceived <em>Articles of Confederation</em> were beginning to manifest:</p><ul><li>The states — purportedly amiable allies dedicated to their shared and mutual interests — gleefully preyed on one another’s commerce with short-sighted protectionist tariffs. The confederate government was powerless to prevent this.</li><li>Large states paid taxes proportional to the estimated value of the land they encompassed, but received no additional influence for having paid extra. Ominous grumbling had commenced.</li><li>The confederate government could not levy taxes; in order to obtain its budget, it needed either request money from the sovereign states (which they gave grudgingly and inadequately) or else to beg the states to permit it to implement national tariffs (which Rhode Island refused to permit.)</li><li>The diplomatic coordination that the Articles had been intended to supply was practically a dead letter, in part because the confederate government had almost no money to fund diplomatic envoys.</li></ul><p>In short, the Articles were failing.</p><p>In September of 1786, a summit was held in Annapolis, Maryland, ostensibly in order to study how the Articles should be amended. In fact, the convention’s real purpose was to replace the Articles with a new government altogether. Although all state legislatures were invited to send delegates to the Annapolis Conference, only a few bothered: which, in their political opponents’ absence, gave the pro-federal faction — particularly Virginian academic James Madison and New York lawyer-entrepreneur Alexander Hamilton — an opportunity to scheme to tighten the federal apron-strings and establish a strong central government that would bind the states more closely together.</p><p>Their schemes culminated in a second summit, this one held in Philadelphia in 1787. War hero George Washington presided over the Philadelphia Convention; knowing that a shady effort to subvert and replace the legitimate Articles of Confederation was afoot, Washington swore the delegates to absolute secrecy about everything they witnessed. And there, hidden from the lawful government they were about to replace, the Framers of the American government began to negotiate the terms of the U.S. Constitution.</p><p><strong>Historical origins of the U.S. Bill of Rights:</strong><em>A Politician Keeps His Promise</em></p><p>1789. After a long and arduous struggle to negotiate the terms of the Constitution at the Philadelphia Convention — and after another long and arduous <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/work-overview.php?work_id=93" title="The work on TheFinalClub.org" target="_blank" class="standard">struggle to persuade the states to accept the new Constitution</a> — the Hamilton/Madison cabal was all but triumphant. Although imperfect, the negotiated Constitution had taken a relatively federalist form, and the federalists were increasingly hopeful that the states might agree to ratify it.</p><p>Anti-federalist holdouts such as radical Bostonian Samuel Adams, recognizing the proverbial writing on the wall, offered Madison a deal. They felt that the proposed Constitution guaranteed too few individual rights against federal encroachment. If Madison promised that, after the Constitution became law, he would promptly attempt to amend it to include a longer list of guaranteed rights — then they would support his drive for ratification. Despite <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=93&section_id=1999&view_annotation=2679" title="The Federalist Papers on TheFinalClub.org" target="_blank" class="standard">personal reservations about the wisdom of enumerating Americans’ rights</a>, Madison and Hamilton agreed to this bargain. And so the Constitution was ratified.</p><p>Over the course of 1789, Madison — who was well suited to the task, being an accomplished student of political philosophy — compiled suggestions from all the states as to what rights they wanted to see in the Constitution. He sifted through their proposals, chose the twelve he found most important, and submitted them as a bill of prospective Constitutional Amendments to the House of Representatives (which he more or less controlled). By 1791, ten of those twelve Amendments had been duly ratified and had become part and parcel of the United States Constitution: we call those ten original Amendments the Bill of Rights.</p><p><strong>What is a constitution?</strong>A constitution is a document that ordains (”constitutes”; “gives form to”) a new government. It may be written or unwritten; it may comprise several documents written at different times.</p><p><strong>What is the function of a constitution?</strong></p><ul><li><em>Establishes sovereignty.</em><ul><li>Only a sovereign — the supreme legal authority in a particular territory — can institute a government.</li></ul><ul><li>The most essential task a constitution performs is to declare exactly who — that is, which sovereign — is instituting the new government it is about to describe. If there is no sovereign, there can be no government, since a government exists to carry out the will of its sovereign master.</li></ul><ul><li><strong>In the United States Constitution, the sovereign is the collected people of the United States</strong>. (Prior to the U. S. model, most contemporary sovereigns had been individuals: monarchs, popes, chieftains.)</li></ul><ul><li>The sovereign will also command the government it has instituted.</li></ul></li><li><em>Designs the government.</em><ul><li>Having proclaimed who is sovereign, a constitution explains exactly who what structures that sovereign has chosen for the government of its territory. Who will write the laws? Who will enforce them? Who will arbitrate disputes over the meaning of the laws? How will these officials be selected?</li></ul></li><li><em>Binds the government.</em><ul><li>Most constitutions proceed to explain what the government will be forbidden from doing. In the case of the U. S. Constitution, the sovereign (the citizens collectively) chose to specify several ways in which the government would be forbidden from interfering with the rights of individual citizens.</li></ul></li><li><em>Lays the framework for all future laws…</em><ul><li>Except where it specifically invites ordinary laws to supersede it, the Constitution supersedes all American laws other than Constitutional Amendments. If a law (or any other government policy) is found to contradict the Constitution, that law or policy is void. Thus, the Constitution draws the first and broadest strokes towards defining the ultimate form that the laws take.</li></ul></li><li><em>…and, in so doing, ensures the impartial rule of law;…</em><ul><li>One of the main purposes of writing a standardized code of law — rather than simply having government agents decide, after each individual human action, whether and how that particular action is to be punished — is that pre-established, widely disseminated rules are likely to be more fairly applied than personal judgments made by fallible, tendentious government officials.</li></ul><ul><li>But lawmakers, too, are fallible and can be tendentious. What is to be done about the dangerous possibility that they will enact laws arbitrarily or self-interestedly?</li></ul><ul><li>Just as pre-established legislation standardizes the penal system, pre-established Constitutional dictates standardize legislation, providing an impartial code to which the biased legislators of future generations may be held accountable.</li></ul><ul><li>(To read more about this means of securing the rule of law, peruse the writings of 17th century political philosopher John Locke — particularly his <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=83&section_id=1810&view_annotation=3112" title="The work on TheFinalClub.org" target="_blank" class="standard">Second Discourse of Government, Chapter VII, Section 87</a>.)</li></ul></li><li><em>… and, in so doing, also enshrines the priorities of the founding generation.</em><ul><li>Through birth, death, naturalization, and emigration, the composition of America’s sovereign people is constantly changing. By writing a Constitution which resists easy amendment — and including promises in that Constitution that reflect their political values — the founding generation has both expressed their sovereign authority and ensured that their values will not be ignored.</li></ul><ul><li>That these older priorities are enshrined in the Constitution ensures some stability and consistency in American law, while still permitting gradual evolution. Short-lived fads in American values cannot easily displace the values of the founders, but enduring changes in national priorities can.</li></ul></li></ul><p><strong>Important concepts for readers of the U. S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights</strong><em>rights vs. powers</em></p><p>Although you may be familiar with the political slogan demanding respect for “states’ rights!”, technically speaking, U.S. governments do not have rights. Instead, they have powers. It is people — civilian citizens, citizens who are members of the military, aliens, non-citizens, government officials in their capacities as civilians, legal persons such as corporations — who can have guaranteed “rights”. (In fact, most of those groups of people enjoy different sets of guaranteed rights.)</p><p>Several of the rights guaranteed by the Constitution* are phrased as “rights”, such as “the right of the people peaceably to assemble” in the 1st Amendment. Others are described more obliquely, by depriving the federal government (or state governments) of powers — an example of this is in the 5th Amendment, which deprives the government of the power to deprive “any person… of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.”</p><p>There is no meaningful distinction between these formulations. If Congress does not have the power to compel you to do action x, it is equally the case that you have the right not to do action x .</p><p>* …and by its many Amendments, whose text is considered part of the Constitution.</p><p><em>legal doctrine</em></p><p>The purpose of the judiciary (the Supreme Court and all inferior judges) is to interpret the Constitution. It is not always obvious, however, exactly how the Constitution ought to apply to a specific case; several different interpretations are usually plausible. In order to standardize the law, so that it is more intelligible and so that it may be more consistently applied, a majority on the Supreme Court will occasionally establish a new legal doctrine: a standardized interpretation of a particular Constitutional dictate, usually respected by future Justices.</p><p>For example, the First Amendment to the Constitution proclaims that “Congress shall make no law… abridging the freedom of speech.” What, exactly, does this mean? Certainly, Americans must be allowed to express themselves — but is Congress really forbidden from punishing a citizen who maliciously uses speech to persuade someone else to commit a crime for him? Does “Go murder that policeman!” really count as protected speech? Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes found this interpretation unlikely, and so he devised the “clear and present danger doctrine”, which reinterpreted “the freedom of speech” to disavow any freedom of speech that would obviously inspire immediate criminality. For decades, until a new legal doctrine replaced it, the clear and present danger doctrine became an essential element of the de facto First Amendment.</p><p><em>originalism</em></p><p>Originialism is a legal philosophy. An originalist would argue: “The democratic process dictates that legislators — who are the elected representatives of the sovereign people — get to write and amend the Constitution. Unless their intentions are obeyed, democracy itself has been undermined.</p><p>“Therefore, when judges interpret the Constitution, they have no room for creativity or input: they must strive to hew as closely as possible to the <strong>original intent</strong> of the legislators who enacted the Constitutional text in question. Judges are merely translators of the democratically-ordained law.”</p><p>A variation on originalism holds that the crucial intention is not that of the legislators who enacted the text, but rather the specific legislator(s) who <em>authored</em> the text.</p><p><em>textualism</em></p><p>Textualism is a legal philosophy. An textualist would argue: “Just because some of the legislators who enact Constitutional text might have had in mind a particular arcane understanding of that text, does not mean that the democratically-empowered mass of the legislature understood the text in the same way. What the legislature approves is not a particular legislator’s (unknowable) impression of exactly what is meant by legal words. Rather, the legislature approves the words themselves: and so <strong>the original common-sense understanding of the words</strong> by which a law is expressed, is what has the authority of law.</p><p>“When judges interpret the Constitution, they must strive to hew as closely as possible to the original meaning of the Constitutional text in question.”<em>the “living Constitution” model</em></p><p>Living-Constitutionalism is a legal philosophy. Its animus was captured by Thomas Jefferson** when he wrote: “[L]aws and institutions must go hand in hand with the progress of the human mind. As that becomes more developed, more enlightened… <strong>institutions must advance also to keep pace with the times</strong>. We might as well require a man to wear still the coat which fitted him when a boy as civilized society to remain ever under the regimen of their barbarous ancestors.”</p><p>Unlike textualism and originalism, living-Constitutionalism recommends that judges take an active role in changing American law. If the Supreme Court deems the existing understanding of a law — or of a Constitutional clause — to be incompatible with progressive standards of fairness, then the Court is obligated to devise a new interpretation of that law which more closely matches modern values.</p><p>In short, the Constitution is not a stone tablet whose meaning can never be altered — nor is it a machine, inert in itself, but re-engineered by legislators whenever new societal needs arise — but rather it is an intelligent organism, constantly adapting to its changing environment, and judicial rulings should reflect its dynamic nature.</p><p>** <em>(It should be noted that Jefferson — who was notoriously disinclined to explicate his beliefs — did not explicitly endorse the view that the Constitution’s inherent meaning must be understood to evolve with time. The quotation in question could also be interpreted as a recommendation that legislators should continually pass new Amendments to adjust the Constitution’s meaning.)</em><em>“judicial activism”</em></p><p><strong>Judicial activism</strong> is a derogatory term which is used to complain that, in order to advance his own self-righteous political agenda, a judge has deliberately twisted his interpretation of a democratically-ordained law. The implication is that it is the role of the legislator, and not the judge, to select policies: and that, like any other political activist, such a judge willfully exceeds the rightful limits on the capacity for which he has been chosen.</p><p>Today, it is most common to hear conservatives decry <strong>judicial activism</strong>, calling it a tool by which progressive judges exert undue leftward influence on the U. S. Code. But historically, judges of all political descriptions have been accused of “legislating from the bench”. Rulings that have deprived black people of American citizenship (Dred Scott v Sandford), expanded slavery to free states (Dred Scott v Sandford), overturned socialist regulations in favor of market solutions (Lochner v New York), overturned market solutions in favor of socialist regulations (West Coast Hotel v Parrish), improved minorities’ access to education (Brown v Board), legalized abortion nationwide (Roe v Wade), and endorsed affirmative action (Regents v Bakke) — have all been denounced as judicial activism.</p><p>The faction of legal philosophers least likely to declaim <strong>judicial activism</strong> are the living-Constitutionalists, who believe it is the role of the judge to assert enlightened political preferences as U. S. law.<em>incorporation</em></p><p>As you are probably aware, United States citizens are ruled by two parallel governments***. The federal government — complete with legislative, executive, and judicial branches — determines a standardized set of laws which are applied in every state. The state government — which has its own legislature, executive, and judiciary (although it is not actually obligated to mimic the federal structure in this way) — establishes a different set of laws which will apply only within its own borders.</p><p>For almost the first half of American history to date, the vast majority of the rights that were guaranteed by the United States Constitution and its Amendments were guaranteed only at the federal level. The First Amendment promised Americans the right to free speech, but this meant only that the <strong>federal</strong> government had no power to prevent their speech — their <strong>state</strong> government could pass whatever restrictive laws it pleased. (That said, state constitutions also tended to guarantee free speech.)</p><p>During the third quarter of American history, the Constitution worked differently. In the wake of the Civil War — a national crisis which the powerful Radical Republicans blamed on excessive licentiousness among insolent states — several Amendments were added which explicitly curtailed <strong>state</strong> power.</p><p>The most recent fourth of the history of the republic has seen another momentous change in the Constitutional balance of federal versus state power. Beginning in the 1920’s, but gaining full momentum as a judicial trend in the 1950’s and 1960’s, the Supreme Court reinterpreted the Constitution in a dramatic new manner. Amendments and judicial doctrines which had always been understood to restrict federal power were suddenly construed to restrict state power as well. One by one, most of the long-standing restrictions on federal power (ie, guarantees of citizens’ rights) were incorporated against the states, meaning that the states, too, were obligated to guarantee these rights to their citizens.</p><p>*** To be fastidiously accurate, U.S. citizens residing in Washington, DC are ruled only by the federal government (and by an incorporated municipality under that federal government). And other jurisdictions may apply to U.S. citizens living outside the 50 states.</p><p><strong>Strategies for reading the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Bill of Rights</strong></p><p>1) <strong>When you attempt to interpret the Constitution, trust your common sense! </strong> True, a few phrases in the Constitution are written in impenetrable legalese. Nonetheless, have confidence in your best attempts to decipher Constitutional clauses: in most cases, they mean exactly what they seem to mean.</p><p>Besides, if your commonsense interpretation of a Constitutional provision does not happen to match up with the interpretation that is currently considered correct, that does not mean you are irretrievably wrong! Perhaps, fifty years from now, the Supreme Court will have reinterpreted the clause in question in precisely the sense that you read it.</p><p>2) <strong>…but be aware that a vast thicket of legal doctrines has sprung up around most of the Constitution’s clauses</strong>. At age 219, the U.S. Constitution is the oldest still-active national- or federal- Constitution in the world. Over the course of those two centuries — both for unavoidable pragmatic reasons and for politically-motivated reasons — generations of judges have found new ways of understanding the Constitution’s text, most of them building on their predecessors’ ideas. The text of the Constitution will always remain its essential core, and you are encouraged to attempt to decipher its larger meanings using your common sense and your natural language skills. But it is impossible that you will be able to extrapolate all the nuances that the judiciary has found in or has added to the Constitution’s meaning.</p><p>3) <strong>Read the Articles of Confederation</strong>. After you have read the Constitution at least once, read its predecessor, the Articles of Confederation. When you are familiar with both documents, reread the Constitution, and pay careful attention to which features the Constitution has dropped, and which features it has retained, from the Articles (which are <a href="http://www.law.ou.edu/ushistory/artconf.shtml" title="The US Articles of Confederation" target="_blank" class="standard">available here</a>).</p><p>4) <strong>Be aware of ambiguity in the U. S. Constitution</strong>:</p><p><strong>Ambiguity in the U. S. Constitution</strong></p><p>A country relies on its constitution to protect the <em>rule of law</em> (consistent, predictable rule) against tyranny (arbitrary rule) or anarchy (no rule). If a constitution is written carefully and specifically, then the principles it establishes are difficult to subvert. If it is written ambiguously, however, it leaves room for mischievous misinterpretation.</p><p>The United States Constitution is about 4,500 words long — 8,000, including the Amendments. (Compare this to the more typical Turkish or German constitutions, which are about 30,000 words and divided into chapters — or Louisiana’s state constitution, more than 70,000 words long.) Exactly how much specificity can we really expect from such a short document as the U. S. Constitution?</p><p>Very little specificity indeed! The Constitution’s most obvious shortcoming is that it is written in frustratingly vague terms. Why, exactly, was such an important document written in so little detail?</p><p><em>Deliberate ambiguity</em></p><p>The first and most important source of the Constitution’s ambiguity was the political environment for which it was designed. Unlike many Basic Laws, the U. S. Constitution was written not as a statement of an existing civic consensus, but rather as an effort to recruit several sovereign states and feuding factions into a united whole. In many cases, <strong>if its authors had used specific language, they would have alienated one party or another</strong>, and the Constitution would have lost badly-needed support. Ambiguity was a way of keeping the Constitution unobjectionable, so that every faction would perceive the text as supporting its own interests.</p><p>For example, the Constitution gives the Congress “the power… to regulate Commerce… among the several states.” Does this entail the power to levy interstate tariffs? the power to license interstate merchants? the power to commission interstate infrastructural improvements? Large states would have insisted that the Commerce Clause empowered Congress to forbid trade wars; small states, that Congress was authorized to tax trade but not to prevent the states from tax trade as well; agrarian states, that Congress could not protect the American industrial sector; industrial states, that Congress was fully authorized to improve internal transportation; slave states, that Congress could force citizens to respect slave-owners’ property rights in conducting the slave trade; states which did not rely on slavery, that Congress could regulate the trafficking of slaves across state borders. Rather than invite this kind of bickering at a time when federation was an uncertain prospect, the Framers chose not to specify exactly what they meant.</p><p>Of course, these factional disputes did not vanish just because the Constitution was ratified. Instead, ratification transformed them — from disputes over how the unfinished Constitution should be <em>designed</em>, into disputes over how the completed Constitution should be <em>understood</em>. Many of these disputes ended in bloodshed; others remain contentious today. In order to secure a desperately-needed short-term consensus, the Framers deferred existing conflicts, with the unpleasant knowledge that they would resurface throughout the lifetime of the nation.</p><p><em>No one author</em></p><p>In addition to this deliberate tactical ambiguity, another source of ambiguity in the Constitution is the simple fact that it was <strong>designed by committee</strong>. The Constitutional Convention solicited rough drafts from whatever delegations wanted to propose them. Ultimately, two proposals — the Virginia Plan written by James Madison, and the New Jersey Plan written to protect the autonomy of the small states — were merged into a single document (which most closely resembled the Virginia Plan), whereupon various committees tinkered with the resultant draft, and the Committee of Style rewrote the results. Since no one author designed the entire document, it is sometimes fruitless to try to infer the author’s overarching plan.</p><p><em>“We didn’t think of that one”</em></p><p>Finally, ambiguities exist where the Founders simply did not account for every possibility.</p><p>Some of these omissions must be blamed on inattention to obscure details. If a person is a citizen of one of the states, is he also a citizen of the United States? If a state government and a revolutionary state government each simultaneously claim to be the official government of the same state, who decides which of the alternatives the United States will recognize as legitimate? The Constitution says nothing about these question, and so judges have been forced to improvise answers.</p><p>Other minor omissions have arisen because the Constitution’s authors failed to predict new technologies. Congress may “raise and support Armies” and “provide and maintain a Navy”. The Founders obviously intended to authorize a fully-equipped American military; they could hardly have been expected to specify that Congress may also construct an Air Force.As you read the Constitution, you may wonder exactly what a given passage is supposed to mean. Bear in mind that its authors might not always have been able to tell you! In some instances they’d have argued with one another about a passage’s meaning; in other instances, they’d have had to acknowledge that they simply hadn’t thought to account for every possibility, especially those possibilities which new technologies introduced after the document was written; in still other instances, they’d have refused to explain their intentions, so as to avoid angering potential constituents.</p>'", "summary": " 'The United States Constitution is the supreme law of the United States of America. It was adopted on September 17, 1787 by the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and later ratified by conventions in each state in the name of \\\\"the People\\\\"; it has been amended twenty-seven times since. The Constitution has a central place in American law and political culture. The U.S. Constitution is argued by many to be the oldest written national constitution. The handwritten, or \\\\"engrossed\\\\", original document is on display at the National Archives in Washington, D.C.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-26 10:25:23'", "year": " 1787", "page_views": " 2371", "id": 94, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=12'"},{"author": " 'Various'", "title": "Amendments to the Constitution of the United States of America", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'This is a complete full list of all ratified and unratified amendments to the United States Constitution which have received the approval of the Congress. The procedure for amending the Constitution is governed by Article V of the original text. There have been proposals for amendments to the United States Constitution for amendments introduced in Congress, but not submitted to the states.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-26 11:01:42'", "year": " 1791", "page_views": " 2212", "id": 95, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=12'"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "The Rape of Lucrece", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-29 07:20:33'", "year": " 1590", "page_views": " 54", "id": 96, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Bram Stoker'", "title": "Dracula", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-10-29 07:29:16'", "year": " 1897", "page_views": " 0", "id": 97, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Thomas Jefferson'", "title": "The Declaration of Independence", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The United States Declaration of Independence was an act of the Second Continental Congress, adopted on July 4, 1776, which declared that the Thirteen Colonies in North America were \\\\"Free and Independent States\\\\" and that \\\\"all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved.\\\\" The document, formally entitled The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen United States of America, written chiefly by Thomas Jefferson, explained the justifications for separation from the British crown, and was an expansion of Richard Henry Lee\\\\''s Resolution (passed by Congress in July 2), which first proclaimed independence. An engrossed copy of the Declaration was signed by most of the delegates on August 2 and is now on display in the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Declaration is considered to be the founding document of the United States of America, where July 4 is celebrated as Independence Day and the nation\\\\''s birthday. At the time the Declaration was issued, the American colonies were \\\\"united\\\\" in declaring their independence from Great Britain.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-10-30 20:23:32'", "year": " 1776", "page_views": " 1507", "id": 99, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Shakespeare'", "title": "Cymbeline", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Tragedy of Cymbeline, King of Britain is a play by William Shakespeare. Critics often put it in a grouping called Shakespeare\\\\''s Late Romances along with Pericles, Prince of Tyre, The Tempest, and The Winter\\\\''s Tale. Although it was grouped with the tragedies in the First Folio, it is almost universally accorded a place in the comedies today. To use modern terminology, the play is, like most of Shakespeare\\\\''s later plays, probably best described as a \\\\"tragi-comedy\\\\", a form that was quickly gaining popularity in the early seventeenth century.'", "created_on": " '2007-10-31 12:48:17'", "year": " 1609", "page_views": " 681", "id": 100, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Love 's Labour Lost", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The play opens with the King of Navarre and three noble companions, Berowne, Dumaine, and Longaville, taking an oath to devote themselves to three years of study, promising not to give in to the company of women. Berowne reminds the king that the princess and her three ladies are coming to the kingdom and it was suicidal for the King to agree to this law. The King denies what Berowne says insisting that they live a little far from the palace. The King and his men comically fall in love with the princess and her ladies.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe main story is assisted by many other funny sub-plots. A rather heavy-accented Spanish swordsman, Don Adriano de Armado, tries and fails to woo a country wench, Jaquenetta, helped by Moth, his page, and Costard, a country idiot. We are also introduced to two scholars: Holofernes and Sir Nathaniel, we have seen them converse with each other in schoolboy Latin. In the final act, the comic characters perform a play to entertain the nobles.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-11-01 14:35:40'", "year": " 1595", "page_views": " 353", "id": 101, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Measure for Measure", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Measure for Measure is a play by William Shakespeare, originally classified in the First Folio as a comedy. This is one of the playwright\\\\''s three problem plays.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-01 19:40:40'", "year": " 1603", "page_views": " 616", "id": 102, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Stephen Crane'", "title": "The Red Badge of Courage", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Red Badge of Courage (1895) is an impressionistic novel by Stephen Crane about the meaning of courage, as it is narrated by Henry Fleming, a recruit in the American Civil War. It is one of the most influential American war stories ever written even though the author was born after the war and had never seen battle himself. Crane met and spoke with a number of veterans as a student and he created what is widely regarded as an unusually realistic depiction of a young man in battle.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-01 20:27:50'", "year": " 1895", "page_views": " 817", "id": 103, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Aristotle'", "title": "Politics", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Aristotle\\\\''s Politics (Greek Πολιτικἀ) is a work of political philosophy. It begins where the Nicomachean Ethics ends, and the two are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise dealing with the \\\\"philosophy of human affairs.\\\\" Its title literally means \\\\"the things concerning the polis.\\\\"'", "created_on": " '2007-11-01 21:33:11'", "year": " 384", "page_views": " 658", "id": 104, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Locke'", "title": "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'An Essay Concerning Human Understanding is one of John Locke\\\\''s two most famous works, the other being his Second Treatise on Civil Government. First appearing in 1690, the essay concerns the foundation of human knowledge and understanding. He describes the mind at birth as a blank slate (tabula rasa, although he did not use those actual words) filled later through experience. The essay was one of the principal sources of empiricism in modern philosophy, and influenced many enlightenment philosophers, such as David Hume and Bishop Berkeley.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-02 06:37:03'", "year": " 1690", "page_views": " 131", "id": 105, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Locke'", "title": "An Essay Concerning Human Understanding, Book II", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Book II of the Essay sets out Locke\\\\''s theory of ideas, including his distinction between passively acquired simple ideas, such as \\\\"red,\\\\" \\\\"sweet,\\\\" \\\\"round,\\\\" etc., and actively built complex ideas, such as numbers, causes and effects, abstract ideas, ideas of substances, identity, and diversity. Locke also distinguishes between the truly existing primary qualities of bodies, like shape, motion and the arrangement of minute particles, and the secondary qualities that are \\\\"powers to produce various sensations in us\\\\" such as \\\\"red\\\\" and \\\\"sweet.\\\\" These secondary qualities, Locke claims, are dependent on the primary qualities. He also offers a theory of personal identity, offering a largely psychological criterion. Book III is concerned with language, and Book IV with knowledge, including intuition, mathematics, moral philosophy, natural philosophy (\\\\"science\\\\"), faith, and opinion.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-02 06:56:01'", "year": " 1690", "page_views": " 1173", "id": 106, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Niccolò Machiavelli'", "title": "Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livius", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Discourses on Livy (Discorsi sopra la prima deca di Tito Livio, Discourses on the First Ten Books of Titus Livy) is a work of political history and philosophy composed in the early 16th century by the famed Florentine public servant and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527), best known as the author of The Prince. Where The Prince is devoted to advising the ruler of a principality, i.e., a type of monarchy, the Discourses purport to explain the structure and benefits of a republic, a form of government based on popular consent and control. It is considered almost unanimously by scholars to be if not the first, then certainly the most important, work on republicanism in the early modern period.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-03 11:37:52'", "year": " 16", "page_views": " 4672", "id": 108, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Titus Andronicus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-11-06 10:22:18'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 530", "id": 109, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Merchant of Venice", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-11-06 12:45:48'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 91", "id": 111, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra'", "title": "Don Quixote de la Mancha", "intro_essay": " '<p><em>Don Quixote de la Mancha</em>, with two volumes published in 1605 and 1615, is what many revere as the first modern novel, the first novel to reflect a world of changing values, progress, and self-questioning . The work, itself very much a commentary on fictional writing and medieval books of chivalry, in many ways breaks away from chivalric literary convention, which had still managed to dominate the 17th century narrative scene as most writers chose to devote their energies to poetry and drama. In this sense, Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s choice to work seriously with the genre of the novel, which was more marginalized than either Lope de Vega’s popular plays or Luis de G\u00c3\u00b3ngora’s elitist poems, parallels his similarly radical redefinition of the novel itself and its great creative and intellectual possibilities in literature and beyond. For the first time, readers of <em>Don Quixote</em> experienced a unique mix of Baroque and Renaissance styles of narration, a blurring of the lines between fiction and real life, between author and narrator and character, and a new ideological as well as narrative emphasis on the ways in which our world is neither absolute nor unchanging but rather shaped by the ever evolving perspectives of those around us.</p><p>Cervantes’ innovations in large part set the stage for the next four centuries of literary movements and manifestos, narrative techniques and novelistic values. In the words of Spanish critic and scholar Francisco Rico:</p><blockquote><p><em>el Quijote no inventa la novela, sino su historia. Es decir, contiene todala historia posterior de la novela: la realista, la de imaginaci\u00c3\u00b3n, la mezclade lo uno y lo otro. Lo literario y lo metaliterario, la prosa y el verso, elrealismo m\u00c3\u00a1gico … No se ha inventado nada nuevo despu\u00c3\u00a9s del Quijote.</em></p><p>[<em>Don Quixote</em> does not invent the novel, but rather the history of the novel.Which is to say, it contains all of the history which comes after the novel:realism, imagination, a mixture of both. The literary and the metaliterary,prose and verse, magical realism… Nothing new has been invented after<em>Don Quixote</em>.]</p></blockquote><p>Considering the boldness and fervor of Rico’s words, let us turn to a few examples of writers, representative of diverse literary contexts, whose techniques essentially go back to the ideas of Cervantes.</p><p>Spaniard Miguel de Unamuno, a member of the Generation of 1898, was among those writers famous for reestablishing Spain’s literary predominance during the Spanish American War, after many a decade of creative stagnancy. His novel Niebla received great critical acclaim for its refreshing insight into the writing process itself: characters have long conversations with a fictionalized Unamuno and eventually threaten the author-character’s own status as author, while unique combinations of narrative prose and dramatic dialogue confuse us as to the precise genre of the work. Authorial power is overturned as a main character, V\u00c3\u00adctor, jumps out of the narrative framework to write the prologue, followed by a side note from an out-of-sorts Unamuno. The novel is highly creative and entertaining; however, it in fact owes much of its novelty to Cervantes’ work some three hundred years earlier. In <em>Don Quixote</em>, we find a fictionalized Cervantes as early as the prologue of Volume I, where Cervantes converses with another character about strategies for writing prologues; his earlier works <em>La Numancia</em> and <em>La Galatea</em> are similarly referenced and read by various characters throughout the novel. Other flesh-and-bone figures, such as a reader of the the unauthentic <em>Don Quixote</em> printed in 1614, flatten out to interact with characters of purely literary origin. Furthermore, paralleling Unamuno’s mixture of genres, the straightforward style of Cervantes’ narrative prose often collides with poetic verse, as in the case of many a love letter, or else with text reminiscent of the pastoral romance (for example Marcela and Chrysostom, or the goatherd Eugenio), or the fable (as with the mention of madmen and dogs in the second prologue).</p><p>Looking some years ahead, we see <em>Don Quixote</em>’s influence on William Faulkner, one of the most lauded Southern writers of the twentieth century and, like Joyce and Proust and TS Eliot, a contributor to the Modernist literary movement in favor of moving beyond realism in art. In the words of Jed Rasula: “William Faulkner claimed that he reread the <em>Bible</em> and <em>Don Quixote</em> on a yearly basis.” Faulkner’s <em>The Sound and the Fury</em> (1929) is most famous for its unusual division; there are four parts, each highlighting a different time and place and narrated by different (yet related) characters. This alternation of narrators parallels Volume I’s Chapter IX of <em>Don Quixote</em>, where one narrator leaves off, having finished what he knows of the knight-errant’s history, to be proceeded by another who struggles to keep the story going until he finally arrives at Cide Hamete Benengeli, the Muslim and potentially “unfaithful” narrator. In both works, there is thus heavy emphasis placed on different perspectives and the ways in which two characters or two narrators can consider shared experiences with completely different interpretations. <em>The Sound and the Fury</em> does not tell its chronologically but rather according to a more internal order, an arrangement by thought pattern or by theme; in a similar matter, we follow Don Quixote’s life not from start to finish but rather as new information is unraveled by historians (we learn of Don Quixote’s death in Volume I, before his third sally, for example.)</p><p>Looking towards Latin America and the fierce energy of its 1930s avant-garde movements, which reflected a desire to break away both from art as imitation and its passive acceptance of modern capitalist society, Argentine Jorge Luis Borges also demonstrated a clear fascination with <em>Don Quixote</em>. In 1939, his story “Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote” appeared in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sur_%28magazine%29" title="Wikipedia" target="_blank" class="standard"><em>Sur</em>,</a> an Argentine literary publication. The story details Pierre Menard’s attempt to rewrite, word for word, a section Cervantes’ Don Quixote — he attempts to arrive at a state of mind where he is able to recreate the 17th century language of Don Quixote despite his own twentieth century context. According to the narrator, himself a critic, Pierre Menard’s version of the work, while textually identical, is richer because of its pertinence to a larger expanse of history and cultural development. Borges’ story underlines the idea that meaning is both language and context, and he questions the possibility of any translation or rewriting being completely faithful to the original.</p><p>Though perhaps not what Pierre Menard, looking for originality, would like to hear, Don Quixote the character also focuses on such themes of language and rewriting as outlined by Borges. In many conversations held between two characters, such as Don Quixote and Sancho or Don Quixote and travelers he meets on his way, we learn that language is not always sufficient to communicate meaning, that depending on individual perspective, two people can presume the same words to mean different things. Take, for example, Don Quixote’s conversation with some galley slaves in <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=112&section_id=2333" target="_blank" class="standard">Chapter XXII of Volume One</a>.</p><blockquote><p>‘He, sir, goes as a canary, I mean as a musician and a singer.’‘What!’ said Don Quixote, ‘for being musicians and singers are peoplesent to the galleys too?’‘Yes, sir,’ answered the galley slave, ‘for there is nothing worse thansinging under suffering.’‘On the contrary, I have heard say,’ said Don Quixote, ‘that he whosings scares away his woes.’‘Here it is the reverse, said the galley slave; ‘for he who sings onceweeps all his life.’‘I do not understand it,’ said Don Quixote; but one of the guards saidto him, ‘Sir, to sing under suffering means with the non sancta fraternityto confess under torture; they put this sinner to torture and he confessedhis crime, which was being a cuatrero, that is a cattle-stealer…’</p></blockquote><p>At other points in time, two characters may be contextually on the same page, but a single substitution of one word for another changes the nature of the conversation, as humorously occurs when a goatherd relates to Don Quixote the tragic death of Chrysostom in <a href="http://www.thefinalclub.org/view-work.php?work_id=112&section_id=2322" target="_blank" class="standard">Chapter XII</a>:</p><blockquote><p>‘Perhaps, and even without any perhaps, you will not have heardanything like it all the days of your life, though you should livemore years than sarna.’‘Say Sarra,’ said Don Quixote, unable to endure the goatherd’sconfusion of words.‘The sarna lives long enough,’ answered Pedro; ‘and if, senor,you must go finding fault with words at every step, we shall notmake an end of it this twelvemonth.’‘Pardon me, friend,’ said Don Quixote, but, as there is such adifference between sarna and Sarra, I told you of it; however,you have answered me rightly, for sarna lives longer than Sarra:so continue your story, and I will not object any more to anything.’</p></blockquote><p>A simple mistake in pronunciation here results in completely different interpretations of what is being said. Sarra (Sarah) refers to the wife of Abraham, who lived to be 127 years old; sarna, on the other hand, refers to a skin disease caused by a parasite!</p><p>Don Quixote also places much importance on the theme of translation and the rewriting of texts. Throughout the novel, stories are retold both verbally and on paper, from “the Ill-advised Curiosity” found in a cabinet at the inn to Don Quixote’s love letter to Dulcinea, then related by Sancho, to the retelling of Cide Hamete Benengeli’s version of <em>Don Quixote</em> itself. In each case, the act of retelling results in a new text rather than a mere copy, sometimes even extending influence over the original. The priests’ retelling of “the Ill-advised Curiosity,” while reread word for word from the original, parallels Pierre Menard’s efforts in that the reading of the tale itself is interrupted by the outside context of other characters’ words and actions, particularly Don Quixote’s. To the reader especially, who sees both “story” and “real world” as text, Don Quixote’s interruption directly influences the story being told. Sancho, when he attempts to relate to the curate Don Quixote’s love letter, completely destroys its meaning, transforming what was a beautiful piece of writing into a kind of nonsensical joke. Furthermore, in the reproduction of Benengeli’s text, Benengeli is not the only narrative presence but rather is joined on and off by the second narrator, who makes commentary on Benengeli’s efforts and essentially inserts himself into the text he claims to be merely transcribing: ” ‘A blessing on Cide Hamete Benengeli, who has written the history of your great deeds, and a double blessing on that connoisseur who took the trouble of having it translated out of the Arabic into our Castilian vulgar tongue for the universal entertainment of the people!’” (II.III). In this single comment, the second narrator already adds many of his own value judgments to the supposedly historical text.</p><p>As with Unamuno, Faulkner, and Borges, <em>Don Quixote</em> has fascinated countless other writers and intellectuals across a myriad of time periods and locations, from Fyodor Dostoyevski and Gustave Flaubert to Luigi Pirandello and Milan Kundera. But what has made the novel so special for you and me, for the readers who discover Don Quixote in school or who dare to take its dauntingly thick spine down from the bookshelf on a cold winter night or a lazy Saturday afternoon, just because it’s <em>Don Quixote</em> and I should read it and it’s actually supposed to be pretty fun? What has made <em>Don Quixote</em> so consistently appealing throughout history?</p><p>For one thing, <em>Don Quixote</em>, while an immense intellectual treasure hunt for many, is also very transparent in its language, or languages, and in the structure of the plot. Readers can study the meta-literary presence in Cervantes’ writing or the complex relationship between the multiple narrators, but, if they so choose, they can also periodically “let down their guards” and enjoy the colorful adventures of Don Quixote and the complex web of relationships which form from his interaction with others.</p><p>We also cannot forget that <em>Don Quixote</em>, despite different social contexts and linguistic subtleties, is still at many points laugh-out-loud funny, perhaps due to the largely conversational tone of the narration and also to Cervantes’ boldness in description — he is not afraid to describe bodily functions or other potentially embarrassing subjects which were simply not allowed to have a presence in the earlier Renaissance writing. Take for example, the scene where Sancho spends the night latched onto Don Quixote in fear of what will eventually turn out to be the noise of the fulling mill hammers:</p><blockquote><p>Just then, whether it was the cold of the morning that was nowapproaching, or that he had eaten something laxative at supper,or that it was only natural (as is most likely), Sancho felt a desireto do what no one could do for him […]‘What noise is that, Sancho?’‘I don’t know, senor,’ said he; ‘it must be something new, for adventuresand misadventures never begin with a trifle.’ Once more he tried hisluck, and succeeded so well, that without any further noise ordisturbance he found himself relieved of the burden that had givenhim so much discomfort. But as Don Quixote’s sense of smell wasas acute as his hearing, and as Sancho was so closely linked withhim that the fumes rose almost in a straight line, it could not be butthat some should reach his nose, and as soon as they did hecame to its relief by compressing it between his fingers, sayingin a rather snuffing tone, ‘Sancho, it strikes me thou art in great fear.’(I.XX).</p></blockquote><p>Another perhaps more respectfully written moment of humor comes when the visit of the barber, seeking to reclaim his basin from Don Quixote, leads to a general pandemonium of different sides and perspectives:</p><blockquote><p>The landlord, who was of the fraternity, ran at once to fetch his staffof office and his sword, and ranged himself on the side of hiscomrades; the servants of Don Luis clustered round him, lest heshould escape from them in the confusion; the barber, seeing thehouse turned upside down, once more laid hold of his pack-saddleand Sancho did the same; Don Quixote drew his sword and chargedthe officers; Don Luis cried out to his servants to leave him alone andgo and help Don Quixote, and Cardenio and Don Fernando, whowere supporting him; the curate was shouting at the top of her voice,the landlady was screaming, her daughter was wailing, Maritorneswas weeping, Dorothea was aghast, Luscinda terror-stricken, andDona Clara in a faint. (I.XLV).</p></blockquote><p>The parallel structure of Cervantes’ seemingly never ending stream of images exaggerates the scene and further caricatures the more realistic elements of each character.</p><p>Spanish philosopher and writer Jos\u00c3\u00a9 Ortega y Gasset once said that “Ser artista es no tomar en serio al hombre tan serio que somos cuando no somos artistas” [To be an artist is to not take seriously the serious men we are when we aren’t artists] ; in large part I find Cervantes’ work to resonate with its readers because, in spite of the profound philosophies we can take away from <em>Don Quixote</em>, Cervantes also has fun making fun of himself, the characters in the novel, and the novel itself, as well as many Spanish societal conventions and, of course, books of chivalry. The priest recognizes Cervantes’ previous work <em>La Galatea</em> as “presenting us with something but bring[ing] nothing to a conclusion”; Don Quixote criticizes the unauthentic Volume II of his own life and adventures to be “impossible for anyone who has read the First Part of the history of “Don Quixote of La Mancha to take any pleasure in”; the canon mocks fictional books, calling them “downright nonsense and things that have neither head nor tail”, and Cervantes makes fun of the canon who all the same secretly has written his own books of chivalry (I.VI , II.LIX , I.XLVIII). Indeed, there is no one in the book who escapes all embarrassment, including Cid Hamete Benengeli (”lying is a very common propensity with those of [an Arab] nation”) and the second narrator who earlier on is forced to somehow account for his sudden loss of historical text (I.IX).</p><p>Perhaps most importantly, Cervantes’ work inspires us without ever taking itself for more than a book, opens up possibility and magic without preaching. Don Quixote demonstrates that, no matter our social status or our inescapable day-to-day responsibilities, when we use our imaginations and look to consider the world around us in a different light, we can still exercise control over the kinds of lives we live and the identities we carry out. Moreover, it is quite possible for one creatively minded person to let others in on what we might call the magical realism of life. Don Quixote fulfills what many would call a pretend adventure, but it is his very dedication to his ideals which blurs the line between fiction and reality, which brings Literature to Life and allows even the most common innkeeper or goat herder to experience a living, breathing manifestation of Art.</p><p>Don Quixote’s eventual death and realization that “I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano” tinge the novel with a kind of tragic melancholy; despite his many adventures and successes had with imagination, Don Quixote is no longer able to keep his fantasy alive. At the same time, however, not all is lost with Don Quixote — throughout the course of the novel, he has been able to pass on his creative energy to those around him, inspiring the priest, Sancho, and his other friends to live out different kinds of literary lives, to have fun, despite their age, with make-believe, and to sincerely believe in the possibility of changing, along with their own attitudes and perspectives, the world around them. In Chapter V, upon meeting his neighbor Pedro Alonso, Don Quixote proclaims “‘I know who I am […] and I know what I can be…”; perhaps if we all tickle our imaginations a bit more, if we learn to acknowledge and appreciate rather than back away from our more irrational dreams or creative instincts, we too can more forcefully shape ourselves, and with our cutting and molding prove Don Quixote’s life to never have been in vain.</p><p>SOURCES:</p><p align="left">Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel. Don Quixote de la Mancha, English Translation. TheFinalClub.org. 01 Jan. 2008</p><p align="left">Nasarre, Mar\u00c3\u00ada Jos\u00c3\u00a9. “El Quijote de Francisco Rico.” Revista Universitaria. <a href="http://revista.abatoliba.edu/?id=9_cultura" target="_blank" class="standard">http://revista.abatoliba.edu/?id=9_cultura</a>. 31 December 2007.</p><p align="left">Ortega y Gassett, Jos\u00c3\u00a9. La deshumanizaci\u00c3\u00b3n del arte. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2005.</p><p align="left">Rasula, Jed. “When the exception is the rule: Don Quixote as incitement to literature. Comparative Literature. Spring 1999. FindArticles.com. 01 Jan. 2008.</p>'", "summary": " 'Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The first part was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. It is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and is arguably the most influential and emblematic work in the canon of Spanish literature. '", "created_on": " '2007-11-08 09:12:10'", "year": " 1605", "page_views": " 14667", "id": 112, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=8'"},{"author": " 'Thomas Hobbes'", "title": "Leviathan", "intro_essay": " '<p><em><strong>Leviathan: Peace through Consensual Terror</strong></em></p><p><strong>Historical context</strong></p><p>Englishman Thomas Hobbes was a Royalist, or partisan of the King, who had the misfortune to live during the English Civil Wars, one of the most anti-monarchial periods in British history. To escape the ascendant (and soon-to-be-rampant) regiments of a radical republican regicide named Oliver Cromwell, Hobbes fled England for France in 1640.</p><p>Understandably, Hobbes was preoccupied during this unhappy exile by three momentous questions of political philosophy. First, how can order and stability be restored to a land where all trust has broken down and violence alone determines political outcomes? Second, does anyone really have the right to rebel against the sovereign King? — what obligations are rightfully owed to him? Third, can a republic (such as the republic that Cromwell intended to establish) ever function as well as a monarchy?</p><p>It was in order to resolve these theoretical problems — and in order to resolve them using arguments that also would promote his monarchist political leanings — that Hobbes authored civilization’s first <strong>social contract theory</strong>. He entitled this book “Leviathan”.</p><p><strong>What is a <em>social contract</em>?</strong>What are the origins of civilized society? To a <strong>social contract philosopher</strong> like Thomas Hobbes, human beings are not (quite) hardwired for social behavior, nor are we designed to enjoy the self-restraint — the self-denial — the sacrifice of autonomy — that attend socialized interaction. Rather, participation in human society is a strategy by which we intend to promote our own personal interests.</p><p>If we intend to get something out of society, while also agreeing that we will make sacrifices in order to make society work, then in essence society must rest on some kind of (unwritten) contract: an agreement we have (effectively) signed, detailing exactly what we will owe to others, and what others will owe to us*. This hypothetical agreement is the <strong>social contract</strong>, and for social contract philosophers it is the foundation of civilized society.</p><p>[*] It should be noticed that for some social contract philosophers — but not quite for Hobbes — the new social commitments of the social contract are in addition to preexisting moral obligations.</p><p><strong>What is the <em>state of nature</em>?</strong></p><p>In order to explain why people would have signed the social contract in the first place, social contract philosophers must describe the political and economic landscape that existed before the social contract.</p><p>Since they cannot actually be sure what the world was like before societal interaction, they usually indulge in speculative anthropology. Hobbes, for one, relates a fantastical account of a desperate, bloody, continuous free-for-all that could only be ended through the establishment of political order. (While he admits that this process probably never literally took place, he presents it as a cautionary parable to teach us why we should, in principle, embrace the political order that his parable ultimately endorses.)</p><p>The <strong>state of nature</strong> is this earliest political landscape, before the invention of social or political restraints, when men were restrained only by their natural inclinations. As we will read, Thomas Hobbes did not imagine that natural inclinations restrained human action very much at all: rather, he believed that every human in the state of nature possessed both the means and the motivation to murder other human beings. It is from this dismal state of affairs that Hobbes would extrapolate a political order.</p><p>One other comment on the phrase “state of nature” is in order. Just as an ordinary state is a government, and governs human beings by passing laws, the phrase <em>state of nature</em> implies that during our species’ benighted primaevum** <em>nature herself</em> was the governess of humankind, and therefore that the relevant legal code was none other than the <em>laws of nature</em>. “Natural law” is an extremely nuanced topic***. For later social contract theorists, the term “natural law” would carry strong positive connotations, especially in contrast with the unnatural, human-made social construct that is the social contract. Hobbes would agree with his successors that there was an element of moral rightness in the laws of nature (although he would never precisely articulate the source of that rectitude), but he did not perceive this as a contrast to the artificial state; rather, he felt that the artificial state was an inevitable extrapolation from the natural state.</p><p>** “earliest era”.*** As a schema for philosophical analysis, the term “natural law” fell out of fashion around the late 18th century, although it is still important to Catholic theologians and to certain strains of legal philosopher.</p><p><strong>The liberal tradition</strong></p><p>The word “liberal” has recently come to mean “progressive” or “left-leaning”. That is not its original meaning, and it is not the meaning I intend when I use the word.</p><p>In the context of political philosophy, “liberalism” refers to a political ideology that has come to dominate nearly the entire West. There are many variations on liberalism, but they all share this premise: that <em>the individual</em> — not the community, not the monarch, not the nation, not the kingdom, not the state, not the government agency, not the divine plan, not the species collectively, not the economic class, not the social caste — but the individual human being — must be the basic unit of social and political analysis.</p><p>To a classical liberal, this means that <em>negative individual rights</em> (the right to be left alone by others) are of paramount importance, and that it is a moral imperative that we minimize the degree to which such individual rights are infringed.</p><p>Thomas Hobbes is properly understood as the founder of the liberal political tradition. His ultimate political recommendations, which were decidedly authoritarian, can seem difficult to reconcile with the modern liberal’s understanding of an individual’s rights: this cannot be denied. Nonetheless, he was the original liberal, to whom all subsequent liberal theorists owe their intellectual inheritance. In what sense was Hobbes a liberal? Hobbes’ mode of analysis was to ask what social institutions would best promote each <em>individual</em>’s interests — Hobbes’ moral lodestar was the prospect of improving the lives of human beings <em>analyzed individually</em> — Hobbes’ basic insight and fundamental axiom was that each <em>individual</em> is predisposed mostly to serve himself rather than to obey laws selflessly. Moreover, Hobbes was also the <em>first</em> theorist to adopt these individualistic approaches to political philosophy.</p><p>It is not a coincidence that the first liberal was the first social contract theorist. Social contract theories invariably rest on the question, “What entices me to sign this social contract — what do I gain by agreeing to join your society?” Therefore all social contract theories presume the liberal perspective that human beings are basically self-interested.</p><p><em>War among individuals, war among nations:</em><strong>“Leviathan’s” reasoning applies on two different levels of analysis</strong></p><p>As you read “Leviathan”, you will be well served to consider how Thomas Hobbes’ ideas can be applied to two different political scenarios.</p><p>The first scenario is the scenario that Hobbes will explicitly describe, regarding the political organization of men: how do self-interested <strong>human beings</strong> interact under conditions of <strong>anarchy</strong>, without <strong>enforceable rules</strong> to regulate their actions? On this reading, you will find insights about the moral basis of political organization — recommendations for constitutional design — advice regarding social and economic interaction — and suggestions as to how one man may exert authority over another.</p><p>The second scenario, for which the first scenario can productively be taken as a metaphor, is the international theater: how do self-interested <strong>nation-states</strong> interact under conditions of <strong>international anarchy</strong>, given that <strong>international laws</strong> cannot objectively be enforced? On this reading, you will find a diplomatic doctrine that prefigures Bismarckian realism — an endorsement of hegemonic stability theory — a commentary on the futility of international law — and several of the themes that have characterized American statecraft (such as our insistence on freedom of action, our historical distrust of pledges of alliance, our use of total war, and our willingness to intervene in the affairs of weaker nation-states while staying out of the affairs of more powerful nation-states).</p><p>Hobbes himself endorses this double reading of “Leviathan”; periodically he will pause to point out that a particular insight about the interactions of humans applies especially well to the interactions of nations. Try also to notice the cases which Hobbes would just as soon gloss over — the examples where Hobbes’ lessons about the interactions of individuals cannot usefully be applied to the interactions of nation-states.</p><p>You may also find it interesting to apply the great narrative of “Leviathan” as a metaphor for still other kinds of power struggles, such as the power struggle between checked-and-balanced government agencies.</p><p><strong>Taxonomy of scientific analysis</strong></p><p>Another useful perspective from which to approach “Leviathan” is taxonomical. Consider that when Hobbes wrote, the boundaries between moral science and political science, between political science and social science, between social science and natural science, had not yet been clearly delineated. (All scientists were simply “philosophers”, which is why the highest degree in modern academia is the “doctorate of philosophy”.)</p><p>From a modern standpoint, therefore, Hobbes often appears to confound these modes of analysis, with the result that his argument is muddled or imprecise. For example, Hobbes appears not to distinguish, or only barely to distinguish, between <em>what-rational-men-are-prone-to-do</em> and <em>what-just-men-morally-ought-to-do</em>. When you encounter apparent conflations like this, try to view them from the perspective of Hobbes’ contemporaries. Is there necessarily a paradox in the equation of morality with self-interest? Do we modern readers lose, or gain, intellectual traction by insisting on such a sharp distinction between the two topics? Is the degree to which Hobbes <em>does</em> tease apart these analytical categories proof that he intended for us to understand them through a multifarious analytical schema?</p>'", "summary": " 'Leviathan or The Matter, Forme and Power of a Common Wealth Ecclesiasticall and Civil, commonly called Leviathan is a book written in 1651 by Thomas Hobbes. It is titled after the biblical Leviathan. The book concerns the structure of society, as is evidenced by the full title. In the book, Thomas Hobbes argues for a social contract and rule by an absolute sovereign. Influenced by the English Civil War, Hobbes wrote that chaos or civil war could only be averted by strong central government. He thus denied any right of rebellion toward the social contract, which would be later added by John Locke and conserved by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (However, Hobbes did discuss the possible dissolution of the State. Since the social contract was made to institute a state that would provide for the \\\\"peace and defense\\\\" of the people, the contract would become void as soon as the government no longer protected its citizens. By virtue of this fact, man would automatically return to the state of nature until a new contract is made). '", "created_on": " '2007-11-13 17:35:49'", "year": " 1651", "page_views": " 4515", "id": 113, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=11'"},{"author": " 'Thomas Paine'", "title": "Common Sense", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Common Sense was a pamphlet written by Thomas Paine. It was first published anonymously on January 10, 1776, during the American Revolution. Paine wrote it with editorial feedback from Benjamin Rush, who came up with the title. The document denounced British rule and, through its immense popularity, contributed to stimulating the American Revolution. The second edition was published soon thereafter. A third edition, with an accounting of the worth of the British navy, an expanded appendix, and a response to criticism by the Quakers, was published on February 14, 1776.\\r\\n\\r\\nPaine donated the copyright for Common Sense to the states, and as one biographer noted, Paine made nothing of the estimated 150,000 to 600,000 copies that were eventually printed (various sources disagree on the number of printed copies in Paine\\\\''s lifetime). In fact, he had to pay for the first printing himself.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-11-14 18:51:19'", "year": " 1776", "page_views": " 1743", "id": 115, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Herman Melville'", "title": "Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street", "intro_essay": " '<p>Known today as perhaps the most important American author of the nineteenth century, Herman Melville died in 1891 with no idea he would ever enjoy such fame. He had achieved early literary success for his tales of adventure in the South Seas, <em>Typee</em> (1846) and <em>Omoo</em> (1847), published when he was in his late twenties. But such fast-paced books \u00e2\u20ac\u201c based on the travels of his youth and featuring exotic Pacific islanders, captivity narratives, and romance plots \u00e2\u20ac\u201c failed to satisfy Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s hunger for a more ragged and elliptical writing. He soon developed, in particular with the vast allegory of <em>Mardi</em> (1849), what one critic has called his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153quarrel with fiction\u00e2\u20ac\u009d \u00e2\u20ac\u201c his resistance to providing the conventional plot structures readers craved, his insistence on turning a book\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s events into digressive philosophical essays and veiled satires on contemporary politics. The breaking point came with what is today acknowledged as the great masterpiece of the American literary canon: <em>Moby-Dick</em> (1851). While definite manuscript evidence does not exist, scholars speculate that Melville drafted but abandoned a more conventional story of a whaling cruise. Reading Shakespeare\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s plays for the first time seems to have caused the shift in his impulses, as did reading and meeting for the first time Nathaniel Hawthorne, his neighbor in western Massachusetts\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Berkshire Mountains, where Melville lived from 1850 to 1862. Melville would write in a review of Hawthorne\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stories in 1850 that literature must involve \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the great Art of Telling the Truth,– even though it be covertly, and by snatches\u00e2\u20ac\u009d — a good description of the questing, baggy form <em>Moby-Dick</em> possesses. But America was not ready for this Truth: the headline for one review, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153HERMAN MELVILLE CRAZY,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was typical, and Melville only alienated further what readers he had left by subverting traditional romance structure in <em>Pierre, or the Ambiguities</em> (1852), a book centered on incest, dark views of American history, and a tale of a failed writer trying to stay warm in a frigid tenement. Struggling to find any commercial success from then on, Melville had largely stopped publishing fiction by 1857, turning to self-published poetry and other pursuits.</p><p>\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bartleby the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street\u00e2\u20ac\u009d comes from the period not long after these decisive failures, and it reflects them in profound ways. The story was first published in two installments in <em>Putnam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Magazine</em> in late 1853 and later collected in <em>The Piazza Tales </em>(1856). Many have seen in the pale scrivener who \u00e2\u20ac\u0153writes\u00e2\u20ac\u009d for money (and then refuses to do even that) the Melville who had complained to Hawthorne as he finished <em>Moby-Dick</em>, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Dollars damn me; and the malicious Devil is forever grinning in upon me, holding the door ajar. My dear Sir, a presentiment is on me, — I shall at last be worn out and perish, like an old nutmeg-grater, grated to pieces…\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Compare the lawyer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s own \u00e2\u20ac\u0153presentiments\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of Bartleby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fate, midway through the story: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Presentiments of strange discoveries hovered round me. The scrivener\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s pale form appeared to me laid out, among uncaring strangers, in its shivering winding sheet.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s personal history can be found as well in the lawyer\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s concerns for his status \u00e2\u20ac\u201c his somewhat dubious name-dropping of super-rich John Jacob Astor in the story\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s opening, for instance. Both Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s grandfathers were Revolutionary War heroes, and his father-in-law, Lemuel Shaw, was a chief justice of Massachusetts Supreme Court who made headlines with his decisions in slavery cases. But Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s father, Alan, went bankrupt in the fur business and died when Herman was just twelve, leaving the family in poverty. Melville knew, then, that the fall from the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153snug\u00e2\u20ac\u009d business the lawyer relishes to the poverty of Bartleby could be quick \u00e2\u20ac\u201c and could happen for not entirely understandable reasons. Biographical research has suggested Melville suffered from depression (as Bartleby might be said to?) and alcoholism, causes of his abusive treatment of his wife and family.</p><p>But to read Bartleby as simply an exaggerated version of his creator would miss all the perplexing interpretive questions the taciturn scrivener provokes. For who \u00e2\u20ac\u201c or perhaps what \u00e2\u20ac\u201c is Bartleby really? Historically-minded critics have claimed Bartleby, in his \u00e2\u20ac\u0153passive resistance\u00e2\u20ac\u009d to authority, is Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s rendition of Henry David Thoreau in his essay on \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Civil Disobedience\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (1849). Others, focusing on Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s odd choice of Gothicism for an office story, have linked Bartleby to Poe\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s repetitive bird in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153The Raven\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (1845), squawking out his own chilling version of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nevermore\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I prefer not to.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Still others have seen in Bartleby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s posing of the problem of providing for the poor Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sly, modern invocation of Christ\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words to the righteous in the Gospel of Matthew: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I was hungry and you gave me to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me to drink. I was an outcast and you took me in. I was naked and you clothed me. I was ill and you visited me. I was in prison and you came to me\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (Matthew 25: 34-6). In this vein, perhaps Bartleby is each of us, confronting an extreme version of the suffering that every human \u00e2\u20ac\u201c living in bodies that break down and feel pain — is bound to encounter. You might counter that Bartleby simply needs to start working, start eating, and stop with his miserable moaning if he wants to avoid the pain he courts; but Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s goal in this story, as in many existentialist works of literature, is to use one person\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fate to illuminate questions of fundamental purpose and free will most of us are content to sweep under the rug on a daily basis.</p><p>One radical view of this story would say that all of these notions are, in a way, right \u00e2\u20ac\u201c that Melville has created through Bartleby not one particular meaning but an allegory about the acts of reading and interpretation themselves. Just as the mysterious, largely invisible figure of Moby-Dick accommodates all the peculiar ideas Ishmael and Ahab bring to him, this school of thought says, so Bartleby, in his inscrutability, becomes a mirror to all who look at him. This line of interpretation suggests too that, at bottom, all acts of reading are prone to being overdone, prone to revealing more about the subject having the impressions than the object he studies. For even as they get him right, all the readers listed here fall into the trap the narrator does: believing that Bartleby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s apathy and depression must have some greater significance, that he is a moral test sent from God or, like the Sphinx, a silent holder of deep answers. Melville rose from obscurity starting in the 1920s and endured as a literary great partly because he seemed to be, in using literature to probe these self-reflexive questions, seventy or a hundred years ahead of his time. Writers like Henry James and Joseph Conrad would instill in the early twentieth-century a Bartleby-like elusiveness in almost all their major characters, and postmodern writers like Thomas Pynchon, in the 1960s and after, would build the contingency of meaning Melville seemed to glimpse into an entire ethic of irresolvable uncertainty, good for battling Ahab-like, dictatorial thinking. The notes below give you many pathways for thinking through these difficult questions of language and morality that Bartleby raises.</p><p>Whatever its ultimate meaning, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bartleby\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has been a hugely influential story in American literature and culture. At least two film versions have been made, the most recent starring Crispin Glover as Bartleby in a surreal modern office. Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story is said to have influenced Mike Judge in his creation of the cult classic film about disaffected workers, <em>Office Space</em>. In a somewhat more serious take on rebellion against \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the Man,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d postmodern novelist Thomas Pynchon has mentioned Bartleby in his history of sloth in America, portraying him as a hero of sorts, resistant to the rigid industrial clock-time that Melville saw taking over American life. The African-American writer Charles Johnson has written new versions of several Melville classics from a black perspective. Johnson\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s story \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Executive Decision\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (in <em>Dr. King\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Refrigerator and Other Bedtime Stories </em>[2005]) incorporates elements of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bartleby\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s\u00e2\u20ac\u009d narrative voice and characterizations into an exploration of an affirmative-action hiring decision in a contemporary Seattle office. As you read you should consider why this single, enigmatic character has proven so popular with other writers and artists. While doing so, don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t forget too that the lawyer himself is an equally profound character \u00e2\u20ac\u201c for it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s through him that we get all of Melville\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s great language, all his feats of philosophical connection, and all his comedy and despair. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Bartleby\u00e2\u20ac\u009d offers careful readers a story about American culture of the mid-nineteenth century, a story about the ethics of dealing with the recalcitrant and less fortunate, and a story, ultimately, about stories themselves.</p>'", "summary": " '\\\\"Bartleby, the Scrivener: A Story of Wall Street\\\\" is a short story by Herman Melville. The story first appeared, anonymously, in Putnam\\\\''s Magazine in two parts. The first part appeared in November 1853, with the conclusion published in December 1853. It was reprinted in Melville\\\\''s The Piazza Tales in 1856 with minor textual alterations. The work is said to have been inspired, in part, by Melville\\\\''s reading of Emerson, and some have pointed to specific parallels to Emerson\\\\''s essay, \\\\"The Transcendentalist.\\\\" The story has been adapted for film twice: once in 1970, starring Paul Scofield, and again in 2001, starring Crispin Glover.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-20 20:23:20'", "year": " 1853", "page_views": " 1753", "id": 120, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=6'"},{"author": " 'Mark Twain'", "title": "The Adventures of Tom Sawyer", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, by Mark Twain, is a popular 1876 novel about a young boy growing up in the Antebellum South on the Mississippi River in St. Petersburg, Missouri.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-29 07:16:16'", "year": " 1876", "page_views": " 1135", "id": 122, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Frederick Douglass'", "title": "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass is a memoir and treatise on abolition written by famous orator and ex-slave, Frederick Douglass. It is generally held to be the most famous of a number of narratives written by former slaves during the same period. In factual detail, the text describes the events of his life and is considered to be one of the most influential pieces of literature to fuel the abolitionist movement of the early 19th Century in the United States.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-29 09:22:38'", "year": " 1845", "page_views": " 578", "id": 123, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jean-Jacques Rousseau'", "title": "Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Confessions is an autobiographical book by Jean-Jacques Rousseau. In modern times, it is often published with the title The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in order to distinguish it from St. Augustine of Hippo\\\\''s Confessions, the book from which Jean-Jacques Rousseau took the title for his own book. Covering the first fifty-three years of Rousseau\\\\''s life, up to 1765, it was completed in 1770, but not published until 1782, four years after Rousseau\\\\''s death.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-19 12:44:08'", "year": " 1782", "page_views": " 427", "id": 117, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jean-Jacques Rousseau'", "title": "Emile, or On Education", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Emile: or, On Education (1762) which Jean-Jacques Rousseau believed to be the “best and most important of all my writings” is largely a philosophical treatise on the nature of man; it addresses political and philosophical questions regarding the individual’s relationship to society, in particular how the individual can retain what Rousseau saw as his natural goodness while participating in an inevitably corrupt society. In Emile, Rousseau attempts to describe a system of education that will enable the “natural man” that he outlines in The Social Contract (1762) to live within corrupt society. Rousseau includes the novelistic story of Emile and his tutor in order to illustrate how one might educate this ideal citizen; Emile is therefore not a detailed parenting guide, although it does contain some specific advice on raising children. It is the first complete philosophy of education in the Western tradition, as well as the first Bildungsroman, preceding Goethe\\\\''s Wilhelm Meister by more than thirty years.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-19 21:41:44'", "year": " 1762", "page_views": " 1191", "id": 119, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Anonymous'", "title": "The Lay of the Cid", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'El Cantar del Mio Cid is the oldest preserved Spanish cantar de gesta. Formerly, it was transmitted only orally, but in 1142 it was written down by a certain Per Abbat. This copy is held as part of a 14th century codex in the Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library) in Madrid. However, it is incomplete. The first page and two others in the middle are missing. It is written in medieval Spanish, the ancestor of modern Spanish.\\r\\n\\r\\nIts current title is a modern invention by Ramón Menéndez Pidal; its original title is unknown. Some call it El Poema del Cid on the grounds that it is not a cantar but a poem made up of three cantares. The title has been translated into English as The Lay of the Cid and The Song of the Cid. Some English translations include the verse translation of W.S. Merwin and prose translation of Rita Hamilton and Janet Perry.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-21 14:08:32'", "year": " 1142", "page_views": " 251", "id": 121, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Harriet Beecher Stowe'", "title": "Uncle Tom 's Cabin", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Uncle Tom\\\\''s Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans and slavery in the United States, so much so in the latter case that the novel intensified the sectional conflict leading to the American Civil War.'", "created_on": " '2007-11-29 21:40:19'", "year": " 1852", "page_views": " 1552", "id": 124, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'James Fenimore Cooper'", "title": "The Last of the Mohicans", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Last of the Mohicans is an epic novel by James Fenimore Cooper, first published in January 1826.\\r\\n\\r\\nIt was one of the most popular English-language novels of its time, and helped establish Cooper as one of the first world-famous American writers. Its narrative flaws were criticized from the start, and its length and elaborately formal prose style have reduced its appeal to later readers. But The Last of the Mohicans remains on the syllabi of most American literature courses. It is the best known of the Leatherstocking Tales, and Cooper wrote his novel The Prairie as a sequel to it.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe story takes place in 1757 during the French and Indian War, when France and Great Britain battled for control of the American and Canadian colonies. During this war, the French often allied themselves with Native American tribes in order to gain an advantage over the British, with unpredictable and often tragic results.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-11-30 06:38:06'", "year": " 1826", "page_views": " 1051", "id": 125, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'David Hume'", "title": "Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Dialogues concerning Natural Religion is a philosophical work written by the Scottish philosopher David Hume. Through dialogue, three fictional characters named Demea, Philo, and Cleanthes debate the nature of God\\\\''s existence. While all three agree that a god exists, they differ sharply in opinion on God\\\\''s nature or attributes and how, or if, humankind can come to knowledge of a deity.\\r\\n\\r\\nIn the Dialogues, Hume\\\\''s characters debate a number of arguments for the existence of God, and arguments whose proponents believe through which we may come to know the nature of God. Such topics debated include the argument from design -- for which Hume uses a house -- and whether there is more suffering or good in the world (argument from evil).\\r\\n\\r\\nHume started writing the Dialogues in 1750 but did not complete them until 1776, shortly before his death. They are based partly on Cicero\\\\''s De Natura Deorum. The Dialogues were published posthumously in 1779, originally with neither the author\\\\''s nor the publisher\\\\''s name.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-12-06 21:33:54'", "year": " 1779", "page_views": " 364", "id": 126, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Bartolomé de las Casas'", "title": "A Brief Account of the Destruction of the Indies", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies (Spanish: Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias) is an account written by the Spanish Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas in 1542 (published in 1552) about the mistreatment of Native Americans in colonial times and sent to King Philip II of Spain. In it, he depicts the cruelty and sadism of many Spanish seamen and colonists. One of the stated purposes for writing the account is his fear of Spain coming under divine punishment and his concern for the souls of the Native Americans.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-10 20:55:16'", "year": " 1552", "page_views": " 740", "id": 127, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Michael de Michel de Montaigne'", "title": "Essays of Michel de Montaigne", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Essays is the title of a book written by Michel de Montaigne that was first published in 1580. Montaigne essentially invented the literary form of essay, a short subjective treatment of a given topic, of which the book contains a large number. Essai is French for \\\\"trial\\\\" or \\\\"attempt\\\\".'", "created_on": " '2007-12-10 21:38:30'", "year": " 1580", "page_views": " 3071", "id": 128, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Dean Howells'", "title": "The Rise of Silas Lapham", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Rise of Silas Lapham is a novel written by William Dean Howells in 1885 about the materialistic rise of Silas Lapham from rags to riches, and his ensuing moral susceptibility. Silas earns a fortune in the paint business, but he lacks social standards, which he tries to attain through his daughter\\\\''s marriage to the aristocratic Corey family. Silas\\\\'' morality does not fail him. He loses his money but makes the right moral decision when his partner proposes the unethical selling of the mills to English settlers.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-13 14:03:19'", "year": " 1885", "page_views": " 832", "id": 129, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "The Republic", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Republic (Greek: Πολιτεία) is a Socratic dialogue by Plato, written approximately 360 BCE. It is an influential work of philosophy and political theory, and perhaps Plato\\\\''s best known work.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-14 09:17:17'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 2556", "id": 130, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Leo Tolstoy'", "title": "War and Peace", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'War and Peace (Russian: \u00d0\u2019\u00d0\u00be\u00d0\u00b9\u00d0\u00bd\u00d0\u00b0 \u00d0\u00b8 \u00d0\u00bc\u00d0\u00b8\u00d1\u20ac, Voyna i mir) is a novel by Leo Tolstoy, first published from 1865 to 1869 in Russkii Vestnik, which tells the story of Russian society during the Napoleonic Era. It is usually described as one of Tolstoy\\\\''s two major masterpieces (the other being Anna Karenina) as well as one of the world\\\\''s greatest novels.\\r\\n\\r\\nWar and Peace offered a new kind of fiction, with a great many characters caught up in a plot that covered nothing less than the grand subjects indicated by the title, combined with the equally large topics of youth, marriage, age, and death. While today it is considered a novel, it broke so many novelistic conventions of its day that many critics of Tolstoy\\\\''s time did not consider it as such. Tolstoy himself considered Anna Karenina (1878) to be his first attempt at a novel in the European sense.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-01-03 02:19:54'", "year": " 1865", "page_views": " 13139", "id": 188, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Leo Tolstoy'", "title": "Anna Karenina", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Anna Karenina (\u00d0\u0090\u00d0\u00bd\u00d0\u00bd\u00d0\u00b0 \u00d0\u0161\u00d0\u00b0\u00d1\u20ac\u00d0\u00b5\u00d0\u00bd\u00d0\u00b8\u00d0\u00bd\u00d0\u00b0), also Anglicised as Anna Karenin, is a novel by the Russian writer Leo Tolstoy, published in serial installments from 1873 to 1877 in the periodical Ruskii Vestnik (Russian: \u00d0\u00a0\u00d1\u0192\u00d1\u0081\u00d1\u0081\u00d0\u00ba\u00d0\u00b8\u00d0\u00b9 \u00d0\u2019\u00d0\u00b5\u00d1\u0081\u00d1\u201a\u00d0\u00bd\u00d0\u00b8\u00d0\u00ba, \\\\"Russian Messenger\\\\"). Tolstoy clashed with its editor Mikhail Katkov over issues that arose in the final installment. Therefore, the novel\\\\''s first complete appearance was in book form.'", "created_on": " '2008-01-03 03:04:15'", "year": " 1873", "page_views": " 6744", "id": 191, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Aesop'", "title": "Aesop 's Fables", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Aesop\\\\''s Fables or Aesopica refers to a collection of fables credited to Aesop (620–560 BC), a slave and story-teller who lived in Ancient Greece. Aesop\\\\''s Fables have become a blanket term for collections of brief fables, usually involving personified animals. The fables remain a popular choice for moral education of children today. Many stories included in Aesop\\\\''s Fables, such as The Fox and the Grapes (from which the idiom \\\\"sour grapes\\\\" was derived), The Tortoise and the Hare, The North Wind and the Sun and The Boy Who Cried Wolf, are well-known throughout the world.'", "created_on": " '2008-01-05 22:10:14'", "year": " 620", "page_views": " 2432", "id": 192, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Louisa May Alcott '", "title": "Little Women", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Little Women is a novel published in 1868 and written by American author Louisa May Alcott. The story concerns the lives and loves of four sisters growing up during the American Civil War. It was based on Alcott\\\\''s own experiences as a child in Boston and Concord, Massachusetts, with her three sisters, Anna, May, and Elizabeth.'", "created_on": " '2008-01-09 02:51:35'", "year": " 1868", "page_views": " 1387", "id": 193, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Henry James'", "title": "The Turn of the Screw", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Turn of the Screw is a novella written by Henry James. Originally published in 1898, it is ostensibly a ghost story that has lent itself well to operatic and film adaptation. Due to its ambiguous content and narrative skill, The Turn of the Screw became a favorite text of New Criticism. The reader is challenged to determine if the protagonist, a nameless governess, is reliably reporting events or instead is some kind of neurotic with an overheated imagination.'", "created_on": " '2008-01-15 01:33:05'", "year": " 1898", "page_views": " 3441", "id": 197, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jonathan Swift'", "title": "Gulliver 's Travels", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Gulliver\\\\''s Travels (1726, amended 1735), officially Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts. By Lemuel Gulliver, First a Surgeon, and then a Captain of several Ships, is a novel by Jonathan Swift that is both a satire on human nature and a parody of the \\\\"travellers\\\\'' tales\\\\" literary sub-genre. It is Swift\\\\''s best known work, and a classic of English literature.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-19 11:44:01'", "year": " 1726", "page_views": " 2231", "id": 131, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plutarch'", "title": "The Lives of the Noble Grecians and Romans", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Plutarch\\\\''s Lives of the Noble Greeks and Romans is a series of biographies of famous men, arranged in tandem to illuminate their common moral virtues or failings. The surviving Parallel Lives, as they are more properly and commonly known, contain twenty-three pairs of biographies, each pair consisting of one Greek and one Roman, as well as four unpaired, single lives. It is a work of considerable importance, not only as a source of information about the individuals biographized, but also about the times in which they lived.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-21 00:11:50'", "year": " 46", "page_views": " 2590", "id": 132, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Edgar Allan Poe'", "title": "The Fall of the House of Usher", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '\\\\"The Fall of the House of Usher\\\\" is a short story written by Edgar Allan Poe. The story was first published in Burton\\\\''s Gentleman\\\\''s Magazine in September 1839. It was slightly revised before being included in a collection of his fiction entitled Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque in 1840. It contains within it the poem \\\\"The Haunted Palace\\\\", which had earlier been published separately in the April 1839 issue of the Baltimore Museum magazine.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 14:18:47'", "year": " 1894", "page_views": " 144", "id": 133, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Edgar Allan Poe'", "title": "Ligeia", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '\\\\"Ligeia\\\\" is an early short story written by Edgar Allan Poe, first published in 1838. The story follows an unnamed narrator and his wife Ligeia, a beautiful and intelligent raven-haired woman. She recites \\\\"The Conqueror Worm\\\\" before she dies and suggests that life is sustainable only through willpower. After her death, the narrator marries the Lady Rowena. Rowena becomes ill and she dies as well. The distraught narrator stays with her body overnight when Rowena slowly comes back from the dead - though she has transformed into Ligeia. The story may be the narrator\\\\''s opium-induced hallucination and there is debate if the story was a satire. After the story\\\\''s first publication in The American Museum, it was heavily revised and reprinted throughout Poe\\\\''s life.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 14:30:39'", "year": " 1838", "page_views": " 62", "id": 134, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Apology", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '(The) Apology (of Socrates) is Plato\\\\''s version of the speech given by Socrates as he defends himself against the charges of being a man \\\\"who corrupted the young, did not believe in the gods, and created new deities\\\\". \\\\"Apology\\\\" here has its earlier meaning (now usually expressed by the word \\\\"apologia\\\\") of speaking in defense of a cause or of one\\\\''s beliefs or actions (from the Greek απολογία).'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 14:45:28'", "year": " 387", "page_views": " 148", "id": 135, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Charmides", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Charmides (ancient Greek Χαρμίδης) is a dialogue of Plato, in which Socrates engages a handsome and popular boy in a conversation about the meaning of sophrosune, a Greek word usually translated into English as \\\\"temperance\\\\", \\\\"self-control\\\\", or \\\\"restraint\\\\". As is typical with Platonic dialogues, the two never arrive at a completely satisfactory definition, but the discussion nevertheless raises many important points.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 14:59:00'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 501", "id": 136, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Crito", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Crito (IPA [kri\u00cb\u0090t\u00c9\u201d\u00cb\u0090n]; in English usually [\u00cb\u02c6k\u00c9\u00b9i\u00cb\u0090t\u00c9\u02dc\u00ca\u0160\u00cb\u0090] [KRITE-oh]) is a short but important dialogue by the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. It is a conversation between Socrates and his wealthy friend Crito regarding justice (dik\u00c4\u201c), injustice (adikia), and the appropriate response to injustice. Socrates thinks that injustice may not be answered with injustice, and refuses Crito\\\\''s offer to finance his escape from prison. This dialogue contains an ancient statement of the social contract theory of government.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 16:00:40'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 141", "id": 137, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Euthyphro", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Euthyphro is one of Plato\\\\''s early dialogues, dated to after 399 BC. It features Ancient Greek philosopher Socrates and Euthyphro, a man known for being a religious expert. They attempt to pinpoint a definition for piety.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 18:19:40'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 327", "id": 138, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Hippias Major", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Hippias Major (or What is Beauty) is one of the dialogues of Plato. It belongs to the Early Dialogues, written while the author was still young. Its precise date is uncertain, although a date of circa 390 BCE has been suggested.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 18:39:33'", "year": " 390", "page_views": " 0", "id": 139, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Ion", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'In Plato\\\\''s Ion (Greek: \u00e1\u00bc\u00bcων) Socrates discusses with the title character the question of whether the rhapsode, a professional performer of poetry, gives his performance on account of his skill and knowledge or by virtue of divine possession.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 18:56:49'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 261", "id": 140, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Laches", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Laches, also known as Courage, is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato, and concerns the topic of courage. Lysimachus, son of Aristides, and Melesias, son of Thucydides (not the historian Thucydides), request advice from Laches and Nicias on whether or not they should have their sons (who are named after their famous grandfathers) trained to fight in armor. After each gives their opinion, one for and one against, they seek Socrates for council. Instead of answering the question, Socrates questions what the initial purpose of the training is meant to instill in the children. Once they determine that the purpose is to instill virtue, and more specifically courage, Socrates discusses with Laches and Nicias what exactly courage is. The bulk of the dialogue is then comprised of the three men (Laches, Nicias and Socrates) debating various definitions of courage.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 19:13:50'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 360", "id": 141, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Lysis", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Lysis is one of the socratic dialogues written by Plato and discusses the nature of friendship.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe main characters are Socrates, the boys Lysis and Menexenus who are friends, as well as Hippothales, who is in unrequited love with Lysis. Socrates proposes several possible notions regarding the true nature of friendship: Friendship between like and like; friendship between unlike and unlike; friendship between neither-good-nor-bad and good in the presence of evil.\\r\\n\\r\\nIn the end, Socrates discards all these ideas as wrong. While no definite conclusion is reached, it is suggested that the common pursuit of the \\\\"good and beautiful\\\\" (kalos kagathos) is the true motivation for friendship.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 19:34:46'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 385", "id": 142, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Crytalus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Cratylus (ancient Greek: Κρατ\u00cf\u008dλος, Kratylos) was an ancient Athenian philosopher from late 5th century BC, mostly known through his portrayal in Plato\\\\''s dialogue Cratylus. Little is known of Cratylus or his mentor Heraclitus (of Ephesus, Asia Minor). According to Cratylus at 402a, Heraclitus proclaimed that one cannot step twice into the same stream. According to Aristotle (Metaphysics, 4.5 1010a10-15), his disciple Cratylus went a step further to proclaim that it cannot even be done once. Such was his thorough-going skepticism.\\r\\n\\r\\nIf the world was in such constant flux that streams could change instantaneously, then so could words. Thus, Cratylus found communication to be impossible. As a result of this realization, Cratylus renounced his power of speech and limited his communication to moving his finger. He was an advocate of the idea that language is natural rather than conventional. The little known philosophy of Cratylism is based on \\\\"reconstituted\\\\" teachings, owing mostly to Cratylus\\\\''s and Heraclitus\\\\''s inclusion in the Dialogues of Plato.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 20:34:53'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 942", "id": 143, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Euthydemus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Euthydemus (Euthydemos), written 380 BCE, is a dialogue by Plato which satirizes the logical fallacies of the Sophists. The main purpose of Euthydemus is no more than it appears to be: to contrast Socratic argumentation and education with those of a certain type of Sophist, to the detriment of the latter. There is no reason to doubt that the two representatives whom Socrates argues against, Euthydemus and Dionysodorus (brothers), were indeed real people. Euthydemus was somewhat famous during this time. He is mentioned several times by both Plato and Aristotle. Dionysodorus is mentioned only once, by Xenophon. Socrates\\\\''s demeanor of always being patient and rational is thinned a bit. Euthydemus and Dionysodorus bring up meaningless arguments such as the impossibilty of falsehood, simply to refute Socrates.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 21:39:24'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 942", "id": 144, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Gorgias", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Gorgias is an important Socratic Dialogue in which Plato sets the rhetorician, whose specialty is persuasion, in opposition to the philosopher, whose specialty is dissuasion, or refutation. The art of persuasion was necessary for political and legal advantage in classical Athens, and rhetoricians promoted themselves as teachers of this fundamental skill. Some, like Gorgias, were foreigners attracted to Athens because of its reputation for intellectual and cultural sophistication.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-27 22:26:58'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 1202", "id": 145, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Meno", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Meno is a Socratic dialogue written by Plato. Written in the Socratic dialectic style, it attempts to determine the definition of virtue, or arete, meaning in this case virtue in general, rather than particular virtues (e.g., justice, temperance, etc.). The goal is a common definition that applies equally to all particular virtues. Socrates moves the discussion past the philosophical confusion, or aporia, created by Meno\\\\''s paradox with the introduction of new Platonic ideas: the theory of knowledge as recollection, anamnesis, and in the final lines a movement towards Platonic idealism.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 07:20:56'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 582", "id": 146, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Phaedo", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Plato\\\\''s Phaedo (IPA: /\u00cb\u02c6fi\u00cb\u0090do\u00ca\u0160/, Greek: Φαίδων, Phaidon) is one of the great dialogues of his middle period, along with the Republic and the Symposium. The Phaedo is also Plato\\\\''s fifth and last dialogue (the first four being Euthyphro, Apology, Crito and Meno) which details the final days of Socrates and contains the scene of his death. The dialogue is told from the perspective of one of Socrates\\\\'' students, Phaedo of Elis. Having been present at Socrates\\\\'' death bed, Phaedo relates the dialogue to Echecrates, a fellow philosopher.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 08:06:24'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 519", "id": 148, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Menexenus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Menexenus (Greek: Μενέξεν\u00d0\u00beς) is a Socratic dialogue of Plato, traditionally included in the seventh tetralogy along with the Greater and Lesser Hippias and the Ion. The characters are Socrates and Menexenus, who is not to be confused with Socrates\\\\'' son Menexenus. The Menexenus of Plato\\\\''s dialogue appears also in his Lysis.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Menexenus consists mainly of a lengthy funeral oration, satirizing the one given by Pericles in Thucydides\\\\'' account of the Peloponnesian War. In this way the Menexenus is unique among the Platonic dialogues, in that the actual \\\\''dialogue\\\\'' serves primarily as exposition for the oration. For this reason, perhaps, the Menexenus has come under some suspicion of illegitimacy.\\r\\n\\r\\nPerhaps the most interest in the Menexenus stems from the fact that it is one of the few extant sources on the practice of Athenian funeral oratory, even though it is a parody thereof.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 09:01:00'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 171", "id": 149, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels'", "title": "Communist Manifesto", "intro_essay": " '<p>More than any other single document of the nineteenth century, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’ <em>Communist Manifesto</em> changed the course of world events, defining global conflicts a century after its initial print run. The emergence of the United States as a capitalistic superpower in the 1950s was predicated by the rise of an oppositional superpower, the communist Soviet Union. Necessary to solidify public support of the revolutionary philosophy of communism was a tract which succinctly dictated the goals of the international movement. The <em>Manifesto</em> filled this need perfectly. First published in 1848, the tract outlined the guiding principles of world communism, and inspired a group of politician-intellectuals as diverse as Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, Mao Zedong, Che Guevara, and Wang Ming \u00e2\u20ac\u201c a fact not only outlining its incredible influence, but the complexity of the document’s political inflections. Understanding the <em>Manifesto</em> requires us to look at the world in which it was written, the nineteenth century labor distopia of industrialized western Europe.</p><p>In 1835, seventeen-year old Karl Marx enrolled in the University of Bonn. His father, Heinrich Marx, a prosperous lawyer, pressured the younger Marx to pursue law, against his wishes. Frustrated by his son’s disinterest in his studies, Heinrich Marx withdrew his son from Bonn, and forced him to enroll in the more academically rigorous Friedrich Wilhelm University in Berlin. Here, the philosophy of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel pervaded the academic discourse, embodied by two oppositional organizations. The dispute centered on Hegel’s theories of historicism. By this philosophy, history proceeded through a series of dialectics, in which an extant social structure, known as a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153thesis,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d was brought into conflict by an opposing revolutionary structure, or \u00e2\u20ac\u0153antithesis.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The resulting cultural clash led to a \u00e2\u20ac\u0153synthesis\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the two.</p><p>Many of the professors and heads of the academic departments at the Friedrich Wilhelm University were members of the Right Hegelians, who believed that Prussia was the culmination of all preceding historical conflicts. By their reasoning, Prussia had effectively ended Hegelian historicism in the perfection of its political and industrial powers, manifested in its high rate of employment, rapid industrialization, world-class universities, and extensive civil service.</p><p>The Young Hegelians, a group of radical students and young professors of the university, rejected such beliefs. The improvements in Prussia came at a cost, most notably, in the form of religious suppression and strict censorship. Many Young Hegelians questioned the role of Lutheranism as the official religion in the Prussian state. Karl Marx, while a student in Berlin, was attracted to the Young Hegelian movement as a means of undermining Prussia through an assault on Christianity. However, by 1845, Marx began questioning his affiliation with the group. In his work, <em>The German Ideology</em>, he attacks financial capital, rather than religion, as the nexus of Prussian political power and corruption.</p><p>This change of opinion was no doubt influenced by Friedrich Engels, whom Marx met in Paris in 1844. Engels’ hatred of the capitalistic economic system refocused Marx’s attentions from religion toward the mechanisms of industry. Engels, the son of a prominent Prussian textile manufacturer, was briefly introduced to Marx some two years before. Yet, it was this later meeting which would begin a collaboration and friendship that lasted until Marx’s death in 1883. From 1842 until 1848, Engels was employed by his father at a firm in Manchester; his experiences and records from this time would form the basis of his work, <em>The Condition of the Working Class in England</em> <em>in 1844</em>. Manchester was a city whose size had expanded greatly with the English Industrial Revolution. Within his work, Engels chronicles the deplorable living conditions, unsafe working environments, and endemic poverty experienced by members of its working class. Although Engels had participated in radical journalism in the years prior to 1842, these observations further radicalized his politics.</p><p>Three years following this meeting in Paris, Marx and Engels joined a revolutionary secret society known as the League of the Just (<em>Bund der Gerechten</em>). The organization represented an international union of two leftist movements, French revolutionaries and radical German expatriate journeyman \u00e2\u20ac\u201c primarily woodworkers and tailors \u00e2\u20ac\u201c living in France. Persuaded by their \u00e2\u20ac\u0153critical communism,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d the League offered to publish a manifesto drafted by Engels and Marx as a statement of their politics, effectively modernizing the organization by their directives. The <em>Bund der Gerechten</em> was restructured within months, renamed the League of the Communists (<em>Bund der Kommunisten</em>), which dedicated itself to the aims of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the overthrow of the bourgeoisie, the rule of the proletariat, the ending of the old society which rests on class contradictions (<em>Klassengegens\u00c3\u00a4tzen</em>), and the establishment of a new society without classes or private property.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d[1] Although Marx and Engels each prepared drafts, the document we read today represents a doctrinal unification of both writers\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 communist ideals. It is likely that that final draft was penned individually by Marx. A slim twenty-three pages, the <em>Manifesto</em> concisely outlines communism’s central aims, and simplifies Marx’s notoriously complex political and philosophic rhetoric. In February of the following year, the League published the work at the office of the Workers’ Educational Association, at 46 Liverpool Street in London.</p><p>The impact of the <em>Manifesto</em> was not immediate. By 1860, neither this work, nor any of Marx’s major works had remained in print. It would not be for another eleven years that Marx would regain philosophic prominence. In 1871, France was rocked by civil conflict, resulting in the Paris Commune, a government lasting little of two months, variously described as socialist and anarchist. Marx, in an eloquent defense of the Commune, rose to a position of infamy in the international press as a leader of political subversion, espousing dangerous communist values. Further propelling the works of Marx into the public mind was the treason trial of a group of Social-Democrats in March of 1872. The prosecution read the entirety of the text of the <em>Manifesto</em> into the record of the court, thus providing the Social-Democrats a legal way to publish the work within Germany, as part of the court proceedings. By 1873, the document had been published in six languages totaling nine editions. With the growth of socialist labor parties in the late-nineteenth century, Marxist influence expanded across Europe. In the early-twentieth century, the work had been issued in nearly thirty languages, totally several hundred editions. [2]</p><p>To the modern reader, it is difficult to image how the philosophies of Hegel so firmly dominated the intellectual landscape of Germany. Such a philosophy was certainly linked with Prussia’s political position. In 1848, Germany was a nebulous entity. The Holy Roman Empire, which preceded the German state, had fallen in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars. In its stead, the German Confederation was formed, a loose federation of thirty-nine states of German-speaking peoples. Within this union, the two most powerful states, Austria and Prussia, vied for political control and centralization of the other German-lands behind their leadership. Belief in Prussia’s rightful place as leader of a new, unified Germany was an intellectual imperative in the state, one that could be supported philosophically by Hegelian historicism.</p><p>The <em>Manifesto</em> is filled with the rhetoric and language of Hegel, contextualized in two historicist struggles, one of societal organization, the other, of economic class. By their historical analysis, Marx and Engels trace the fall of feudalism with the revolution of industrial capitalism. It is from the synthesis of these two competing sociopolitical institutions that communism is born. The struggle between the industrial middle class, known as the <em>bourgeoisie</em>, and the working class <em>proletariat</em>, results in the political ascendancy of the latter, who in turn destroy all class distinctions. Marx and Engels indict the <em>bourgeoisie</em> for the societal woes of mid-century Europe, including the corruption of family values, the decline of urban living standards, and the rise of crime as byproducts of the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153dehumanizing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d effects of industrial labor.</p><p>Like republicans of a century before, communists believed that their restructured world could instill civic virtue. For the republican, expanded suffrage encouraged public participation in the process of government, necessitating improved literacy and education of the population at large. For the communist, social benefits were proven negatively \u00e2\u20ac\u201c by associating bourgeoisie values as the cause of corruption, Marx and Engels theorize that their destruction results in public improvement. For later communists, strict censorship was based upon this underlying principle. Its aims were not simply to combat those artists and journalists who questioned the worker’s state, rather, state propaganda and creative control were dedicated to propagating a communist mindset. In the mid-twentieth century, the most important aspect of this mindset was anti-fascism, which to the communist, was the embodiment of the evilest of political establishments facilitated by capitalism.</p><p>Looking at our world today, it seems that the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153communist spectre\u00e2\u20ac\u009d has faded \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the closed-market, collectivist Soviet communism of the mid-twentieth century has given way to the nominal communism of the People’s Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, characterized by increasing investment in foreign capital markets, open trade borders, and private ownership of property. Reading the <em>Manifesto</em> enables us to evaluate the validity of these governments as communist institutions. In this way, the tract transcends the role of historical document, speaking to the state of modern global affairs. We are empowered to look critically at our own political and economic systems, as well as those of our ideological rivals.[1] Eric Hobsbawm. Introduction. The Communist Manifesto. By Friedrich Engels and Karl Marx. New York: Verso, 1998, p. 3.[2] Ibid., pp. 6-7.</p>'", "summary": " 'The Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), usually referred to as The Communist Manifesto, was first published on February 21, 1848, and is one of the world\\\\''s most influential political tracts. Commissioned by the Communist League and written by communist theorists Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, it laid out the League\\\\''s purposes and program. The Manifesto suggested a course of action for a proletarian (working class) revolution to overthrow the bourgeois social order and to eventually bring about a classless and stateless society, and the abolition of private property.'", "created_on": " '2008-01-18 14:46:19'", "year": " 1848", "page_views": " 2318", "id": 198, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=9'"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Protagoras", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Protagoras is a minor but important dialogue of Plato. The main argument is between the elderly Protagoras, a celebrated sophist, and Socrates. The discussion takes place at the home of Callias, who is host to Protagoras while he is in town, and concerns a familiar theme in the dialogues: the teachability of virtue. The dialogue is perhaps most remarkable for the sheer number of people said to be in attendance: a total of twenty-one are named as present.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 09:30:49'", "year": " 380", "page_views": " 521", "id": 151, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Symposium", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Symposium originally referred to a drinking party (the Greek verb sympotein means \\\\"to drink together\\\\") but has since come to refer to any academic conference, whether or not drinking takes place. The sympotic elegies of Theognis of Megara and two Socratic dialogues, Plato\\\\''s Symposium and Xenophon\\\\''s Symposium all describe symposia in the original sense.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 11:14:35'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 362", "id": 152, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Phaedrus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Phaedrus (Greek Φαίδρος), written by Plato, is a dialogue between Plato\\\\''s main protagonist, Socrates, and Phaedrus, an interlocutor in several dialogues. The Phaedrus was presumably composed around 370 BC, around the same time as Plato\\\\''s Republic and Symposium; with those two texts, it is often considered one of Plato\\\\''s literary high points. Although ostensibly about the topic of love, the discussion in the dialogue revolves around the art of rhetoric and how it should be practiced, and dwells on subjects as diverse as reincarnation and erotic love.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 11:54:33'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 670", "id": 153, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Parmenides", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Parmenides is one of the dialogues of Plato. It is perhaps Plato\\\\''s most challenging dialogue, as well as one of the most challenging works of philosophy ever written.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Parmenides purports to be an account of a meeting between the two great philosophers of the Eleatic school, Parmenides and Zeno of Elea, and a very young Socrates. The occasion of the meeting was the reading by Zeno of his treatise defending Parmenidean monism against those partisans of plurality who asserted that Parmenides\\\\'' supposition that there is a one gives rise to intolerable absurdities and contradictions.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 12:47:42'", "year": " 370", "page_views": " 1000", "id": 154, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Theaetetus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Theætetus (Θεαίτητος) is one of Plato\\\\''s dialogues concerning the nature of knowledge. The framing of the dialogue begins when Euclides tells his friend Terpsion that he wrote a book many years ago based on what Socrates told him of a conversation he had with Theaetetus when he was quite a young man. Euclides had seen Theaetetus being carried off the battlefield with a case of dysentery and a minor war wound. Euclides says that Socrates correctly prophesied that Theaetetus would become a notable man if he lived long enough. The dialogue is read aloud to the two men by a slave boy in the employ of Euclides.\\r\\n\\r\\nIn this dialogue, Socrates and Theaetetus discuss three definitions of knowledge: knowledge as nothing but perception, knowledge as true judgment, and, finally, knowledge as a true judgment with an account. Each of these definitions are shown to be unsatisfactory. The conversation ends with Socrates\\\\'' announcement that he has to go to court to answer to the charges that he has been corrupting the young and failing to worship Athenian Gods.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 14:23:48'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 958", "id": 155, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Timaeus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Timaeus (Greek: Τίμαιος, Timaios) is a theoretical treatise of Plato in the form of a Socratic dialogue, written circa 360 BC. The work puts forward speculation on the nature of the physical world. It is followed by the dialogue Critias.\\r\\n\\r\\nSpeakers of the dialogue are Socrates, Timaeus of Locri, Hermocrates, Critias. Some scholars have argued that it is not the Critias of the Thirty Tyrants who is appearing in this dialogue, but his grandfather, who is also named Critias.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 15:56:42'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 441", "id": 156, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Critias", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Critias, one of Plato\\\\''s late dialogues, contains the story of the mighty island kingdom Atlantis and its attempt to conquer Athens, which failed due to the ordered society of the Athenians. Critias is the second of a projected trilogy of dialogues, preceded by Timaeus and followed by Hermocrates, though the latter was never written and Critias was left incomplete. Because of their resemblance (e.g. in terms of persons appearing), modern classicists occasionally combine both Timaeus and Critias as Timaeus-Critias.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-28 20:58:07'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 97", "id": 157, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "The Sophist", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Sophist (Greek: Σοφιστής) is one of the late Dialogues of Plato, which was written much later than the Parmenides and the Theaetetus, probably in 360 BC. After he criticized his own Theory of Forms in the Parmenides, Plato proceeds in the Sophist with a new conception of the Forms, more mundane and down-to-earth, and makes more clear the epistemological and metaphysical puzzles of the Parmenides; thus, he refers to that dialogue between Parmenides and young Socrates, which was written probably much earlier than the Sophist. Furthermore, he shows his expertise in Dialectic, as he applies it in this Dialogue in order to define the Sophist. Moreover, he solves the puzzle of the false and the right opinion, as well as of the justified true belief that had been inquired in the Theaetetus.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-29 13:25:27'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 989", "id": 158, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "The Statesman", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Statesman, or Politikos in Greek and Politicus in Latin, is a four part dialogue contained within the work of Plato.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe text is a dialogue between Socrates and his student Theodorus, another student named Socrates (referred to as Young Socrates), and an unknown philosopher expounding the ideas of the statesman. This unknown philosopher from Elea is referred to in the text as the \\\\"visitor\\\\".\\r\\n\\r\\nThe text is a continuation of the dialogue preceding it, named Sophist , which is a dialogue between Socrates, Theaetetus and the visitor.\\r\\n\\r\\nAccording to John M. Cooper, the dialogue\\\\''s intention was to clarify that to rule or have political power called for a specialized knowledge. The statesman was one who possesses this special knowledge of how to rule justly and well and to have the best interests of the citizens at heart. It is presented that politics should be run by this knowledge, or gnosis. This claim runs counter to those who, the visitor points out, actually did rule. Those that rule merely give the appearance of such knowledge, but in the end are really sophists or imitators.\\r\\n\\r\\nFor, as the visitor points out, a sophist is one who does not know the right thing to do, but only appears to others as someone who does. The visitor\\\\''s ideal of how one arrives at this knowledge of power is through social divisions. The visitor takes great pains to be very specific about where and why the divisions are needed in order to properly rule the citizenry.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2007-12-29 14:27:01'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 694", "id": 159, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Philebus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Philebus is among the last of the late Socratic dialogues of the ancient Greek philosopher Plato. Socrates is the primary speaker in Philebus, unlike in the other late dialogues. The other speakers are Philebus and Protarchus.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe dialogue\\\\''s central question concerns the relative value of pleasure and understanding, and produces a model for thinking about how complex structures are developed. Socrates begins by summarizing the two sides of the dialogue:\\r\\n\\r\\nPhilebus was saying that enjoyment and pleasure and delight, and the class of feelings akin to them, are a good to every living being, whereas I contend, that not these, but wisdom and intelligence and memory, and their kindred, right opinion and true reasoning, are better and more desirable than pleasure for all who are able to partake of them, and that to all such who are or ever will be they are the most advantageous of all things.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe dialogue is generally considered to contain less humor than earlier dialogues, and to emphasize philosophy and speculation over drama and poetry.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-29 15:11:24'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 1141", "id": 160, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Plato'", "title": "Laws", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Laws is Plato\\\\''s last and longest dialogue. The question asked at the beginning is not \\\\"What is law?\\\\" as one would expect- that is the question of the Minos. The kick-off question is rather, \\\\"Who is given the credit for laying down your laws?\\\\"\\r\\n\\r\\nIt is generally agreed that Plato wrote this dialogue as an old man, having failed in his effort in Syracuse on the island of Sicily to guide a tyrant\\\\''s rule, instead having been thrown in prison. These events are alluded to in the Seventh Letter.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-29 16:20:36'", "year": " 360", "page_views": " 2944", "id": 161, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Herman Melville'", "title": "I and My Chimney", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2007-12-30 16:01:43'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 228", "id": 163, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Herman Melville'", "title": "Moby Dick", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Moby-Dick was an 1851 novel by Herman Melville. The story tells the adventures of the wandering sailor Ishmael, and his voyage on the whaling ship Pequod, commanded by Captain Ahab. Ishmael soon learns that Ahab does not mean to use the Pequod and her crew to hunt whales for market trade, as whaling ships generally do. Ahab seeks one specific whale, Moby Dick, a great white whale of tremendous size and ferocity. Comparatively few whaling ships know of Moby-Dick, and fewer yet have knowingly encountered the whale. In a previous encounter, the whale destroyed Ahab\\\\''s boat; in the process, Ahab lost his leg. Ahab intends to exact revenge on the whale.'", "created_on": " '2007-12-30 16:19:23'", "year": " 1851", "page_views": " 4131", "id": 164, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Immanuel Kant'", "title": "Idea for a Universal History", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-10 13:03:10'", "year": " 1963", "page_views": " 158", "id": 360, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dante Alighieri'", "title": "Rime ", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Source: Princeton Dante Project (etcweb.princeton.edu/dante)'", "created_on": " '2008-07-10 13:47:50'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1422", "id": 361, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dante Alighieri'", "title": "Convivio", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Convivio is a work written by Dante Alighieri roughly between 1304 and 1307. It contains details of the author\\\\''s growing interest in philosophy, particularly in reference to the works of Cicero and Boethius. It also includes philosophical commentary by the author.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-11 14:19:11'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1035", "id": 362, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dante\\\\''s, Edizione Nazionale'", "title": "Monarchia", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Political treatise on the relations between Church and Empire, probably written fairly late in Dante\\\\''s career (1317?).\\r\\nEdizione Nazionale; Florence: Società Dantesca Italiana, 1965. Edited by Pier Giorgio Ricci.\\r\\nTranslated by Prue Shaw.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-14 08:41:56'", "year": " 1317", "page_views": " 556", "id": 364, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Ermenegildo Pistelli'", "title": "Epistole", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Thirteen of those that have been preserved. The authenticity of the last has been disputed in the last century and one half (Epistle to Cangrande).\\r\\nTesto critico della Societa\\\\'' Dantesca Italiana; Florence: Societa\\\\'' Dantesca Italiana, 1960.\\r\\nEdited by Ermenegildo Pistelli.\\r\\nTranslated by Paget Toynbee.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-14 11:03:26'", "year": " 1960", "page_views": " 173", "id": 365, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Andrew Magliozzi'", "title": "Secret Samadhi", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'This is a story of miscommunication, misplaced romance, mistakes, and a mission from god.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-02 12:09:52'", "year": " 2008", "page_views": " 297", "id": 200, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Walt Whitman'", "title": "O Captain! My Captain!", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '\\\\"O Captain! My Captain\\\\" is a poem by Walt Whitman dedicated to Abraham Lincoln.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-06 09:16:55'", "year": " 1900", "page_views": " 240", "id": 205, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Walt Whitman'", "title": "Leaves of Grass", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Leaves of Grass (1855) is a poetry collection by the American poet Walt Whitman. Among the poems in the collection are \\\\"Song of Myself,\\\\" \\\\"I Sing the Body Electric,\\\\" \\\\"Out of the Cradle Endlessly Rocking,\\\\" and Whitman\\\\''s elegy to the assassinated President Abraham Lincoln, \\\\"When Lilacs Last in the Dooryard Bloom\\\\''d.\\\\" Whitman spent his entire life writing Leaves of Grass, revising it in several editions until his death.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-07 10:21:44'", "year": " 1855", "page_views": " 26427", "id": 216, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jean Jacques Rousseau'", "title": "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men", "intro_essay": " '<p align="center"><strong>“Discourse on the Origin of Inequality”:The End of Human Political Innocence</strong></p><p align="left"> </p><p align="left"> </p><p align="left"> <strong>Personal context for “The Origin of Inequality”</strong></p><p>If we are to wrestle with the political ideology of a figure as brilliant and as complex as Jean-Jacques Rousseau, we will do well to spend a moment examining the man himself.</p><p>Let’s mince no words. Rousseau was a deeply troubled and troubling man, perhaps outright insane, arguably evil, certainly libertine.</p><p>His temperament? Anti-social. Arrogant and quarrelsome, he seemed to make it his life’s work to impress intelligent people with his genius and then alienate them with his obnoxiousness. By the end of his life, he was reduced to outright paranoia.</p><p>His character? Reprehensible. Rousseau fathered a succession of (illegitimate) children and dropped them off, one by one, at an orphanage. He purchased and employed a sexual concubine. He indulged in a malicious form of exhibitionism. He harbored an obsessive sexual fixation on corporal punishment — not in and of itself a sin, assuming that he did not allow it to influence his quasi-totalitarian political philosophy, which in turn inspired despots from Robespierre to Hitler (and, depending on your political outlook, Bolivar). And we know all this because Rousseau also had the honesty and courage to compile these sins in his “Confessions”, the first modern autobiography.</p><p>It would be a tragically reductive cop-out to try to understand Rousseau’s political ideas as <em>nothing more than</em> the psychological fallout of his personal derangements. But it would also be reductive to ignore them altogether. When you read Rousseau’s contention that excessive interaction among human beings ruined the human species, be aware that Rousseau himself had a terrible record at social interaction. When (in “The Social Contract”, the sequel to “The Origin of Inequality”) you read Rousseau’s contention that the “general interest” can somehow be intuited by any sufficiently intelligent statesmen, remember that for all his talk of political equality Rousseau considered himself far wiser than the hopeless fools who surrounded him. When you read his essentialist screeds on the importance of matching a nation’s government to its racial and ethnic identity, consider that Rousseau himself floated from nation to nation after earning enmity and exile from his French countrymen. And when you read his long discourse about submitting your personal autonomy to the community’s general will so that you will never have to submit to any individual, do not forget that you are reading the political philosophy of a man whose most formative childhood experiences came at the end of a birch rod.</p><p><strong>What is a social contract?</strong></p><p>What are the origins of civilized society? To a <strong>social contract philosopher</strong> like Jean-Jacques Rousseau, human beings are not simply hardwired for social behavior, nor are we designed to enjoy the self-restraint — the self-denial — the sacrifice of autonomy — that attend socialized interaction.Rather, participation in human society is a strategy by which we intend to promote our own personal interests*.If we intend to get something out of society, while also agreeing that we will make sacrifices in order to make society work, then society must rest on some kind of (unwritten) contract: an agreement we have (effectively) signed, detailing exactly what we will owe to others, and what others will owe to us**. This hypothetical agreement is the social contract, for social contract philosophers it is the foundation of civilized society.</p><p>* but do not necessarily succeed in promoting them, as Rousseau would emphasize!</p><p>** For some social contract philosophers, it should be noted, the new social commitments of the social contract are in addition to preexisting moral obligations.</p><p><strong>What is the State of Nature?</strong></p><p>In order to explain why people would have signed the social contract in the first place, social contract philosophers must describe the political and economic landscape that existed before the social contract.</p><p>Since they cannot actually be sure what the world was like before societal interaction, they usually indulge in speculative anthropology. Rousseau, for one, relates a fairly complex history of human society, imagining several phases between humankind’s natural origins and the social contracts we ultimately signed.</p><p>The <strong>state of nature</strong> is the <em>earliest</em> political landscape, where men are governed only by their natural inclinations. Rousseau’s state of nature is distinctive because instead of positing that man was naturally immoral (as had Thomas Hobbes) or naturally moral (as had John Locke), Rousseau posited that man was naturally <strong>amoral</strong> — unaware of, and mostly indifferent to, the interests of others. “Discourse on the Origins of Inequality” is Rousseau’s story of how that changed.</p><p>One other comment on the phrase “state of nature” is in order. Just as an ordinary <strong>state</strong> is a government, and governs human beings by passing laws, the phrase <em>state of nature</em> implies that during our species’ benighted primaevum*** <em>nature herself</em> was the governess of humankind, and therefore that the relevant legal code was none other than the <em>laws of nature</em>. “Natural law” is an extremely nuanced topic****, but for most philosophers, including Rousseau, the term carried strongly positive connotations — especially in contrast with the unnatural, human-made social construct that is the social contract.</p><p>(For an exception to this pattern, read 19th century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, who reserved the utmost contempt for the animalistic form that he suspected came naturally to mankind. 17th century English philosopher Thomas Hobbes’ perspective on mankind’s natural predilections is ambivalent: he condemns natural behavior as savage and destructive, but nonetheless believes that savagery was morally justified by the circumstances of the state of nature.)</p><p>*** “earliest era”.</p><p>**** As a schema for philosophical analysis, the term “natural law” fell out of fashion around the late 18th century, although it is still important to Catholic theologians and to certain strains of legal philosopher.</p><p><strong>Does Rousseau describe humankind correctly?</strong></p><p>Rousseau will spend much of the “Discourse” making presumptions about human nature. Question these assumptions, and as Rousseau sets forth his arguments, calculate how he would have needed to change those arguments had he started from different assumptions about the natural capacities and inclinations of the human animal.Some questions about human nature that Rousseau will attempt to answer, often by fiat:</p><ul><li>In what senses can men be political equals? Does all of political equality consist in having identical opportunities to control one’s surroundings, or does political equality guarantee less specific outcomes?</li><li>Are human beings perfectible? Is there an objective standard by which to measure human perfection?</li><li>What makes a person free? Is a man free, if he obeys a dictator who directs him to make the selfsame choices that the man would have chosen anyway?</li><li>Is greedy <em>amour propre</em> definitely absent from natural man’s personality? How can we be entirely certain?</li><li>To what extent is it useful to gratify an “aggregate will” — to “add up” people’s desires and fulfill the wants of the hypothetical corporate person who results? Can preferences be meaningfully understood if they are divorced from the people who hold them?</li></ul><p><strong>Rousseau and republicanism</strong></p><p>In some respects — its paternalism, its collectivism, its civic-spiritedness, its rejection of economic productivity, its autarky — Rousseau’s political philosophy resembles classical republicanism in the tradition of Aristotle and Machiavelli. (Indeed, Rousseau considered himself a republican.) As you read “The Origin of Inequality”, look for ways in which his ideas rephrased, and ways in which they simply betrayed, the ancient republican vision.</p>'", "summary": " 'Jean-Jacques Rousseau\\\\''s Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Among Men, written for the Académie de Dijon\\\\''s competition in 1754, is an attempt to answer the question \\\\"What is the origin of inequality among men, and is it authorized by natural law?\\\\" Rousseau had won a previous competition with his 1st Discourse and was not to be so lucky with the 2nd, but this work on inequality remains a fascinating study into differences among men.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-28 13:32:01'", "year": " 2004", "page_views": " 2296", "id": 248, "wordpress_url": " 'http://www.thefinalclub.org/blogs/general/?p=13'"},{"author": " 'Upton Sinclair'", "title": "The Jungle", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '\\\\"The Jungle\\\\" was published in two different versions. Once was edited down for the 1906 book publication, and the other was the version originally published in the socialist newspaper in which it was serialized. Should both versions be listed here? What version is the one here? (A mixture of both? The edited? The original?) The original edition has 36 chapters, and the one posted here has only 31, so I\\\\''m going to assume that the one here is pure-edited-version, but it still might be important as there are multiple contributors. I have the original version here, and I\\\\''m unsure as to how to manage-- if I even should-- adding the other 5 chapters and changing the various differences. Plus, I\\\\''m not sure I\\\\''d even be able to catch all of the differences. Could someone chime in with some advice? (Any why doesn\\\\''t my Wikipedia account carry over to here? Shouldn\\\\''t all Wikimedia projects be linked?) --Mechcozmo 01:54, 11 June 2006 (UTC).\\r\\n\\r\\n\\r\\n\\r\\n\\r\\n\\r\\n\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-02-12 10:15:18'", "year": " 1906", "page_views": " 1250", "id": 218, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Andrew Magliozzi'", "title": "Italian Yoga", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A serial about the spontaneous creation of a book by a group of gentlemen unwilling to (or maybe just incapable of) work. The story is complicated by its loose autobiographical nature and the involvement of Click and Clack from NPR\\\\''s Car Talk. For some background about the plot, see the author\\\\''s blog at www.ItalianYoga.Blogspot.com.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-14 14:05:21'", "year": " 2008", "page_views": " 104", "id": 220, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'David Walker'", "title": "Walker 's Appeal", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'In September 1829, a Boston printer published a seventy-six page pamphlet entitled Walker\\\\''s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble, to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America. David Walker, through the MGCA, had secured the assistance of Walker Lewis, a prominent African American abolitionist and Freemason. Lewis got the same printer who had published the Articles of the Grand African Lodge #1 to also publish the controversial Appeal. In the Appeal, Walker argued that African Americans suffered more than any other people in the history of the world, and identified four causes for their \\\\"wretchedness:\\\\" slavery, a submissive and cringing attitude towards whites (even amongst free blacks), indifference by Christian ministers, and false help by groups such as the American Colonization Society, which promised freedom from slavery only on the condition that freed blacks would be forced to leave America for colonies in West Africa (Mayer 83).'", "created_on": " '2008-02-14 14:07:25'", "year": " 1829", "page_views": " 364", "id": 221, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Rebecca Harding Davis'", "title": "Life in the Iron Mills", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '\\\\"Life in the Iron Mills\\\\" is a short story by Rebecca Harding Davis set in the factory world of nineteenth century Wheeling, Virginia, now Wheeling, West Virginia.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-15 14:29:16'", "year": " 1861", "page_views": " 129", "id": 222, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charlotte Bronte'", "title": "Jane Eyre", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Jane Eyre is an 1847 novel by Charlotte Brontë, published by Smith, Elder & Company, London. It is Brontë\\\\''s strongest work and one of the most famous of British novels. Charlotte Brontë first published the book as Jane Eyre: An Autobiography under the pseudonym Currer Bell. The novel was an immediate critical and popular success. Especially effusive in his praises was William Makepeace Thackeray, to whom Charlotte Brontë dedicated the novel\\\\''s second edition, which was illustrated by F. H. Townsend.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-20 10:23:53'", "year": " 1847", "page_views": " 1395", "id": 224, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "A Tale of Two Cities", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A Tale of Two Cities (1859) is the second historical novel by Charles Dickens. The plot centres on the years leading up to the French Revolution and culminates in the Jacobin Reign of Terror. It starts with Dr. Alexandre Manette\\\\''s 1757 imprisonment and concludes 36 years later with the execution of Sydney Carton. The first issue of Dickens\\\\''s literary periodical All the Year Round appearing April 30, 1859, contained the first of thirty-one weekly instalments of the novel, which ran until November 26, 1859.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-21 11:45:44'", "year": " 1859", "page_views": " 1492", "id": 225, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Alexis De Tocqueville'", "title": "Democracy in America", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'De la démocratie en Amérique (published in two volumes, the first in 1835 and the second in 1840) is a classic French text by Alexis de Tocqueville on the United States in the 1830s and its strengths and weaknesses. A literal translation of its title is On Democracy in America, but the common translation of the title is Democracy in America.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-22 10:54:38'", "year": " 1835", "page_views": " 1453", "id": 226, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Emily Dickinson'", "title": "The Poems of Emily Dickinson", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Dickinson was a prolific private poet, choosing to publish fewer than a dozen of her nearly eighteen hundred poems. The work that was published during her lifetime was usually altered significantly by the publishers to fit the conventional poetic rules of the time. Dickinson\\\\''s poems are unique for the era in which she wrote; they contain short lines, typically lack titles, and often utilize slant rhyme as well as unconventional capitalization and punctuation. Her poems also tend to deal with themes of death and immortality, two subjects which infused her letters to friends. In her lifetime, she wrote a total of 1,775 poems.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-12 06:33:21'", "year": " 1890", "page_views": " 30990", "id": 302, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Euripides'", "title": "The Electra of Euripides", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Trojan Women (in Greek: Τρωἀδες, Tr\u00c5\u008dades) is a tragedy by the Greek playwright Euripides. Produced during the Peloponnesian War, it is often considered a commentary on the capture of the Aegean island of Melos and the subsequent slaughter and subjugation of its populace by the Athenians earlier in 415 BC (see Milos), the same year the play premiered. 415 BC was also the year of the scandalous desecration of the hermai and the Athenians\\\\'' second expedition to Sicily, events which may also have influenced the author.'", "created_on": " '2008-05-29 07:36:30'", "year": " 415", "page_views": " 126", "id": 315, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Thomas Hardy'", "title": "The Return of the Native", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Return of the Native is Thomas Hardy\\\\''s sixth published novel. It first appeared in the serial Belgravia, a publication known for its sensationalism, and was presented in twelve monthly instalments from January to December of 1878. Due to the novel\\\\''s controversial themes, Hardy had some difficulty finding a publisher; reviews, however, though somewhat mixed, were generally positive. In the twentieth century, Return of the Native became one of Hardy\\\\''s most popular novels.'", "created_on": " '2008-05-29 07:57:01'", "year": " 1878", "page_views": " 647", "id": 316, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Coriolanus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-06-07 08:52:01'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 713", "id": 320, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'James Joyce'", "title": "Ulysses", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Ulysses is a novel by James Joyce, first serialized in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on February 2, 1922, in Paris. It is considered one of the most important works of Modernist literature.\\r\\n\\r\\nUlysses chronicles the passage through Dublin by its main character, Leopold Bloom, during an ordinary day, June 16, 1904. The title alludes to the hero of Homer\\\\''s Odyssey (Latinised into Ulysses), and there are many parallels, both implicit and explicit, between the two works (e.g., the correspondences between Leopold Bloom and Odysseus, Molly Bloom and Penelope, and Stephen Dedalus and Telemachus). June 16 is now celebrated by Joyce\\\\''s fans worldwide as Bloomsday.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-03 08:15:02'", "year": " 1922", "page_views": " 1084", "id": 318, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dostoevsky'", "title": "Crime and Punishment", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Crime and Punishment is a novel by Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (or Dostoyevsky depending on the transliteration), that was first published in the literary journal The Russian Messenger in twelve monthly installments in 1866, and was later published in a single volume.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-06 12:44:42'", "year": " 1866", "page_views": " 1266", "id": 319, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Lewis Carroll'", "title": "Alice 's Adventures in Wonderland", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Alice\\\\''s Adventures in Wonderland is a surreal work of literary nonsense written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll, considered a classic example of the genre and of English literature in general. It tells the story of a girl named Alice who falls down a rabbit-hole into a fantastic realm populated by peculiar and anthropomorphic creatures.'", "created_on": " '2008-05-20 10:26:30'", "year": " 1865", "page_views": " 358", "id": 309, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Lewis Carroll'", "title": "THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-05-20 10:40:59'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 282", "id": 310, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Poe Edgar Allan'", "title": "The Raven", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " '\\\\"The Raven\\\\" is a narrative poem by the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, first published in January 1845. It is noted for its musicality, stylized language, and supernatural atmosphere. It tells of a talking raven\\\\''s mysterious visit to a distraught lover, tracing the latter\\\\''s slow descent into madness. The lover, often identified as being a student,is lamenting the loss of his love, Lenore. The raven, sitting on a bust of Pallas, seems to further instigate his distress with its constant repetition of the word, \\\\"Nevermore.\\\\" Throughout the poem, Poe makes allusions to folklore and various classical works.'", "created_on": " '2008-05-20 12:06:38'", "year": " 1845", "page_views": " 42", "id": 311, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Homer'", "title": "The Iliad", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Iliad is, together with the Odyssey, one of two ancient Greek epic poems traditionally attributed to Homer. The poem is commonly dated to the late 9th or to the 8th century BC, and many scholars believe it is the oldest extant work of literature in the ancient Greek language, making it the first work of European literature. The existence of a single author for the poems is disputed as the poems themselves show evidence of a long oral tradition and hence, possible multiple authors.'", "created_on": " '2008-05-22 10:26:09'", "year": " 8", "page_views": " 1067", "id": 312, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Mark Twain'", "title": "Life on the Mississippi", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Life on the Mississippi is a memoir by Mark Twain detailing his days as a steamboat pilot on the Mississippi River before the American Civil War.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe book begins with a brief history of the river from its discovery by Hernando de Soto in 1541. It continues with anecdotes of Twain\\\\''s training as a steamboat pilot, as the \\\\''cub\\\\'' of an experienced pilot. He describes, with great affection, the science of navigating the ever-changing Mississippi River.\\r\\n\\r\\nIn the second half, the book describes Twain\\\\''s return, many years later, to travel on a steamboat from St. Louis to New Orleans. He describes the competition from railroads, the new, large cities, and his observations on greed, gullibility, tragedy, and bad architecture. He also tells some stories that are most likely tall tales.'", "created_on": " '2008-02-29 09:55:49'", "year": " 1883", "page_views": " 1652", "id": 256, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Oliver Twist", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Oliver Twist (1838) is Charles Dickens\\\\'' second novel. The book was originally published in Bentley\\\\''s Miscellany as a serial, in monthly instalments that began appearing in the month of February 1837 and continued through April 1839. George Cruikshank provided one steel etching per month to illustrate each instalment.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-07 08:47:19'", "year": " 1838", "page_views": " 1415", "id": 299, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "The Pickwick Papers", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club, better known as The Pickwick Papers, is the first novel by Charles Dickens. It was originally an idea by Robert Seymour, the illustrator, to which Dickens was asked to contribute as an up and coming writer following the success of Sketches by Boz, published in 1836. Dickens, supremely confident as ever, increasingly took over the unsuccessful monthly publication after Seymour had committed suicide.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-11 11:12:52'", "year": " 1836", "page_views": " 2100", "id": 301, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Our Mutual Friend", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Our Mutual Friend (written in the years 1864–65) is the last novel completed by Charles Dickens. It centres on, in the words of critic J. Hillis Miller, \\\\"money, money, money, and what money can make of life\\\\" (which is, incidentally, a quote from Our Mutual Friend, spoken by Bella at the end of book III, chapter iv.). In the opening chapter, a young man is on his way to receive his inheritance, which, according to his father\\\\''s will, he can claim only if he marries Bella Wilfer, a beautiful, mercenary girl whom he has never met. However, before he can arrive, a body is found in the Thames and identified as him. The money passes on, instead, to the working-class Boffins, and the effects spread throughout various corners of London society.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-07 10:44:49'", "year": " 1865", "page_views": " 2338", "id": 300, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "A Christmas Carol", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A Christmas Carol in Prose, Being a Ghost Story of Christmas (commonly known as A Christmas Carol) is a novella by Charles Dickens first published on December 19, 1843 with illustrations by John Leech.The story was an instant success, selling over six thousand copies in one week, and the tale has become one of the most popular and enduring Christmas stories of all time.\\r\\n\\r\\nContemporaries noted that the story\\\\''s popularity played a critical role in redefining the importance of Christmas and the major sentiments associated with the holiday. A Christmas Carol was written during a time of decline in the old Christmas traditions.\\\\"If Christmas, with its ancient and hospitable customs, its social and charitable observances, were in danger of decay, this is the book that would give them a new lease,\\\\" said English poet Thomas Hood.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-03 11:48:28'", "year": " 1843", "page_views": " 349", "id": 291, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Bleak House", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Bleak House is the ninth novel by Charles Dickens, published in 20 monthly installments between March 1852 and September 1853. It is widely held to be one of Dickens\\\\'' finest and most complete novels, containing one of the most vast, complex and engaging arrays of minor characters and sub-plots in his entire canon. Dickens tells all of these both through the narrative of the novel\\\\''s heroine, Esther Summerson, and as an omniscient narrator. Memorable characters include the menacing lawyer Tulkinghorn, the friendly but depressive John Jarndyce and the childish Harold Skimpole. The plot concerns a long-running legal dispute (Jarndyce and Jarndyce) which has far-reaching consequences for all involved. Dickens\\\\'' assault on the flaws of the British judiciary system is based in part on his own experiences as a law clerk. His harsh characterization of the slow, arcane Chancery law process gave voice to widespread frustration with the system, and is often thought of as helping to set the stage for its eventual reform in the 1870s. In fact, Dickens was writing just as Chancery was reforming itself, with the Six Clerks and Masters mentioned in Chapter One being abolished in 1842 and 1852 respectively: the need for further reform was being widely debated.This raises the interesting point as to when Bleak House is actually set. Technically it must be before 1842, and at least some of his readers at the time would have been aware of this. However, there is some question as to whether this timeframe is consistent with some of the themes of the novel.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-03 12:26:02'", "year": " 1852", "page_views": " 2283", "id": 292, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "David Copperfield", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'David Copperfield or The Personal History, Adventures, Experience and Observation of David Copperfield the Younger of Blunderstone Rookery (which he never meant to publish on any account)is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1850. Like all except five of his works, it originally appeared in serial form (published in monthly installments). Many elements within the novel follow events in Dickens\\\\'' own life, and it is probably the most autobiographical of all of his novels. It is also Dickens\\\\'' \\\\"favourite child.\\\\"'", "created_on": " '2008-03-04 09:21:22'", "year": " 1850", "page_views": " 2227", "id": 293, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Great Expectations", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Great Expectations is a novel by Charles Dickens first serialised in All the Year Round from 1 December 1860 to August 1861. The action of the story takes place from Christmas Eve, 1812, when the protagonist is about seven years old, to the winter of 1840.\\r\\n\\r\\nGreat Expectations is written in a semi-autobiographical style, and is the story of the orphan Pip, tracing his life from his early days of childhood until adulthood. The story can also be considered semi-autobiographical of Dickens, like much of his work, drawing on his experiences of life and people.\\r\\n\\r\\nEach instalment of it in All the Year Round contained two chapters, and was written in a way to keep readers interested from week to week, while still satisfying the need for resolution at the end of each instalment.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-05 11:13:08'", "year": " 1861", "page_views": " 1609", "id": 294, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Hard Times", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Hard Times- For These Times. is a novel by Charles Dickens, first published in 1854. The book is a state-of-the-nation novel, which aimed to highlight the social and economic pressures that some people were experiencing. Unlike other such writings at the time, the novel is unusual in that it is not set in London (as was also Dickens\\\\'' usual wont), but in the fictitious Victorian industrial town of Coketown, often claimed to be based on Preston.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-05 13:03:24'", "year": " 1854", "page_views": " 1125", "id": 295, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Martin Chuzzlewit", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Martin Chuzzlewit is a novel by Charles Dickens, considered the last of his picaresque novels, which was written and serialized in 1843-1844. Like nearly all of Dickens\\\\'' novels, Martin Chuzzlewit was released to the public in monthly installments. Sales of the monthly parts were disappointing, compared to Dickens\\\\'' previous works, so Dickens changed the plot to send the title character to America. This allowed the author to portray America, which he had recently visited, satirically as a near wilderness, whose pockets of civilization were filled with deceptive and self-promoting hucksters.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe main theme of the novel is selfishness, which is portrayed in a satirical fashion using all the members of the Chuzzlewit family. The novel is also notable for one of Dickens\\\\'' great villains, Seth Pecksniff, and the nurse Mrs. Gamp.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-06 08:05:07'", "year": " 1844", "page_views": " 2261", "id": 296, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Dickens'", "title": "Nicholas Nickleby", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, (or Nicholas Nickleby for short) is a comic novel by Charles Dickens. Originally published as a serial from 1838 to 1839, it was Dickens\\\\'' third novel.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe lengthy novel centres around the life and adventures of Nicholas Nickleby, a young man who must support his mother and sister after his father dies. His Uncle Ralph, who thinks Nicholas will never amount to anything, plays the role of an antagonist.'", "created_on": " '2008-03-06 14:56:48'", "year": " 1839", "page_views": " 1130", "id": 297, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Butler Yeats'", "title": "The Poetry and Prose of William Butler Yeats", "intro_essay": " '<p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">Yeats’ poems are difficult. Even he thought so. They rarely came to him in the forms we read now but would instead occur to him as ideas and fragments that he’d write out in prose. The process of converting the prose into verse was, he laments in letters and in a few poems, difficult and exhausting, even torturous. And yet, despite the strain of composition, he believed that in order for a poem to be beautiful, the finished product must appear effortless. In “Adam’s Curse” he describes this frustration:</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times-Bold">A line will take us hours maybe; </span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times-Bold">Yet if it does not seem a moment''s thought, </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Times-Bold">Our stitching and unstitching has been naught.</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">As readers of the poems, our challenge lies elsewhere. For while every Yeats poem on this site (indeed every Yeats poem I have read) is strikingly beautiful, some poems’ beauty is easier to grasp than their meaning. One can admire haunting images or empowered syntax or graceful articulation without really understanding the poem’s overarching sense. </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">Added to the challenge of understanding individual poems is the challenge of understanding Yeats’ work as a whole. Yeats wrote all his life and the selection of poems on this site spans his entire career, from his first published poem, written when Yeats was twenty, to his last, written a week before he died at the age of seventy-three. At first glance, an early poem like “The Secret Rose” may seem completely different from a later poem like “Easter 1916.” Yet the mind behind these poems is the same mind, and it continues in its struggles of thought despite increasing age or maturity. I say ‘struggles of thought’ rather than simply saying ‘thoughts’ on purpose. Yeats believed that poetry was born of “an argument with the self” and remained suspicious of absolute beliefs and ideas all his life. Perhaps the only fixed belief he held was, paradoxically, that one must rigorously and persistently reevaluate one’s beliefs, that one’s thoughts must never be wholly at peace. Like the poet William Blake, whom Yeats’ greatly admired, Yeats valued the interplay of antinomies over the pursuit of a single truth. As Blake wrote, “without contraries there is no progression.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">Yet there are a few themes that Yeats returns to consider again and again, even if his attitudes towards them change. Acquainting oneself with these themes makes reading many of the individual poems a lot easier and is of particular use in understanding the arc of Yeats’ poetry as a whole. </span></p><div><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333"> </span></div><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">LOVE, SEX, AND CRAZY JANE</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">Yeats befriended the young aristocrat and budding political activist Maud Gonne when he was in his early twenties and remained obsessively in love with her for the rest of his life. He believed Maud to be the great beauty of her age, comparing her to Helen of Troy. The comparison is apt not only because of Helen’s beauty but because of her infamous role as catalyst for the Trojan War. The intensity of Yeats’ love for Maud did not reconcile him to her participation in acts of political violence and terrorism in the name of the Irish Nationalist movement (more on this in the next section). Still, despite their differing views on violence and despite Maud’s rejection of each of Yeats’ four marriage proposals, Maud Gonne figures greatly in Yeats’ poetry and is the unnamed woman in almost every love poem. (Yeats didn’t marry his wife George until he was fifty-one and though he addresses George in some of his later poems, those poems don’t appear on the site). </span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">Knowing the flesh and blood woman behind Yeats’ love poems does not change the fact that many of his early love poems feel as if they’re not written with a real woman in mind at all. When Yeats compares Maud to Helen of Troy or when he describes the unnatural power of her beauty, it may seem as is if he’s losing sight of the flesh and blood woman and turning her into some romantic ideal, some personification of Beauty. As a young poet, Yeats was attracted to symbols that transcended quotidian reality and seemed to access the supernatural or the occult. Yet even when a poem’s use of symbolism or idealization of the beloved appears to launch it out into some unreal sphere, it’s helpful to remember what Yeats himself later said when looking back on these early poems. (He speaks here specifically about his use of the Rose, a symbol for beauty that Yeats used in many of his early poems). “I notice,” he wrote, “Upon reading these poems for the first time in several years that the quality symbolized as The Rose differs from the Intellectual Beauty of Shelley and of Spenser in that I have imagined it as suffering with man and not as something pursued and seen from afar” (CP, 447). </span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">His observation heals the gap between Beauty and beauty, between ideal and experience. In truth, you can see traces of this bridge even in the poems that seem bent on escaping reality. Consider the speaker of “The Rose Upon the Rood of Time,” for example, who can’t bear to give up “</span><span style="font-family:Times">common things that crave / the weak worm hiding down in its small cave, / the field-mouse running by me in the grass,” even as he yearns for Eternal Beauty<span style="color:#333333">. As Yeats got older, he became more and more interested in the conjunction of dream and reality. He moved away from the symbolism of his youth and began to write poems whose investment in the mortal realm is immediately apparent. Though these poems still idealize Maud Gonne and contemplate a desire for transcendence, they also acknowledge the value of mortal, fleshly experience and don’t shy away from less romantic portrayals of love. Perhaps the best examples of these poems occur in the series “Words for Music Perhaps” where Yeats invents the persona of Crazy Jane to speak for sexual love and material existence. Those poems don’t appear on the site but they’re definitely worth reading. I’ve included my personal favorite below: </span></span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><strong><em><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Crazy Jane Talks with the Bishop</span></em></strong></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">I met the Bishop on the road</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">And much said he and I.</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">‘Those breasts are flat and fallen now, </span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Those veins must soon be dry;</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Live in a heavenly mansion, </span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Not in some foul sty.’</span></p><div style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333"> </span></div><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Fair and foul are near of kin,</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">And fair needs foul,’ I cried.</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">‘My friends are gone, but that’s a truth</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Nor grave nor bed denied, </span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">Learned in bodily lowliness</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">And in the heart’s pride. </span></p><div style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333"> </span></div><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">‘A woman can be proud and stiff</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">When on love intent;</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">But love has pitched his mansion</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">In the place of excrement;</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">For nothing can be sole or whole</span></p><p style="text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">That has not been rent. </span></p><div><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: Georgia;"></span></div><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">FAERIES, BLOOD AND POLITICS</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">The Republic of Ireland was established in 1922, when Yeats was fifty-seven. Previous to that year, Ireland had been under English rule. Yeats witnessed the bloody struggle leading up to Irish independence with mixed feelings. While he strongly supported the cause of an independent Irish state, he disagreed with many of the violent methods used to achieve it and lamented the loss of the aristocratic Anglo-Irish culture. Yeats had friends on both sides and knew many of the people who were killed or destroyed in the period leading up to 1922. Poems pertaining to this period that you can find on the site include “Easter 1916” and “The Rose Tree.” Other poems to check out elsewhere include “Nineteen Hundred and Nineteen” and “September 1913.”</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">In the years before Ireland had won its autonomy, Yeats began building the foundation of an authentically Irish literature distinct from the English tradition. He believed that true independence required more than political autonomy, and sought to foster a cultural and artistic character for Ireland by writing distinctly Irish poems that rejected the derivative and imitative styles that previous Irish writers had turned to. Yeats believed that the foundation of a national literature lay in Celtic history and Irish folklore, which, until Yeats, was mostly neglected or memorialized only in the oral tradition. He started populating his poems with faeries, with the ancient Celtic kings and heroes and with the characters of Irish legend. See “The Stolen Child” or “Baile and Ailleen” for examples of such poems on the site. Later, when he began writing about modern political events, he did not abandon these figures, and they often appear in poems amidst Yeats’ contemporaries. More than any single mythical or historical figure, though, Yeats writes about the Irish landscape. He names the hills and lakes of Ireland by their Irish names, and writes especially about the landscape of his beloved County Sligo where he famously requested to be buried in “Under Ben Bulben”</span></p><div><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333"> </span></div><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">VISIONS, GYRES AND THE SUPERNATURAL</span></p><p><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">Yeats’ interest in the occult and in the supernatural has often been discounted (the poet W. H. Auden dismissed it as </span><span style="font-family:Times;color:#333333">a </span><span style="font-family:Times">"deplorable spectacle of a grown man occupied with the mumbo-jumbo of magic and the nonsense of India."<span style="color:#333333">).</span></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333"> It seems far more useful, though, to seriously consider the ideas Yeats was struggling with and to consider why and how he uses these theories, as strange as they sometimes seem. In her excellent book, <i>Poems, Poets, Poetry</i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">, Helen Vendler writes that “artists are people who think naturally in highly patterned ways.” It’s reductive to claim that Yeats’ occultist theories were only a series of patterned thoughts but it’s a good starting point. It was through his mysticism and spiritualism that Yeats made sense of the world and his position in it. Visions, spirits and the model of time as two interpenetrating gyres, negotiate both the historical and the personal and help him to understand and express what, particularly during the violent struggle for Irish independence, must have seemed a strange, even a senseless existence. The annotations explain specific occultist references and symbols that appear in poems on the site. If you’d like to know more about them or about Yeats’ broader understanding of the supernatural, you should take a look at some of Yeats’ prose. In <i>A Vision, </i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333">he lays out his mystical system in full. There’s also an excellent essay on Yeats and the supernatural in J. Hillis Miller’s book, <i>Poets of Reality. </i></span><span style="font-family:Georgia;color:#333333"> </span></p><div> </div><div> </div><div>FURTHER READING</div><div> </div><p>In writing these annotations, I relied mostly upon A. Norman Jeffares’ <i>A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats</i><span style="font-style:normal">, which provides annotations and biographical context for every poem Yeats wrote,</span><span style="font-style:normal">and upon Helen Vendler’s </span><i>Our Secret Discipline, </i><span style="font-style:normal">which discusses Yeats’ poetic forms. I also looked at J. Hillis Miller’s essay that I mentioned above and at two biographies of Yeats by Richard Ellmann. I’ve included the list below. </span></p><div><i> </i></div><div><i>The Collected Poems of W. B. Yeats, </i><span style="font-style:normal">ed. Richard Finneran</span></div><div> </div><div><i>A New Commentary on the Poems of W. B. Yeats, </i><span style="font-style:normal">by A. Norman Jeffares</span></div><p><i>Our Secret Discipline, </i><span style="font-style:normal">by Helen Vendler</span></p><p><i>Poets of Reality, </i><span style="font-style:normal">by J. Hillis Miller</span></p><p><i>Yeats: The Man and the Masks, </i><span style="font-style:normal">by Richard Ellmann</span><i> </i></p><p><i>The Identity of Yeats, </i><span style="font-style:normal">by Richard Ellmann</span> </p>'", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-03-06 18:58:46'", "year": " 1893", "page_views": " 5422", "id": 298, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Milton'", "title": "Paradise Lost", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Paradise Lost is an epic poem in blank verse by the 17th-century English poet John Milton. It was originally published in 1667 in ten books; a second edition followed in 1674, redivided into twelve books (in the manner of the division of Virgil\\\\''s Aeneid) with minor revisions throughout and a note on the versification. The poem concerns the Judeo-Christian story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Milton\\\\''s purpose, stated in Book I, is \\\\"justify the ways of God to men\\\\" (Milton 1674, 4:26) and elucidate the conflict between God\\\\''s eternal foresight and free will.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-13 03:49:57'", "year": " 1674", "page_views": " 1842", "id": 321, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Virgil'", "title": "The Aeneid", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-06-16 13:40:30'", "year": " 19", "page_views": " 2665", "id": 323, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Adam Smith'", "title": "Wealth of Nations ", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist Adam Smith, published in 1776. It is a clearly written account of political economy at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution, and is widely (if perhaps incorrectly) considered to be the first modern work in the field of economics. The work is also the first comprehensive defense of free market policies.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-19 13:32:09'", "year": " 1776", "page_views": " 1737", "id": 327, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Marcus Aurelius'", "title": "Meditations", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Meditations (Τ\u00e1\u00bd\u00b0 εἰς \u00e1\u00bc\u2018αυτόν, Ta eis heauton, literally \\\\"thoughts/writings addressed to himself\\\\") is the title of a series of personal writings by Marcus Aurelius setting forth his ideas on Stoic philosophy.\\r\\n\\r\\nMarcus Aurelius wrote the twelve books of the Meditations in Greek as a source for his own guidance and self-improvement. It is possible that large portions of the work were written in Sirmium, where he spent much time planning military campaigns from 170 to 180. We know that some of it was written while he was positioned at Aquincum on campaign in Pannonia, because internal notes tell us that the second book was written when he was campaigning against the Quadi on the river Granova (modern-day Hron) and the third book was written at Carnuntum. It is not clear that he ever intended the writings to be published, so the title Meditations is but one of several commonly assigned to the collection. These writings take the form of quotations varying in length from one sentence to long paragraphs.\\r\\n\\r\\nHis stoic ideas often revolve around the denial of emotion, a skill which, he says, will free a man from the pains and pleasures of the material world. He claims that the only way a man can be harmed by others is to allow his reaction to overpower him. He shows no particular religious faith in his writings, but seems to believe that some sort of logical, benevolent force organizes the universe in such a way that even \\\\"bad\\\\" occurrences happen for the good of the whole.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-19 11:31:47'", "year": " 2001", "page_views": " 476", "id": 326, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Saint Augustine of Hippo'", "title": "The City of God", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The City of God (Latin: De Civitate Dei, also known as De Civitate Dei contra Paganos: The City of God against the Pagans) is a book written in Latin by Augustine of Hippo in the early 5th century, dealing with issues concerning God, martyrdom, Jews, and other Christian philosophies.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-19 07:37:20'", "year": " 5", "page_views": " 5807", "id": 325, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Epictetus'", "title": "The Discourses", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Discourses of Epictetus are a series of extracts of the teachings of the Stoic philosopher Epictetus written down by Arrian c. 108 AD. There were originally eight books but only four now remain. In a preface attached to the Discourses, Arrian explains how he came to write them:\\r\\n\\r\\n I neither wrote these Discourses of Epictetus in the way in which a man might write such things; nor did I make them public myself, inasmuch as I declare that I did not even write them. But whatever I heard him say, the same I attempted to write down in his own words as nearly as possible, for the purpose of preserving them as memorials to myself afterwards of the thoughts and the freedom of speech of Epictetus.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Discourses are unlikely to be word-for-word transcriptions and are probably written-up versions of Arrian\\\\''s lecture notes. The books did not have a formal title in ancient times. Although Simplicius called them Diatribai (Discourses), other writers gave them titles such as Dialexis (Talks), Apomnêmoneumata (Records), and Homiliai (Conversations). The modern name comes from the titles given in the earliest medieval manuscript: \\\\"Arrian\\\\''s Diatribai of Epictetus\\\\" (Greek: Αρριανου των Επικτητου Διατριβων).'", "created_on": " '2008-06-20 08:37:02'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 424", "id": 329, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Immanuel Kant'", "title": "What is Enlightenment?", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'What is Enlightenment?\\\\" (German: \\\\"Beantwortung der Frage: Was ist Aufklärung?\\\\") is the title of a 1784 essay by the philosopher Immanuel Kant. In the December 1784 publication of the Berlinische Monatsschrift (Berlin Monthly), edited by Friedrich Gedike and Johann Erich Biester, Kant replied to the question posed a year earlier by the Reverend Johann Friedrich Zöllner, who was also an official in the Prussian government. Zöllner\\\\''s question was addressed to a broad intellectual public, in reply to Biester\\\\''s essay entitled: \\\\"Proposal, not to engage the clergy any longer when marriages are conducted\\\\" (April 1783) and a number of leading intellectuals replied with essays, of which Kant\\\\''s is the most famous and has had the most impact. Kant\\\\''s opening paragraph of the essay is a much-cited definition of a lack of Enlightenment as people\\\\''s inability to think for themselves due not to their lack of intellect, but lack of courage.\\r\\n\\r\\nKant\\\\''s essay also addressed the causes of a lack of enlightenment and the preconditions necessary to make it possible for people to enlighten themselves. He held it necessary that all church and state paternalism be abolished and people be given the freedom to use their own intellect. Kant praised Frederick II of Prussia for creating these preconditions. Kant focused on religious issues, saying that \\\\"our rulers\\\\" had less interest in telling citizens what to think in regard to artistic and scientific issues.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-20 10:54:23'", "year": " 1784", "page_views": " 21", "id": 330, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Immanuel Kant'", "title": " Perpetual Peace", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Whether this satirical inscription on a Dutch innkeeper\\\\''s sign upon which a burial ground was painted had for its object mankind in general, or the rulers of states in particular, who are insatiable of war, or merely the philosophers who dream this sweet dream, it is not for us to decide. But one condition the author of this essay wishes to lay down. The practical politician assumes the attitude of looking down with great self-satisfaction on the political theorist as a pedant whose empty ideas in no way threaten the security of the state, inasmuch as the state must proceed on empirical principles; so the theorist is allowed to play his game without interference from the worldly-wise statesman. Such being his attitude, the practical politician — and this is the condition I make — should at least act consistently in the case of a conflict and not suspect some danger to the state in the political theorist\\\\''s opinions which are ventured and publicly expressed without any ulterior purpose. By this clausula salvatoria the author desires formally and emphatically to deprecate herewith any malevolent interpretation which might be placed on his words.\\r\\n\\r\\n--------------------------------------------------\\r\\n\\r\\nPerpetual peace refers to a state of affairs where peace is permanently established over a certain area (ideally, the whole world - see world peace).\\r\\n\\r\\nMany would-be world conquerors have promised that their rule would enforce perpetual peace. No empire has ever extended its authority over the entire world, and thus nothing can be said about the ability of a universal empire to ensure world peace, but several large empires have maintained relative peace in their spheres of influence over extended periods of time. Typical examples are the Roman Empire (see Pax Romana) and the British Empire (see Pax Britannica). However their rule wasn\\\\''t without incident (see Jewish Revolt, British Raj). Whether such imperial peace is actually good or desirable is another question entirely. In addition, no imperial peace has been permanent, because no empire has lasted forever.\\r\\n\\r\\nSeveral religions have prophesied that their divinity would produce perpetual peace at some point in the future. The most famous of these is embodied in bronze at the United Nations headquarters, \\\\"They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.\\\\" (Isaiah 2:4)\\r\\n\\r\\nThere are also a number of secular projects for a perpetual peace which employ means more subtle, but perhaps more attainable, than universal empire or even democratic world government.\\r\\n\\r\\nIf one state can\\\\''t reach the power to impose peace on the world, perhaps several can. Henri IV attempted to actually create such a confederation. Others were proposed by the abbé de Saint-Pierre and Jean-Jacques Rousseau.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-23 11:54:43'", "year": " 1795", "page_views": " 168", "id": 332, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Aristotle'", "title": "Ethics", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Ethics is a major branch of philosophy, encompassing right conduct and good life. It is significantly broader than the common conception of analyzing right and wrong. A central aspect of ethics is \\\\"the good life\\\\", the life worth living or life that is simply not satisfying, which is held by many philosophers to be more important than moral conduct'", "created_on": " '2008-06-24 08:45:24'", "year": " 2005", "page_views": " 502", "id": 333, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Aristotle'", "title": "Politics", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Aristotle\\\\''s Politics (Greek Πολιτικἀ) is a work of political philosophy. The end of the Nicomachean Ethics declared that the inquiry into ethics necessarily follows into politics, and the two works are frequently considered to be parts of a larger treatise dealing with the \\\\"philosophy of human affairs.\\\\" The title of the Politics literally means \\\\"the things concerning the polis.\\\\"'", "created_on": " '2008-06-24 09:52:02'", "year": " 2004", "page_views": " 1800", "id": 334, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Aristotle'", "title": "Constitution of Athens", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Constitution of the Athenians (or Athenaion Politeia, or The Athenian constitution) is the name of either of two texts from Classical antiquity, one probably by Aristotle or a student of his, the other attributed to Xenophon, but not by him.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-25 06:46:18'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1228", "id": 335, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Saint Augustine of Hippo'", "title": "Confessions", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The works outline Augustine\\\\''s sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity. It is widely seen as the first Western autobiography ever written, and was an influential model for Christian writers throughout the following 1000 years of the Middle Ages. It is not a complete autobiography, as it was written in his early 40s, and he lived long afterwards, producing another important work (City of God); it does, nonetheless, provide an unbroken record of his development of thought and is the most complete record of any single individual from the 4th and 5th centuries. It is a significant theological work. In the work St. Augustine writes about how much he regrets having led a sinful and immoral life. He discusses his regrets for following the Manichaean religion and believing in astrology. He writes about Nebridius\\\\''s role in helping to persuade him that astrology was not only incorrect but evil, and St. Ambrose\\\\''s role in his conversion to Christianity. He shows intense sorrow for his sexual sins, and writes on the importance of sexual morality. He also mentions that his favorite subject in school was mathematics because it was concrete and more rigorously defined than other subjects. The book is thought to be divisible into chapters which symbolize various aspects of the Trinity and trinitarian belief.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-25 11:05:06'", "year": " 2002", "page_views": " 539", "id": 336, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Jeremy Bentham'", "title": "Anarchical Fallacies", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-06-25 12:50:02'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 142", "id": 337, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Karl Marx'", "title": "On the Jewish Question", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'On the Jewish Question is a work by Karl Marx, written in 1843, and first published in Paris in 1844 under the German title Zur Judenfrage in the Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher. It was one of Marx\\\\''s first attempts to deal with categories that would later be called the materialist conception of history.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe essay criticizes two studies, on the attempt by the Jews to achieve political emancipation in Prussia by Marx\\\\'' fellow Young Hegelian, Bruno Bauer. Bauer argued that Jews can achieve political emancipation only if they relinquish their particular religious consciousness, since political emancipation requires a secular state, which he assumes does not leave any \\\\"space\\\\" for social identities such as religion. According to Bauer, such religious demands are incompatible with the idea of the \\\\"Rights of Man.\\\\" True political emancipation, for Bauer, requires the abolition of religion.\\r\\n\\r\\nMarx uses Bauer\\\\''s essay as an occasion for his own analysis of liberal rights. Marx argues that Bauer is mistaken in his assumption that in a \\\\"secular state\\\\" religion will no longer play a prominent role in social life, and, as an example refers to the pervasiveness of religion in the United States, which, unlike Prussia, had no state religion. In Marx\\\\''s analysis, the \\\\"secular state\\\\" is not opposed to religion, but rather actually presupposes it. The removal of religious or property qualifications for citizens does not mean the abolition of religion or property, but only introduces a way of regarding individuals in abstraction from them. On this note Marx moves beyond the question of religious freedom to his real concern with Bauer\\\\''s analysis of \\\\"political emancipation.\\\\" Marx concludes that while individuals can be \\\\''spiritually\\\\'' and \\\\''politically\\\\'' free in a secular state, they can still be bound to material constraints on freedom by economic inequality, an assumption that would later form the basis of his critiques of capitalism.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-26 10:39:19'", "year": " 1843", "page_views": " 51", "id": 338, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Blake'", "title": "Songs of Innocence and Experience", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul are two books of poetry by the English poet and painter, William Blake. Although Songs of Innocence was first published by itself in 1789, it is believed that Songs of Experience has always been published in conjunction with Innocence since its completion in 1794.\\r\\n\\r\\nSongs of Innocence mainly consists of poems describing the innocence and joy of the natural world, advocating free love and a closer relationship with God, and most famously including Blake\\\\''s poem The Lamb. Its poems have a generally light, upbeat and pastoral feel and are typically written from the perspective of children or written about them.\\r\\n\\r\\nDirectly contrasting this, Songs of Experience instead deals with the loss of innocence after exposure to the material world and all of its mortal sin during adult life, including works such as The Tyger. Poems here are darker, concentrating on more political and serious themes. Throughout both books, many poems fall into pairs, so that a similar situation or theme can be seen in both Innocence and Experience.\\r\\n\\r\\nMany of the poems appearing in Songs of Innocence have a counterpart in Songs of Experience with opposing perspectives of the world. The disastrous end of the French Revolution caused Blake to lose faith in the goodness of mankind, explaining much of the volume\\\\''s sense of despair. Blake also believed that children lost their innocence through exploitation and from a religious community which put dogma before mercy. He did not, however, believe that children should be kept from becoming experienced entirely. In truth, he believed that children should indeed become experienced but through their own discoveries, which is reflected in a number of these poems. Blake believed that innocence and experience were \\\\"the two contrary states of the human soul\\\\", and that true innocence was impossible without experience.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-26 11:12:49'", "year": " 1999", "page_views": " 796", "id": 339, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Mother Juliana of Norwich'", "title": "Revelations of Divine Love", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Revelations of Divine Love (which also bears the title A Revelation of Love — in Sixteen Shewings above the first chapter) is a book of Christian mystical devotions written by Julian of Norwich. It was the first published book in the English language to be written by a woman. At the age of thirty, 13 May 1373, Julian was struck with a serious illness. As she prayed and prepared for death, she received a series of sixteen visions on the Passion of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Saved from the brink of death, Julian of Norwich dedicated her life to solitary prayer and the contemplation of the visions she had received. She wrote a short account of her visions probably soon after the event. About twenty or thirty years after her illness, near the end of the fourteenth century, she wrote down her visions and her understanding of them. Whereas Latin was the language of religion in her day, Julian of Norwich wrote in a straightforward Middle English, perhaps because she had no other medium in which to express herself.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-27 07:37:50'", "year": " 1901", "page_views": " 1367", "id": 340, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Twelfth Night, Or What You Will", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Twelfth Night is a comedy by William Shakespeare, named after the Twelfth Night holiday of the Christmas season. It was written around 1601 and first published in the First Folio in 1623.'", "created_on": " '2008-06-27 09:19:06'", "year": " 1623", "page_views": " 1747", "id": 341, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Isidor Kalisch'", "title": "Sepher Yezirah", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Sepher Yezirah is the central text of the Kabbalah, in which the doctrine of the \\\\''mother letters\\\\'' is expounded, and the associations between the other letters and the \\\\''tree of life\\\\'' are exposited.\\r\\n\\r\\nPRODUCTION NOTES: This etext includes the Hebrew text and all of Kalisch\\\\''s apparatus. The Hebrew text, which in the original book is on the (odd numbered) facing page, has been collated with the English translation; this is why there are only even numbered page numbers in the body of the etext. Viewing the Hebrew text requires that your browser be set up correctly to view Unicode: for more information, please refer to the Unicode instruction page. In particular, please follow the instructions on that page before firing off an email to me that the file is defective: it isn\\\\''t, if you can\\\\''t see the Hebrew text, the problem is your browser.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe pointed Hebrew text was entered by hand using a transliteration scheme. Each Hebrew letter was checked at least twice. This was a very laborious process, and it is inevitable that there are still errors in the Hebrew text, which I\\\\''ll be happy to correct if they can be identified. Some of these may be due to substandard typography in the original, particularly the Hebrew in body text.\\r\\n\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-06-27 10:42:44'", "year": " 1877", "page_views": " 36", "id": 342, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Giovanni Boccaccio'", "title": "Decameron, Vol I", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Decameron (subtitle: Prencipe Galeotto) is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. Many notable writers such as Chaucer are said to have drawn inspiration from The Decameron (See Literary sources and influence of the Decameron below).\\r\\n\\r\\nThe title is a combination of two Greek words meaning \\\\"ten\\\\" (δέκα déka) and \\\\"day\\\\" (\u00e1\u00bc\u00a1μέρα h\u00c4\u201cméra).'", "created_on": " '2008-07-02 10:31:28'", "year": " 2003", "page_views": " 897", "id": 348, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Isaac Newton'", "title": "Philosophiae Naturalis Principia Mathematica", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin: \\\\"mathematical principles of natural philosophy\\\\" often Principia or Principia Mathematica for short) is a three-volume work by Isaac Newton published on July 5, 1687.[1] It contains the statement of Newton\\\\''s laws of motion forming the foundation of classical mechanics, as well as his law of universal gravitation and a derivation of Kepler\\\\''s laws for the motion of the planets (which were first obtained empirically). The Principia is widely regarded as one of the most important scientific works ever written.\\r\\n\\r\\nIn formulating his physical theories, Newton had developed a field of mathematics known as calculus. However, the language of calculus was largely left out of the Principia. Instead, Newton recast the majority of his proofs as geometric arguments.\\r\\n\\r\\nIt is in a supplement to the Principia, entitled General Scholium, that Newton expressed his famous Hypotheses non fingo (\\\\"I feign no hypotheses\\\\" or \\\\"I make no guesses\\\\").\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-06-29 13:08:14'", "year": " 1687", "page_views": " 88", "id": 344, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Stuart Mill'", "title": "On Liberty", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'On Liberty is a philosophical work in the English language by 19th century philosopher John Stuart Mill, first published in 1859. Composed just after the death of his wife, it is the culmination of part of a plan to record their entire philosophical conclusion. To the Victorian readers of the time it was a radical work, advocating moral and economic freedom of individuals from the state. Mill was not opposed to government intervention in economic affairs; as a liberal, he believed that while property owners\\\\'' rights needed to be protected, the state also had a role to play in the redistribution of wealth.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-01 12:49:20'", "year": " 1859", "page_views": " 777", "id": 347, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Giovanni Boccaccio'", "title": "Decameron, Vol II", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Decameron (subtitle: Prencipe Galeotto) is a collection of 100 novellas by Italian author Giovanni Boccaccio, probably begun in 1350 and finished in 1353. It is a medieval allegorical work best known for its bawdy tales of love, appearing in all its possibilities from the erotic to the tragic. Many notable writers such as Chaucer are said to have drawn inspiration from The Decameron (See Literary sources and influence of the Decameron below).\\r\\n\\r\\nThe title is a combination of two Greek words meaning \\\\"ten\\\\" (δέκα déka) and \\\\"day\\\\" (\u00e1\u00bc\u00a1μέρα h\u00c4\u201cméra).'", "created_on": " '2008-07-02 14:06:25'", "year": " 2004", "page_views": " 1169", "id": 349, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Various'", "title": "Bible (King James Version)", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Bible refers to respective collections of religious writings of Judaism and of Christianity. The exact composition of the Bible is dependent on the religious traditions of specific denominations. Modern Rabbinic Judaism generally recognizes a single set of canonical books that comprise the Tanakh, the Jewish version of the Bible. The Christian Bible includes the same books as the Tanakh (referred to in this context as the Old Testament), but usually in a different order, together with specifically Christian books collectively called the New Testament. Among some Christian traditions, the Bible includes additional Jewish books that were not accepted into the Tanakh.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-08 23:54:08'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 7251", "id": 358, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dante Alighieri'", "title": "Vita nuova", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'La Vita Nuova (English: The New Life) is a medieval text written by Dante Alighieri in 1295. It is an expression of the medieval genre of courtly love in a prosimetrum style, a combination of both prose and verse.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-09 08:47:46'", "year": " 1295", "page_views": " 560", "id": 359, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Princeton Dante'", "title": "Egloghe", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-14 12:20:12'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 59", "id": 366, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Princeton Dante'", "title": "Questio de aqua et terra ", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Lecture given by Dante in Verona in 1320 on the relation between the water and the land -- his one venture into \\\\''scientific writing\\\\''.\\r\\nTesto critico della Società Dantesca Italiana; Florence: Società Dantesca Italiana, 1960.\\r\\nEdited by Ermenegildo Pistelli.\\r\\nTranslated by Philip Wicksteed. '", "created_on": " '2008-07-14 12:33:24'", "year": " 1960", "page_views": " 119", "id": 367, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gianfranco Contini'", "title": " Detto d 'Amore", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'An extended amatory lyric; most who study the question agree that its author and the author of Il Fiore are the same person; thus it, too, is now thought by many to be Dante\\\\''s.\\r\\n(Milan: Mondadori, 1984)\\r\\nEdited by Gianfranco Contini.\\r\\nTranslated by S. Casciani & C. Kleinhenz.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-14 13:01:15'", "year": " 1984", "page_views": " 53", "id": 368, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Gianfranco Contini'", "title": "Il Fiore", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Many - but not all - now believe Dante wrote these 232 sonnets based on the Roman de la rose, the 13th-century poem in Old French.\\r\\n(Milan: Mondadori, 1984)\\r\\nEdited by Gianfranco Contini.\\r\\nTranslated by S. Casciani & C. Kleinhenz. '", "created_on": " '2008-07-15 06:42:15'", "year": " 1984", "page_views": " 642", "id": 370, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Dante Alighieri'", "title": "De vulgari eloquentia", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'De vulgari eloquentia (On Eloquence in the vernacular) is the title of an essay by Dante Alighieri, written in Latin and initially meant to consist in four books, but aborted after the second. It was probably written in the years that preceded Dante\\\\''s exile, between 1303 and 1305. The first book deals with the relationship between Latin and vernacular, and the searching of an illustrious vernacular in the Italian area, while the second is an analysis of the structure of the song, a literary genre.\\r\\n\\r\\nLatin essays were very popular in the Middle Ages, but Dante made some innovations in his work: firstly the topic, which is the vernacular, was an uncommon choice at that time. Secondly, the way Dante approached this theme, that is giving to vernacular the same dignity that was only meant for Latin. Finally, Dante wrote this essay in order to analyse the origin and the philosophy of vernacular, because, in his opinion, this language was not something static, but something that evolves and needed a historical contextualisation.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-07-15 10:39:55'", "year": " 1960", "page_views": " 434", "id": 371, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Al-Ghazali'", "title": "Rescuer from Error", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-15 13:21:08'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 148", "id": 372, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Averroës'", "title": "On the Harmony of Religion and Philosophy", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-18 10:11:24'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 100", "id": 376, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Edmund Burke'", "title": "Reflections on the Revolution in France", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Reflections on the Revolution in France is a work of political commentary written by statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke, first published on 1 November 1790. The Reflections constitute one of the best-known intellectual attacks on the French Revolution, which was then in its early stages. In the 20th century the work exerted considerable influence within both conservative and classical liberal intellectual circles, where its arguments were re-cast into a critique of Communism and other Socialist revolutionary political programmes.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-15 15:06:33'", "year": " 1790", "page_views": " 556", "id": 373, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Alexander Pope'", "title": "An Essay on Criticism", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'An Essay on Criticism was the first major poem written by the English writer Alexander Pope (1688-1744). However, despite the title, the poem is not as much an original analysis as it is a compilation of Pope\\\\''s various literary opinions. A reading of the poem makes it clear that he is addressing not so much the ingenuous reader as the intending writer. It is written in a type of rhyming verse called heroic couplets.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe poem first appeared in 1711, but was written in 1709. It is clear from Pope\\\\''s correspondence[1] that many of the poem\\\\''s ideas had existed in prose form since at least 1706. It is a verse essay written in the Horatian mode and is primarily concerned with how writers and critics behave in the new literary commerce of Pope\\\\''s contemporary age. The poem covers a range of good criticism and advice. It also represents many of the chief literary ideals of Pope\\\\''s age.\\r\\n\\r\\nPope contends in the poem\\\\''s opening couplets that bad criticism does greater harm than bad writing:\\r\\n\\r\\n\\\\''Tis hard to say, if greater Want of Skill Appear in Writing or in Judging ill, But, of the two, less dang\\\\''rous is th\\\\'' Offence, To tire our Patience, than mis-lead our Sense: Some few in that, but Numbers err in this, Ten Censure wrong for one who Writes amiss; A Fool might once himself alone expose, Now One in Verse makes many more in Prose.\\r\\n\\r\\nDespite the harmful effects of bad criticism, literature requires worthy criticism.\\r\\n\\r\\nPope delineates common faults of critics,e.g., settling for easy and cliché rhymes:\\r\\n\\r\\n And ten low words oft creep in one dull line:\\r\\n While they ring round the same unvaried chimes,\\r\\n With sure returns of still expected rhymes;\\r\\n Wher\\\\''er you find \\\\"the cooling western breeze\\\\",\\r\\n In the next line, it \\\\"whispers through the trees\\\\";\\r\\n If crystal streams \\\\"with pleasing murmurs creep\\\\",\\r\\n The reader\\\\''s threatened (not in vain) with \\\\"sleep\\\\" . . . (347-353)\\r\\n\\r\\nThroughout the poem, Pope refers to ancient writers such as Virgil, Homer, Aristotle, Horace and Longinus. This is a testament to his belief that the \\\\"Imitation of the ancients\\\\" is the ultimate standard for taste. Pope also says, \\\\"True ease in writing comes from art, not chance, / As those move easiest who have learned to dance\\\\" (362-363), meaning poets are made, not born.\\r\\n\\r\\nAs is usual in Pope\\\\''s poems, the \\\\"Essay\\\\" concludes with a reference to Pope himself. Walsh, the last of the critics mentioned, was a mentor and friend of Pope who had died in 1710.\\r\\n\\r\\nAn Essay on Criticism was famously and fiercely attacked by John Dennis, who is mentioned mockingly in the work. Consequently, Dennis also appears in Pope\\\\''s later satire, the Dunciad.\\r\\n\\r\\nPart II of An Essay on Criticism includes a famous couplet:\\r\\n\\r\\n A little learning is a dangerous thing;\\r\\n Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring.\\r\\n\\r\\nin reference to the spring of Pieria in Macedonia, sacred to the Muses. Ironically, the first line of this couplet is often misquoted as \\\\"a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,\\\\" thus reinforcing the aptness of this very admonition, as the misquote betrays a certain want of learning.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-16 12:13:04'", "year": " 1711", "page_views": " 44", "id": 374, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'James Joyce'", "title": "Dubliners", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Dubliners formed in 1962. They made a name for themselves playing regularly in O\\\\''Donoghue\\\\''s Pub in Dublin. \\\\''They are bigger than U2\\\\'' - Norman Phipps (St James records)'", "created_on": " '2008-07-16 12:36:01'", "year": " 1962", "page_views": " 276", "id": 375, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Locke'", "title": "A Letter Concerning Toleration", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'A Letter Concerning Toleration by John Locke was originally published in 1689. Its initial publication was in Latin, though it was immediately translated into other languages. In this \\\\"letter\\\\" addressed to an anonymous \\\\"Honored Sir\\\\" (actually Locke\\\\''s close friend Philip von Limborch, who published it without Locke\\\\''s knowledge) Locke argues for a new understanding of the relationship between religion and government. One of the founders of Empiricism, Locke develops a philosophy that is contrary to the one expressed by Thomas Hobbes in Leviathan, primarily because it supports toleration for various Christian denominations. Locke\\\\''s work appeared amidst a fear that Catholicism might be taking over England, and responds to the problem of religion and government by proposing toleration as the answer.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-19 20:29:07'", "year": " 1689", "page_views": " 478", "id": 377, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'John Stuart Mill'", "title": "The Subjection of Women", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Subjection of Women is the title of an essay written by John Stuart Mill in 1869, possibly jointly with his wife Harriet Taylor Mill, stating an argument in favor of equality between the sexes. At the time it was published, this essay was an affront to European conventional norms of views on stature of men and women.\\r\\n\\r\\nJohn Stuart Mill credited his wife, Harriet Taylor Mill, with co-writing the essay, although she is rarely credited on publications.\\r\\n'", "created_on": " '2008-07-19 20:44:51'", "year": " 1869", "page_views": " 486", "id": 378, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Maimonides '", "title": "The Guide of the Perplexed", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Guide for the Perplexed (Hebrew:\u00d7\u017e\u00d7\u2022\u00d7\u00a8\u00d7\u201d \u00d7\u00a0\u00d7\u2018\u00d7\u2022\u00d7\u203a\u00d7\u2122\u00d7\u009d, translit. Moreh Nevuchim, Arabic: dal\u00c4\u0081lat al\u00e1\u00b8\u00a5\u00c4\u0081’ir\u00c4\u00abn \u00d7\u201c\u00d7\u0153\u00d7\u0090\u00d7\u0153\u00cc\u02c6\u00d7\u201d \u00d7\u0090\u00d7\u0153\u00d7\u2014\u00d7\u0090\u00d7\u2122\u00d7\u00a8\u00d7\u2122\u00d7\u0178 \u00d8\u00af\u00d9\u201e\u00d8\u00a7\u00d9\u201e\u00d8\u00a9 \u00d8\u00a7\u00d9\u201e\u00d8\u00ad\u00d8\u00a7\u00d8\u00a6\u00d8\u00b1\u00d9\u0160\u00d9\u2020) is one of the major works of Rabbi Moshe ben Maimon, better known as Maimonides or \\\\"the Rambam\\\\". It was written in the 12th Century in the form of a three-volume letter to his student, Rabbi Joseph ben Judah of Ceuta, the son of Rabbi Judah, and is the main source of the Rambam\\\\''s philosophical views, as opposed to his opinions on Jewish law. Since many of the philosophical concepts, such as his view of theodicy and the relationship between philosophy and religion, are relevant beyond strictly Jewish theology, it has been the work most commonly associated with Maimonides in the non-Jewish world and it is known to have influenced several major non-Jewish philosophers. Following its publication, \\\\"almost every philosophic work for the remainder of the Middle Ages cited, commented on, or criticized Maimonides\\\\'' views.\\\\" Within Judaism, the Guide became widely popular and controversial, with many Jewish communities requesting copies of the manuscript.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-22 11:41:01'", "year": " 1904", "page_views": " 258", "id": 379, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Darwin'", "title": "On the Origin of Species", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-22 14:04:06'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 16", "id": 380, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Coriolanus", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-23 08:35:39'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1377", "id": 381, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Mohammed'", "title": "The Holy Koran (The Holy Qur 'an)", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " ''", "created_on": " '2008-07-23 10:19:36'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1218", "id": 382, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'William Shakespeare'", "title": "Shakespeare 's Sonnets", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'Shakespeare\\\\''s sonnets, or simply The Sonnets, is a collection of poems in sonnet form written by William Shakespeare that deal with such themes as love, beauty, politics, and mortality. They were probably written over a period of several years. All 154 poems appeared in a 1609 collection, entitled SHAKE-SPEARES SONNETS, comprising 152 previously unpublished sonnets and two (numbers 138 and 144) that had previously been published in a 1599 miscellany entitled The Passionate Pilgrim.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Sonnets were published under conditions that have become unclear to history. Although the works were written by Shakespeare, it is not known if the publisher, Thomas Thorpe, used an authorized manuscript from him, or an unauthorized copy. Also, there is a mysterious dedication at the beginning of the text wherein a certain \\\\"Mr. W.H.\\\\" is described as \\\\"the onlie begetter\\\\" of the poems by the publisher Thomas Thorpe, but it is not known who this man was. The dedication refers to the poet as \\\\"Ever-Living\\\\", a phrase which has helped fuel the Shakespearean authorship debate due to its use as an epithet for the deceased (Shakespeare himself used the phrase in this way in Henry VI, part 1 (IV, iii, 51-2) describing the dead Henry V as “[t]hat ever-living man of memory”). Authorship proponents believe this phrase indicates that the real author of the sonnets was dead by 1609, whereas Shakespeare of Stratford lived until 1616.[2] Adding further to the authorship debate, Shakespeare\\\\''s name is hyphenated on the title page and on the top of every other page in the book.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe first 17 sonnets are written to a young man, urging him to marry and have children, thereby passing down his beauty to the next generation. These are called the procreation sonnets. Most of them, however, 18-126, are addressed to a young man expressing the poet\\\\''s love for him. Sonnets 127-152 are written to the poet\\\\''s mistress expressing his love for her. The final two sonnets, 153-154, are allegorical. The final thirty or so sonnets are written about a number of issues, such as the young man\\\\''s infidelity with the poet\\\\''s mistress, self-resolution to control his own lust, beleaguered criticism of the world, etc.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-28 10:28:56'", "year": " 1609", "page_views": " 644", "id": 384, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Sir Isaac Newton'", "title": "Newton 's Principia: The Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (Latin: \\\\"mathematical principles of natural philosophy\\\\" often Principia or Principia Mathematica for short) is a three-volume work by Isaac Newton published on July 5, 1687. It contains the statement of Newton\\\\''s laws of motion forming the foundation of classical mechanics, as well as his law of universal gravitation and a derivation of Kepler\\\\''s laws for the motion of the planets (which were first obtained empirically). The Principia is widely regarded as one of the most important scientific works ever written.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-28 22:04:22'", "year": " 1687", "page_views": " 673", "id": 385, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'David Hume'", "title": "An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'An Enquiry concerning Human Understanding is a book by the Scottish empiricist and philosopher David Hume, published in 1748. It was a simplification of an earlier effort, Hume\\\\''s A Treatise of Human Nature, published anonymously in London in 1739–1740. Hume was disappointed with the reception of the Treatise \\\\"fell dead-born from the press,\\\\" as he put it, and so tried again to disseminate his ideas to the public by writing a shorter and more polemical work.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe end product of his labors was the Enquiry. The Enquiry dispensed with much of the material from the Treatise, in favor of clarifying and emphasizing its most important aspects. For example, Hume\\\\''s views on personal identity, do not appear. However, more vital propositions, such as Hume\\\\''s argument for the role of habit in a theory of knowledge, are retained.\\r\\n\\r\\nThis book was highly influential, both in the years that would immediately follow and today. Immanuel Kant points to it as the book which woke him from his self-described \\\\"dogmatic slumber\\\\". The Enquiry is widely regarded as a classic in modern philosophical literature.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-29 07:05:50'", "year": " 1748", "page_views": " 229", "id": 386, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Thomas Aquinas'", "title": "Summa Theologica I", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Summa Theologica (or the Summa Theologiae or simply the Summa, written 1265–1274) is the most famous work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) although it was never finished. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of that time. It summarizes the reasonings for almost all points of Christian theology in the West, which, before the Protestant Reformation, subsisted solely in the Roman Catholic Church. The Summa\\\\''s topics follow a cycle: the existence of God, God\\\\''s creation, Man, Man\\\\''s purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God. It is famous for its five arguments for the existence of God, the Quinquae viae (Latin: five ways). Throughout his work, Aquinas cites Augustine, Aristotle, and other Christian, Jewish and even Muslim and ancient pagan scholars.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Summa Theologica is a more mature and structured version of Aquinas\\\\''s earlier Summa Contra Gentiles. This earlier work was more apologetic, each article refuting a belief of a heresy. Aquinas\\\\''s death left the Summa, perhaps the greatest theological statement of the Middle Ages, unfinished.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-29 08:12:02'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 966", "id": 387, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Charles Darwin'", "title": "The Descent of Man", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Descent of Man, and Selection in Relation to Sex is a book on evolutionary theory by English naturalist Charles Darwin, first published in 1871. It was Darwin\\\\''s second large book on evolutionary theory, following his 1859 work, The Origin of Species, and is concerned with outlining the application of Darwin\\\\''s theory to human evolution, and detailing the theory of sexual selection. The book touches on a number of related issues, including evolutionary psychology, evolutionary ethics, differences between human races, differences between human sexes, and the relevance of the evolutionary theory to society.'", "created_on": " '2008-08-01 09:54:08'", "year": " 1871", "page_views": " 390", "id": 389, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Thomas Aquinas'", "title": "Summa Theologica III", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Summa Theologica (or the Summa Theologiae or simply the Summa, written 1265–1274) is the most famous work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) although it was never finished. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of that time. It summarizes the reasonings for almost all points of Christian theology in the West, which, before the Protestant Reformation, subsisted solely in the Roman Catholic Church. The Summa\\\\''s topics follow a cycle: the existence of God, God\\\\''s creation, Man, Man\\\\''s purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God. It is famous for its five arguments for the existence of God, the Quinquae viae (Latin: five ways). Throughout his work, Aquinas cites Augustine, Aristotle, and other Christian, Jewish and even Muslim and ancient pagan scholars.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Summa Theologica is a more mature and structured version of Aquinas\\\\''s earlier Summa Contra Gentiles. This earlier work was more apologetic, each article refuting a belief of a heresy. Aquinas\\\\''s death left the Summa, perhaps the greatest theological statement of the Middle Ages, unfinished.'", "created_on": " '2008-07-31 11:11:38'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1106", "id": 388, "wordpress_url": " ''"},{"author": " 'Saint Thomas Aquinas'", "title": "Summa Theologica I-II", "intro_essay": " ''", "summary": " 'The Summa Theologica (or the Summa Theologiae or simply the Summa, written 1265–1274) is the most famous work of Thomas Aquinas (c. 1225–1274) although it was never finished. It was intended as a manual for beginners as a compilation of all of the main theological teachings of that time. It summarizes the reasonings for almost all points of Christian theology in the West, which, before the Protestant Reformation, subsisted solely in the Roman Catholic Church. The Summa\\\\''s topics follow a cycle: the existence of God, God\\\\''s creation, Man, Man\\\\''s purpose, Christ, the Sacraments, and back to God. It is famous for its five arguments for the existence of God, the Quinquae viae (Latin: five ways). Throughout his work, Aquinas cites Augustine, Aristotle, and other Christian, Jewish and even Muslim and ancient pagan scholars.\\r\\n\\r\\nThe Summa Theologica is a more mature and structured version of Aquinas\\\\''s earlier Summa Contra Gentiles. This earlier work was more apologetic, each article refuting a belief of a heresy. Aquinas\\\\''s death left the Summa, perhaps the greatest theological statement of the Middle Ages, unfinished.'", "created_on": " '2008-08-01 13:18:13'", "year": " 0", "page_views": " 1106", "id": 390, "wordpress_url": " ''"}]