I’ve never been someone known to delve into the deeper meaning of art. Honestly, I’m usually the person that passes a piece in a museum after 5 seconds of surface level observation and never takes the time to give it a second thought again. That being said, this week has actually been interesting to me. There is a lot of thought and meaning that artists put into their work that we can discover after examining it for a while. Even down to the meaning in the little details, such as whether the lines are horizontal, vertical, round, etc.. Everything that they paint, draw, or whatever they choose to do has a deeper meaning that they want us to realize on our own time and in our own way, and I honestly never thought that artists put that much thought into their pieces. I think it’s interesting how these little details all put together can evoke a certain feeling. For example, I would have never thought on my own that symmetrical balance created the feeling of stability while asymmetry created movement.
The cultural influence on artwork during different time periods is another thing that became prevalent to me in our reading this week. Most of the earlier stuff that we’re talking about revolves around the church or at least has a bit of that influence. These pieces are serious and are trying to portray a specific message. In today’s world with all of the social media sites and photo editing capabilities we have in literally the palm of our hands has made everyone an artist in their own way. Today’s art the majority of the time is somebody interpreting a cultural experience from their own perspective (let’s be honest, mainly through Instagram). I feel like art has almost become more informal and less serious in a way, and that the days of large biblical paintings on cathedral ceilings are long over.
Response (8/30/13)
On Wednesday I visited the art museum to get an idea for the upcoming essay, and I think this event has been the most impactful on me this week. Although I know it is no particularly related to the class in this particular week, I figure it’s all right since it’s related at all. I am very much so a visual learner. Nothing I learn will ever stick in my brain unless I’m able to see it, write it down, or draw it out in some way. This is why it was very interesting for me to visit the museum and take a look at all of the Renaissance art. Being able to look as several pieces and read a little bit about them really gave me some good insight into the time period. I noticed many similar themes (especially biblical themes) in many of the pieces that related back to what we had been talking about in class not only this week, but last week as well. It was just interesting to me to see the correlation in an environment outside of the classroom.
I also enjoyed reading/discussing the Consolation of Philosophy. We kind of started to talk about it at the end of class, but I wish we could have gone deeper into Philosophy’s response to Boethius. I found this to be the most interesting part of the piece. It was interesting to me that Philosophy told him that he basically had an attitude problem, and that just because he is not on the receiving end of fortune, he was letting his thoughts cloud the reality of the situation. At first I sympathized with Boethius and if I were in his position I would have thought exactly what he thought about life being unfair. So it was kind of a shock to me when Philosophy said what she did, because I would have never looked at it from that perspective. Now that I’ve read her response, I think it’s interesting and quite accurate the way she explains it. I think a lot of the time most of us blame the world (or maybe even God) when things don’t go the way we want them to, and we just need to take the time to evaluate the situation and realize that, no, everything does have divine reason, and we may just be letting our thoughts get the best of us.
Response (9/13/13)
I was really excited to start reading Dante’s Inferno. I’ve never read it before, but I’ve heard a lot about it, so I was eager to dive into the piece. What I find most interesting is that for every sin, there is a fitting punishment. Those who committed lust related sins are condemned to an eternity of spinning around in uncontrollable winds. This is obviously suitable because people who are taken over by lust can’t seem to control themselves, just like the winds cannot be controlled. It makes sense that for whatever sin put these people in Hell, they must deal with a punishment that does the same to them. It wouldn’t be logical for everyone who ever committed any sin at all to suffer the same punishment. It is also interesting to me how the levels (or circles) of Hell are arranged. At first I thought it was simple ordered in a hierarchy of what angered God the most, which I guess is still pretty much true. At the end of class though, we mentioned how the last circle of Hell, treachery, was the lowest because it is a very human sin. That thought had never previously crossed my mind. However, I think that some of the sins in the upper levels could be strictly reserved to humans as well. I don’t imagine other animals like bears or deer are going around acting out of lust or gluttony. I think that after animals get what they need, they’re done with it, where as humans have the capability to go above and beyond and obtain more of something they want (like sex, food, etc.). Humans are the only ones who even have the capability to think that they’re entitled to more than they need, and actively seek it out. So not I’m not so sure that it makes sense to me that treachery is the lowest circle of Hell because it is a strictly human action…
Response (9/20/13)
Dante’s Inferno was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It was very clever how every sin had a specific punishment that made sense with what the person did wrong. The only thing that still confuses me about this whole thing is the fact that Dante is not only the main character, but also the poet who wrote this piece. It’s weird that he writes out Dante the characters actions, but not always his thoughts. If it’s him, he obviously knows what he thought when he was going through this, so why does he sometimes leave things out? I just don’t quite understand the difference in the roles that Dante plays as main character and author at the same time. Another concern of mine is the fact that he name drops a lot. Like we brought up in class Friday, what did these people and others of the time think about the things he said about others and the places he put them in Hell? Or what did they think about the fact that Dante came up with punishments for people and their sins? Doesn’t that make him kind of seem like he thought he had some divine right or insight to know or even assume what would happen to people if they committed these specific types of sins? I just think it was a little bold of him to go ahead and give himself the authority to place people in specific rings of hell and deal out a punishment for them when really he was just an ordinary person like all of the others. I wonder what others of the time (more specifically the people he mentions by name) thought about all of that.
Response (9/27/13)
When we started the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, we were told to be on the look out for which characters were being satirized and which characters were being praised. In the General Prologue, it was fairly easy to tell. The Summoner for example was one of the people cleverly being made fun of. The author cleverly writes that the Summoner is a “good person” because for a quart of wine, he will allow them to borrow his concubine and let them get off scot-free. This makes it clear that the author doesn’t approve of the shady nature of the Summoner and what he does with his time on the side when he’s supposed to be a figure for the church. He should live out his morals instead of contradicting every thing he should stand for given his job title.
As far as the Wife of Bath goes, I’m not completely certain which people the author is trying to satirize, although I’m leaning towards the thought that he means to satirize women. The Wife of Bath’s live (given her multiple marriages) goes against much of what the church has to say in this story, and the whole time she’s trying to argue her side of things. She jumps from husband to husband, only desiring money, power, and sex. She is not the typical connotation of original feminism, where the wife is a homemaker, and obeys her husband. In fact, she is quite the opposite. Because of this, I think it’s the women that desire money, power, and sex that are being satirized.
Response (10/4/2013)
I didn’t know that More invented the word utopia. I think it’s interesting that he had an idea first, then wrote a story, and then created a word that would most appropriately fit the ideas that he was trying to convey. I’m thinking that I’ll do my first essay as a creative interpretation of my idea of a current utopia.
Something that struck me as the most interesting is his idea of the hierarchy of family roles. When discussing undoubtedly good things, versus unrealistic aspects of the utopia in class, I was torn between which category this would fall under. On one hand, it may be considered as something good, because everyone has a clear understanding of his or her role. Obviously it would be ideal for the men, because they are on the top of the hierarchy. Women do the light work and men obey their parents. Of course, the flip side of this is that it could be considered impossible because it’s not human nature for everyone to behave this way. Even if it was some unwritten rule, everyone has different personalities (some stronger than others) and wouldn’t allow someone to tell them what work they should do and whom they should obey. Also it could be unrealistic for all kids to be respectful of their parents. Some kids are real brats and do the exact opposite of everything their parents say. It would be impossible for every kid to have such an easy going way about them that would allow them to listen to and do everything their parents asked. Even after typing all of this out, I’m still not sure which category this would fall under…
Response (10/11/13) Kaitlyn, I think both ideas would work. I would go with whichever one you are most interested in. With the utopia idea, you have to think about whether you want to apply More's ideas (say, about money and private property as the cause of social problems) or if you want to parody or satirize some aspect of contemporary life (i.e., sororities). You can try to do both at the same time--just be aware of what you're doing. The Conference of the Birds example would work if you can think of an appropriate story. - MH
For my paper, I’m thinking about doing the argument over the modern relevance of a piece. I also think that I’m going to take a creative approach to this paper. I have a few ideas of what I’d like to do, but the idea that is most solid in my mind is making a modern version of Utopia. This will argue for the modern relevancy of the work, because if I can write it with the same structure and general ideas as the original work, but put a modern spin on it, then it would obviously be applicable today. Most likely, I’d do something along the lines of a “white girl” utopia, or a sorority girl utopia. Everyone would have pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and crafting would be the job most readily available. Obviously there’s a little bit of me making fun of us sorority girls in there, but the author was originally writing of a place that he thought was perfect but could actually never exist. So I’d try to keep that vibe while bringing it to modern terms.
Another idea I had was to do some kind of creative piece (maybe a journal entry or narrative) based on the ideas of the Conference of the Birds. In this I would have the main character be looking for something, or trying to figure out some problem that would eventually lead them to themselves as the answer, and basically tie in the idea that sometimes all we’re looking for is something that we already possess, or something that we already knew without realizing we knew. I don’t know, what do you think, Mr. Hartman?
Response (10/25/13)
It was very interesting to see everyone’s interpretations of the stories we read when we did newscasts in class. These, along with what we discussed in class today made me realize people never think that what they do is not normal. If they thought that they were doing something wrong, they would make corrective actions against it and change what they were doing. People are also innately intolerant of others that aren’t like them. When we encounter someone or something that is different than us, our first response is to judge them and critique what they’re doing. We like to point out how all of the ways that differ from us are wrong so we can feel better about what we do. We don’t take the time beforehand to consider our own faults and what we do wrong on a daily basis, but rather we immediately attack the opposing side. This really doesn’t do any good at all. If we took the time to analyze why others do what they do, then maybe we could learn something instead of making ourselves look mean and ignorant. This idea is kind of like what Rachel brought up in class today. We could have learned so much from the natives in the new world, but really all the Europeans did was kill them off instead of analyzing how they lived and learning from it.
Response (11/1)
I wasn’t in class on Monday, and we didn’t have class on Friday, so really all I have to comment on is Tartuffe and the presentation. I thought it was a reeeeally good idea to put the videos online to go along with our reading of Tartuffe. Good call, Mr. Hartman! Honestly as I was reading it the plot and many different personalities confused me. I’m always awful with reading satire too. I’m never sure when they’re being satirical and when they’re trying to be serious. The video really helped with that, though. It’s not only more interesting, but more obvious to pick up on the comedy of the piece when you can watch a performance of it. I enjoyed our class discussion on who was the real villain in the story. It’s obvious that Tartuffe is a villain in the story for obvious reasons, but it was interesting to look at Orgon as a potential villain as well. He’s pretty awful to his family in the beginning, and while I agree that that’s not a good thing to do, I don’t necessarily think it makes him the villain for the entire story. Overall, Tartuffe does much worse things and does them many more times that Orgon does, and what Tartuffe does is malicious to almost everyone but himself, while Orgon is really only mean to his family. So, while Orgon might be a bad excuse for a father, I really still think that Tartuffe is much more villainous that him in the long run.
Response (11/8)
Monday in class, when we were discussing An Essay on Man, there were a few things that I wanted to say but didn’t get the chance to. (And let’s be honest, I talk way to much as it is in this class so I should probably just shut up). In the 4th section, there is a passage that says, “Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust”. Basically, it’s saying that humans can go around and hunt animals just for sport, but when God does something to us that we don’t think is fair (maybe somebody we know dies) then we immediately blame him and say that He is unjust. One of the reasons I found this passage in particular to be so interesting is that I hunt. I know some people have different opinions on it, and that some believe it’s cruel while others (like myself) think it’s perfectly fine and we do it for sport. But no matter what you think, it’s a fact that hunter’s go out and decide the fate of whatever game they’re after. If we never would have went out a certain day, maybe the animal we killed would have lived. At the time, the deer, goose, pheasant, whatever it was, doesn’t know why their friend was killed, but we, as the hunter, know exactly why we did it. Maybe this is a stretch, but I think maybe that’s what Pope was trying to illustrate with the whole God-Human relationship. He may do things that we don’t think should have happened, and we might not realize why they were done, but really God knows exactly why He did these things, and it’s not really our place to question it, because he has a plan.
Response (11/15)
I took a creative approach to argue the contemporary relevancy last time, so this time I'll be doing a traditional paper comparing and contrasting two works. I was thinking about doing Pope's Essay on Man and Candide. Instead of finding similarities and differences with the works as a whole, I was thinking about focusing more on individual characters' opinions. Pope's piece is all his perspective while Candide has multiple characters, so I would compare different character's opinions in Candide with Pope's and whether or not they match up to get the compare/contrast aspect of the paper. (If this isn't really something you'd allow me to do though, let me know). I just think that these two works touch on many of the same topics and it's interesting that some characters in Candide seem like they would agree with what Pope has to say while others may have gotten into a debate with him.
Kaitlyn, this sounds like a good idea and something you can do. I'm curious to find out how similar you think Pangloss is to Pope. You might think about why Voltaire portrays many different points of view and Pope gives just one. -MH
Response (12/06)
It has been refreshing to take a break from reading and looking at art, and to start looking at music instead. When I was younger, I was chosen to be a part of the FAME program where we helped compose (but let's be honest we didn't do much of the composing) an orchestral piece and then paint pictures to go along with it. It was really interesting because we were there throughout the development of the music, so we could really put our own spin on what we thought it would look like if it were put into pictures and they were displayed when the piece was played by the Fort Wayne Symphony, so it would definitely influence people to think about it the way that we wanted them to. This week reminded me a lot of that experience. It is easy to see how a story develops from music if you just close your eyes and listen. It really doesn't take any thought, skill, or effort. Almost immediately the music will put images in your head and you can create your own story to go along with it. Thats what I like about music (and math) -- it's universal. There are no language barriers that inhibit it's progress or the enjoyment by other groups of people. You don't have to know someone's language or culture to understand their music. You just have to listen.
I’ve never been someone known to delve into the deeper meaning of art. Honestly, I’m usually the person that passes a piece in a museum after 5 seconds of surface level observation and never takes the time to give it a second thought again. That being said, this week has actually been interesting to me. There is a lot of thought and meaning that artists put into their work that we can discover after examining it for a while. Even down to the meaning in the little details, such as whether the lines are horizontal, vertical, round, etc.. Everything that they paint, draw, or whatever they choose to do has a deeper meaning that they want us to realize on our own time and in our own way, and I honestly never thought that artists put that much thought into their pieces. I think it’s interesting how these little details all put together can evoke a certain feeling. For example, I would have never thought on my own that symmetrical balance created the feeling of stability while asymmetry created movement.
The cultural influence on artwork during different time periods is another thing that became prevalent to me in our reading this week. Most of the earlier stuff that we’re talking about revolves around the church or at least has a bit of that influence. These pieces are serious and are trying to portray a specific message. In today’s world with all of the social media sites and photo editing capabilities we have in literally the palm of our hands has made everyone an artist in their own way. Today’s art the majority of the time is somebody interpreting a cultural experience from their own perspective (let’s be honest, mainly through Instagram). I feel like art has almost become more informal and less serious in a way, and that the days of large biblical paintings on cathedral ceilings are long over.
Response (8/30/13)
On Wednesday I visited the art museum to get an idea for the upcoming essay, and I think this event has been the most impactful on me this week. Although I know it is no particularly related to the class in this particular week, I figure it’s all right since it’s related at all. I am very much so a visual learner. Nothing I learn will ever stick in my brain unless I’m able to see it, write it down, or draw it out in some way. This is why it was very interesting for me to visit the museum and take a look at all of the Renaissance art. Being able to look as several pieces and read a little bit about them really gave me some good insight into the time period. I noticed many similar themes (especially biblical themes) in many of the pieces that related back to what we had been talking about in class not only this week, but last week as well. It was just interesting to me to see the correlation in an environment outside of the classroom.
I also enjoyed reading/discussing the Consolation of Philosophy. We kind of started to talk about it at the end of class, but I wish we could have gone deeper into Philosophy’s response to Boethius. I found this to be the most interesting part of the piece. It was interesting to me that Philosophy told him that he basically had an attitude problem, and that just because he is not on the receiving end of fortune, he was letting his thoughts cloud the reality of the situation. At first I sympathized with Boethius and if I were in his position I would have thought exactly what he thought about life being unfair. So it was kind of a shock to me when Philosophy said what she did, because I would have never looked at it from that perspective. Now that I’ve read her response, I think it’s interesting and quite accurate the way she explains it. I think a lot of the time most of us blame the world (or maybe even God) when things don’t go the way we want them to, and we just need to take the time to evaluate the situation and realize that, no, everything does have divine reason, and we may just be letting our thoughts get the best of us.
Response (9/13/13)
I was really excited to start reading Dante’s Inferno. I’ve never read it before, but I’ve heard a lot about it, so I was eager to dive into the piece. What I find most interesting is that for every sin, there is a fitting punishment. Those who committed lust related sins are condemned to an eternity of spinning around in uncontrollable winds. This is obviously suitable because people who are taken over by lust can’t seem to control themselves, just like the winds cannot be controlled. It makes sense that for whatever sin put these people in Hell, they must deal with a punishment that does the same to them. It wouldn’t be logical for everyone who ever committed any sin at all to suffer the same punishment. It is also interesting to me how the levels (or circles) of Hell are arranged. At first I thought it was simple ordered in a hierarchy of what angered God the most, which I guess is still pretty much true. At the end of class though, we mentioned how the last circle of Hell, treachery, was the lowest because it is a very human sin. That thought had never previously crossed my mind. However, I think that some of the sins in the upper levels could be strictly reserved to humans as well. I don’t imagine other animals like bears or deer are going around acting out of lust or gluttony. I think that after animals get what they need, they’re done with it, where as humans have the capability to go above and beyond and obtain more of something they want (like sex, food, etc.). Humans are the only ones who even have the capability to think that they’re entitled to more than they need, and actively seek it out. So not I’m not so sure that it makes sense to me that treachery is the lowest circle of Hell because it is a strictly human action…
Response (9/20/13)
Dante’s Inferno was a lot more interesting than I thought it would be. It was very clever how every sin had a specific punishment that made sense with what the person did wrong. The only thing that still confuses me about this whole thing is the fact that Dante is not only the main character, but also the poet who wrote this piece. It’s weird that he writes out Dante the characters actions, but not always his thoughts. If it’s him, he obviously knows what he thought when he was going through this, so why does he sometimes leave things out? I just don’t quite understand the difference in the roles that Dante plays as main character and author at the same time. Another concern of mine is the fact that he name drops a lot. Like we brought up in class Friday, what did these people and others of the time think about the things he said about others and the places he put them in Hell? Or what did they think about the fact that Dante came up with punishments for people and their sins? Doesn’t that make him kind of seem like he thought he had some divine right or insight to know or even assume what would happen to people if they committed these specific types of sins? I just think it was a little bold of him to go ahead and give himself the authority to place people in specific rings of hell and deal out a punishment for them when really he was just an ordinary person like all of the others. I wonder what others of the time (more specifically the people he mentions by name) thought about all of that.
Response (9/27/13)
When we started the General Prologue of the Canterbury Tales, we were told to be on the look out for which characters were being satirized and which characters were being praised. In the General Prologue, it was fairly easy to tell. The Summoner for example was one of the people cleverly being made fun of. The author cleverly writes that the Summoner is a “good person” because for a quart of wine, he will allow them to borrow his concubine and let them get off scot-free. This makes it clear that the author doesn’t approve of the shady nature of the Summoner and what he does with his time on the side when he’s supposed to be a figure for the church. He should live out his morals instead of contradicting every thing he should stand for given his job title.
As far as the Wife of Bath goes, I’m not completely certain which people the author is trying to satirize, although I’m leaning towards the thought that he means to satirize women. The Wife of Bath’s live (given her multiple marriages) goes against much of what the church has to say in this story, and the whole time she’s trying to argue her side of things. She jumps from husband to husband, only desiring money, power, and sex. She is not the typical connotation of original feminism, where the wife is a homemaker, and obeys her husband. In fact, she is quite the opposite. Because of this, I think it’s the women that desire money, power, and sex that are being satirized.
Response (10/4/2013)
I didn’t know that More invented the word utopia. I think it’s interesting that he had an idea first, then wrote a story, and then created a word that would most appropriately fit the ideas that he was trying to convey. I’m thinking that I’ll do my first essay as a creative interpretation of my idea of a current utopia.
Something that struck me as the most interesting is his idea of the hierarchy of family roles. When discussing undoubtedly good things, versus unrealistic aspects of the utopia in class, I was torn between which category this would fall under. On one hand, it may be considered as something good, because everyone has a clear understanding of his or her role. Obviously it would be ideal for the men, because they are on the top of the hierarchy. Women do the light work and men obey their parents. Of course, the flip side of this is that it could be considered impossible because it’s not human nature for everyone to behave this way. Even if it was some unwritten rule, everyone has different personalities (some stronger than others) and wouldn’t allow someone to tell them what work they should do and whom they should obey. Also it could be unrealistic for all kids to be respectful of their parents. Some kids are real brats and do the exact opposite of everything their parents say. It would be impossible for every kid to have such an easy going way about them that would allow them to listen to and do everything their parents asked. Even after typing all of this out, I’m still not sure which category this would fall under…
Response (10/11/13)
Kaitlyn, I think both ideas would work. I would go with whichever one you are most interested in. With the utopia idea, you have to think about whether you want to apply More's ideas (say, about money and private property as the cause of social problems) or if you want to parody or satirize some aspect of contemporary life (i.e., sororities). You can try to do both at the same time--just be aware of what you're doing. The Conference of the Birds example would work if you can think of an appropriate story. - MH
For my paper, I’m thinking about doing the argument over the modern relevance of a piece. I also think that I’m going to take a creative approach to this paper. I have a few ideas of what I’d like to do, but the idea that is most solid in my mind is making a modern version of Utopia. This will argue for the modern relevancy of the work, because if I can write it with the same structure and general ideas as the original work, but put a modern spin on it, then it would obviously be applicable today. Most likely, I’d do something along the lines of a “white girl” utopia, or a sorority girl utopia. Everyone would have pumpkin spice lattes from Starbucks, and crafting would be the job most readily available. Obviously there’s a little bit of me making fun of us sorority girls in there, but the author was originally writing of a place that he thought was perfect but could actually never exist. So I’d try to keep that vibe while bringing it to modern terms.
Another idea I had was to do some kind of creative piece (maybe a journal entry or narrative) based on the ideas of the Conference of the Birds. In this I would have the main character be looking for something, or trying to figure out some problem that would eventually lead them to themselves as the answer, and basically tie in the idea that sometimes all we’re looking for is something that we already possess, or something that we already knew without realizing we knew. I don’t know, what do you think, Mr. Hartman?
Response (10/25/13)
It was very interesting to see everyone’s interpretations of the stories we read when we did newscasts in class. These, along with what we discussed in class today made me realize people never think that what they do is not normal. If they thought that they were doing something wrong, they would make corrective actions against it and change what they were doing. People are also innately intolerant of others that aren’t like them. When we encounter someone or something that is different than us, our first response is to judge them and critique what they’re doing. We like to point out how all of the ways that differ from us are wrong so we can feel better about what we do. We don’t take the time beforehand to consider our own faults and what we do wrong on a daily basis, but rather we immediately attack the opposing side. This really doesn’t do any good at all. If we took the time to analyze why others do what they do, then maybe we could learn something instead of making ourselves look mean and ignorant. This idea is kind of like what Rachel brought up in class today. We could have learned so much from the natives in the new world, but really all the Europeans did was kill them off instead of analyzing how they lived and learning from it.
Response (11/1)
I wasn’t in class on Monday, and we didn’t have class on Friday, so really all I have to comment on is Tartuffe and the presentation. I thought it was a reeeeally good idea to put the videos online to go along with our reading of Tartuffe. Good call, Mr. Hartman! Honestly as I was reading it the plot and many different personalities confused me. I’m always awful with reading satire too. I’m never sure when they’re being satirical and when they’re trying to be serious. The video really helped with that, though. It’s not only more interesting, but more obvious to pick up on the comedy of the piece when you can watch a performance of it. I enjoyed our class discussion on who was the real villain in the story. It’s obvious that Tartuffe is a villain in the story for obvious reasons, but it was interesting to look at Orgon as a potential villain as well. He’s pretty awful to his family in the beginning, and while I agree that that’s not a good thing to do, I don’t necessarily think it makes him the villain for the entire story. Overall, Tartuffe does much worse things and does them many more times that Orgon does, and what Tartuffe does is malicious to almost everyone but himself, while Orgon is really only mean to his family. So, while Orgon might be a bad excuse for a father, I really still think that Tartuffe is much more villainous that him in the long run.
Response (11/8)
Monday in class, when we were discussing An Essay on Man, there were a few things that I wanted to say but didn’t get the chance to. (And let’s be honest, I talk way to much as it is in this class so I should probably just shut up). In the 4th section, there is a passage that says, “Destroy all creatures for thy sport or gust, Yet cry, if man’s unhappy, God’s unjust”. Basically, it’s saying that humans can go around and hunt animals just for sport, but when God does something to us that we don’t think is fair (maybe somebody we know dies) then we immediately blame him and say that He is unjust. One of the reasons I found this passage in particular to be so interesting is that I hunt. I know some people have different opinions on it, and that some believe it’s cruel while others (like myself) think it’s perfectly fine and we do it for sport. But no matter what you think, it’s a fact that hunter’s go out and decide the fate of whatever game they’re after. If we never would have went out a certain day, maybe the animal we killed would have lived. At the time, the deer, goose, pheasant, whatever it was, doesn’t know why their friend was killed, but we, as the hunter, know exactly why we did it. Maybe this is a stretch, but I think maybe that’s what Pope was trying to illustrate with the whole God-Human relationship. He may do things that we don’t think should have happened, and we might not realize why they were done, but really God knows exactly why He did these things, and it’s not really our place to question it, because he has a plan.
Response (11/15)
I took a creative approach to argue the contemporary relevancy last time, so this time I'll be doing a traditional paper comparing and contrasting two works. I was thinking about doing Pope's Essay on Man and Candide. Instead of finding similarities and differences with the works as a whole, I was thinking about focusing more on individual characters' opinions. Pope's piece is all his perspective while Candide has multiple characters, so I would compare different character's opinions in Candide with Pope's and whether or not they match up to get the compare/contrast aspect of the paper. (If this isn't really something you'd allow me to do though, let me know). I just think that these two works touch on many of the same topics and it's interesting that some characters in Candide seem like they would agree with what Pope has to say while others may have gotten into a debate with him.
Kaitlyn, this sounds like a good idea and something you can do. I'm curious to find out how similar you think Pangloss is to Pope. You might think about why Voltaire portrays many different points of view and Pope gives just one. -MH
Response (12/06)
It has been refreshing to take a break from reading and looking at art, and to start looking at music instead. When I was younger, I was chosen to be a part of the FAME program where we helped compose (but let's be honest we didn't do much of the composing) an orchestral piece and then paint pictures to go along with it. It was really interesting because we were there throughout the development of the music, so we could really put our own spin on what we thought it would look like if it were put into pictures and they were displayed when the piece was played by the Fort Wayne Symphony, so it would definitely influence people to think about it the way that we wanted them to. This week reminded me a lot of that experience. It is easy to see how a story develops from music if you just close your eyes and listen. It really doesn't take any thought, skill, or effort. Almost immediately the music will put images in your head and you can create your own story to go along with it. Thats what I like about music (and math) -- it's universal. There are no language barriers that inhibit it's progress or the enjoyment by other groups of people. You don't have to know someone's language or culture to understand their music. You just have to listen.