More Faust Questions (for Meeting on December 27th, 2010)

If one reads Goethe's Faust as an allegory, what do the following characters represent:

Mephistopheles
Faust
Wagner
Gretchen
Martha
Valentine

Now that you've thought about this, is it correct to read Faust as an allegory?

Read and interpret the climactic last scene (the "Dungeon" scene). Must Gretchen resist Faust (p.291-292) in order to be redeemed? How and why is she redeemed?

During the initial scene in Faust's study (p. 179), Faust gives us his critique of the opening line of the Book of John, "In the beginning was the Word." What comes first, the Word, the Thought, the Power, or the Deed?

On page 202, Mephistopheles says,

It's exactly where a thought is lacking
That just in time, a word shows up instead.
With words you can argue beautifully,
With words you can make up a system,
A word's a beautiful thing to believe in,
Not one iota can be taken from a word.

Are words effective substitutes for thought?

Is Faust a critique of academic and intellectual culture? Of the "examined life" in general?

For example, on page 244 Faust says to Gretchen,

Believe me, dearest, what men call intelligent
Often is pedantry and self-conceit.

In the second scene in Faust's study, how does Faust, according to the Chorus of Spirits, destroy "the beautiful world" with his curses of hope, faith, and (most of all), patience (p. 191)? Interpret their response:

We carry
The ruins to nothingness
And weep for the lost beauty.
O mighty
Among the sons of earth,
Build it again, more magnificent,
Build it in your own breast!

Why do Faust and Mephistopheles go to Hartz Mountain for Walpurgis night? What is the significance of the events that take place there?

Why does God permit Mephistopheles to tempt Faust in the first place?

Why is Faust so despondent that he contemplates suicide at the beginning of the play?

Is Faust a hero? villain? antihero?

The Last Universal Man?

To the left you see a portrait of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (1749-1832). It was painted by Gerhard von Kügelgen in 1808. That was the year Faust, Part One was first published. It was also the year that Goethe met Napoleon (a big fan of Goethe's novel The Sorrows of Young Werther) in the German city of Erfurt.

It is remarkable to note that Faust, Part One wasn't performed for the first time until 1829, twenty years later, in Brunswick. This speaks to some of the difficulties in staging this work. As one of our discussants noted in our meeting last week, getting horses up on stage (as directed) can be a challenge.

Goethe can be considered the last universal man. He was a man of letters and a man of science. He is credited with founding the science of morphology and "discovered" the intermaxillary bone in humans. He put forward a powerful critique of Newton's optics. He also had a longstanding interest in meteorology.

Goethe's aesthetic concerns jibed with this scientific interests. Morphology, for example, can be a form of poetry in the way it matches object and word.

It is the persistence of Goethe's intellect that most qualifies him as a "universal." A close reading of Faust confirms this. Goethe spent at least 40 years writing and revising the two parts of Faust. His motto, after all, was

Ohne rast aber ohne hast.

Which, translated into English, means "Without rest BUT without haste."

Resource: Steuer, Daniel, "In defence of experience: Goethe's natural investigation," In The Cambridge Companion to Goethe," Lesley Sharpe, ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.

Discussion questions re: Goethe's Faust

Is the heaven of the Prologue a Christian heaven?

What is the wager between Faust and Mephistopheles? What does each party stand to gain or lose?

Why does Mephistopheles tell Faust he must be asked into the study three times before he will comply with the invitation?

Why does Mephistopheles first appear as a black poodle?

What is the meaning of Mephistopheles's remark to Faust (p. 196) that "Time's short, my friend, and art is long"?

Why does Mephistopheles (p. 199) encourage the student to enroll first in a course of logic?

Why does Faust say that if he's not able to seduce Gretchen, then Mephistopheles will be through with him?

How and why does the witch-potion cause Faust to "see a Helen in every housewife" (p. 225)?

Why does Gretchen say (p. 260), "And now I'm just as bad myself!/But -- everything that made me do it/God was so good! Oh, was so sweet! (p. 261)"

What's the reason Mephistopheles takes Faust to Walpurgisnacht to take his mind off the terrible consequences of his liaison with Gretchen?

Why does the dialogue change to prose in Chapter xxiii (p.283) ("Dreary Day")

Why did Goethe choose his settings (e.g., Burgdorf, Auerbach's Celler in Leipzig, the Witch's Kitchen)?

Morphed

Many thanks to the twenty participants in Monday's meeting on Kafka's "Metamorphosis." It certainly confirmed the results of Professor Stanley Corngold's study in which he put forward one hundred and thirty different interpretations of the story.

Members of the group also enlightened us on sundry related topics such as the similarity of Gregor Samsa's name to the Sanskrit word "samsara," which means rebirth and renewal, and the diet of the dung beetle.

I realized at the end of the evening that I had forgotten to pose my "big question": If one reads "Metamorphosis" as a fable (i.e., of a man who turns into an insect, and of the reactions of his parents and sister to this circumstance), then what is the moral to be drawn from it?

I could attribute my lapse to being "under the influence" of Kafka, in whose world trivial questions can become quite important (and vice versa). At any rate, responses are welcomed.

"The Metamorphosis" : Questions for Discussion

Interpretive Questions

Why does Gregor worry about his job when's he's been transformed into a giant cockroach?

Why did the chief clerk show up at Gregor's home to inquire why he was not on the early train? (p.97)

Why does Gregor have no appetite for fresh food? (p.112)

Why do his sister's "ministrations" oppress Gregor (p. 117)?

When Grete sees Gregor on the wallpaper, Kafka tells us it "was the first time she had directly addressed him since his metamorphosis (p. 124)." Why not before?

Why does Mr. Samsa throw the apples at Gregor (p. 127)?

Why did the three lodgers have a "passion for order," especially in the kitchen (p. 133)?

Why did the charwoman wear an ostrich feather, and why did it annoy Mr. Samsa (p. 145)?

Are the changes Gregor's transformation engenders in his family -- in his father especially -- healthy?

Why does Greta finally decide that the Samsa family household can no longer continue under such conditions?

Is Gregor's decision to disappear a charitable or pathetic act?

Evaluative Questions

If you take the story at its face value (i.e., that Gregor could be transformed into an insect), are the characters' actions believable?

--Are we made to feel at all curious as to why Gregor turned into and insect?

--Does it matter?

Is Gregor Samsa a hero?

Textual Analysis

pp. 120-124, from "And this time he did not peer out from under it" to "fell down onto the middle of the big table."

pp. 135-137, from "Gregor's sister began to play" to "she kept free of any ribbon or collar."

pp. 143-end of story, starting with "At that the door of the Samsa's bedroom opened and Mr. Samsa appeared in his uniform ..."

Kafka-esque?

Franz Kafka's story The Metamorphosis is a fable of a man, Gregor Samsa, who awakes one morning to find himself changed into a giant insect, and of his family's efforts to deal with their former breadwinner's radical transformation.

Elif Batumen recently published a piece in the September 26th New York Times Magazine, "Kafka's Last Trial," on the legal battle over roughly one-third of Kafka's literary estate. This estate, which had been held by Kafka's friend and literary executor, Max Brod, was passed upon Brod's death in 1968 to his former secretary Esther Hoffe. When Hoffe died in 2007 at age 101, her will decreed the transference of the legacy to her daughters, who stated their intention to sell it to the German Literature Archive in Marbach, Germany. The National Library of Israel, however, has claimed rights to the estate under the term's of Brod's will. The case is now being argued in the Israeli courts.

Kafka's work published during his lifetime (which included the Metamorphosis) amounted to less that 450 pages. According to Batumen, however, recent estimates are that a new book on Kafka's work has been published every 10 days for the last 14 years. "Kafka studies now proliferate at a rate inversely proportional to that of Kafka's own production," Elif Batumen writes.

How do we account for the enormous fascination with Kafka? It must have something to do with Kafka having lived on so many levels as an outsider. He was born and raised in Prague of Jewish parents during the final years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and he wrote in German.

He was also a literary outsider. According to Werner Hoffmeister's World Book article on Kafka, he has been identified with Expressionism, Surrealism and Existentialism, yet "his writings do not belong to any particular literary school." You just have to read Kafka on his own terms. Some advice on how you do this comes from no less an august literary man than Albert Camus, who wrote (in his essay "Hope and the Absurd in the work of Franz Kafka") : "Kafka's entire art consists in forcing the reader to re-read."

Questions for September 27th Great Books Discussion

The Huntington Public Library's Great Books Discussion Group meets Monday, September 27th. We will discuss an excerpt from "On Dreams," by Sigmund Freud, from the Great Books Reading and Discussion Program, Fifth Series, Book 1, available at the main library's customer services desk.

My major recommendation to help you prepare is to read Freud's own "specimen dream" concerning Frau E.L. apparently making a "pass" at Freud on page 74 (beginning "company at table or table d'hôte ... spinach was being served ..."). It is only one paragraph. Freud's analysis of this dream is found on pages 74 to 76. Here are some other questions to consider:

1. What is the "manifest content" of Freud's dream?

2. Why does a taximeter remind Freud of a table d'hôte?

3. What is the significance of the Goethe quote "You lead us into life, you make the poor creature guilty."? (M. D. Eder translates this as, "To earth, this weary earth, you bring us, to guilt you let us heedless go").

4. What is a "love that costs nothing"? (p. 88)

5. On page 76 Freud says, "Frau E. L.'s speech in the dream, 'You've always had such beautiful eyes,' can only have meant, 'People have always done everything for you for love; you have always had everything without paying for it [Emphasis added by Freud!]. " Is this indeed what it can only have meant.

6. Freud then says "The truth is, of course, just the contrary: I have always paid dearly for whatever advantage I have had from other people." Do we have any way of evaluating the accuracy of this statement? Clue: read the very next sentence : "the fact that my friend took me home yesterday in a cab without my paying for it must, after all, have made an impression on me."

7. Freud tells us that the dream about Frau E.L. was a variation on something that took place during his courtship of his wife. Is it possible to say that Freud is right or wrong in this interpretation?

8. What do you think is the "latent content" of Freud's dream?

9. Freud says in the last paragraph that his regret at spending a large sum of money on a family member was not a conscious regret. What do you think was the reason for Freud's regret?

10. Is Freud's classification of dreams into three categories in terms of their relation of manifest and latent content (on p. 79) valid? What is the difference between the first and second categories (i.e., "bewildering" dreams and ones that are "disconnected, confused, and meaningless.")

Freud in Dreamland

Our selection this month, "On Dreams," by Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), was first published as part of the monographic serial publication Grenzfragen des Nerven und Seelenlebens in 1901. It was eventually published in its own right in 1911. Freud intended it as a popularization of some of the ideas he put forth in his longer and denser Interpretation of Dreams, which was published a little earlier. As the historian and Freud scholar Peter Gay has noted, "Freud was always his best expounder and advocate." In reading this text, it is helpful to remember that what we have here is Freud in his earlier period. You'll note that the dream he analyzes is his own, and the piece has none of the jargon he later used to promote the psychoanalytic movement with which his name has become so closely identified. I'll also call your attention to the quotation from Goethe's Wilhelm Meister. Goethe's Faust will be the subject of our discussions in November and December.

In Memoriam: Bernard Knox

This morning's New York Times brought news of the death on July 22d at the age of 95 of the renowned classicist, Bernard Knox, author of Oedipus at Thebes: Sophocles' Tragic Hero and His Time (1957). Knox also translated a 1959 edition of our reading this month, Oedipus the King.

According to the Time obituary, Knox was deployed during the Second World War by the Office of Strategic Services (O.S.S.) for service in Northern Italy. He found himself in an abandoned villa and chanced upon a copy of Virgil's Georgics. "As we ran and crawled through the rubble I thought to myself, 'If I ever get out of this, I'm going back to the classics and study them seriously."

To remember Knox, here is his translation of the Chorus's enigmatic musing on mortality -- which some claim was not written by Sophocles but rather added at a later time -- contained in the last lines of Oedipus the King:

Citizens who dwell in Thebes, look at Oedipus here, who knew the answer to the famous riddle and was a power in the land. On his good fortune all the citizens gazed with envy. Into what a stormy sea of dreadful trouble he has come now. Therefore we must call no man happy while he waits to see his last day, not until he has passed the border of life and death without suffering pain.

Questions re: "Oedipus the King"

Do we know why is Thebes suffering a pestilence at the beginning of the play? (p.12)

Why does the chorus say (p. 21):

I neither killed the king nor can declare
the killer, but since Phoebus set the quest
it is his part to tell who the man is.

Why is Teiresias consulted? Why is he led in by a little boy?

Why does Oedipus think Creon put Teiresias up to telling Oedipus that he, Oedipus, was Laius's murderer? Oedipus says Creon wanted to "keep his own mouth free of any guilt," but could there be other reasons?

Why does Jocasta say to Oedipus, upon hearing of the death of Polybus, "Still in your father's death there's light of comfort."

Interpret Jocasta's line (p.52), "O Oedipus, God help you! God keep you from the knowledge of who you are."

Why does the sole survivor on the attack on King Laius's entourage say they were attacked by a band of robbers?

Why does Jocasta kill herself?

Why does Oedipus gouge his eyes out?

Why does Oedipus tell Creon at the end of the play he wants to go to live in Cithaeron, where his parents once sent him to die?

Can we be punished for our actions even if we did them without knowing they were wrong?


For Textual Analysis

From p. 22, "Teiresias, you are versed in everything," to p. 27, the end of Teiresias's speech"

Creon's speech, pp. 34-35, beginning "Not if you reflect on it as I do."

Oedipus's speech, beginning p. 41, "Polybus was my father, king of Corinth" to the end (p. 43)

His interchange with Jocasta and the First Messenger beginnig p. 47, "Ha! Ha! O dear Jocasta to p. 50, "So that from this you're called you present name."

Pages 57 to 58, starting with Oedipus "O O O, they will all come" and then segueing into the choral ode and ending with "my mouth to sleep with your name."

A Few Thoughts on Last Evening's Discussion

Below: Ecclesiastes (the "Preacher"), by Gustave Doré.

Last night twenty of us met to discuss "Ecclesiastes," one of the more challenging texts our group has tackled, despite its relative brevity. Some of us came prepared to delve more deeply into the context of Ecclesiastes with King James, Jerusalem, and Jewish Publication Society editions of the Bible.

My overriding question was: What is the Preacher's prescription for a meaningful life? He is, after all, so given to making grim pronouncements about the brevity of life, the worthlessness of material possessions and worldly fame, the tiring effects of the pursuit of wisdom. All this, in short, is what the Preacher calls the "vanity of vanities," a phrase that perfectly encapsulates what one participant referred to as the cyclical, churning, nature of the Preacher's seemingly endless ruminations. Vanity, to steal a line from Carly Simon, is just s-o-o vain.

The Preacher's Rx (as I came to see it during the course of our 90-minute discussion) : A peaceful resignation to the unfairness of human life, and a consequent re-dedication to your life's work. As the Preacher says (in chapter 9, verse 10) with his inimitable literary flair: "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom in the grave, whither thou goest."

Questions about "Ecclesiastes"

1. Who is speaking? (cf. p. 1, "I the Preacher was king over Israel in Jerusalem"

2. Who is his audience?

3. Page 2: "For in much wisdom is much grief: and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow." What is the Preacher's attitude towards the examined life? Compare the statements on p. 3, "Then I saw that wisdom excelleth folly, as far as light excelleth darkness," and "And how dieth the wise man? as the fool."

4. P. 4. : In the famous section that begins, "To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven," is the Preacher extolling the richness of life, or lamenting our grim destiny? Why must there be a "time to hate"?

5. Page 4: "So I returned" , page 8: "I returned and saw under the sun" From where is the Preacher returning?

Some verses to discuss:

Page 3: "For God giveth to a man that is good in his slight wisdom, and knowledge, and joy: but to the sinner he giveth travail, to gather and to heap up, that he may give to him that is good before God. This is also vanity and vexation of spirit."

Page 6: "The sleep of a labouring man is sweet, whether he eat little or much: but the abundance of the rich will not suffer him to sleep."

Page 6: "As he came forth from his mother's womb, naked shall he return to go as he came, and shall take nothing of his labor, which he may carry in his own hand."

Page 8: "For man also knoweth not his time: as the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare; so are the sons of men snared in an evil time: when it falleth suddenly upon them."

Page 8: "He that observeth the wind shall not sow; and he that regardeth the clouds shall not reap."

Page 9: "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth, and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of thine eyes: but know thou, that for all these things God will bring thee into judgement. Therefore remove sorrow from thy heart, and put away evil from thy flesh: for childhood and youth are vanity." Does this exhortation contradict itself at the end?

Evaluative Question

Does Ecclesiastes present a coherant life philosophy, or is it really a collection of choice aphorisms?

Questions about "The Overcoat"

1. Why is copying an "interesting, pleasant world" (p. 276) for Akaky? Why doesn't he want to do other kinds of copying (p. 276-277)?

2. Why does Gogol diminish the importance of Petrovich and his wife if he mentions both several times? (p. 280)

3. Why is Akaky so upset by Petrovich's insistence that he needs a new overcoat? Is it really just about the expense?
-- What does the overcoat, old dressing gown or new overcoat, signify for Akaky?

4. Does "The Overcoat" contain a critique of the social structure of Russian in Gogol's time? (For example, in the fact that Akaky's ghost ignores this social structure by pulling coats off of people "without regard for rank or title") (p. 303).

5. How does the new overcoat change Akaky's relationship with his co-workers? In what way are his interactions with them different? The same? Specifically, is his fellow clerks' sudden interest in celebrating Akaky's new overcoat just another way to make fun of him without him realizing it? (p.290-293)

6. Why does Akaky say, "No, it would be better not to look" (p. 294) and then cross the dark square with his eyes closed only to be attacked?

7. Who attacks Akaky in the square and steals his overcoat? (p. 294)

8. What role does the supernatural play in this fairly realistic, if comic, story? (p. 303-308)

9. Why does the Important Personage only regret his habitual severity after his interaction with Akaky? (p. 304-305)

10. Why the second ghost at the end? (p. 308) Who is it supposed to be?

11. Gogol says of Akaky, "It would be unfair to say that no attention had ever been paid to him" (p. 276) and also, "No one had ever paid him the slightest attention" (p. 302). Which statement is true?

12. Is this story a comic-tragedy or a tragic-comedy?

Nabokov on Gogol

New Directions published a short book entitled Nikolai Gogol by Vladimir Nabokov in 1944*. Nabokov went on to achieve fame in his own right as a novelist with works such as Lolita and Pale Fire.

Here's some of what Nabokov has to say about our featured work this month, "The Overcoat," by Gogol:

"The plot of the Overcoat is very simple. A poor little clerk makes a great decision and orders a new overcoat. The coat while in the making becomes the dream of his life. On the very first night that he wears it he is robbed of it on a dark street. He dies of grief and his ghost haunts the city. This is all in the way of plot, but of course the real plot (as always with Gogol) lies in the style, in the inner structure of this transcendental anecdote. In order to appreciate it at its true worth one must perform a kind of mental somersault so as to get rid of conventional values in literature and follow the author along the dream road of his superhuman imagination. Gogol's world is somewhat related to such conceptions of modern physics as the "Concertina Universe" or the "Explosion Universe" ; it is far removed from the comfortably revolving clockwork worlds of the last century. There is curvature in literary style as there is curvature in space, -- but few are the Russian readers who do care to plunge into Gogol's magic chaos head first, with no restraint or regret. The Russian who thinks Turgenev was a great writer, and bases his notion of Pushkin upon Chaikovsky's vile libretti, will merely paddle into the gentlest wavelets of Gogol's mysterious sea and limit his reaction to an enjoyment of what he takes to be whimsical humor and colorful quips. But the diver, the seeker for black pearls, the man who prefers the monsters of the deep to the sunshades of the beach, will find in the Overcoat shadows linking our state of existence to those other states and modes which we dimly apprehend in our rare moments of irrational perception. The prose of Pushkin is three-dimensional; that of Gogol is four-dimensional, at least."

"So, to sum up: the story goes this way: mumble, mumble, lyrical wave, mumble, lyrical wave, mumble, lyrical wave, mumble, lyrical wave, mumble, lyrical wave, mumble, fantastic climax, mumble, mumble, and back into the chaos from which they all had derived."

Do you agree with Nabokov's take on "The Overcoat"?

*From Nabokov, Vladimir, Nikolai Gogol, New York: New Directions, corrected 1961 edition.

Questions about "The Federalist"

The Federalist No. 1.

How does a federal government differ from a confederation of states? A republic from a democracy?

Are there any differences between the arguments for "UNION" (p. 225) from those in favor of a Republic (e.g., could we have had a Union but not a Republic?)

Do you agree with Publius's statement (p. 223) that "a dangerous ambition more often lurks behind the specious mask of zeal for the rights of the people than under the forbidding appearance of zeal for the firmness and efficiency of government."

The Federalist No. 2.

Publius (p. 227) adduces as an argument in favor of Union that America was inhabited by "a people descended from the same ancestors, speaking the same language, professing the same religion, attached to the same principles of government, very similar in their manners and customs." Is his argument outmoded?

Does the "prosperity of America" (p. 230) depend on its Union?


The Federalist No. 10.

Publius candidly concedes that factionalism is a consequence of liberty. How, then, will "a well-constructed Union" be able to "break and control the violence of faction"? (p.230)

Page 234: "The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets." What would be the role of the federal government in "controlling" the "effects" of this tendency?

On p. 237 Publius asserts that a legislature must "guard against a cabal of the few" but avoid "the confusion of the multitude." Does our legislature achieve this medium?

The Federalist No. 15.

Do people in general think they can get away with the "infamy of bad action" (p. 245) if they do so in a group (e.g., a legislative body)?

The Federalist No. 51.

P. 251. In the United States of America, is state government really a check on federal power, and vice versa?

P. 253: Is Publius correct in asserting (p. 253) that "the larger the society, provided it lie within a practical sphere, the more duly capable it will be of self-government?"

The Federalists Nos. 69 and 70.

P. 259: Contrary to what Publius says, does the President's role as Head of State ("authorized to receive ambassadors and other public ministers") interfere with his role as Head of Government?

How would Publius react to the imposition of term limits on the Presidency in the 32d Amendment?

Can the Cabinet be considered a form of Executive Council?


Evaluative Question

How would Publius view some of the events of the last 18 months : the bailouts of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae, AIG, the big banks, etc . ; the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (a.k.a., the "stimulus package"); the GM takeover? Would he support or oppose the vastly expanded financial and regulatory role of the federal government in the economy?

Discussion Questions for "The Tempest"

What are Prospero's powers? Where do they come from? What do they accomplish in settling accounts between Prospero and Antonio/Sebastian/Alonso?

How will Prospero and the others get back to Milan? Will he be a better duke the second time?

What's the significance of the Ferdinand-Miranda partnership? Is it meant to be a model of political legitimacy?

Is Miranda portrayed as solely a possession to be passed from father to husband?

Why is the wedding masque (Act IV, sc. 1) cut short when Prospero remembers that Trinculo/Stephano/Caliban are after him?

What are the parallels between the main plot (politics on the Italian peninsula) and the subplot (i.e., what takes place on the island)?

Evaluate Prospero's fathering skills as evidenced by his relationships with (a) Miranda, (b) Ariel, and (c) Caliban.

How does Gonzalo fit his billing in the List of Characters as "an honest old Counsellor"?



Is this a "comedy" in the sense that it has a happy ending? What's left unsettled by the ending?

The Bard's Month

Left: Prospero and Miranda, by William May Egley, ca. 1850.

To mark the month of April, which is: (a) National Poetry Month ; (b) Shakepeare's birthday month, AND (c) the occasion (completely coincidentally) of our discussion of The Tempest (on the 26th), allow me to offer here for your enjoyment a few of the play's more famous lines:

He receives comfort like cold porridge.
(spoken by Sebastian, Act 2, sc. 1)

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.
(Trinculo, Act 2, sc.2)

The isle is full of noises,
Sounds and sweet airs that give delight and hurt not.
(Caliban, Act 3, sc.2)

Our revels now are ended. These our actors, As I foretold you, were all spirits and are melted into air, into thin air;
And like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
and like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuffAs dreams are made on, and our little life is rounded with a sleep.
(Prospero, Act 4, sc.1)

How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O, brave new world
That has such people in 't!
(Miranda, Act 5, sc.1)

Discussion Questions for "Rameau's Nephew"

Left: Portrait of Denis Diderot by Louis-Michel van Loo, 1767. The great humanties scholar Jacques Barzun writes of Diderot: "Diderot was one of history's born conversationalists, and his writings repeatedly fall into dialogue. A tale, an essay, a rebuttal will start out sedately in expository form and soon dash and question mark break up the line as a living or imaginary interlocutor doubts or denies -- it is interactive prose."(1) Rameau's Nephew takes this form.


Interpretive Questions

Why is the Nephew poor if he thinks so much about his own self-interest (cf. pp. 85, 97, 144)?

What is the significance of the Nephew's little "performances" (pantomimes, impersonations, "air violin," etc.?)

P. 95: "But, Master Philosopher, it is with universal morality just as with universal grammar: there are exceptions in each language that you learned people call ... idioms." Is an "idiom" really analogous to a lapse of morality?

P. 95: "The older the profession the more the idioms; the worse the times become, the more the idioms multiply." Agree or disagree?

Rameau says of his famous uncle (p. 73), "If he ever has done anything for anybody, it must be without knowing it." Is this remark meant to be sarcastic?

Why does the dialogue end with the Nephew stating "He who laughs last laughs best."? (p.144)

Why did Nephew's wife leave him, and what effect did this have on him?


Evaluative Questions

Is the Nephew correct when he asserts (p.114): "Vice offends men only from time to time; but the symptoms of vice offend day and night." How do "vice" and its "symptoms" differ?

What does this dialogue say about the artist's role in society? The philosopher's?

Do you think the Nephew benefitted or suffered because of his uncle's fame? Is the piece a commentary on fame? If so, what position does it take?

Why was this work never published in Diderot's lifetime?


For Textual Analysis

Pp. 95-98: From "Why resort to these vile little tricks?" to ... "outside of that, all is vanity."

Pp. 102-4, From "Virtue is praised, but hated" to ... "You can guess what harm so much uncertainty does to talent."

Pp. 119-21, From "Because it is a good deal less than right" to .. "abide by the terms of the contract aforesaid."

Pp. 127-29, From "The true, the good, and the beautiful will prevail" to "... man in a passion will supply the accent."

Pp. 130-131, From "How is it that with such fineness of feeling" to "But such parents do not exist."

*From Dawn to Decadence: 500 Years of Western Cultural Life, 1500 to the Present, New York: HarperCollins, 2000.

A Montaigne Sampler

I was interested to hear from our discussants at our February 15th meeting if they thought Montaigne's "Of Experience" hung together as a philosophical work, or if it was more a collection of random musings by the great essayist. I'm not sure we resolved this question, but most people seemed to enjoy Montaigne's bon mots, and so here I offer a few of them (from the Donald M. Frame translation):
There is no end to our researches; our end is in the other world. It is a sign of contraction of the mind when it is content, or of weariness. A spirited mind never stops within itself; it is always aspiring and going beyond its strength; it has impulses beyond its powers of achievement. If it does not advance and press forward and stand at bay and clash, it is only half alive. Its pursuits are boundless and without form; its food is wonder, the chase ambiguity.

I often say that it is pure stupidity that makes us run after foreign and scholarly examples. There is as great an abundance of them in this age as in that of Homer and Plato. But is it not true that we seek rather the honor of quoting than the truth of the statement?*

On raising children: Let them be formed by fortune under the custom of the common people and of nature; leave it to custom to train them to frugality and austerity, so that they may have rather to come down from rigorousness than climb toward it.

I am more naturally inclined to follow the example of Flaminius, who lent himself to those who needed him more than to those who could benefit him, than that of Pyrrhus, who was prone to truckle to the great and be arrogant with the weak.

[W]e should not so much consider what we eat as with whom we eat. (quoting Epicurus)

Greatness of soul is not so much pressing upward and forward as knowing how to set oneself in order and circumscribe oneself.

There is nothing so beautiful and legitimate as to play to man well and properly, no knowledge so hard to acquire as the knowledge of how to live this life well and naturally; and the most barbarous of our maladies is to despise our being.

*Present company excepted, bien sûr.

Questions for "Of Experience," by Montaigne

Interpretive Questions

On p. 41, Montaigne writes, "There is nothing that should be recommended so much to youth as activity and vigilance." What does he mean by "vigilance?" Why would these things not be recommended to people of all ages?

P. 63: What does Montaigne mean by the line, "May her [Philosophy's] followers have no more right and sinews and sap in deflowering their wives than her lessons have"?

P. 63:"Nature is a gentle guide, but no more gentle than wise and just. We must penetrate into the nature of things and clearly see exactly what it demands [Cicero]. I seek her footprints everywhere. We have confused them with artificial tracks, and for that reason the sovereign god of the Academics and the Peripatetics, which is "to live according to nature," becomes hard to limit and express; also that of the Stoics, a neighbor to the other, which is "to consent to nature." What does Montaigne mean when he says he seeks nature's footprints "everywhere"?

p.64: What is the significance of the placement in this essay of the St. Augustine quote from City of God (our November reading!) : "He who praises the nature of the soul as the sovereign good and condemns the nature of the flesh as evil, truly both carnally desires the soul and carnally shuns the flesh; for his feeling is inspired by human vanity, not by divine truth."?

Is Montaigne, in his detailed accounts of his bodily functions, giving us "too much information (TMI)"?

Evaluative Questions

Comment on the following passage (p. 47) "I am more naturally inclined to follow the example of Flaminius, who lent himself to those who needed him more than to those who could benefit him, than that of Pyrrhus, who was prone to truckle to the great and be arrogant with the weak."

p. 65: "Between ourselves, these are two things that I have always observed to be in singular accord: supercelestial thoughts and subterranean conduct." Have you ever made the same observation?

Is Montaigne's philosophy based on the importance of personal experience, as the title of this piece implies, and if so, why does he need to display his extensive conversancy with classical sources?

What are Montaigne's strategies for enduring hardships, and do you find them personally relevant?

For Textual Analysis

A. Pages 1 through 9, beginning, "There is no desire more natural than the desire for knowledge ... to "There is no remedy."

B. Pages 11-14, beginning, "In this universe of things" ... to "assertion and proof precede knowledge and perception" [Cicero].

C. Pages 16-19 beginning, "The scholars distinguish and mark off" ... to ... "affection and frankness, but of much courage as well."

D. Pages 54-55 beginning, "I, who operate only close to the ground" ... to ... but "attending to it, sitting at it, not lying down at it."

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592)

Montaigne was a French gentleman of Bordeaux best known for his multi-volume Essais (Essays), and he is generally regarded as the inventor of the genre. According to noted Montaigne translator Donald Frame, you might interpret the term "essay" two ways:

• as a "test" or "trial" of the writer's judgement
• as a "probing" or "sampling" of the writer's self.

Of that self, the nineteeth-century literary historian Edward Dowden writes:

"He was of middle temperment ... between the jovial and the melancholic, a lover of solitude, yet the reverse of morose, choosing bright companions rather than sad; able to be silent, as the mood took him, or to gossip; loyal and frank; a hater of hypocrisy and falsehood; a despiser of empty ceremony; disposed to interpret all things to the best; cheerful among his children; careless of exercising authority; incapable of househould management; trustful and kind towards his neighbors; indulgent in his judgements; yet warm in his admiration of old heroic virtue."(a)

Our selection this month, "Of Experience," is the very last in the sequence of Montaigne's Essais.

It fascinates as a capsule of Montaigne's philosophy. For example, he writes:

I would rather be an authority on myself than on Cicero. In the experience I have of myself I find enough to make me wise, if I were a good scholar. He who calls back to mind the exess of his past anger, and how far this fever carried him away, sees the ugliness of this passion better than in Aristotle, and conceives a more justified hatred for it. (b)

If Montaigne is considered a "modern" because of his reliance on his own perceptions and judgement, however, why does he cite passages from classical authors throughout the piece?

(a) Dowden, Edward, A History of French Literature, LaVergne, TN: Bibliolife, 2009.
(b) Great Books Reading and Discussion Program, Fourth Series, v.3, p.12)

Questions on "Symposium," by Plato

Interpretive Questions

Why does Phaedrus (p.221) say that Love is a wonderful God and of all the proofs of this, the greatest is his birth?

What does Pausanius mean (p. 226) when he says, "Now it is the object of the Athenian law to make a firm distinction between the lover who should be encouraged and the lover who should be shunned"?

Why is Love personified in different places in the dialogue both as feminine and masculine (e.g., Pausanius talks of the two aspects of Aphrodite on p. 222, whereas Aristophanes refers to Love as a "he" on p.229)

Can you interpret Aristophanes's remark (p. 234), made after the fable about the sundering apart of the globular people, "for so may we ensure our safety and attain that blessed union by enlisting in the army of Love and marching beneath its banners."?

Why does Alcibiades say that the symposiasts are here to "try the man Socrates on the charge of arrogance" (p. 265)?

How do you interpret the remark by Alcibiades (p. 268) that "he's [Socrates] made fools of them all (i.e., "Charmides, Euthydemus, and ever so many more"), just as if he were the beloved, not the lover."

When Alcibides sat down there was laughter ("at his frankness," Plato tells us). Were the symposiasts laughing with him or at him?

What is Alcibiades's attitude towards Socrates, and does it change as he makes his discourse?

Is there a parallelism between Socrates's relationships with Diotima and Alcibiades?

Evaluative Questions

Socrates says (p. 236): "But in truth, it seems, is the last thing the successful eulogist cares about; on the contrary, what he does is simply to run through all the attributes of power and virtue, however irrelevant they may be, and the whole thing may be a pack of lies, for all it seems to matter." Is disdain for the facts really something successful eulogists have in common?

Is the whole history of how the narrative came about (i.e. that it was transmitted second-hand from Aristodemus to Apollodorus) important?

Is it significant that this symposium took place such a long time before?

Has anyone ever seen the "soul of beauty"?

For Textual Analysis

Pages 223-26, from "but I cannot help thinking, gentleman .... to ... shocked at the idea of yielding to a lover."

Pages 247-48, from "I'll try to speak more plainly, then, to ... Love is a longing for immortality."

Pages 252-255, from "Well, then, she began ... to if not, well, call it what you like."

Tips on Reading the "Symposium"

Plato's "Symposium" opens with Apollodorus saying "Oh, if that's what you want to know, it isn't long since I had occasion to refresh my memory." Apollodorus's friend wants to know what happened at a famous "symposium" (literally, a "drinking together") that had taken place some years earlier, and Apollodorus had recently related them to another friend, Glaucon.

Apollodorus had heard this story from Aristodemus, who was present at the drinking party held at Agathon's house to celebrate Agathon's prize in a playfest. Apollodorus then narrates, second-hand, the events of that evening. What follows are a series of discourses on love told in succession, in our version, by Phaedrus, Pausanius, Eryximachus, the playwright Aristophanes, the philosopher Socrates and the drunken latecomer to the party, Alcibiades.

That's the narrative frame of the piece. All this can be a little confusing to pick through, coming as it does at the very beginning, but once you figure it out, all you have left to get a handle on is the philosophy!

Another piece of advice comes from John M. Cooper, editor of Plato: Complete Works (Hackett Publishing, 1997). Cooper writes of the Platonic dialogues: "It is in the entire writing that the author speaks to us, not in the remarks made by the individual speakers" (p. xxiii).

It is a good idea, at any rate, to take a pencil and write in the name of each speaker (e.g. "Pausanias:") in order to keep straight whose words are whose.

Pronunciation Guide to the Characters of the Dialogue

AG-a-thon
Al-ci-BY-a-deez
A-pol-o-DO-rus
Ar-is-TOF-a-neez
Dy-o-TEE-ma
Er-ix-IM-a-kus
GLAU-con
Pau-SAN-i-as
FEE-drus

(This guide comes from Plato: Five Great Dialogues, B. Jowett, trans., Louise Ropes Loomis, ed., New York: Walter J. Black, 1942)