DB ENG 325 Unit A week 2
lambtro10
econ_325_week_2a_instruction.docxENG 325---Unit A: The Story of His Misfortunes -- Abelard & Heloise
Discussion board： 250-300words
There are many similarities between Marie de France's stories of passionate love, social obligation, betrayal, remorse, forgiveness, and Abelard's recounting of his own "misfortunes." Abelard and Heloise are, indeed, a pair of lovers as famous as Dante and Beatrice or Romeo and Juliet.
But this is not titled "The Story of My Love" or "My Love for Heloise" -- it's a recounting of his misfortunes. How do you think that this title affects the reading? How would you describe his attitude (or his emotions) in this reading?
Reading:
Everything at the link below; don't miss the introduction.
History of My Misfortunes (Historia Calamatitum) (excerpts)
http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/source/abelard-sel.asp
This time I also need a weekly WIKI, and I will need one for each week.
Students will choose a short excerpt / quote from one of the readings of that week, type it in, then add a short (150 words or so) explanation for your choice. Was your selection important because it:
· is an example of beautiful or striking language?
· exemplifies a particular theme or character?
· makes the reader think about something in a new way?
· reflects a particular aspect of French culture?
· was just something that you liked?
Try not to use the same quote that your groupmates else already has; if you must, make sure that what you say about it is original.
For example:
"Whoever gets knowledge from God, science,
and a talent for speech, eloquence,
Shouldn't shut up or hide away;
No, that person should gladly display." Marie de France
In the opening lines to the Prologue to the Lays, Marie de France is providing her readers with an explanation for writing these stories down. This is a very common and traditional rhetorical move informing readers about the ethos or qualifications of the speaker. In this case, Marie is claiming that she is knowledgeable and eloquent and that these gifts come from God and therefore should be used. I think it goes further than that; Marie, like most women of her day,* would have been expected to "shut up" and "hide away" as a matter of course, since women's voices were not welcomed in the public sphere. By opening her work in this way, she preempts criticism about the appropriateness of her authorship.
The following things you may not need use it for this Discussion board. My professor posted it, so I also copy it here. You can use it, if you want.
For readers of the 21st century, it is sometimes hard to imagine that the way that we think of learning and the divisions we make between disciplines--philosophy and theology, for example--is quite recent. In the time Abelard and Heloise lived, Europe considered itself a part of "Christendom," one large church-state.
The Medieval Synthesis: "For over a thousand years, from the fourth to the fifteenth centuries, Christianity shaped the entire social and cultural world of Europe, its political and personal life, social institutions, economic relations, knowledge of the natural world, literature and the arts--all these were under Church direction and control. Philosophy, science, and art were all placed in the service of religion."
"The classical world view of Plato and Aristotle was of a natural cosmos,, rational, ordered, moral and purposeful, which is known solely by human reason. This was replaced by the super naturalistic world view of the Church, whose source is divine revelation and whose fundamental beliefs, such as the Incarnation and the Trinity, are dogmas which must be accepted by faith, and are beyond the power of human reason to explain or to prove."
Abelard and Heloise are buried together at the Père LaChaise Cemetery in Paris.
