English 325 week3
47290v3o0
week3.docx1.
Attached Files:
Of-Friendship-Montaigne.pdf (257.174 KB)
Read the attached essay, "Of Friendship."
“There is no action or imagination of mine wherein I do not miss him; as I know that he would have missed me: for as he surpassed me by infinite degrees in virtue and all other accomplishments, so he also did in the duties of friendship:”
“Quis desiderio sit pudor, aut modus Tam cari capitis?”
[“What shame can there, or measure, in lamenting so dear a friend?”] Horace Ode i. 24 I
Montaigne, Philosopher
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WLAtXWaz76o
Montaigne's Tower
Like the chateau where Perrault wrote his tales, Montaigne's tower study has been preserved and can be visited. (Note that his own leisure to do said writing was financed, in large part, through the manufacture and sale of wine, which is still the case today.)
What is an "essay"?
The literary genre "essay" (from the French meaning to attempt, or to try) in its modern form was coined by Montaigne. It seems strange to think that something so common in classrooms today could be radical in its inception, but what makes the individual pieces written by this author so very remarkable for his time was that he decided to use himself as the object of study. This was no mere exercise in egoism or navel-gazing, as Montaigne sought to study and to understand people in general, as well as the human condition, by using himself as an example.
It was the custom at the time to interweave quotes from classical sources into one's writing; Montaigne's original audience would have expected it, and being well-read in the same sources, would have understood so much more about each selected excerpt than modern readers. "I quote others only in order to better express myself." (MdM) It might seem jarring (or just downright weird) for him to include, in an essay on friendship, a quote about mermaids. Rest assured that the allusions would have made more sense to the original intended audience.
***** please read all materials above then write discussion board post
Discussion Board post:
Montaigne cannot explain why he felt such a close affinity with his best friend, other than "He was he, and I was I." Yet this was clearly the defining relationship of his adulthood, far surpassing romance, marriage, family. He wrote: "If there is such a thing as a good marriage, it is because it resembles friendship rather than love."
Let's follow MdM's practice here and study ourselves.
What makes friendship so very important? Do you value friendship? What would our lives be like without friends? Do you make a good friend?
200-250 words. No work cited page.
2.
Reading
Attached Files:
·
Montaigne Of Repentence.docx (30.384 KB)
Read the attached essay, "Of Repentence"
Michel the Philosopher
Michel de Montaigne's life-long project, the Essays, allows his readers to follow along as he begins to discover, in the act of writing, a philosophy of life. I say "discover" and not state, because what he says often develops and changes in the course of the Essays.
“If I speak of myself in different ways, that is because I look at myself in different ways.”
Montaigne's philosophy is most often compared to the school of Stoicism. From the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy (http://www.iep.utm.edu/stoicism/):
The Stoic doctrine is divided into three parts: logic, physics, and ethics. Stoicism is essentially a system of ethics which, however, is guided by a logic as theory of method, and rests upon physics as foundation. Briefly, their notion of morality is stern, involving a life in accordance with nature and controlled by virtue. It is an ascetic system, teaching perfect indifference (apathea) to everything external, for nothing external could be either good or evil. Hence to the Stoics both pain and pleasure, poverty and riches, sickness and health, were supposed to be equally unimportant.
He is more than an adherent to any particular "school" or theory; more complex, more difficult to put a label on or to fit into a prefab box. As Anthony Long notes (http://arcade.stanford.edu/rofl/montaigne-eclectic-pragmatist):
Reason vs. experience, truth vs. uncertainty, similarity vs. difference, habit vs. adaptation, body vs. mind, spontaneity vs. deliberation, pleasure vs. pain, anti- and pro-philosophy—these are just some of the many polarities with which Montaigne juggles and disconcerts us. Just as we think we have grasped what he is after and where he is going, he reverses course. Skeptic, Socratic, Stoic, Epicurean—he seems to be all of these at once, and none of them securely or consistently.
One of the deepest appeals to reading The Essays is following a brilliant, open-minded and well-educated man on a journey of self-discovery. Our class's readings have provided a tiny taste; read the rest if you have the courage!
***** please read all materials above then write discussion board post
Discussion Board Post:
"We, who live private lives, not exposed to any other view than our own, ought chiefly to have settled a pattern within ourselves by which to try our actions: and according to that, sometimes to encourage and sometimes to correct ourselves. I have my laws and my judicature to judge of myself, and apply myself more to these than to any other rules: I do, indeed, restrain my actions according to others; but extend them not by any other rule than my own. You yourself only know if you are cowardly and cruel, loyal and devout: others see you not, and only guess at you by uncertain conjectures, and do not so much see your nature as your art; rely not therefore upon their opinions, but stick to your own."
(Montaigne, Repentence)
Or, as Shakespeare would put it:
"This above all--to thine own self be true/ and it must follow, as the night the day, / Thou canst not then be false to any man."
(Hamlet, I, iii,).
Prompt: Reflect on these: both the content, and the content of both.
200-250 words. No work cited page.
3. (make sure write where is this quote from into beginning of explanation) (you can find a quote from reading in first assignment).
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?
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
explanation:
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.
