These are short discussions of literature for general audiences. None are comprehensive statements of any individual work, but are intended to offer readers a toe-hold from which they may start to climb. Most are drawn from my work as an adjunct professor at Baruch College of CUNY, and at the New York Institute of Technology, although all opinions expressed are my own.
the conflict between "high" and "low" art has been around since humanity first began producing art. The questions help us all sharpen our judgements, but ultimately we're entitled to like what we like. The history of art is the story of people swinging back and forth between artful sophistication and gritty naturalism. Don't worry about any of that. Read what makes you happy.
My limitations are obvious and a point of some shame. I try to push them beyond my introductory-level ambitions, but this is a project beyond immediate capacities. Thank you for providing some necessary context and pointing all viewers in the proper direction when I fall short.
You provided an excellent explanation of the core concepts of the book, and I truly appreciate your insights. However, there were a few areas where I noticed some challenges, such as the pronunciation of 'Manu' and the portrayal of Indian culture, particularly during that historical period. While I recognize your standing as a distinguished scholar, it can be difficult to grasp the deeper essence of the author's work without a more nuanced understanding of these cultural contexts. I hope you understand, and I apologize if my words seem too direct. 😊😊
From the medieval book De Miseria chapter XIII: "We mortals clamber over hedges and poke around paths, hike up hills, climb mountains, scale cliffs, practically fly over the Alps; people walk right over pits and into caves; they pry into the bowels of the earth, the depths of the sea, the hidden windings of rivers, the darkness of the forest, the pathless desert." Petrach was not the first out-door-man.
No argument on that point in essence. I'm not the first to suggest the novel characteristic of Petrarch in regard to his outdoorsiness, but certainly there are predecessors. What I will say about this one quotation, however, is that the clambering described seems to be in deliberate pursuit of a specific discovery of objective Nature. That seems different in kind from Petrarch whose explorations of Nature are mostly metaphorical probings of his subjective self. I won't claim anything definitive here, but this is the handle I maintain on Petrarch to guide my interaction with his work.
I'm not trying to get anything across, exactly. I'm trying to demonstrate an approach to poetry broadly for students with little contextual familiarity. I pick one word at a time through texts to show how meaning can be constructed rather than decoded, which hopefully empowers readers to believe that they don't need to read 500+ pages of background material in order to find some meaning in a short lyric poem. We've all had that experience of confusion and intimidation when confronting the unfamiliar. I'm just trying to show how mountains may be climbed from just the first toe-hold. I'm not always graceful in the execution, but the intention is sincere.
When I was in labour, there was another woman in the next delivery room, who was in labor for more than 24 hours, I couldn’t stand the noise, her screams. Of course that was early in stage when I still had time to be bothered by surroundings. As time goes on, nothing matters anymore, you just have to do what you have to do when giving birth. In my country many still choose natural labor and that makes a lot of difference in how one looks at it. Two days in labor, I cannot imagine how horrible that can be. I felt really like the ‘father’ just couldn’t take it anymore, listening to her wife scream in pain for that long, he might have felt guilty for impregnating the woman. The scene reminded me of A Farewell to Arms when Catherine dies. Life is so close to death, happiness is so close to tragedy. Such a powerful story telling. Just my thoughts, since I just read the story. Thank you for the video!
Thanks for the perspective. It's important to keep the story anchored in its context. So much attention in the story is focused on the male participants, who are all really just sideline figures to the main event. Wrestling that spotlight back onto the visceral ordeal of the woman adds immeasurably to the dramatic tension and layers of significance.
Good to see you. I am currently reading Herman Hesse. I'm not sure you reviewed this writer on your channel. He won a Nobel prize in litterature. Regarding the death of Ivan Ilyich, i have the book on my shelf but didn't read it yet. I watched a movie adaptation of this book called Living with the actor Bill Nighy. It was beautiful.
I’ve read Siddhartha, but not for many years. It’s good as far as I recall, but I can’t say I know Hesse well. I have seen the Nighy movie, but thanks for the tip. I’ll look for it.
Psychologist Karl Jung would probably have said that Cafavy was attuned to the "Collective Unconscious". The inference in this poem is that a civilisation rots from within, before it falls to the forces of history .
Isn’t Sappho great. The fragmented nature of it just makes it better. Since she’s so achingly reaching for a way to capture the ineffable, the breaks and incompletions only add to the fullness of the experience.
blue is the universally most loved colour. it also coincides with the idiom 'true-blue', ie loyalty and perhaps stability (banking industry)... Whereas red stands for the colour of blood and great emotion, like anger. Unironically, that is the state of the Republican party at this time with its extremism and populism. One longstanding member of the party said something to the effect of: "I didn't leave the party, the party left me".
As a woman, I feel a twinge of regret for not having formally studied Women's Studies. It was only recently, while challenging myself to write an essay about MW and how great thinkers might approach the reversal of Roe v. Wade, that I became aware of her. My limited knowledge of feminism and history has always led me to value how their emergence has benefited children's welfare through national education. Discovering the originator of national co-ed education and learning it was this remarkable woman was a pleasant surprise. The Industrial Age subjected workers, including young children as little as five, to long hours of labor for minimal or no compensation. Today, in most nations, children enjoy the right to be full-time students rather than low-wage workers, a change that coincides with labor movements. While she might not have anticipated this, it is a byproduct of such advancements. To me, this signifies a personal victory for her, for women, for children, and for civilization at large, in harmony with her vision. To me, she stands as a "mother" in many respects and shines as a beacon of light for personal freedom. Thank goodness she's neither forgotten or unacknowledged!
Regrets aren't terribly constructive, and your affinity with any group probably shouldn't compel a sense of obligation to the point of guilt. Focus on the opportunity you have to engage with figures like Wollstonecraft with the full scope of experience and perspective you've forged in your life up until now. Truly good philosophies benefit from pushback and struggle. You're clearly very smart and are coming to Wollstonecraft with an educational grounding and some solid contextual knowledge. This is the ideal, and it's certainly the readership Wollstonecraft expected. Anything less cheapens the dignity Wollstonecraft asserted with such revolutionary force.
@@douglasparker6276 Thank you. On a personal note I only found out two years ago just after my grandmother's death that she herself was enslaved as a child, how her brothers died from malnutrition and she was kidnapped in the Sino-Japanese war. I have always said I'm a student of life, as life is the greatest teacher. I also know my privilege. Speaking of affinity, I feel I have one with Mary. My mother wanted to me have this name, but I was given another from my paternal side that happens to rhyme, a decision I'm happy with. Had I been named Mary, my personal name initials would also have been M.W. I was also born on Women's Int'l Day... Funny how that is. It's a bit surreal for me. Just how many people can say that? Studying history grounded me in fact, and to appreciate the eye opening experience and struggles of real life people vs the holier-than-thou pronouncements of dogmatic religion and the narcissistic, patriarchal leadership of entrenched power structures. As a result of my own experience and fascination with people, I've embraced social and environmental justice. I got to meet Ms Naomi Klein as a result of her latest academic appointment, who is also self-proclaimed eco-feminist. (I swear, this woman just gets cooler and cooler by the decade). It gives new meaning for my personal voice as a Contralto. My new job title in latin, contra-alto: "against high". 😂 [Best job title ever, if you ask me.] The apparent biases in Alito's judgement are telling, with a significant lack of nuance and a complete disregard for the impact on women, whom he labels as "murderesses." Mary cautioned against tyranny and noted that man/men seldom correct their prejudices, preferring instead to perpetuate them. She also warned against blindly following authority and allowing emotions to lead one astray As a concerned Canadian, I also have a bit of an outsider perspective and I encourage Americans and people globally to examine their constitution, specifically the part that prohibits discrimination based on race and sex. Echoing Mary's logic, it is both illogical and senseless-cruel, even-to deny half the population [women] access to necessary [reproductive] healthcare. The time has come to eliminate gender and racial disparities in healthcare, as well as state-enforced reproductive coercion and human bondage. It is also time to stop penalizing healthcare professionals [whom Alito calls "abortionists"] for performing their duties. Reject Conservative Originalism. Ratify ERA. Alito is clearly grasping at straws. The rationale seems to reach desperately into the past, as far back as the 16th century. In 2024, it is unreasonable to expect modern women to accept the risk of dying to give life, simply due to tradition and historical context Alito is clearly grasping at straws, as far back as the 16th century. It's the year 2024, why do modern women have to accept the risk of dying in order to bring new life to the world--just because of tradition and historical context? "This is the way it was, and this is the way it ought to be and shall be now and forever", is his pronouncement. This situation is sheer madness, and it is even more maddening that this all unfolding at the expense of the public purse. Make no mistake, this autocratic decision is is covertly paving the way for the erosion of additional civil liberties.
I agree that Associate Justice Alito has demonstrated some questionable judgement, and instances such as these seem to merit institutional reform; but the personalization of systematic legal proceedings either for or against is a very precarious road to travel. I also agree that Naomi Klein is very cool. I would caution against a firm assertion that an appreciation of history grounds you "in fact." Facts, despite our idealistic inheritance of the Enlightenment, can be very fungible. John Adams very famously declared them to be "stubborn things," and they are, but in any complicated debate they are counter-balanced by opposing points. History demonstrates this pretty irrefutably. Analysis, on the other hand, is the way we sift through these disparate fields of data and navigate between the entrenched facts despite their intractability, allowing for something approaching truth in a necessarily imperfect human context. Thanks for joining in. This is great.
I enjoy your lessons, but I have to disagree with you on this one. If you further look into him and his work, you can see that he wrote against voting rights for Algerians in French occupied Algeria. The natives he write about are all nameless and they all have to die for his main characters to have any profound thoughts. I think he’s going to fall out of favor soon, right now his books serve as decorations for light readers. Also, Kissinger received a Nobel prize as well, they really don’t mean anything. He’s just another cog in the wheel of the imperial canon.
I don't think I ever said that Camus was a great human being. I honestly have no idea what kind of person he was, and it really doesn't matter to me at all. My interest is in the art he produced. That's where his portrayal of humanity rises above any concern with his individual character. If you can't get past his political or moral positions, if they get in the way of your appreciation of the art, that's fine. There are plenty of other writers to read. It is a tough standard to apply to artists, however. Not many are really people you want to be around. Morality and politics are also inherently relative. They tend to change. Politics more than morality, I suppose, but perceptions of them are highly personal and unstable over time. With art, I find that the best way to proceed is to rise above the petty particularities. Camus' literature treats the Algerians at some remove, like an Other. Now, I can view that as a personal flaw in Camus' personality and promise myself that if I ever run into him I'll give him the cold shoulder. Ok. That makes me feel a little better about myself, but it really doesn't do anything positive. For me, the more valuable approach is to note that certain characters in his literature feel this way, so it serves as a document of this social phenomenon. But this can go deeper. If I notice that the other characters are ostracizing the Algerians, I'm prompted to ask 'why?' Once I do that, I humanize the Algerians and elevate them beyond the disdain of the other characters. This causes me to look at both the Algerians and the Europeans as elements within a much larger and more complex construct. Plus, once I see that, it no longer really matters that they're Algerians and Europeans: they're people. Being people, they can be anyone around the world or at any time or context. The particular has become universal, which is the true test of great art.
I read the letter...I actually believe Cortez was legitimately amazed and humbled by the advanced city that he encountered in Mexico...this history is extraordinary downplayed and overlooked as an actual primary source
part of the fun in reading is developing your own relationship to the text. Little nuances of irony, sincerity, political calculation, etc., can make for vastly distinct interpretations. Historians can build a more solid case for one reading or another based on supporting and contextual evidence. For my purposes here, readings can be more subjective. Regardless, however, thanks for weighing in with a more generous appraisal than mine. I can be very stingy in my judgements.
It's a great piece from the collection titled "Exile and the Kingdom," the title of which alone suggests the polarities between which Camus seems to feel suspended. Check it out: www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1957/12/the-guest/642533/
The first idea of human rights was the independence declaration of a country that based much of its initial development on slavery... ok... The germ of what later evolved in human rights is in the will of Isabel of Castile (1504) where she indicated that all natives of the newly discovered lands of the Indies (America) would be subjects of the Spanish Crown (which was the citizenship of that time ) with the same rights as European Spaniards. This assumed the existence of rights inherent to human beings. Obviously this mandate was not followed in many cases, but it put Spain ahead, in that sense, of other empires of the time.
@@douglasparker6276 Hi. I am not an expert but I am interested in the topic since the history of Spain at that time is also the history of Hispanic America (I am Mexican). The historians and discussions that I have consulted are in Spanish, but you can get an idea of it by consulting the will of Queen Isabel I of Castile (who expressly prohibited the enslavement of the indigenous people and ordered that their properties be respected, wanting the Conquest was a process of greater rapprochement). Also the controversy of the priest, Bartolomé de las Casas, with Ginés de Sepúlveda about the human nature of the natives and their rights, to stop the aspirations of many Spanish patrons in America who wanted to have rights over the natives and their exploitation. There must be serious texts in English on these topics, outside of the "black legend" so widespread in the Anglosphere (I think online). It is important to understand that for Spain the American lands were not colonies, but rather Spain itself, that is a different way of seeing things compared to other empires of that time. And of course, many disobeyed those commands taking advantage of the fact that the metropolis was far away, but there were cases of punishment for those who disobeyed (starting with Christopher Columbus).
Hamlet calls Polonius a fishmonger because fishmonger meant someone who traffic prostitutes. He is accusing Polonius of using his children’s marriages with nobles to gain power and influence. A bold accusation, but not an incoherent statement, considering Hamlet’s ties with Ophelia.
Seneca - like most Roman writers - has some pretty dull stuff. This is not in that category. It's as funny as the best comedy ranging between Aristophanes and Mel Brooks.
