The art of the tragedian issues from a complex view of life and society. Although the tragedian may forcefully treat the most brutal ironies and dysfunctions of the society in which he lives, he is not for that reason necessarily a "pessimist." Since classical Greek theater put tragedians in competition with each other for the favor of the audience, Greek tragedies often have an uplifting, redemptive quality to their portrayal of disaster, in accordance with the audience's own expectation of seeing their most cherished virtues represented on the stage. It may as with Aeschylus be the price of social renewal and growth, or it may as with Sophocles be the testing ground of heroic character. Oedipus, although a towering figure of human suffering, is also in Sophocles' conception a paradigm of humanity in quest of knowledge, a significant landmark on the horizon of western culture for centuries to come -- as one may witness in Roman Polanski's brilliant recreation of Oedipus in the figure of Jake Gittis in the much acclaimed film from the early seventies, Chinatown. Of the three major Greek tragedians Euripides, however, has always been considered the most genuinely "bleak" in his outlook. While that point is debatable (and we will debate it), it is incontestable that he had the most problematic relationship with Athenian audiences in the late fifth century B.C., who were sometimes clearly made very uncomfortable by the outlandish passion of his protagonists and his controversial treatment of sensitive issues of the day. Medea was an unmitigated failure with its original audience, but for us moderns the play reverberates in painfully realistic ways with some of the most constant and important social conflicts, those of gender, race and class, that are at the heart of modern investigations of culture.
Week Readings, Discussion Subjects, Talks
As readers, we bring a world of assumptions, values, images, and habits of mind and heart to this book before ever opening it. One could argue without much exaggeration that very many, if not the vast majority, of the intellectual themes and traditions that together are identified as the western, European, or Atlantic cultures are grounded in different ways of reading and interpreting this stubbornly foundational text. We will consider two prominent themes in the Hebrew Bible: the community created by God's covenant in Genesis and the suffering servant in Job and Isaiah. Like tragedy, ancient and modern, the world portrayed here is one of intense sufferings and hardships, but this becomes in the most positive sense the basis for God's redeeming work with humankind.
In relation to our discussion of the sufferings of Job, we will also consider how this thematic problem of human suffering can be viewed in an analogous modern context. Taking advantage of the exhibition being put on by the Mount Holyoke Art Museum, "How to Remember? Designing the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum," we will consider how public memory is shaped by various forms of remembrance, from architectural monuments to published memoirs and cinematic productions. Whereas Job's story can certainly be understood in a redemptive light, it has often been questioned whether any meaning can be wrested from the murder of six million innocent men, women, and children. What does it mean, therefore, to remember the unthinkable? And what is the artistic worth of expressing such sordid material?
The period 1100-1300 followed the empire of Charlemagne on the continent of Europe and the Norman conquest of England in 1066. It was a period of relative political calm and stability, during which a Christian hegemony pervaded Europe. Beginning in the environs of Paris at the beginning of the Twelfth Century, an amazing revolution in architecture took hold in which enormous cathedrals were constructed which to this day capture our attention and admiration. It was a revolution begun in France, but which quickly spread to Germany and England. In this unit we will study the aspirations and motivations of the constructors. Who were they? Why and how did they undertake these ambitious projects? What were the technical and scientific resources at their disposal? What was the social climate, and how well supported were the projects by the general populace? What was the relation to the concurrent revolution in intellectual life in which the concept of a university was born? What was the scientific and cultural legacy?
Our encounters with several "landmarks" of western culture in past weeks -- with Greek tragedies, Hebrew scriptures, and Christian cathedrals -- make clear that "western culture" resists easy description and defies simple explanation. In Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies, we confront an author who forces us to ask what deserves recognition as a "landmark" and what constitutes the very stuff of western culture.
Christine (ca.l364-ca.1431), who supported herself and her family after her husband's death by writing love poetry, ethical treatises, and handbooks for chivalry, did not shy away from debates among the French over politics, morality, and Christian piety. She went further, as we see in City of Ladies, to question the terms and authorities taken for granted by other writers -- largely, overwhelmingly, male writers -- of her day. Christine's challenge to the dominant view of the past, and to what parts of the past should be preserved and celebrated, gives us insight into both learning and Christian spirituality of the late European Middle Ages; it also encourages us to ask how decisions are
made about what we read, see or hear, and how we should read, look, or listen to "great works." Whether or not Christine, as some scholars claim, is the first modern "feminist," Citv of Ladies requires us to ask whether many of our generalizations about "the human condition" -- and whether many of our assertions about "greatness" -- may not erase or distort women's experience and women's perception of reality. We argue today about including Christine's writings in the "canon" of great western literature; Christine anticipated the argument, forcing the readers of Citv of Ladies to ask whether authorities, literary or otherwise, are not in many instances confusing human values with men's interests.
Between Christine de Pizan's City of Ladies and William Shakespeare's The Tempest, the cultural landscape dominated by Christian cathedrals was altered dramatically, not least by struggles among Christians over the very nature of Christianity itself. The spread of printed books, a shift from mounted knights to foot soldiers with muskets, encounters between Europeans and other peoples of the Atlantic basin -- all these and more --separate the publics" for whom Christine de Pizan and Shakespeare produced the works that enabled each to live. The Tempest, no less than Oedipus Rex or other works that we have examined, provokes us to ask how people explain, and cope with, the "bad things" that human beings do or suffer; but it also affords insight into a particular moment in the formation of "western traditions, R when Europeans struggled openly and furiously over the fit between Christian ideals and secular realities, and when some of them tried to assimilate the disconcerting knowledge that their world was not the world.
Nota Bene: All films and talks will take place at 7:30 in Hooker Auditorium, except for our first gathering in Gettell Amphitheater at 7:00 on Sept. 8 and 7:00 on Tuesday evening, Oct. 28, in Gamble. Attendance is required at all events.