Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher EducationYale University Press, 2008 M10 1 - 286 pages Although the essential books of Western civilization are no longer central in our courses or in our thoughts, they retain their ability to energize us intellectually, says Jeffrey Hart in this powerful book. He now presents a guide to some of these literary works, tracing the main currents of Western culture for all who wish to understand the roots of their civilization and the basis for its achievements. Hart focuses on the productive tension between the classical and biblical strains in our civilization, between a life based on cognition and one based on faith and piety. He begins with the Iliad and Exodus, linking Achilles and Moses as Bronze Age heroic figures. Closely analysing texts and illuminating them in unexpected ways, he moves on to Socrates and Jesus, who internalized the heroic, continues with Paul and Augustine and their Christian synthesis, addresses Dante, Shakespeare's Hamlet, Moliere, and Voltaire, and concludes with the novel as represented by Crime and Punishment and The Great Gatsby. Hart maintains that the dialectical tensions suggested by this survey account for the restlessness and singular achievements of the West and that the essential books can provide the substance and energy currently missed by both students and educated readers. |
From inside the book
Results 1-5 of 31
Page 5
... Egypt and Mesopotamia , it is indisputable that modern science emerged in Western Europe and nowhere else . The reason for this momentous occurrence must therefore be sought in some unique set of circum- stances that differentiate ...
... Egypt and Mesopotamia , it is indisputable that modern science emerged in Western Europe and nowhere else . The reason for this momentous occurrence must therefore be sought in some unique set of circum- stances that differentiate ...
Page 16
... Egypt , the reception of the Law on Sinai , various wanderings and military campaigns , and ends with the epic death of Moses as he views the Promised Land across the Jordan River . The stories that come down to us in Homer and 16 THE ...
... Egypt , the reception of the Law on Sinai , various wanderings and military campaigns , and ends with the epic death of Moses as he views the Promised Land across the Jordan River . The stories that come down to us in Homer and 16 THE ...
Page 18
... Egypt , or that Moses led them out and through the desert to Canaan . There are confirmatory scraps and inferences , as we will see , but that is about all we have in the way of history . Experts on the issue of the historical existence ...
... Egypt , or that Moses led them out and through the desert to Canaan . There are confirmatory scraps and inferences , as we will see , but that is about all we have in the way of history . Experts on the issue of the historical existence ...
Page 32
... Egyptian Thebes . . His wife presented Helen her own precious gifts , a golden spindle , a basket that ran on casters , solid silver polished off with rims of gold . Now Phylo her servant rolled it in beside her , heaped to the brim ...
... Egyptian Thebes . . His wife presented Helen her own precious gifts , a golden spindle , a basket that ran on casters , solid silver polished off with rims of gold . Now Phylo her servant rolled it in beside her , heaped to the brim ...
Page 37
... Egypt , Mesopotamia , and Ca- naan ( roughly , modern Israel ) . But it was also a positive — indeed , quasi- philosophical intuition that there must have been something “ there ” before the beginning . A sense of the radical ...
... Egypt , Mesopotamia , and Ca- naan ( roughly , modern Israel ) . But it was also a positive — indeed , quasi- philosophical intuition that there must have been something “ there ” before the beginning . A sense of the radical ...
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Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education Jeffrey Peter Hart No preview available - 2001 |
Common terms and phrases
Aaron Abraham Achilles Aeneas Agamemnon Alceste ancient areté Aristotle Athens Athens and Jerusalem Augustine beauty beginning Bronze Age Brunetto C. S. Lewis Canto Célimène century certainly chapter Christian civilization cognition Commandment Confessions cosmos course culture Dante Dante's death Divine Comedy Dostoyevsky Egypt Egyptian empire Enlightenment epic everything Exodus experience figure Gatsby Gatsby's Genesis Greek philosophy Hebrew Bible Hector hero heroic holiness Homer Horeb human idea Iliad important Inferno intellectual Israelites Jesus killed King literature live Logos Lord magical mind Molière monotheism monotheistic moral Moses move murder narrative Nick novel Numbers Odysseus passage Paul perhaps Pharaoh pilgrim Dante Plato play poem poet Prince Hamlet Prophets Raskolnikov religious Rendsburg Roman scene seems sense Shakespeare Sinai society Socrates speak spirit student T. S. Eliot tell tension things Thou thought tion tradition Troy truth Ulysses universe Virgil voice Voltaire Western words