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 41
Page 3
... death , we have a very powerful idea and the source of consequent ideas . " Thus John Keats's lyrical expression , the nightingale's song , the unheard mu- sic of the Urn , and the thin but welcome music of autumn , arose out of ...
... death , we have a very powerful idea and the source of consequent ideas . " Thus John Keats's lyrical expression , the nightingale's song , the unheard mu- sic of the Urn , and the thin but welcome music of autumn , arose out of ...
Page 15
... death and immortal glory, he makes the choice Achilles made . Death is as Athens: The Heroic Phase ∞∑
... death and immortal glory, he makes the choice Achilles made . Death is as Athens: The Heroic Phase ∞∑
Page 16
... death of Plato amount almost to a philosophical poem : " Plato died at the age of eighty - one . On the evening of his death he had a Thracian girl play the flute to him . The girl could not find the beat of the Nomos . With a movement ...
... death of Plato amount almost to a philosophical poem : " Plato died at the age of eighty - one . On the evening of his death he had a Thracian girl play the flute to him . The girl could not find the beat of the Nomos . With a movement ...
Page 18
... death . With Homer these archaic Bronze Age figures come to us out of prehistoric time , all of a sudden visible , speaking , acting , knowable . Imagining ourselves back in time , when the sixth level of our archaeo- logical dig was ...
... death . With Homer these archaic Bronze Age figures come to us out of prehistoric time , all of a sudden visible , speaking , acting , knowable . Imagining ourselves back in time , when the sixth level of our archaeo- logical dig was ...
Page 19
... death at the end of Deuter- onomy is one of the great things in literature , fully equal in epic literature to the death of Achilles , for which we have to wait until book 24 of the Odyssey . No one knows where the grave of Moses is ...
... death at the end of Deuter- onomy is one of the great things in literature , fully equal in epic literature to the death of Achilles , for which we have to wait until book 24 of the Odyssey . No one knows where the grave of Moses is ...
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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