Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher EducationYale University Press, 01.10.2008 - 286 Seiten 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. |
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Seite x
... Western civilization can attempt to " cover the facts . " The most central , the one that goes furthest , I think , in covering the facts , has been called " Athens and Jerusalem . " As used in this way those two nouns refer ...
... Western civilization can attempt to " cover the facts . " The most central , the one that goes furthest , I think , in covering the facts , has been called " Athens and Jerusalem . " As used in this way those two nouns refer ...
Seite xi
... Western civilization has answered this question not either - or but both - and , both Athens and Jerusalem . The interaction between Athens and Jerusalem has been a dynamic one , characterized by tension , attempted synthesis , and ...
... Western civilization has answered this question not either - or but both - and , both Athens and Jerusalem . The interaction between Athens and Jerusalem has been a dynamic one , characterized by tension , attempted synthesis , and ...
Seite xii
... to claim distinctive excellences for Western civilization , will doubtless seem to many culturally unforgivable . But that is part of the catastrophe . Acknowledgments I wish to express my gratitude to Jacques Barzun xii Preface.
... to claim distinctive excellences for Western civilization , will doubtless seem to many culturally unforgivable . But that is part of the catastrophe . Acknowledgments I wish to express my gratitude to Jacques Barzun xii Preface.
Seite 3
... Western civilization . Yet the idea of creative tension may also be applied to individual psychology . It may well be that thought itself , considered in its very nature , arises out of the experience of contradic- tion , that thought ...
... Western civilization . Yet the idea of creative tension may also be applied to individual psychology . It may well be that thought itself , considered in its very nature , arises out of the experience of contradic- tion , that thought ...
Seite 4
... Western civilization , setting it off from other cultures and civilizations both past and present . Yet , as I have said , this is not part of the intellectual equip- ment of the educated reader , and neither professors nor their ...
... Western civilization , setting it off from other cultures and civilizations both past and present . Yet , as I have said , this is not part of the intellectual equip- ment of the educated reader , and neither professors nor their ...
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Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education Jeffrey Hart Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2008 |
Smiling Through the Cultural Catastrophe: Toward the Revival of Higher Education Jeffrey Peter Hart Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2001 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
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