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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Ergebnisse 1-5 von 31
Seite 25
... killed by Paris before the walls of Troy . The vast funeral pyres of such heroes as Achilles , Hector , and Patroclus celebrate their greatness and blaze out as affirming flames against the darkness of the Homeric world . Resistance to ...
... killed by Paris before the walls of Troy . The vast funeral pyres of such heroes as Achilles , Hector , and Patroclus celebrate their greatness and blaze out as affirming flames against the darkness of the Homeric world . Resistance to ...
Seite 27
... killing machine that was Achilles after the death of his friend Patroclus . For most of the poem , Achilles is absent from the battlefield , but when he returns he makes all the previous fighting seem tame . When he wades through the ...
... killing machine that was Achilles after the death of his friend Patroclus . For most of the poem , Achilles is absent from the battlefield , but when he returns he makes all the previous fighting seem tame . When he wades through the ...
Seite 28
... killing of Patroclus , and his normal courtesy , however shakily , has returned . The funeral rituals for Hector are ... kill Agamemnon but is restrained by Athena , who here embodies something like good sense , or perhaps doubt or ...
... killing of Patroclus , and his normal courtesy , however shakily , has returned . The funeral rituals for Hector are ... kill Agamemnon but is restrained by Athena , who here embodies something like good sense , or perhaps doubt or ...
Seite 29
... killed Agamemnon right there in the heat of justified anger , during the quarrel , and despite Athena . That might have been better than to have precipitated the sequence of events that now unfolds . The passionate Achilles plunges into ...
... killed Agamemnon right there in the heat of justified anger , during the quarrel , and despite Athena . That might have been better than to have precipitated the sequence of events that now unfolds . The passionate Achilles plunges into ...
Seite 30
... killed him in an instant . Priam , here , is affirming Achilles ' own code . It is possible to think that , here , Priam , a king , redeems the insult to Achilles by Agamemnon , reasserts the code through his own courage . Achilles ...
... killed him in an instant . Priam , here , is affirming Achilles ' own code . It is possible to think that , here , Priam , a king , redeems the insult to Achilles by Agamemnon , reasserts the code through his own courage . Achilles ...
Andere Ausgaben - Alle anzeigen
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