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 14
... stories of Homer with philosophy in a new synthesis. He tried to replace Homer's noble chieftains with Socrates, who would be not a prince of Greece alone but of philosophy itself, an explorer of the human essence and of the cosmos ...
... stories of Homer with philosophy in a new synthesis. He tried to replace Homer's noble chieftains with Socrates, who would be not a prince of Greece alone but of philosophy itself, an explorer of the human essence and of the cosmos ...
Seite 16
... stories with roots deep in the prehistoric past . We naturally regard this material with some skepticism about its worth as history ; yet it would not be wise to dismiss the legends as purely fictitious . They are memories of memories ...
... stories with roots deep in the prehistoric past . We naturally regard this material with some skepticism about its worth as history ; yet it would not be wise to dismiss the legends as purely fictitious . They are memories of memories ...
Seite 17
... stories had actually hap- pened in what we would call the thirteenth century b.c. , long before the Greeks had a written language . Such people as Achilles , Odysseus , Hec- tor , Helen , Paris , Priam , Agamemnon , and all the others ...
... stories had actually hap- pened in what we would call the thirteenth century b.c. , long before the Greeks had a written language . Such people as Achilles , Odysseus , Hec- tor , Helen , Paris , Priam , Agamemnon , and all the others ...
Seite 19
... stories only in summary and distorted form , but he must have had both poems in mind when he makes Virgil call Homer the " sovereign poet . ” Virgil combined elements of both in his Aeneid . Achilles and Odysseus figure in Dante's ...
... stories only in summary and distorted form , but he must have had both poems in mind when he makes Virgil call Homer the " sovereign poet . ” Virgil combined elements of both in his Aeneid . Achilles and Odysseus figure in Dante's ...
Seite 21
... stories will be sung by the poets . Aristotle drew the elements of areté together in a pedagogical synthesis in his portrait of the magnanimous man in the Ethics . He also composed a hymn to his friend Hermias , prince of Atarneus , who ...
... stories will be sung by the poets . Aristotle drew the elements of areté together in a pedagogical synthesis in his portrait of the magnanimous man in the Ethics . He also composed a hymn to his friend Hermias , prince of Atarneus , who ...
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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