Romanticism
Assignment 1 Romanticism
Reading Assignments:
The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5
Chapter 27: The Romantic View of Nature, ca. 1780-1880
Chapter 28: The Romantic Hero, ca. 1780-1880
Chapter 29, The Romantic Style in Art and Music, ca. 1780-1880
Instructor Notes: These three chapters describe the development of a Romantic sense of reality, which occurred over the course of the nineteenth century. The discussion is divided into three parts, the first covering the Romantic way to think about nature, the second covering the Romantic way to think about the individual person, and the third covering the way to express the Romantic sensibility in art and music. Romantic reality grows out of a dissatisfaction with the Enlightenment way of experiencing and understanding reality, and Romantic reality, interacting with a continued Enlightenment, prepares the way for the Realism that comes in the latter half of the nineteenth century and which is covered in the next set of readings (i.e., chapters 30 and 31).
(60 points total)
1. Write a 500-word summary for each chapter (27, 28, and 29) (30 points)
2. Write at least a 1,000-word discursive essay on how the three chapters relate to each other (27, 28, and 29) (30 points).
(A note on “discursive writing”: Discursive writing is writing about a topic in personally associative terms as opposed to various kinds of structured ways of writing. In discursive writing, a person writes down everything he or she can think of in relation to the topic and material he or she is supposed to demonstrate a knowledge of. Further, and most importantly in discursive writing, the writer tries to demonstrate that he or she can use the knowledge he or she is to demonstrate that he or she possesses in creative and personally identifiable ways. Typically, the more one writes, the better a discursive response or essay is, which is why the only limit for this sort of writing is at the lower end – you must write at least 1,000 words, but you may write as many words as you like. You want to demonstrate that you know all the material and that you can use the material in meaningful, creative, and, at times, unique ways.
Writing fewer than 1,000 words is okay, and you will receive some points, but not likely much more than half of the possible number of points, if that. Most of the assignments require you to write a discursive response, and each exam will have one discursive essay required, among other things. The discursive writing you do for your assignments are, in part, practice at writing discursive responses on the exams.)
Assignment 2 Realism
Reading Assignments:
The Humanistic Tradition, Book 5
Chapter 30, Industry, Empire, and the Realist Style, ca. 1850-1900
Chapter 31, The Move toward Modernism, ca. 1875-1900
Instructor Notes:
Unlike Romanticism, Realism promotes the valuing of material possessions and physical or bodily vigor. Two major human activities increase the amount of material wealth Western people could have: Industry is the local means of increasing wealth, while building and exploiting an empire is the global means of bringing material wealth to an individual Western nation. The style in art that contributes to cultivating a Realist sense of reality is objective and plain, sometimes, as compared to other styles, such as Romantic, even somewhat ugly. Such tendencies of Realism created a movement toward Modernism, especially noticeable in the ways that the “ugly” increasingly becomes aesthetically pleasing and the physical body and its needs and pleasures become increasingly supplied as a good in and of itself.
(50 points total)
1. Write a 500-word summary for each chapter (30 and 31) (20 points)
2. Write at least a 1,000-word discursive essay on the 2 chapters and how they build from the previous chapters (27-29) (30 points)
Assignment 3
Reading Assignments:
Select one from the following:
Blake, William. Blake’s Poetry and Designs. Ed. Mary Lynn Johnson and John E. Grant. 2nd edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008.
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Darwin, Charles. Darwin. Selected and ed. Philip Appleman. 3rd edition. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.
Instructor Notes:
In simple terms, William Blake is a Romantic, while Charles Darwin is a Realist. Whichever author you choose to write about, it is helpful to compare and contrast him to the other writer, at least in your mind, to become clearer about the features that make him a Romantic or a Realist. The specific assignment for each author is below.
(100 points)
Write a four to six page formal essay on either William Blake or Charles Darwin, using the specified book for the course for the author you select.
The essay is to be in Times New Roman and 12-point font and double spaced (you are reading a document that is single-spaced). Be sure to include, at the end, a list of the works you cite in your essay. You may use whatever well-known academic form of citation you like; the most important criterion is that I can easily locate each source listed, either in the library or online.
For Blake: Draw on at least two of the critics in the “Criticism” section of the book in your essay explaining what you understand to be the proper experience Blake expresses and wants you to have when viewing his artwork and reading his literary works. Contrast this proper Romantic expression and experience with at least one Realist form of expression and understanding from the 19th century.
For Darwin: Choose one of the selections of Darwin’s work in the book and summarize it on its own terms. Then write an explanation of how its way of thinking informed or influenced science, social science, philosophy, religion, OR literature. Use the relevant section of the book to help you explain the influence (i.e., Parts V – IX treat the areas of knowledge you are to write about). At the end, contrast Darwin’s way of expressing himself and of understanding the world with a Romantic way of doing so.
Assignment 4 Modernism
Reading Assignments:
The Humanistic Tradition, Book 6
Chapter 32, The Modernist Assault, ca. 1900-1950
Chapter 33, The Freudian Revolution, ca. 1900-1950
Chapter 34, Total War, Totalitarianism, and the Arts, ca. 1900-1950
Instructor Notes:
At the beginning of the 20th century, and in response to industrial and technological changes and to intellectual and stylistic blending of Romanticism and Realism, people, both everyday people and leaders in art and industry, seemed to insist upon a break with the past. This break, of course, is a product of the past. What it does, however, is create ways of understanding reality and expressing one’s understanding that tried to be radically present, radically dislodged from the past, dislodged, that is, from history. This is why Modernism is experienced as an assault. It is definite and jarring. But for those who wanted it, it was not bad, but, indeed, welcome. Such an assault seemed to clear the way for new explanations of how the world worked and of what motivated people. Freudianism was a major new way of thinking about the individual, and all-out war and Totalitarianism in government and the arts were new ways of thinking about society and what ought to be aesthetically pleasing.
(60 points total)
1. Write a 500-word summary for each chapter (32, 33, and 34) (30 points)
2. Write at least a 1,000-word discursive essay on the three chapters and how they build from the previous chapters (27-31) (30 points)
Assignment 5 Late Modernity and Postmodernism
Reading Assignments:
The Humanistic Tradition, Book 6
Chapter 35, The Quest for Meaning, ca. 1940-1960
Chapter 36, Liberation and Equality, ca. 1930-present
Instructor Notes:
Developments of Late Modernity and Postmodernity come from the weariness and the dehumanization of High Modernity and the inhumanity of war, notably the second World War, as well as the continued modification of daily existence by changing technologies. After the assault of modernism and the subjective and historiographical vacancy that it fostered, Late Modernity turned to a new search for meaning. This is a new search for meaning as it does not reject modernity in total, but, rather, it attempts to adapt it by relaxing the subjective and historiographical vacancy that brought about much degradation. Upon generating meaning again, many people move into a Postmodernity of liberation and equality.
(50 points total)
1. Write a 500-word summary for each chapter (35 and 36) (20 points)
2. Write at least a 1,000-word discursive essay on the two chapters and how they build from the previous chapters (27-34) (30 points)
Assignment 6
Reading Assignments:
Select two books from the following:
Wiesel, Elie. Night. 1958, English 1960. Tr. Stella Rodway. New York: Bantam, 1982
AND
Keynes, John Maynard. The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. 1953. San Diego: Harcourt, 1964.
OR
Foucault, Michel. “What Is Enlightenment.” Tr. Catherine Porter. The Foucault Reader. Ed. Paul Rabinow. New York: Pantheon, 1984. Pp. 32-50.
AND
Wallace, David Foster. The Pale King: An Unfinished Novel. Ed. Michael Pietsch. New York: Back Bay Books / Little, Brown and Company, 2011.
Instructor Notes:
The first set of readings, representative of late modernity, provide two different means that people embarked on a new quest for meaning, after the assault of modernism. These two readings explore an individual’s experiences and an intellectual’s ideas for organizing society. The second set of readings, representative more of postmodernity, provide further ways of searching for meaning, especially in relation to thinking about history and the individual person’s experience. Specific instructions for writing on each is provided below. You choose one set of readings to write on.
(100 points)
Write a four to six page formal essay on either Wiesel and Keynes or Foucault and Foster, using the specified texts for the course.
The essay is to be in Times New Roman and 12-point font and double spaced (you are reading a document that is single-spaced). Be sure to include, at the end, a list of the works you cite in your essay. You may use whatever well-known academic form of citation you like; the most important criterion is that I can easily locate each source listed, either in the library or online.
For Elie Wiesel and John Maynard Keynes: Wiesel and Keynes write to help humanity in modern times, and both are modern critics of practices of their times. Their works, however, critique different practices: Keynes critiques Enlightenment, Realist strains of thought concerning material social relations known in his day as “classical economics” and does so with a distinctly modernist assault; Wiesel critiques the modernist assault on social relations and does so in a way that moves toward a postmodernism. Write an essay that details at least two modern features from each work that is very different from the same feature in the other work. For example, both works use generalization, but to very different effects.
For Michel Foucault and David Foster Wallace: In “What Is Enlightenment?”, Foucault encourages the appreciation of “the attitude of modernity,” which entails the disposition to understand ourselves as circumscribed by our historical moment yet with an abiding habit of experimenting with ways to transcend that which circumscribes us. Elaborate how Foucault develops this idea and then show how David Foster Wallace’s The Pale King is profitably interpreted as an instance of a postmodern novel expressed in “the attitude of modernity.”
Assignment 7 Postmodernity and Globalism
Reading Assignments:
The Humanistic Tradition, Book 6
Chapter 37, The Information Age, ca. 1960-present
Chapter 38, Globalism: The Contemporary World, ca. 1970-present
Instructor Notes:
The contemporary West is characterized by postmodern experiences and explanations of reality and increased globalism, particularly by means of corporations and new relations between and among corporations, governments, and people. Chapter 37 discusses how information technology and the culture that develops related to information technology moves postmodernity in a globalizing way. Chapter 38 discusses the various sources of a globalizing tendency and the experience of being human since 1970.
Written Assignment 7: (50 points total)
1. Write a 500-word summary for each chapter (37 and 38) (20 points)
2. Write at least a 1,000-word discursive essay on the two chapters and on how they build from the previous chapters (27-36) (30 points)
Assignment 8:
Write a revised essay, according to criticisms and instructions from the professor, for either Assignment 3 or Assignment 6. Typically, a revised essay will add elaboration of explanation of why works, people, and events mentioned in the original essay operate according to the ideas proposed by the essay. Be sure that the revisions are clearly made and apparent. This assignment must be done before submitting assignment 9.
Assignment 9
Reading Assignments:
Select two books from the following:
West, Cornel. Prophesy Deliverance! An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity. Anniversary edition with a new preface. Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2002.
AND
Duffy, Carol Ann. The World’s Wife. 1999. New York: Faber and Faber, 2001.
OR
Duffy, Carol Ann. feminine gospels. 2002. New York: Faber and Faber, 2005.
Instructor Notes:
The readings represent two dominant forms of postmodernity. In modern terms, West would be described as treating matters of race and Duffy would be described as treating matters of gender. But these are writers of postmodernity, so they are considering race and gender, respectively, but each is doing so in ways that sometimes would be unfamiliar or even not permitted by the rigidity and strictness of modernity. By writing in their own postmodern ways, they reflect their own postmodern ways of thinking and living. These ways of thinking and living also contribute, perhaps to the author’s dismay, or perhaps only without being the author’s intention, to the globalizing trends of the last several decades.
(100 points)
Write a four to six page formal essay comparing and contrasting the globalizing postmodernity of Cornel West, as represented by his Prophesy Deliverance, and of Carol Ann Duffy, as represented by either her feminine gospels or her The World’s Wife.
The essay is to be in Times New Roman and 12-point font and double spaced (you are reading a document that is single-spaced). Be sure to include, at the end, a list of the works you cite in your essay. You may use whatever well-known academic form of citation you like; the most important criterion is that I can easily locate each source listed, either in the library or online.
Assignment 10:
Working from memory, write a revised essay, according to criticisms and instructions from the professor, for either an essay on Exam 1 or an essay on Exam 2. If the professor provided commentary, you should have received the commentary with your scores. If the professor provided comments on one exam and not the other, you should revise the exam with comments. You will not have the exam; this is the part you must work on from memory.