An Essay on Man

A World Full of Order and Disorder 6/30/13

            In An Essay on Man by Alexander Pope the topic of order and disorder is debated. The author is trying to reconcile the belief in a divinely ordered universe; however, he is continuously acknowledging the existence of evil and disorder in the world.  Pope mentions a notion from the 18^th century called the Great Chain of Being. This notion states that the “elements of the universe took their places in a hierarchy ranging from the lowest matter to God” (Pope 91). Since he uses this notion as his defense he is stating that organization and the disorganization all stem from God and all have their place in the world.

            To explain organization Pope talks about disorganization. He writes, “In Pride, in reasoning Pride, our error lies; / All quit their sphere, and rush into the skies. / Pride still is aiming at the blest abodes, / Men would be Angels, Angels would be Gods. / Aspiring to be Gods, if Angels fell, / Aspiring to be Angels, Men rebel” (Pope lines 123 - 128). Pope is saying that the organization according to the chain, from lowest to highest, is Man, Angels, and then God. The disorganization comes from the fact that each one, minus God, wants to be higher than their current station. Man wants to be Angel, Angel wants to be God. In trying to be the next step up they fall and do not succeed, and they rebel. This rebellion leads to a type of evil. Man is no longer focused on God, he is selfish and only wishes to be an Angel.

            Later Pope writes, “Noting to add, and nothing to abate. / Each beast, each insect, happy in its own” (Lines 184 – 185). Here Pope knows that man wants to be more, but he is not, so all beings should be happy in their organized position because they cannot become something they are not. Near the end Pope also writes, “Where, one step broken, the great scale’s destroyed: / From Nature’s chain whatever link you strike, / Tenth or ten thousandth, breaks the chain alike” (Lines 244 – 246). Pope is again acknowledging that everything has a place in the world, and if you try to change your place then everything will fall. Good organization will keep the world safe, but evil (rebellion) will break it apart.

            Pope has some valid points such as good organization keeps the world a safe and happy place. When evil tries to invade the world is turned upside down and thrown into turmoil. There may not be a chain like the 18^th century notion says, but there is an order. Society is made up of different social classes; however, the social classes do not determine if someone is good or evil. Anybody can turn the world upside down with a single action, but if everyone tries to remain good and pure the “chain” is less likely to break.

Work Cited

Pope, Alexander. "An Essay on Man." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 90-97. Print.

de Navarre

Keeping it Fair 6/23/13

            Marguerite de Navarre was a renaissance woman. Not only was she a queen, but she was also an author, an advisor to her brother, and a well-educated woman. de Navarre wrote “The Heptameron”, and within this story of stories she shows that she was a fair and just ruler. According to the French philosopher Pierre Bayle she is a queen who “grant[s] her protection to people persecuted for opinions which she believes to be false; to open a sanctuary to them; to preserve them from the flames prepared for them; to furnish them with a subsistence.” This statement is proven true within de Navarre’s Story 8 from “The Heptameron”.

            Story 8 tells of a King who wishes to sleep with his Queen’s chambermaid. The chambermaid denies his advances and tells her Queen of the King’s intentions. The Queen tells the chambermaid to lead the King on and when the night arrives of the supposed affair the Queen is waiting for the King. The King believes that he is making love to the chambermaid, and then he continues to let his friend sleep with the woman who is really the Queen. When all this is said and done the friend of the King takes the woman’s wedding ring, which then makes the King realize he did not in fact sleep with the maid, but with his wife, and so did his friend. (de Navarre)

            The story continues, but with regards to Pierre Bayle his statement is proven correct within this short summary. The Queen will not allow her servant to be a pawn in her husband’s unfaithfulness. “Had she not saved her chambermaid from staining her conscience” (de Navarre 1644). The Queen is being just, and even though she does not approve of adultery she allows her husband to think he is having an affair, and taking the place of the maid, which saves the maid’s dignity and reputation.

            The Queen believes that she is saving her husband “from the flames prepared for them”. “I did what I did in order to save you from your wicked ways, so that when you get old, we can live happily and peacefully together without anything on our consciences” (de Navarre 1645). The Queen has successfully saved her husband from cheating on her, but what happens without her knowledge is that she then sleeps with a man whom is not her husband. This sin; however, does not fall upon her. It falls upon her husband because he allowed another man to trick another woman (the Queen who was thought to be the chambermaid). This deceit turns the King into a cuckold. “The husband was branded as a cuckold without his wife having done a single thing to disgrace herself” (de Navarre 1645).

            According to Bayle the Queen is the type of person who keeps an open mind. She does not punish those who have differing opinions than she does, but she tries to steer them onto the right path. Although she may not succeed since her husband still sins, but at least he does not cheat on her.

Work Cited

de Navarre, Marguerite. "The Heptameron." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 1640-1647. Print.

Sunjata

Wedding Traditions 6/16/13

            Within the story “Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples” there are traditions that become modified throughout the process of a wedding. The first tradition to change is the bride-carrying ceremony, and this leads to the changing of the traditional bride-escorting song.. The ceremony was originally a bride-escorting ceremony versus the carrying ceremony. The original bride-escorting ceremony was performed with a song being sung. The song went like this, “Walk well, / Bride of my brother, / Walk well. / Do not put us in the dust” (Sunjata line 759-762).  However, one bride, Sogolon Conde, had a twisted foot, so she could not walk. Due to this the other wives picked her up and carried her to her husband’s tent, and thus the bride-carrying ceremony was created. The bride-escorting song was created because the sister – in – laws saw the brides mangled foot, and saw that when she moved she kicked up dust in each direction.

            A German marital custom is one of breaking old porcelain and dinnerware in front of the bride and groom. The broken pieces symbolize good luck and a happy life. (German) Apparently “The noise made by breaking earthenware items was supposed the fend off evil spirits. The actual term eve-of-wedding ceremony ("Polterabend") was mentioned the first time in central-Germany in 1517” (Der Polterabend). This tradition differs from the traditions in Sunjata because this tradition focuses on both the bride and groom whereas the traditions within in Sunjata focus mainly on the bride. This is a fascinating custom. It uses Pre-Christian views to create a tradition that still happens today. Having attended a wedding that celebrated the Polterabend custom I find it very interesting. It has been modernized and is very common within the western world today within German weddings.

Work Cited

"Der Polterabend." Der Polterabend. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2013. <http://www.rosenthalusa.com/index.php/fuseaction/elwin/elwinID/1368/elwinBG/ffffff/elwinOffset/10/elwinAlt/Der Polterabend.htm>.

"German Wedding Traditions." German Wedding Traditions. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 June 2013. <http://www.personal.psu.edu/jld345/German.html>.

"Sunjata: A West African Epic of the Mande Peoples." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 1514-576. Print.

Bashō

Poetry Within Images and Images Within Poetry 6/9/13

            “Haiku became more than simply another form of poetry: it became an expression of modern life” (Basho 321). When reading Matsuo Basho’s poetry this statement rings loud and true. Basho was considered a poet of popular literature, and within popular literature poets wrote about what was happening in everyday life, whether it was pretty or not (Puchner 318). The YouTube video compiled with Japanese images and haikus that are written by Matsuo Basho depict modern day life as it was for Basho.

            Several images are depicted before a haiku appears. The images are of people, landscapes, seasons, and a few maps. These images not only tell a story, but they may give a type of background to the Haiku. A “Haiku typically contains a “seasonal word” (kigo), which evokes a host of associations relating landscape to mood” (Basho 322). The images depicted in the YouTube video seem to associate the visual of the haiku that Basho has written.

            An example of this begins at 1 minute and 22 seconds into the YouTube clip. The second haiku is displayed, and it says “with the air of a century past / the fallen leaves on the garden” (Matsuo 1:22). This haiku tells us a season, autumn, due to the falling leaves, and what is happening. One hundred years have past and the people in the vicinity can feel it. The preceding pictures that associate with this haiku are of a man working on a riverbank with a weeping willow tree, and a man and woman floating in the river. (Matsuo 0:56). Then the viewer sees a woman presumably working with laundry (Matsuo 1:04), this is followed by the final image, a winter landscape. (Matsuo 1:12). These three images depict time passing, summer to winter, or spring to fall. Within the passing time the viewer sees the process of work happening. Maybe not a lot has changed in the fact that people must work to survive, but the seasons will always change and time will always continue to pass, and that is possibly what Basho’s haiku means.

            The poems and images were possibly paired together to lay out the haiku in images. A poem is full of images that the author creates, but images can be full of poetry that is simply not written. The images and poems go hand in hand, and in this case they are simply telling the same story, just in different ways. The compiler of this YouTube video has taken what they see when they read the haiku’s and placed the images with the words to share with all.

Work Cited

Basho, Matsuo. "The World of Haiku." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. Ed. Martin Puchner. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 321-37. Print.

"Matsuo Basho." YouTube. YouTube, 09 Apr. 2010. Web. 09 June 2013.

Puchner, Martin. "Early Modern Japanese Popular Literature." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 2. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 313-19. Print.

Classic of Poetry

Morals, Virtue, and Rhetoric 6/2/13

The “Classic of Poetry” contains many poems by many different poets. Each poet, whether intentionally or not, incorporates morals, virtue and/or rhetoric. Whether these poets meant to discuss these topics or not, does not sway from some of the powerful messages that they portray.

Poem number 42, “Gentle Girl”, in the “Classic of Poetry” teaches all three topics: morals, virtue and rhetoric. The poet writes “A gentle girl and fair / awaits by the crook of the wall” (Gentle line 1-2). The words “gentle” and “fair” describe the girl as a virtuous girl. She is gentle, or kind and she is fair, or good. The poet then continues on saying “A gentle girl and comely / gave me a scarlet pipe; / scarlet pipe that gleams - / in your beauty I find delight” (Gentle line 5-8). Here the poet is again describing the girl as virtuous; however, the speaker who can be assumed a male is being moral by accepting her gift. In the last stanza the girl gives the speaker a reed. The speaker writes “Reed – the beauty is not yours - / you are but beauty’s gift” (Gentle line 11-12). This simple statement is a play on words, saying that the reed may be beautiful, but the true beauty is in the gift giver. While all this seems moral and virtuous, this poem could be taken in the opposite direction. The speaker and the girl are meeting in the middle of the night, outside of her home. This could be seen as being immoral and not virtuous because they were sneaking around without her family’s knowledge.

The final poem in our selection of “Classic of Poetry” is poem number 245, “She Bore the Folk”. This poem seems the most virtuous and moral to me. This poem is about the first mother, Jiang, and her son, Lord Millet. Jiang raised her son, and he was good and virtuous. “Not splitting, not rending, / working no hurt, no harm” (She Bore line 14-15). Lord Millet was so good that he made the high god happy. He kept high morals by not hurting anyone or anything. Lord Millet grew up to farm and work as he was expected to. He never swayed toward evil, staying virtuous. The second to last stanza states;

And how goes this rite we have? –

at times we hull, at times we scoop,

at times we winnow, at times we stomp,

we hear it slosh as we wash it,

we hear it puff as we steam it.

Then we reckon, then we consider,

take Artemisia, offer fat.

We take a ram for the flaying,

then we roast it, then we sear it,

to rouse up the following year. (She Bore line 56-65)

This stanza teaches the readers that things must be done, and maybe they will not always be fun, but you will be rewarded in the end. Lord Millet had to work the farm, he had to take the animals and slay them for food because it was his job, his moral obligation, and since he was virtuous and good he did his job without a complaint. He was then rewarded with starting the new year well.

            The poems teach rhetoric, good diction and good prose, they teach morals and virtue, and they do so in very different ways. Some of the poems may not have the greatest rhetoric, and therefore confuse the reader, but that could just be my opinion. The poem “Huge Rat” is confusing in its rhetoric. The repeated phrase “huge rat” is a metaphor, and I believe the speaker to be female and to be talking about a male who is not respecting her as he should. The problem lies in the fact that the poems are anonymous, so that question will remain unanswered. (Huge)

Work Cited

Puchner, Martin. "Gentle Girl." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 764. Print.

Puchner, Martin. "Huge Rat." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 764. Print.

Puchner, Martin. "She Bore the Folk." The Norton Anthology of World Literature. 3rd ed. Vol. 1. New York: W.W. Norton &, 2013. 764. Print.