Assignment

As we begin our studies of Major Authors II, ideals of the Enlightenment are at the center of public discussion and debate. Spacks argued that students and scholars of literature read, foremost analytically and critically, to, for example, examine how literature helps us see ways the personal represents "in miniature" aspects of society. Similarly, in the introduction to the Enlightenment, our texts' editors note that a key component of the Enlightenment movement was that individuals, relying on their own reasoning and intelligence, "learn to cultivate these habits in our everyday lives so that we become independent and skeptical adults, never carried away by mere prejudice or habit, and willing to examine all beliefs, including our own" (13). [This brief paragraph warrants rereading multiple times-this week, and weekly; it contains the purpose of the course as well as for each reading and for each writing assignment; earnestly, it contains the purpose of education, particularly higher education, as the Enlightenment essentially calls for the education of all so that we might be led by reason/analysis/critical thinking rather than prejudice/habit/fear.]

Part A:

Read "The Enlightenment" section in The Norton Anthology of Western Literature. Then read Moliere's Tartuffe including intro on Moliere and to the play.

Consider two of the following in your first forum entry:

1. What are two ideas about the emergence of individualism during this period known as the Enlightenment that you found interesting?

2. Describe the role reason held in relation to deism during the Enlightenment.

3. What's a connection between reason and the growing case for the education of women?

4. Writers in most eras, but in the Enlightenment in particular, wish to preserve specific societal conventions. Explore two of the "classical" conventions in literature that Enlightenment writers worked to instate.

Part B:

After reading Moliere's Tartuffe including intro on Moliere and to the play, consider two of the following:

1. How funny was Tartuffe for you, and what's the purpose of such satire?

2. Cleante understands and speaks wisely, with self-control and moderation, and Elmire and Dorine concretely insist that other characters rationally face the reality before them; please find a passage in Tartuffe which helps you discuss and illustrate such understanding and insistence.

3. As noted at top of this forum, examining all beliefs, including one's own, is a practice students and scholars must develop. What about your own beliefs may have been challenged by your reading of Tartuffe? How might that help you connect, as effective readers must, the personal and the social, during the Enlightenment and in our own time, when reading literature?

4. Select a passage from the play which helps you understand some aspect of the Enlightenment--perhaps about society, about humanity and nature, or about convention and authority. Explain.