Western Heritage 1 Texts

WESTERN HERITAGE I TEXTS

• Plato, Allegory of the Cave
• Homer, Odyssey
• Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oresteia)
• Plato, Republic
• The Bible (New Revised Standard Version)
• Aristotle, selections from Physics and Parts of Animals
• Vergil, Aeneid
• Augustine, Confessions
• Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

Plato, "Allegory of the Cave"

Polemarchus: "But can you persuade us, if we refuse to listen to you?" he said.
Plato, Republic, 327c

The "Allegory of the Cave" is one of the most fundamental texts in the history of Western thought. It constitutes a small portion of Plato's greatest work-the Republic-portions of which we will encounter later in the term.

An "allegory" is a lesson taught using symbolic language or images, often jarring or unexpected. At first glance, an allegory can seem unreal and exaggerated-even dreamlike-but this effect is designed by the author to draw us indirectly to the text's meaning and purpose.

While there are many legitimate interpretations of this or any other text, your task as a reader is to begin to solve the author's puzzle. What does the cave represent? What happens when one journeys out of the cave? What does it mean to become "educated"?Who is meant to take this journey and undergo the transformation? Is only one journey and transformation described or many?

In this tale, escape from "The Cave" is difficult, dangerous, and painful. Examine carefully the way Socrates describes this "journey" and "transformation". You have undoubtedly undergone a similar experience yourself, or have seen this sort of process in others.

Throughout this semester, and throughout your time at Carthage, you will see again and again how the "Allegory of the Cave" can help us understand the transformations that characters in literature, people around us, and we ourselves undergo as we journey forward in life.

Do not be surprised if you do not grasp all the nuances of this allegory on first reading. Keep discussing it with your classmates, imagine yourself in the story, and try reading it again. Part of the irony is that Socrates warns us here of ever claiming to say, "Ah! Now I understand everything."

Rather, we must always be asking questions and re-examining what we believe or think we know to be true. We also must not be afraid to accept guidance when we journey, nor hesitate to help others on theirs. Socrates tells us that our education must be shared and used wisely, not for our own benefit, but for the benefit of all.

In part, the allegory asks us to question how we know what we know:

• Who influences what we know?
• What do education and inquiry involve?
• What is the nature of reality? Are some things more 'real' than others? How do we decide what is real and what is not?

Homer, Odyssey

'O brothers who have reached the west,' I began,
Through a hundred thousand perils, surviving all:
So little is the vigil we see remain
Still for our senses, that you should not choose
To deny it the experience-behind the sun
Leading us onward-of the world which has
No people in it. Consider well your seed:
You were not born to live as a mere brute does,
But for the pursuit of knowledge and the good.
Dante, Inferno, XXVI.107-115

Little can be said for certain of Homer, except that he (or she? or they?) was the greatest of the Greek poets, and perhaps the greatest story-teller of all time. The Iliad and The Odyssey, the two great epic poems attributed to him, have been fruitful sources of literary and artistic inspiration for more than 2500 years. They relate events that are said to have happened shortly before and after the destruction by the Greeks of the powerful and magnificent city of Troy, in a vicious ten-year war.

The Odyssey is a tale of two journeys. Odysseus is on his way home to the island of Ithaca after winning glory and fame on the fields of Troy. But before he can return, our hero must transform himself. But how, from what and into what are all open questions. He begins to change only through a set of harrowing yet-to us-highly entertaining experiences, consorting with gods and goddesses, even as he strives to return home.

Even as Odysseus nears the end of his journey, his son begins a journey of his own. Telemachus was an infant when his father departed for the war, but he has now grown into a man-forced to ask questions and make judgments for both himself and others. As the story opens, he is led by the goddess Athena out of Ithaca in search of his destiny and purpose in life, just as many of you are leaving home for the first time in search of your own futures. We as readers can watch Telemachus as he makes the journey that Socrates describes in his allegory.

In fact, you may think of "sunny Ithaca", or your home in general, as a sort of "cave". In fact, Socrates asserts that at least some are compelled to bring their new-found wisdom home to their communities and families. By making such interpretive connections between texts-in this case a connection between the Odyssey, "Allegory of the Cave", and life in your own home-you will reach a much deeper understanding of the works you will encounter, not only in this class but in all your reading. You will also begin to compound and immeasurably increase the pleasure of reading, writing, thinking, and discussing.

Keep a few things in mind when reading The Odyssey:

• How is Odysseus' journey one from darkness into light or from ignorance to knowledge?
• Can we read Odysseus' story as an allegory that applies to all our journeys and transformations in life?
• Is Odysseus 'free' to make his own choices? What are the different forces that motivate him
• How does Penelope cope with the loss of her husband for so many years?
• Are Odysseus, Telemachus and Penelope a model or 'ideal' family?
• What makes the story of the Odyssey both realistic and unrealistic?
• In what ways do 'poetic' elements appear in the epic?
• Today can we still undergo anything like Odysseus' or Telemachus' journeys and transformations?

Aeschylus, Agamemnon (Oresteia)

This is my prayer:
Civil War Fattening on men's ruin shall
Not thunder in our city. Let
Not the dry dust that drinks
The black blood of citizens
Through passion for revenge
And bloodshed for bloodshed
e given our state to prey upon.
Let them render grace for grace.
Let love be their common will;
Let them hate with a single heart.
Much wrong in the world is thereby healed.
Aeschylus, Eumenides 976-987

Aeschylus's Oresteia is the only complete tragic trilogy-a cycle of three plays meant to be experienced together-to survive from ancient literature. Agamemnon depicts Clytemnestra's plotting and murder of her husband, the returning Greek hero Agamemnon, which is followed by Orestes' subsequent murder of his mother. The trilogy could have ended in unresolved conflict, but instead the last play depicts Orestes on trial for murder. To us this seems nothing special, but traditionally Orestes' trial was believed to be the first there had ever been. By deciding the issue in court rather than by shedding blood, the play resolves a conflict between competing views of justice, ends an ongoing cycle of revenge, and makes the rule of law possible.

As the picture of a second journey home, the Agamemnon also allows us to compare the family of Agamemnon, Clytemnestra, and Orestes with the family of Odysseus, Penelope, and Telemachus. What accounts for the differences between the two potentially similar situations? What are the differences between Agamemnon and Odysseus as heroes? As the Oresteia transforms the cycle of familial revenge into a system of legal justice founded in Athens, it allows us to consider the relation between revenge and political justice.

Tragedy has also been understood to be born from inevitable conflicts. In what way does the Agamemnon show family life and political aims to be a source of irresolvable conflicts? Is the lesson of Aeschylus' tragedy that many conflicts are inevitable and many cannot be overcome? As the trial ends the cycle of revenge, it opens the question of what is political justice. Does the justice won by Orestes provide adequate and satisfactory justice? Is a more just outcome possible? What does this say about the nature of political life?

As an example of Greek tragedy, the Oresteia will enable us to consider the character of tragedy and what this might suggest about the nature of the world. One of the most famous formulas for what tragedy is comes from Aeschylus's Agamemnon, "Wisdom comes alone through suffering." Does learning require the experience of undergoing great pains; if so, does wisdom always come too late to be practically useful? What would Socrates say? Written and performed tragedies may be able to mitigate this need by providing for us the audience the suffering necessary for wisdom.

Considering the nature and possibility of justice shows us one journey out of Plato's cave and prepares the way for further consideration of Plato's Republic.

Consider the following questions as you read the Agamemnon:

• How does Agamemnon compare with Odysseus as a hero?
• What accounts for the different results of Agamemnon and Odysseus' homecomings?
• Is the conflict that leads to Agamemnon's murder avoidable?
• Does Agamemnon display general and irresolvable tensions between family life and political life? Between family and other pursuits more generally? Can these be resolved?
• What understanding of justice do the characters have: Clytemnestra, Orestes, the Furies, Apollo, and Athena?
• Why do actions taken for revenge produce a cycle of revenge?
• In what way does the trial offer a solution to the cycle of revenge?
• What precedents are offered by Orestes' trial?
• Do the results of the trial achieve perfect justice?
• How might the trial provide the foundations for the possibility of political life?
• How does the play exhibit the Chorus's claims that wisdom comes only through suffering? Is it possible to attain wisdom without suffering destruction?
• Consider Clytemnestra as a portrayal of women. How does she compare with Penelope? What might these alternatives suggest about the possibilities for women?
• How is a trial like a play? Can it too have a cathartic effect? How might both staged tragedies and jury trials substitute for the tragedy of learning only through suffering?

Plato, Republic

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere. We are caught in an
inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny. Whatever
affects one directly, affects all indirectly.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The return of Odysseus and the reunion of his family brings about resolution to the turmoil that was in Ithaca during his absence and a certain type of transformation, just as the first law court that is established by Athena at the end of the Oresteia offers the hope of ending forever the cycle of blood vengeance and the grim logic of "an eye for an eye" by altering the standard of justice. Now that the age of heroes has passed, how can we continue to transform our own society into one that sets and maintains a standard of justice? This is a question that persists today and we see in Plato's Republic one of the first attempts in our Western heritage to answer it.

The selections from the Republic we are reading are some of the most well-known as well as some of the most controversial parts of what may well be the greatest work of philosophy ever written. These are the passages in which Socrates explains the several ways in which human life as it is generally known would have to be transformed to bring about a truly just community.

Here Socrates invites us to rethink our community in its totality from the role of the individual to the purpose of the family to the proper functions of government. His prescriptions and proscriptions seem almost as radical to us today as they did to the people of Athens, but within them we can see the seeds of many different contemporary political systems and problems.

It may seem odd to us, however, that Socrates thinks that the first thing that must be done to bring about a just community is to have people accept a particular lie as the truth. But be sure to examine the lie closely and see what in it is actually a lie and what could be called merely a repackaging of the truth-truth that is not easy to accept. Following the introduction of the lie, Socrates explains another transformation: those most responsible for watching over the community he is discussing will share all their goods in common and own little or nothing beyond what is truly necessary. He argues that this will help bring about greater unity-and it obviously also discourages greed and selfishness-and so it is not difficult to see that this "communism of property" may well be needed in order to have justice in the community.

Likewise, when he argues that children should be raised together and that "marriages" should be arranged so as best to serve the good of the whole community, we see just how far it would seem we must go in transforming life in order to make true devotion to the common good possible. If we find Socrates' proposals defective, we are faced with the options of either denying that his definition of a just community is correct or denying that justice is worth pursuing at such a high cost.

As you read the Republic, ask yourself:

• What is the best form of government?
• Is it simply wrong for Socrates to base his society on a lie? Do we believe that our society is based entirely on the truth?
• Do we understand the principles of our society with perfect clarity? Or do we deceive ourselves somewhat when we accept something as true?
• The desire for justice is usually a desire for change. If you were to change society such that each would get what he or she deserves, what would you do? How in this circumstance is justice not arbitrary?
• Can freedom exist without limits or do some limits that we might at first glance associate with the loss of liberty actually promote autonomous individuals?
• What does it mean to be a human being in an unjust world?
• How should a community respond to a grave injustice whose effects remain long after the original perpetrators and victims have disappeared?

What's wrong with this world is, it's not finished yet. It is not completed to the
point where man can put his final signature to the job and say, 'It is finished. We
made it and it works.
William Faulkner

Genesis and Exodus

My efforts with the language and content of the Holy Scriptures resulted at last
in the awakening of my imagination to a more vivid conception of that beautiful and
celebrated land along with its surroundings and neighborhood, as well as of the
peoples and events that have made this patch of earth glorious for millennia.
Goethe, Poetry and Truth, I.4

The "rational plan" suggested by Plato stands in sharp contrast to the series of turbulent and often quite violent tales we find in our selections from Genesis and Exodus.Having read the Greeks already, we can now approach the familiar stories of Adam and Eve, Noah, Abraham and Moses with a new and improved ability to ask critical questions.

Perhaps most strikingly, we encounter in these texts God as a "character." The God we see in Genesis and Exodus, like the gods we meet in the Odyssey, communicates directly with mortals and intervenes in human history. One wonders, how are the Greek divinities and the deity of Abraham really different? Is the Hebrew God above and beyond human passions and desires any more than, say, Ares or Aphrodite?

While Genesis begins with the origins of the cosmos, it very quickly shifts its focus onto the human level. We witness the development and growth of community from a single individual to a family to a clan and (in the book of Exodus) to a nation organized around a strict set of rules-rules that sharply set them off from other peoples surrounding and interacting with them. This community comes into being not merely as a result of divine intervention and assistance but also through the hard work of all too human individuals in their quest for survival and the further propagation of their line. The journey undertaken by Moses and the Hebrew people represents much more than a physical escape from the land of Egypt back to their original homeland-it constitutes a figurative and spiritual attempt to rediscover and redefine who they are.

Genesis and Exodus present very different standards of justice and behavior compared with those expressed in the worlds of Homer and Plato. Nevertheless we will recognize the universal patterns of heroes and villains, trials and tribulations, and the search for a place to call home. Clearly, every society must develop some means to provide food and shelter, and to establish a set of common rules and standards, and these must necessarily vary according to people, time, and place. Can any rules, then, be truly 'universal'? But these texts challenge us with further puzzles beyond 'right and wrong' or even 'good and evil'. What, for example, does it mean to 'create' or even 'to be'? While these texts may offer no easy answers, they help us better understand the complications and challenges inherent in the human condition.

As you read Genesis and Exodus consider the following questions:

• Why is it important to try to understand and describe our origins?
• Why does God prefer Abel's sacrifice over Cain's?
• Is God a just and eminently wise power, or an arbitrary force who happens to have a lot of strength?
• Why is there so much space devoted to the genealogies in Genesis?
• What is the purpose of Abraham's covenant with God? How is it different from Noah's or Jacob's?
• Why is primogeniture so frequently undermined throughout Genesis?
• Is Pharaoh a villain, a victim, or something in between?
• Why do the Ten Commandments need to be dictated from above?

Selections from Aristotle, Physics and Parts of Animals

It should not surprise us that questions about creation and being were debated in Athens even as they continue to be discussed today. The works of Aristotle, both a student and critic of Plato, cover an enormous range of topics, including logic, politics, ethics, poetry, psychology, the natural sciences, and more. In the short but dense selections we take from some of his writings on what we would today call Physics and Biology, Aristotle discusses 'nature' and 'being' as well as 'change' and 'causation'. Aristotle's way of thinking about the world around us dominated Western scientific thought until the time of Galileo, and was influential even to the time of Darwin.

Although Aristotle's style of rhetoric may be at times difficult to follow, much of his appeal is to 'common sense' and shared experience. This is in marked contrast to attributing the cause of everything around us to the actions and whims of gods, goddesses, nymphs, or other spirits. In these passages we will pay special attention to what Aristotle calls 'the four conditions of change' and how they relate to the question 'Why does something happen?' We will also see how Aristotle compares his own ideas and insights with those of others, and, more importantly, we will consider what it means to be an 'educated' person.

After you have read the selections from Aristotle consider the following questions:

• What makes someone a 'scientist'?
• How can we learn about the world around us?
• What does 'nature' mean to Aristotle?
• What assumptions does Aristotle make about 'nature'?
• What, for Aristotle, makes something 'alive'?

All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree. All these
aspirations are directed toward ennobling man's life, lifting it from the sphere of
mere physical existence and leading the individual towards freedom.
Albert Einstein

Vergil, Aeneid

ANTONIO
Widow! A pox o' that! How came that widow in? Widow Dido!

SEBASTIAN
What if he had said "widower Aeneas" too? Good Lord, how you take it!

ADRIAN
"Widow Dido," said you? You make me study of that. She was of Carthage, not of Tunis.

GONZALO
This Tunis, sir, was Carthage.

ADRIAN
Carthage?

GONZALO
I assure you, Carthage.

Vergil's Aeneid tells the tale of the creation of a new society-the city and empire of Rome that rises from the ashes of the defeated Trojans-much as we see the house and family of Odysseus rebuilt and reaffirmed after the fall of Troy. Our selections will concentrate on Aeneas's telling of his perilous escape from a burning Troy and his visit to Carthage, where he reckons with the passion of a powerful leader, Queen Dido, as she builds her own kingdom. As this story unfolds we also watch a cast of immortal characters work to manipulate and steer the journeys of Aeneas. We constantly wonder, what is the relationship between humanity and divinity? One of opposition or one of partnership?

Much like the Odyssey-another epic poem-the Aeneid stands as a Roman reflection upon their domination not just of the physical landscape of the Mediterranean world but of the earlier Greek intellectual tradition. In many ways, the Aeneid gives us the blueprint of how the Romans wanted to see themselves in relation to other great and older cultures of the past. Vergil paints the portrait of a Rome founded by a minor Trojan hero who survived the Trojan war, just as Odysseus did, but who is an enemy of the Greeks. Thus the famous line from Aeneid 2: "Whatever it is, I fear the Greeks even when they bring gifts". Is this also a message for us? Should we be somehow afraid of Homer, Plato, Aristotle and the rest of the Greeks?

If we keep this Roman and Greek tension in mind, Vergil's transformation of the Homeric epic shows us one way in which we can make our encounters with different intellectual traditions real parts of our own lives. When we read, we consume, and just as our food affects our bodies and allows us to live and grow, what we read affects our minds. How deeply do we identify with Aeneas and Dido? Do we choose to let those characters influence our personal actions and interactions with other people? Similarly, to what degree do we suppose Vergil made Aeneas like and unlike Odysseus or like and unlike Socrates? How will we use these characters now that we have let them into our minds? How will they influence even in small ways the rest of our lives? Remember, we are still reading these books thousands of years after they were written. Why do they continue to influence world culture?

Some questions to consider when reading the Aeneid:

• Why are the gods so involved in human actions? Why do they care about us?
• Is Aeneas the perfect hero? How would you compare him to Odysseus?
• Does Aeneas have 'free will'? Is he in control of his life? Is anyone ever in complete control?
• How are the Odyssey and Aeneid different and similar as poems? Do they seem to be written in substantially different ways?
• According to Vergil, where are we before we are born and after we die? What is the effect of his portrait of the underworld?
• What does it mean for Aeneas to be the son of the goddess of love Aphrodite? How does love define Aeneas as a warrior hero? Are love and war true opposites?
• Where is justice in the Aeneid? Does the Oresteia's or Republic's definition of justice match the Aeneid's definition?
• Why is Aeneas chosen to succeed and Dido or others chosen to fail?

Matthew and John

In our selections from the gospels of Matthew and John we witness a clash between the two civilizations we have been studying up to this point-that is, between the Hebrew and the Greco-Roman worlds. We also find in Jesus a figure altogether different from any we have encountered so far. Yet in spite of his seemingly radical challenge to live by a new ethic of love and self-sacrifice, Jesus insists that his teachings represent the fulfillment of the Hebrew scriptural tradition.

Jesus is portrayed quite differently in these two Gospels. The Jesus of Matthew is a feisty and confrontational figure who can reveal surprisingly vulnerable traits-one who in Gethsemane expresses trepidation about the fate that awaits him and who during his crucifixion begs to know why God has forsaken him. John's Jesus, on the other hand, is far more withdrawn, certain and resigned about the crucifixion he knows is inevitable, seeking neither to speed nor to slow down the events as they unfold.

The two Gospels also employ markedly different strategies for establishing Jesus' importance. Matthew uses a genealogical approach to justify Jesus' right to transform the Old into the New Covenant. John, on the other hand, uses metaphysical arguments deeply set in the Platonic tradition. In both Gospels, however, Jesus transforms the earlier vast and intricate set of social customs and laws laid out in Genesis andExodus into a single guiding principle of love distilled in the "Golden Rule." Is this too simplistic? Can humans really live in this way? What, if anything, is really new about it. Such ideas can further be considered in relation to Plato, Aristotle, Genesis, and Exodus.

Some questions to consider while reading Matthew and John:

• Is Jesus an effective persuader?
• Is God a just and eminently wise power, or is he simply an arbitrary force who happens to have a lot of strength?
• In what ways are these Gospels something more than (or at least something different from) simply "Biographies of Jesus"
• Why is there no infancy narrative in John?
• How would you compare the role that healings and miracles play in Matthew with the significance they hold in John?
• How has the image and depiction of God changed in the New Testament from what we saw in the Hebrew Scriptures? Has the presence of God increased or decreased?
• 
  
  The two aims of the Party are to conquer the whole surface of the earth and to
  extinguish once and for all the possibility of independent thought. There are
  therefore two great problems which the Party is concerned to solve. One is how to
  discover, against his will, what another human being is thinking, and the other is
  how to kill several hundred million people in a few seconds without giving warning beforehand.
  
  George Orwell,1984

  Augustine, Confessions

  I came to Carthage and all around me hissed a cauldron of illicit loves.
  Augustine, Confessions III.1
  
  Augustine's Confessions contains the first, and arguably most profound, autobiographical narrative in the history of Western writing. The author presents the many transformations of his character, beliefs, and intellect as he journeys from infancy in Romanized northern Africa through his conversion to Christianity in adulthood. His narrative reflects on how his family, friends, "illicit loves," education, and choices led him to become the person he was by the time he wrote the Confessions. His account of his own personal journey is intimately and explicitly bound up with the more general question of what it means to be a human being. In fact, his journey can be said to consist of successive responses to the questions, "Who am I?" and "What is human nature?" These questions lead Augustine to turn repeatedly to the still larger question of whether and how he in particular and human beings in general are related to the whole of things and-ultimately for Augustine-to God. Unraveling this mystery is the Herculean task Augustine sets for himself-and for us.

  To this end, consider these questions as you read selections from the first ten books of Augustine's Confessions

  • What do you think of the role of Augustine's mother Monica? What exactly did she add to who he has become?
  • What is the role of friendship in Augustine's journey?
  • What role does sexual desire play in Augustine's development?
  • Why does Augustine feel so compelled to give an account of the origin of evil?
  • What role does philosophy play in his journey? Is it ultimately a dangerous temptation, a helpful guide, or something else?

  Chaucer, Canterbury Tales

  When in April the sweet showers fallââ'¬Â¦
  Then people long to go on pilgrimages
  And palmers long to seek the stranger strands
  Of far-off saints, hallowed in sundry lands.

  Canterbury Tales, "The Prologue"

  Finally, we conclude our reading in this course with some lighter fare-a few selections from Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. Chaucer's collection of stories, told by a group of pilgrims as they travel to the holy site of Canterbury, England, show the continuing influence of the classical tradition as it was absorbed into Christianity. The journeys of the pilgrims provide a fitting allegory to close the first semester, not only for personal journeys but for the journey and transformation of the ideas you will take from the classroom into the everyday of your larger lives: one last journey out of Plato's cave.

  During the Middle Ages, many people went on pilgrimage, a trip to a holy city such as Rome, Jerusalem, Compostela or Canterbury (the site of the martyrdom of a popular saint, the archbishop Thomas Becket). Such a journey might have many purposes: spiritual enlightenment and healing; learning the ways of other countries and peoples; and the pleasures of a vacation. However, unlike most modern vacations, pilgrimages lasted many months and were physically arduous and even dangerous.

  For Chaucer, pilgrimage functioned as a way of describing the journey of life-we are all traveling toward an unknown end, which we hope will give meaning to and transform our experiences, our hopes and our sufferings. Like the pilgrims in the Tales, "sundry folk happening then to fall / In fellowship," life's voyage brings us into contact with people who are very different from us, and while we judge each other critically, we must come to recognize our common humanity. But is the idea of a 'common humanity' artificial?

  In the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, Chaucer gives us a series of brief portraits ofpeople from his society, from priests to military men, merchants, tradespeople and country folk. By using ordinary characters in contrast to larger-than-life Homeric heroes or figures such as Moses and Jesus, can Chaucer create markedly different effects in his work than those other authors? Some of the portraits are idealized, some are humorous, some explicitly critical, but each suggests that every person has both virtues and vices. As readers we must decide what Chaucer believes it means to live a good life-a very serious question.

  To pass the time, the pilgrims tell stories, including humorous tales, romances, legends of saints' lives, moral fables, and even a mock epic about a rooster. The selection you will read, "The Miller's Tale," is one of the great comic stories in English, about a clever young man who tricks a foolish carpenter and sleeps with his wife, but gets a painful comeuppance himself. As you think about the sexual morality of the tale, and its rather rough forms of justice, remember the Miller's words, "why be serious about a 22 game?" The refreshing and sometimes subversive role of humor in our lives is part of the journey. What are the benefits of humor: to help us to deal with the painful aspects of life and to remind us of the absurdities and pretensions of much human endeavor. What are the dangers of humor?

  As you read the selections from Chaucer's text, ask yourself the following questions:

  • How are human longings like those of the rest of the natural world? How are our needs different from those of animals?
  • How does Chaucer's epic compare to Homer's?
  • What kinds of vices does Chaucer focus on? Do you think our society suffers from the same forms of corruption that Chaucer's did? What are our most serious vices?
  • What is the "Miller's Tale" telling us about sexual morality? Is the most fundamental law the law of attraction?
  • Does the Tale leave us with any sense of justice?
  • Why do human beings need humor?
  • Can such vulgar or "low" stories be considered great literature? Are they less valuable than high or serious matter?