Western Heritage II Texts

Dante, Inferno
Raphael, Stanza Della Segnatura, The School of Athens
Michel de Montaigne, Essays
Shakespeare, The Tempest
Francis Bacon, The Great Insaturation and New Atlantis
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (First Discourse)
Jefferson, Declaration of Independence
Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus
Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto
Derek Walcott, Omeros

Dante, Inferno

...yearning in desire
To follow knowledge like a sinking star
Beyond the utmost bound of human thought.
Tennyson, "Ulysses"

In keeping with our course theme "journeys and transformations," we begin the second semester of Western Heritage with one of the most stunning literary journeys ever undertaken or described. However, Dante's Inferno is unique not so much because of the terrain being visited (we've been to the land of the dead before already, after all, courtesy of Homer and Vergil), but rather because of the manner in which this journey is being related to us: the poet is purportedly telling us of his own journey and experiences through these darkest of regions.

Just as it was important for us to distinguish between the mature Augustine who was the writer of the Confessions and the younger Augustine who was the hero of the narrative, so is it also essential that we keep the dual identity of Dante as both pilgrim and poetic creator in mind as well. And we must never forget that the poet's quest is perhaps no less daunting than that of the pilgrim-after all, seeing and experiencing Hell is extraordinary enough, but to try to convey that experience in words (let alone the terza rima poetic form) is to aspire to put oneself on the very same level as (if not above) Dante's greatest poetic predecessors. Therefore, we should also never forget that behind the almost abject humility of the pilgrim stands the extraordinary pride and self-confidence of the poet.

Making the relationship between literary text and author even more fascinating and complex is the choice of Vergil as the pilgrim's guide and mentor through Hell. Vergil's presence creates a fascinating teacher-student relationship-to say nothing of the ironical situation where a non-believing pagan is guiding a Christian.

The various punishments that hold the sinners in unrelenting torment (known as contrapassi or "counter-punishments") have been carefully crafted by the poet to "suit the sin." However, comprehending the full meaning of these contrapassi is no simple or obvious task, for they represent far more than simply poetic justice. In fact, each contrapasso can be understood as a peculiar and bizarre work of "performance art" warranting careful study and contemplation. The sympathy Dante shows for Francesca and Paolo (Canto V), Pier della Vigna (Canto XIII) and Brunetto Latini (Canto XV) - along with the careful respect he shows Farinata (Canto X)-all offer an ambiguous commentary on the contrapassi that these sufferers are enduring. Is Dante the pilgrim to be credited or criticized for the humanity or respect he exhibits in these instances? And is Dante the Poet just or is he simply cruel?

The Inferno presents us with a complex intermingling of the biblical world with that of pagan Greece and Rome-highlighting the wide variety of influences on this poem. Dante was not directly familiar with Homer, but that does not prevent him from offering an unforgettable depiction of Ulysses in Canto XXVI-one that Western Heritage students will be in a unique position to appreciate. Rather than being content with his homecoming as a final goal, this Ulysses decides to set out on an unprecedented voyage-one that takes him to the end of the world and leads to his ultimate demise. The fate of this "sinner" leaves us to wonder-how did the purposes of Ulysses as he made his way across the unexplored seas (in search of "experience of that which lies beyond") differ from the trek Dante is attempting to make through the bowels of Hell?

Consider the following questions as you read Dante's Inferno:

How does Dante's categorization and hierarchy of sins differ from what you might have expected? Is treachery really worse than murder?
Why is Vergil chosen as a guide for Dante? Is Vergil merely guiding Dante, or is he also teaching him?
Do we encounter only unsympathetic figures in Hell? Why does Dante the pilgrim break down at times, revealing the strong sympathy or attachment he holds for several of the figures locked in Hell?
What does the inscription "ABANDON EVERY HOPE, WHO ENTER HERE" tell us about Dante's stance on justice, love and forgiveness? Does "Abandon all hope" apply to the pilgrim Dante as he enters?
What role do the four elements (air, earth, fire and water) play in the Inferno?
What sorts of varying combinations do they take in the various contrapassi that we see?
How does Dante's voyage through the Inferno compare with Ulysses' across the ocean?

Raphael, Stanza Della Segnatura, The School of Athens

When I raised my eyes a little higher,
I saw the master of the men who know
seated in philosophic family.
There all look up to him, all do him honor:
there I beheld both Socrates and Plato,
closest to him , in from of all the rest;
Democritus, who ascribes the world to chance,
Diogenes, Empedocles, and Zeno,
and Thales, Anaxagoras, Heraclitus;
I saw the good collector of medicinals,
I mean Dioscorides; and I saw Orpheus,
and Tully, Linus, moral Seneca;
and Euclid the geometer, and Ptolemy,
Hippocrates and Galen, Avicenna,
Averroes, of the great Commentary.
I cannot describe them all in full;
my ample theme impels me onward so:
what's told is often less than the event.
Dante, Inferno iv.130-145

Commissioned by Pope Julius II for the private library of the papal chamber of the Vatican Palace, the Stanza Della Segnatura illuminates and harmonizes the ideals of the Renaissance. Envisioning knowledge as the unity of theology, poetry, philosophy and law, Raphael's fresco cycle emphasizes the importance of great books and great persons of three celebrated cultures, Greek, Latin, and Italian. In four timeless scenes, each containing images of books and heroes (and the name of Pope Julius II), Raphael evokes past glories and modern aspirations and convinces viewers of the union between old and new.

In the Stanza Della Segnatura, Raphael painted the four branches of knowledge in four distinct frescos; the Dispute over the Sacrament (Disputa) for theology, the School of Athens for philosophy, Parnassus, home of the Muses for poetry and the Cardinal Virtues under Justice for law. In addition, the vaulted ceiling, which the viewer is intended to see first, foreshadows the wall murals. In eight elaborate tromp l'oeil frames, scenes from biblical, classical and modern sources encircle a whimsical scene of putti and clouds with the papal arms at the center.

The arrangement and composition of the murals is largely established by the library architecture. The vaulted ceiling, arches and shapes of the walls determine the way that each scene is represented. Raphael uses the vaults and arches both to frame and expand the small, 27-by-21 foot space. In the domed ceiling Raphael uses clouds to open the room to the sky. In each of the four wall murals, Raphael uses highly realistic imagery to open the space to the world beyond, much as Pope Julius II believed that the great books housed in the library would open the mind. In addition, this expansion of space is reflective of both the European and papal ambitions to expand their power throughout the world.

Each mural is painted with serene idealism and harmoniously arranged forms inspired by classical art. However, in addition to following classical conventions, Raphael adds Renaissance conventions such as perspective and foreshortening to create highly rational and realistic space. In addition, some figures are represented in twisting contrapposto poses, while other figures move in and out of frames, both conventions of the Renaissance.

The School of Athens is widely seen as the most outstanding achievement of all the murals in the papal rooms. It follows a pattern with the other three murals of representing ancient and contemporary heroes and great books. However, in the School of Athens, as the name implies, more emphasis is placed on the ancient than the modern.

Plato and Aristotle are carefully located at the center of the School of Athens, each holding their works Timaeus and Ethics respectively. Situated upon a bright blue sky and framed with a series of arches and vaults, the two Greek Philosophers are the clear focal point of the work. Also visually prominent are oversized sculptures of Apollo and Minerva which tower above the ancient scholars. The rest of the fresco is crowded with an eclectic mix of figures including Socrates, Euclid, Zoroaster, Ptolemy, Pythagoras and Diogenes. In addition, there is a series of artist portraits, including Raphael, Perugino, Michelangelo (as the apostle Paul), Leonardo da Vinci and Bramante.

The School of Athens is purposefully located on the opposite wall of the library from the Disputa. These two murals are offered in direct contrast as the former represents the greatness of the pre-Christian world and the latter represents Christian theology. Specifically, the School of Athens locates the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle at the center while the Disputa locates God the Father and Jesus in the center. Note, both murals locate the viewer below and looking upward.

Along with clear difference in characters and subject matter, Raphael elucidates the difference between philosophy and theology using formal elements of art such as color. For example, in the School of Athens, Raphael paints with cool blues and whites representing logic and rational thinking. In Disputa he uses warm golden tones to represent spiritual and theological values.

The differences in subject matter, artistic form and physical location contradict the overall beauty, harmony, and timelessness of Raphael's fresco cycle leading the viewer to consider the harmonies and oppositions between theology, poetry, philosophy and law and between pre-Christian and Christian thought.

Consider the following questions as you view Raphael's Stanza Della Segnatura, The School of Athens:

How does Raphael use visual elements to create harmony in the Stanza Della Segnatura and The School of Athens?
How does Raphael use visual elements to create contrast between the philosophers in The School of Athens and the theologians and saints in Disputa?
How does Raphael's depiction compare to Dante's integration of Christian and pagan themes?
Considering both the visual elements and the subject matter, in what ways does the scene represent an overall harmony among human intellectual pursuits? Is this harmony consistent with what we have seen in reading other authors or are there more tensions among the authors and their approaches to inquiry?
How can the characters of the frescoes be identified?
Why, like Dante, does Raphael place himself, and other great Renaissance artists amongst the great thinkers?
What are the differences in reading a visual versus a written text?

Michel de Montaigne, Essays

By a great love shown by a royal girl,
He, Daedalus himself, unravelled all
The baffling turns and dead ends in the dark,
Guiding the blind way back by a skein unwound.
In that high sculpture you, too, would have had
Your great part, Icarus, had grief allowed.
Twice your father had tried to shape your fall
In gold, but twice his hands dropped.
Vergil, Aeneid vi.43-50

We have experienced many different relationships between the characters on stage and the creators of those characters in Western Heritage. Consider, for example, that there seems to be a great deal more distance between Homer, the creator of the Odyssey, and Odysseus, the hero of that work, than there is between Augustine, the author of the Confessions, and the character Augustine whom we readers experience. "Seem" may be the operative word here, but the question of proximity between creation and creator is a prominent issue in almost every work, from the Biblical readings of last semester, to Dante's Inferno where we begin this semester.

Montaigne's innovation, or perhaps transformation, is to probe this relationship in a very direct and self-conscious way. While an autobiography like Augustine's Confessions, or the even the more metaphorical Dante's Inferno, places a great divide between the author of the present who tells a story about the past to the reader, Montaigne makes the boundary between past and present evaporate. As the French title of his work suggests, Essais, Montaigne is "trying to do something", "putting something to the test", that had never been tried or subjected to examination in the same way. Montaigne's journey is literally one of trial by error, much like Odysseus' own wanderings, with the essential difference being that we travel with Montaigne in "real time".

Today we use the very familiar title "Essay" to describe our many short and long writing assignments-journeys of thought-in which we examine and probe some subject, either a character, philosophical concept, or literary theme, that we have read about or discussed in class. Montaigne was the first person to write a book with this title and, in so doing, to make an individual's personal attempts into literature. Moreover, Montaigne did not choose distant and exotic topics or heroic characters as his primary subjects. For, as he says to us directly "...I am myself the substance of this book..." ("To the Reader").

Montaigne's innovation also puts the conflict between "artifice" and "nature" on prominent display. Consider, for example, how an author like Raphael can show us by using paint a character in similar and different ways to how an author like Plato can show us a character by using words. Words and paint are both "artificial", but they nonetheless strive to be natural, realistic, or, at the very least, credible. Montaigne again tries to cut
through another curtain, now the one separating "artifice" and "nature", by introducing the concept of "custom" or "habit". Even for us, the term "artificial" has a negative connotation. "Natural", however, means pure and wholesome. But when Montaigne tries to imagine our most natural state-we have already encountered the Garden of Eden, but he asks us to consider a tribe of natives living "naturally" -his final judgment
is "All this does not seem too bad. But then, they do not wear breeches" (On Cannibals). For Montaigne, natural man would be far too uncomfortable; regularity and custom are like a well-worn easy chair.

Consider the following questions as you read Montaigne's Essays:

How is the relationship between Montaigne and his Essays different from the relationship between other authors and their creations?
For whom is Montaigne writing? Does he seek a different relationship with his readers than other authors we have read?
Montaigne does not only talk about himself, much in the same way that Augustine will discuss a concept like 'time' or 'memory'. How does Montaigne discuss concepts in ways that are different from Augustine?
What can a painter like Raphael show his reader that a writer like Montaigne cannot? Likewise, can Montaigne show us anything more effectively orconvincingly than Raphael?
Is Montaigne spiritual or religious? Does God or do the gods have a prominent or any role in his Essays? What about faith?
Montaigne has a necklace made for himself that had the question "What do I know?" written on it? Is it dangerous or simply (too) honest for an author to admit this?

Shakespeare, The Tempest

And now our Case was very dismal indeed; for we all saw plainly, that the Sea went so high, that the Boat could not live, and that we should be inevitably drowned. As to making Sail, we had none, nor, if we had, could we ha' done any thing with it; so we work'd at the Oar towards the Land, tho' with heavy Hearts, like Men going to Execution; for we all knew , that when the Boat came nearer the Shore, she would be dash'd in a Thousand Pieces by the Breach of the Sea.
Daniel Defoe, Robinson Crusoe

Thanked be Fortune it hath been otherwise,
Twenty time better...
Thomas Wyatt, "They flee from me"

Our journey now pulls us away from Montaigne's private study and personal reflections out onto the public, outdoor stage of Shakespeare...and at the same time onto a faraway, mysterious island full of airy spirits, strange monsters and stranded castaways. In every sense we are now traveling through uncharted territory: just as the newly arrived visitors cannot say with certainty where they now are, Shakespeare's Tempest defies any sort of simple theatrical categorization by genre.

We have encountered several storms in our readings already (one thinks of the Odyssey, for example, or the Aeneid, or the great flood in Genesis)-but the one in The Tempest is thoroughly unique in that it has been conceived and executed not by the will of the gods or God-but rather by a man named Prospero, who has acquired his magical abilities through long and attentive study of the liberal arts. The more Prospero has been shut off and cast away from political authority, the more real power has he come to acquire-putting him quite close to a deity in terms of his ability to alter and affect other humans' lives.

Prospero can also be understood as a dramatist himself in the way that he shapes and determines the other characters' actions in this play. Thus a stunningly complex and even dizzying relationship has been forged between Shakespeare and Prospero: The magic of the island is conveyed to us through the magic of Shakespeare's stagecraft. Small wonder that such a creative partnership brings about such unforgettable marvels!

Shakespeare has created other characters who forge counter-plots of their own-the cynical Antonio and all-too-easily influenced Sebastian on the one hand, and the humorous but stunningly banal trio of Stephano, Caliban and Trinculo on the other. This play is very much about power struggles and how they can be successfully averted or overcome. What's more, the character of Caliban-a calque for the word "cannibal"-
can be seen as a direct response to Montaigne's sympathetic and at times rather complimentary treatment of the exotic and unfamiliar.

Prospero's willingness to not only forgive the others, but also to relinquish his powers at the end both are monumental acts-ones requiring far more strength of character than any of the feats he has performed up to this time. The fact that this appears to have been Shakespeare's final play (meaning that Prospero's farewell may also be the dramatist's) adds even greater force to the conclusion of this drama.

Consider the following questions as you read Shakespeare's Tempest:

What link is established in this text between magic and the liberal arts? Has Prospero made good use of his learning? Does he abuse his powers?
What role do the four natural elements play in The Tempest, and what is their significance?
In what way can Prospero's tests and trials be compared to those Montaigne made with his Essays?
What is the significance of freedom in The Tempest? What qualities cannot be granted instantly at the moment of liberation-or to everybody? Why is Caliban seemingly beyond remedy? How does Shakespeare's Caliban compare with Montaigne's cannibals?
What does Prospero mean by distinguishing virtue from vengeance? Why does he forgive those who have wronged him? Has his ability to forgive arisen from his knowledge and studies?
How does Prospero's power compare with that of God or the Greek gods?

Francis Bacon, The Great Instauration and New Atlantis

All great spiritual powers exercise a suppressing effect in addition to their
liberating one; but of course it makes a difference whether it is Homer or the
Bible or science tyrannizing men.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Human, All Too Human

Francis Bacon is one of the architects of modern science. In The Great Instauration he claims that he will correct the difficulties that the human mind creates for itself by offering a total reconstruction of the sciences and putting them on their proper foundations in experience. He introduces experimental modern science as the marriage of the empirical and the rational faculties whose offspring will be a "race of inventions" that will overcome the miseries of humankind. As Bacon connects the new inductive science to a technological project, he famously claims that knowledge amounts to power.

Bacon's work thus provides the opportunity for a reflection on the modern technological project from near its point of origin. Bacon's presentation of the human relationship with nature clearly shows the beginnings of a great change from the late medieval worldview we see in Dante, a change that is underfoot in the time of Machiavelli, Raphael, and Leonardo da Vinci. To what degree does the impulse to "command nature in action" define modernity? With the promise of technological fruits, Bacon connects the aims of modern science with the virtues of Christian charity, of which he claims there can be no excess. In so doing, he could be said to unleash an unlimited project of conquering nature. Is this ambitious view the product of, or perhaps reaction to, Christianity? How does it compare with those views of human limitations we see in Genesis and Greek tragedy?

Bacon's New Atlantis offers a depiction of fictional island society organized around his new scientific and technological project. Bensalem, or son of peace, is a utopia that appears to be flourishing and is extraordinarily technologically advanced. Comparing the achievement catalogued near the end of the tale with recent technological developments, one will find genetically modified foods, nuclear power, and holograms, but no cars or cell phones. The work's title invokes Plato's Critias and Timaeus, which describe Atlantis and offer Platonic cosmology. (The Timaeus was the most prominent Platonic work in the medieval world, and Raphael depicts him holding it in the School of Athens.)

As another account of a seemingly ideal society, New Atlantis invites comparison with Plato's Republic, and the prominence given to discussion of marriage and the family warrants direct comparison to the elimination of private families in Book 5 of Plato's Republic. Rather than a mere description of this society, Bacon writes a tale from the perspective of sailors on a journey. Like Odysseus' journey, it introduces great changes far from the plans of the travelers who report on the island society, and like Aeneas' journey, it appears to involve founding a new kind of empire. Curiously, all previous travel to and from the island have been secret. What happens in the tale prepares the
way for making public the news of Bensalem and the scientific enterprise that drives it, and the technological fruits it bears.

An early depiction of modern technological promise, Bacon's New Atlantis and its "College of the Six Days' Work" opens a consideration of the aims of the modern technological project, including some of the dangers we see in later authors such as Rousseau and Shelley. Considering the sailors' initial sense of danger, the report on the practices around the institution of marriage and the family, and the structure of power in Bensalem might reveal some of Bacon's reservations about the unqualified goodness of such technological society. In its aim of "effecting all thing possible," Bensalem's society seeks to secure human power over nature, serve the goal of health and the
preservation of bodies.

Consider the following questions as you read Bacon's Great Instauration and New Atlantis:

What does it mean to unite the rational and empirical faculties? Why is rational experimentation crucial to modern science? How does this connect the technological and scientific enterprises? Can our experiences be made subject to systematic scientific explanation?
What is the role of Christianity in Bensalem? Is this consistent with Christianity as you understand it from other sources? How are some Christian teachings put
into service of the ruling scientific powers in Bensalem?
Consider the attention given to bodily health and fruitfulness in Bensalem. Are the bodily aims of the society in Bensalem sufficient to satisfying the nature of human beings? Why is the festival of the family so important to this society? What do the practices surrounding marriage say about this society?
What is the political structure of Bensalem? What institutions have the most power? Does anyone appear to have power that is not obvious?
What explains the timing of the decision to reveal Bensalem's way of life to the rest of the world?
In what way is science like a new religion in Bensalem?
Consider the character of Joabin. Why is he able to speak so much more freely from everyone else on the island? What is important about what he reveals? What might he represent? What role does he play in bringing about the change in Bensalem's laws that allows the sailors to disseminate their report of Bensalem to the rest of the world?
Is the New Atlantis really left unfinished or is it incomplete because of all the work that will need to be done to advance the scientific project it embodies?

Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (First Discourse)

Peoples, know once and for all that nature wanted to keep you from being harmed by knowledge just as a mother wrests a dangerous weapon from her child's hand; that all the secrets she hides from you are so many evils from which she protects you.
Jean-Jacques Rousseau, First Discourse

With his Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (best known as the First Discourse), Jean-Jacques Rousseau fired the first shot across the bow of the Enlightenment enterprise launched by major early moderns thinkers such as Francis Bacon. Recall that Bacon seemed to place great store by the idea that science could be revolutionized and put into the service of humanity. Rousseau draws that idea radically into question. If the journey of modernity was launched by the likes of Francis Bacon, then surely it was transformed-perhaps fundamentally-through the challenge thrown down by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and in related ways by later thinkers such as Karl Marx.

Written as an entry in a contest sponsored by a prestigious French society of the arts and sciences, the First Discourse boldly asserts that everything we would call "progress" leads in fact to moral decline. In other words, the more scientifically, economically, and socially advanced we become, the more our souls become corrupt. In keeping with this general thesis, Rousseau extols the simplicity of rustic peoples, the nobility of tribal Indians, and the rugged virtue of ancient Roman warriors, railing all along against the decadence, vanity, and weakness of sophisticated, modern, commercial life.

Although the basic assertion of the First Discourse is clear enough, it is less clear what the assertion really means, what its bases are, and what Rousseau wishes his readers to think or do about it. First of all, does Rousseau really think all knowledge is harmful, or is it rather a matter of too much of knowledge of certain kinds? Is it instead less about the quantity and quality of knowledge and more about who the knowers are and how they ought to be related to society? Are Rousseau's criticisms meant to apply only to the period of the modern Enlightenment, or to all times and places? Next, on what does Rousseau base his claim to know what is good and bad for human beings? Has he seen the truth that he says nature seeks to hide from us? If so, why does he choose to reveal it to us when to do so only harms us? Finally, what ought we to think and do about Rousseau's challenge? Does he wish modern men and women to cast off all the advantages of civilized life and return to the hardships and deprivations of tribal societies or rural mud farming? Should we spurn the truths we learn through encounters with other
ways of life and cling to the narrow parochialism of our particular communities?

One useful way to approach these questions-and the related question as to Rousseau's transformative contribution to the great conversation of Western Heritage-is to notice and ponder the various instances in the First Discourse where Rousseau refers to earlier writers, periods, and places you have already read or read about in Western Heritage.

Consider the following questions when you read Discourse on the Sciences and Arts (First Discourse):

When Rousseau refers to Greece and the Greeks, is it to those depicted by Homer or by Plato? Sometimes to one, sometimes to another? What might be at stake in the difference?
Do Rousseau's Romans sound like those portrayed by Vergil? How or how not?
Does Rousseau capture the full spectrum of Socrates' concerns as you know him from the Republic? What does he leave out? What does he add?
What place might Christianity have in Rousseau's thought? He mentions Christianity not at all in the First Discourse, but can you infer what he might think about it from what he does say about faith in general and about non-Christian believers?
Do Rousseau's criticisms of learned society share much in common with Augustine's criticism of either philosophy or worldly life?
Rousseau explicitly refers to Montaigne on several occasions. Do you regard his debt to Montaigne to be superficial or deep?

Jefferson, Declaration of Independence

All eyes are open, or opening to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth that the mass of mankind has not been born, with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them.
Thomas Jefferson, June 24, 1826, ten days before his own death and fiftieth anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence

By early June of 1776, the Continental Congress anticipated that the thirteen American colonies would soon vote to break away from England to establish their own country. The small committee assigned the task of composing the Declaration of Independence delegated the writing of the first draft to Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson worked intensely on the draft for many days. It was revised by John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, then by the other members of the committee, and finally by the Congress as a whole. After declaring independence on July 2, Congress voted to adopt the Declaration on July 4, formally constituting the United States of America as a sovereign country.

The first paragraphs of Jefferson's initial draft remained almost entirely untouched during the long process of communal revision. The most significant substantive revisions pertained to the question of slavery: the words "inherent and" were cut from the beginning of the now famous phrase "inalienable rights," as was a paragraph containing a spirited denunciation of slavery as an "assemblage of horrors" that constituted a "cruel war against human nature itself." The deleted paragraph is as follows:

He has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating and carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere, or to incur miserable death in their transportation hither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian king of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where men should be bought and sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or to restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he also obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

The omission of this paragraph from the Declaration reflects the insistence of several Southern states that slavery not be mentioned in the document.

Consider the following questions as you read the Declaration of Independence

How could the founders hold it to be a self-evident truth that all men are created equal and at the same time consent to the persistence of slavery in the new United States? Did the founders not understand the meaning of their own pronouncements? If they did understand their meaning, why did they not insist in the immediate extirpation (rather than what Adams called for, "the total eventual extirpation") of slavery? Was abolitionism the only morally defensible position to adopt?
What are the Declaration's pronouncements regarding, and allusions to, God and how significant are they?
According to the Declaration, must a government be "democratic" to be considered legitimate?
What does the Declaration suggest about rights? What are rights to begin with? How does one distinguish the claim, "I have the right to 'x'," from the statement, "I want to have 'x'"?
What is so special about the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? Are they more essential than other conceivable rights or just three of many coequal rights?
What can one learn about equality and the creation of a just community from the long list of grievances against England?

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species

The causes...that eliminate the human race///come about through plague or through famine or through an indundation of water. The most important of these is the last, both because it is more universal and because those who are saved are either mountain men or course, who since they do not have knowledge of antiquity, cannot leave it to posterity.
Machiavelli, "Discourses on Livy" II.5

Charles Darwin's The Origin of Species is arguably the most controversial scientific book ever written. In it, Darwin gives the evidence and makes the scientific argument for the theory of evolution (though Darwin himself does not call it that). The theory claims that organisms change significantly over time as a result of the accumulation of small, subtle changes. Those changes that are advantageous and help the organism survive and reproduce will be carried forward into new generations. Other changes will simply fade away. The selection we read, "Natural Selection; or The Survival of the Fittest", lays out this theory of the mechanism of evolution - that organisms that survive will pass their traits on to their offspring, so changes that help an organism survive are more likely to be passed on.

We would be remiss not to note that Evolution is controversial, even in the modern era. Darwin himself was so certain that his theory would be controversial that he waited two decades after first formulating it to make it public. He spent this time gathering scientific evidence to make as strong a case as possible, and even then sent it to press only because another scientist was about to preempt him. This parallels the experience of Copernicus, the first western astronomer to theorize that the Earth and other planets revolved around the sun, rather than the universe revolving around the Earth. He, too, waited many years to publish his results, receiving a copy only on his deathbed, in 1543.

It took more than a century before Copernicus's theory received wide-spread acceptance, a situation being mirrored today with respect to Evolution. In many ways, The Origin of Species is an examination of the journeys and transformations of the human species as a whole. We can see this at the literal level by using the theory to understand where we come from as a species and where we are going. It also finds metaphorical
expression in ideas of some later thinkers who hold that humanity's self-knowledge and intellectual thought evolves over time as a result of a competitive struggle to survive in
the marketplace of ideas.

Consider the following questions as you read Darwin's The Origin of Species:

Why is evolution controversial? Why was it controversial to have a theory where the Earth revolved around the sun? How are these controversies similar?
Is natural selection/survival of the fittest restricted to only biology? In what other domains do you see it at work?
Is Evolution compatible with religion? Why or why not? In particular, is it compatible with your readings from Genesis?
If you believe in evolution, can you give a compelling argument why? If you don't believe in evolution, can you give a compelling argument why not?
How does the debate about evolution reflect the journey and transformation of human intellectual development more generally? Does the metaphor of evolution adequately reflect the transformations of ideas you experienced over the course of Western Heritage?

Mary Shelley, Frankenstein; Or, The Modern Prometheus

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said--"Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert... Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings,
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away."
Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias

When we read Mary Shelley's novel Frankenstein: Or, The Modern Prometheus, written by her as a nineteen-year-old, we feel in many ways that we have strayed very far from Greece and the story that those ancients began to tell. The voyage, with which we began Western Heritage, showed Odysseus making his way home with optimism, sanity, and self-control.

In psychological contrast, we meet Victor Frankenstein, an admirable and refined man-the very model of Western education-reduced to fear, vengeance, and selfloathing, hurling himself desperately, if not insanely, in the opposite direction, toward the frozen wastelands of the north that hold nothing but death: Recall Dante's picture of the depths of hell.

Like the Greek Prometheus, Frankenstein creates life and suffers, but everything else seems to be turned upside down. The blessing of this promise of creative power becomes a curse, and, for the first time, we consider a dark side of scientific knowledge as it seems to threaten man's place as a creature of nature: a creature not just living, but now seeking to control the natural world.

A third Greek myth also hovers in the background. Pygmalion was a sculptor who created such a beautiful, perfect image of a woman that he fell in love with 'it', and this love gives his creature life. Victor Frankenstein, though at first motivated by hopes of perfection and beauty, creates a being that horrifies him. His creature, a product of science, that is deprived of love at every turn, turns into a monster, but is no less prone to
human needs and emotion.

Mary Shelley herself was born into a time among people who were desperately trying to steer the path that Western civilization was taking. Her father was the radical philosophical anarchist William Goodwin. Her mother was the great feminist Mary Wollstonecraft. Her husband Percy Bysshe Shelley was a brilliant poet, ardent revolutionary, atheist, and free spirit. Listen closely for the echoes of all this social protest in Frankenstein, which Shelley has worked into a novel that displays so much of the anxiety and discontent of modern life.

Nor will the anxiety felt toward Western progress and the directions of its movements leave us as Frankenstein ends; Shelley's monster slips from sight, but is not consigned to death. The novel can be read as an introduction to the problems and themes that the rest of this term must confront, from the dehumanizing effect of industrial exploitation (Marx), through the tragic Christian denial of death and human participation in nature
(Darwin), to the consequences of colonialism and racism (Walcott).

Consider the following questions as you read Shelley's Frankenstein:

How does Shelley control and modulate her sense of social injustice?
How do the various landscapes described carry meaning in the text? What does Frankenstein's fluctuating awareness of nature tell us about him?
What is the purpose of shifting narrators (Walton, Frankenstein, Elizabeth, the creature)?
How does Frankenstein's own attitude about himself fluctuate? What is the attitude of the creature for his creator?
The themes of knowledge and education are central to the novel. How and when do they appear?
How does Shelley use proper names to illustrate the tensions of the plot?
Can a woman's point of view be detected in the novel? How are women treated?
What are the implications of a monster born of a man?

Karl Marx, The Communist Manifesto

The philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it.
Karl Marx, Theses on Feuerbach

As Deucalion, according to the legend, cast stones behind him in creating human beings, so philosophy casts its regard behind it (the bones of its mother are luminous eyes) when its heart is set on creating a world; but as Prometheus, having stolen fire for heaven, begins to build houses and to settle upon the earth, so philosophy, expanded to be the whole world, turns against the world of appearance.
Karl Marx, "Notebooks on Epicurean Philosophy"

Marx explains the journey of Western civilization in a manner that is quite different from most of the authors that we have read. The Communist Manifesto describes all history as class struggle and presents the transformations that lead to the capitalist system as preparing the way for communist revolution. One can compare his vision of the ideal society with those offered by Plato and Bacon, but it is also important to consider his vision for realizing those goals. His account of history and social structure is worth considering along with his revolutionary vision. The two are connected in what he sees as the full realization of his philosophical understanding of the world.

Consider what Marx claims is the ruling force of human history. In what way do technological changes bring about changes in history? Are all elements of society and culture shaped by these changes? Marx argues that class structure and the conditions of material production are the explanation for all human history, including intellectual and cultural products, which he treats as the byproduct and rationalization of economic structures. This new outlook demands that we reconsider many ideas that we have seen throughout this course. How would it lead us to evaluate those works we have read in this class? What economic and social forces shape the books we have read? Is this an improved way to understand such works?

Marx explains the way in which bourgeois society throws off feudal distinctions, producing a revolution of its own that eliminates old class distinctions while reducing all classes to two, labor (the proletariat) and capital (the bourgeoisie). Take careful note of how he describes the changes brought about by the bourgeois revolution. Why does he consider law, morality, religion, and other social forces to be "bourgeois prejudices, behind which lurk as many bourgeois interests"? How would this claim lead us to read a document like the American "Declaration of Independence"? Are claims to liberty and equality merely justifications for bourgeois capitalism?

It is worth paying attention to the reasons that Marx claims bourgeois capitalism creates a distinctive class structure. The ever-expanding and restless character of capitalism, Marx explains, pushes it to become global and forces the majority of society into a revolutionary class. This is crucial to Marx's claim that capitalism brings about the final class conflict and prepares the way for communism to end class conflict in the final
stage of human history.

Consider the following questions as you read Marx's Communist Manifesto:

In what way does Marx argue material production provides the explanation for the movement of all human history? How would these lead to a reconsideration of the intellectual products of Western civilization?
Why is Marx's view of human history tied to his revolutionary program? Is his view of the relation between knowledge and action different from other authors we have read? Is the full realization of rational order a reasonable human goal?
How does Marx's critique of bourgeois society compare to what we see in Rousseau and Shelley? Why is the development of capitalism crucial to the aims Marx advocates?
How does Marx's call for revolution compare with that of the "Declaration of Independence"? How would this difference appear to Marx? Are there significant differences between an appeal to nature and an appeal to history?
Why is the abolition of private property the key to Marx's revolutionary program? How is it connected to the rest of his revolutionary program?
What are the chief effects of bourgeois capitalist society on the development of technology, the state of the family, the integration of the globe, the role of cities, and other social structures?
Does Marx's account of bourgeois life explain its effects? What forces promote the changes Marx describes? What if anything could check these?

Derek Walcott, Omeros

And once my vows
and prayers had invoked the nations of the dead,
I took the victims, over the trench I cut their throats
and the dark blood flowed in-and up out of Erebus they came,
flocking toward me know, the ghosts of the dead and gone...
Homer, Odyssey 11.38-42

The theme for Western Heritage is "Journeys & Transformations," and Walcott's Omeros ends our year-long odyssey exceptionally well. The title itself-Homer's name in the original Greek-hearkens back to the beginning, completing in epic fashion the circle of ideas and texts begun last fall. But the circle begins at its end, for Walcott engages his historical and literary ancestors and creates not only a redefinition of epic, but a vivid reimagination of the possibilities offered by the communion of ancient texts and modern history.

Homer's name itself disintegrates in Walcott's hand to reveal elements of the classical, the colonial, and the indigenous:

...O was the conch-shell's invocation, mer was
both mother and sea in our Antillean patois,
os, a grey bone, and the white surf as it crashes.

Homer, however, is more than a name. As symbol of the Western tradition, he can no longer be represented by a single entity, but like his name is fragmented into multiple guises throughout Walcott's poem: a mysterious blind elder of St. Lucia, a beggar wandering before the British National Library, a Sioux shaman, and even Walcott himself.

Omeros absorbs into the hexameters of Homer and the terza rima of Dante the rhythms of the Caribbean, embracing within classical forms the history of the Ancient Mediterranean, Europe, Africa, and America. Castaways of this history converge upon the West Indian island of St. Lucia ("the Helen of the Caribbean"): the fishermen Achille, Hector, and Philoctete, descended from survivors of the Middle Passage who were given their epic names by their British and French masters when the European powers fought over possession of the island; Helen, the haughty "queen" of the island, again a source of conflict between Hector and Achille, one of whose child she bears; and Major Plunkett, a retired British soldier, and his Irish wife Maud, who seek to reconcile their position as offspring of empire in the history of the island. The web of history connecting these characters extends into yet other times and places as the poem journeys to Africa, the American West, and Europe. At the center is Walcott himself, a product of different worlds and a native of St. Lucia, who weaves all these strands into his creation.

Like its characters, Walcott's poem carries the name of a distant ancestor, and like the poem, the characters embody their history and suffer from it. All have traveled far from their roots, from their real or imagined homes, to a place where their personal histories and identities become entangled among worlds old and new, and each character bears wounds, physical and psychic, whose symptom is rootlessness, and whose cure may be
found in unexpected places.

Omeros, as text and character, undertakes multiple journeys and transformations, and carries us back to our beginnings. Like Odysseus in his journey to the underworld, Walcott gives blood to the ghosts of the past, and to texts too often thought moribund, offers new life.

Consider the following questions when you read Omeros:

What is the importance, if any, of names? Can a change of name really change anything?
Does Walcott ask readers to take sides in a battle he is fighting?
Epic traditionally feature gods (or God), heroes, and war. How does Omeros fit into this tradition?
Do individuals carry the history of their country (or people, or family)? Can people be held accountable for the deeds of their ancestors?
Can people choose their identity? Can there be an identity without blame or guilt?
Can literature alter history? If so, should it?