Incorporating European Intellectual
History Database into course work
Cecilia Miller
History/College of Social Studies
Wesleyan University
Connecticut
Title: Suggestions by Students on How
to Write an Analytical Summary for the Political Fiction class
Assignment Description:
Each week the students will add three suggestions to this website.
These contributions will both give advice to other students on
how to produce a first-rate Analytical Summary, and they will
also demonstrate that the students writing the suggestions can
write such Analytical Summaries themselves.
Additional Info (URL):
See http://www.emelin.org/cgi-bin/ansumdis_test.cgi for examples
of such suggestions.
Name of Course:
The Political Novel/Political Fiction
(HISTORY 294, College of Social Studies 427/428, and Graduate
Liberal Studies GNEL 615)
Assignment Tech Notes:
Assessment:
Students are not directly graded on this assignment, however,
they will be expected each week to contribute three new suggestions,
and these comments can be practical and/or theoretical. These
written comments will demonstrate that the specific students have
assimilated the requirements for the Analytical Summary, and also
that they can articulate this in the form of detailed suggestions
for other students, as well as in their own Analytical Summaries.
The quality of these suggestions will vary. Strong contributions
will result in the Class Participation portion of the grade being
raised.
Time Required:
1 hour to write the Analytical Summary, and 15 minutes to write
the Suggestions by Students on How to Write an Analytical Summary
for the Political Fiction class
Text of Assignment:
The Analytical Summary should be a 250-word précis
and evaluation of the particular work of fiction. I will not consider
any words beyond the 250-word limit. The goal here is to give
the reader the desire to read the book (or, perhaps, an awareness
of the dangers of the book), a sense of the story line, an assessment
of the intellectual themes, an analysis of the strengths and weaknesses
of the book as fiction and as a text regarding society, and, if
possible, a comment on the influence of the book. The last point
should be found in the scholarly introductions to the books. You
are not expected to do any reading beyond the 15 novels for the
class. The handle (also called the headline or topic sentence)
should sum up the fundamental characteristics of the book. Give
the full name of the author, the full title of the book, and the
dates of each, somewhere in the Analytical Summary. There should
be 5 new words and 1 reference to a logical fallacy in the text
in the Analytical Summary. Once again, do not repeat new words
or logical fallacies throughout the semester. In the two weeks
when more than one work of fiction is assigned, you will write
one, 250-word Analytical Summary of both books.
The Suggestions by Students on How to Write the
Analytical Summaries should be concise and precise. They should
offer techniques (for example, listing major political themes
in the work) and categories (for example, considering the novel
in terms of theories of psychological development) for other students
writing Analytical Summaries. Students should identify areas of
difficulty in this assignment and then in frank terms explain
how they were able to turn their own areas of weakness into ones
of relative strength.
Several Examples of Analytical Summaries written by Students:
Dan Tobin
Don Quixote (1614), Miguel de Cervantes' (1547-1615)
parody of chivalric romance, though with battalions of star-crossed
lovers, fair maids in distress, and subplots driven by coincidence
upon coincidence preserves some odious elements of that genre,
also invents the first modern hero, a man whose madness is not
madness but the refusal of "what is" in favor of an
ideal, who is sympathetic because he evokes the reader's own nostalgia
for an ideal, in which, for him or her, it is no longer possible,
or worse "practical" to believe. In Part I, it is Don
Quixote himself who, if his Renaissance world is one in which
there are no more adventures, creates them himself, if he must
have windmills for giants. But for the body of the second part,
where the publishing of Part I has already made the knight famous,
his further adventures are not merely his own fancies, but elaborate
plays staged by those he encounters for their - and his - amusement.
The extent of their efforts betrays them. Everyone seems to wish,
for all their mockery, that Don Quixote could be truly who he
wishes to be. And with their help, briefly, he is, for when treated
as a knight he needs not pretend - he no longer turns inns into
castles after he has slept in real castles. That the knight on
his deathbed denounces books of chivalry seems a betrayal, almost
a non sequitor, for despite his stated purpose, Don Quixote does
not engender pity or contempt but cheer.
Dan Tobin
Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)'s Gulliver's Travels (1726)
is an echo of the contradictions of his times. Swift, as a man
of the enlightenment, looks to nature for rationality and simple
virtues - yet as an Anglican clergyman believes that man is fallen,
not a rational, but a fundamentally irrational being, whose fulguration
of rationality is used for nothing more often than the abuse of
his fellow man and woman. An account of an Englishman's voyages
to fanciful civilizations, many of which parody the turpitude
and triviality of English politics, the book ends with the narrator
disgusted with humanity, having lived among a nation of rational
horses. The problem is that it is not clear whether the phlegmatic
Houyhnhnm's are a satire within a satire, or a genuine attempt
at conceiving utopia. Nor has Swift been helped by his personal
life, which invited numerous ad hominem attacks. Swift
stresses many elements of Houyhnhnm civilization throughout: simplicity
of language - they are but an oral culture - simplicity of technology,
and unimpeachability of character. But that the Houyhnhnms possess
only the spirit of friendship towards all alike, without "fondness,"
without love, is uncharacteristic of Swift, who, though he admitted
he detested much of mankind, loved individual men and women. The
reader must decide if Swift loves individuals inclusive of their
irrationality, the source of what is indeed a humorous, "merry"
book, or by pretermiting their flaws but not forgiving them, and
dreaming or even-tempered horses. The humor argues for the former.
Dan Tobin
Montesquieu (1689-1755)'s The Persian Letters (1721)
and Voltaire (1694-1778)'s Candide (1758), similarly
critique European politics and French society, but are different
in both design and implication. In the former, letters to and
from Persian travelers in France, whose foreign eyes are free
to descry the sanctimony and triviality of French culture, provide,
through accounts of their homeland, an even clearer despotic mirror.
For Montesquieu, suffering ensues because violent authority compels
people either to rebel violently, or to acquiesce. In the harem,
like the absolutist state, one either obeys or dies. Montesquieu's
ideal is the primitive, anarchic republic. The problem is that
a republic cannot spring from nothing. Though possessed of a sense
of justice, people are emotional, self-interested and vain. Irrationality
frustrates the emergence of good government. Candide
by contrast, is not directly about politics but about the value
of suffering. Voltaire rejects suffering as intrinsically 'good,'
either because the universe itself is 'good,' or implicitly, because
it is God's will. But suffering is still inevitable - Candide
encounters in his companions tale after tale of suffering, and
finally achieving the quest of his beloved, finds her disappointing.
In the end, he learns that in an arbitrary universe, work alone
provides solace, an old ad populum argument of tyrants. But the
tone: rampageous atrocities coupled with wit and indefatigable
optimism, undermines the message, and Candide is more
a celebration of the human capacity to hope in spite of the horror.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Thus Spake Zarathustra
Baptism Through Fire: Nietzsche’s Unconventionalism
Evans C. Anyanwu (250 Words)
In describing an evil deed, Nietzsche purports that “it
itches and irritates and breaks forth—it speaks honourably.”
Ostensibly, the descriptions not only label Thus Spoke Zarathustra
an evil deed; it conveys the reason for its popularity. Nietzsche’s
forthright manner of writing rendered mental “itches”
for the conventional reader, and broke away from banal means of
literary expression. The book would refute the Roussean concept
of comprehension, for whereas Rousseau avows that understanding
is attained through socializing, Nietzsche maintained that it
is through abstinence. Thus Spoke Zarathustra is a “political
novel” because it is social commentary in the form of literary
fiction. But, more importantly, this work is Nietzsche’s
personal reflection. In this unconventional novel, the protagonist
returns from his self-imposed seclusion from society, and decides
to prophesize to man about the follies of his ways and beliefs.
Unorthodox in its cogency, Nietzsche’s assertions embody
an esoteric message. The author appears to, as God warned man
of following false prophets, caution mankind about the imprudent
act of following those whose prophecies denotes provincialism.
This can lead one to assume that he was suspicious of political
parties that had mass followings. The herd, or mob, as Nietzsche
would argue, is a slave to that which it does not control. Therefore,
Nietzsche would not favor nationalist governments. The author
is heralded as an intellectual radical. However, ones most salient
memory of Nietzsche should be of an avowed reductionist who challenged
man to surrender indoctrinated thoughts and ascertain knowledge
anew.
|
