Litblog: The World Literature Blog

The First Scientist

2006-04-25T23:19:00.000-04:00

I decided to look into the whole first scientist deal (out of my own curiosity and desire to learn). There are a number of early "scientists" such as the first recognized medical doctor (Imhotep from Egypt in ~2725 B.C.), Pythagoras who developed mathematical theory in ~530 B.C., Leucippus and Democritus who first proposed that matter is made of small, indestructible particles (~370 B.C.), or even the famous astronomers and philosophers Johannes Kepler and Galileo Galilei of the 1600s. The title of "first scientist" could probably be given to the great philosopher Aristotle, who founded the Lyceum and studied logic and philosophy. However, if we're talking about the very first recognized MODERN scientist, consensus would lead us to Francis Bacon. Bacon published his Instauratio Magna (in 1620) which contains his Novum Organum, the modern theory of the scientific method and inductive reasoning upon which modern science is based. Below is a link to a picture of the work's title page.
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/images/zbaconfp.gif

2006-04-20T19:36:00.000-04:00

I thought it might be fun to keep track of all the groups that Voltaire rags on in Candide. If you come up with any others, feel free to add 'em. Here's what I can think of off the top of my head: optimists, nobility, inquisitors, the clergy in general, jews, philosophers, scientists.

Like I said, you guys are free to add. It's almost like nobody can escape the fury of his satire!

Flags

2006-04-18T23:04:00.000-04:00

I think the national flags on some of the wiki pages need to go. The modern flag of communist China has little to do with the China of Li Po, and although the modern Union Jack (1801) is close to the original Union flag of England (1606), it's not the same, and even that flag wouldn't be representative of pre-Jacobean British literature (e.g., Chaucer). My point is that flags change over time, whereas the linguistic and cultural contexts of the literature we've been reading are part of a larger, more unshakeable canon.

Take this as an opportunity to find some appropriate substitutes. If the 1801 Union Jack doesn't adequately represent Milton and his predecessors, what does?

Rabelais Page

2006-04-05T13:57:00.000-04:00

Even though we're not reading Rabelais, I've made a page for him on the Wiki so you can get some sense of why he's such an important Renaissance counterpoint to the kinds of classicism we've been talking about. He's also a great deal of fun.

Dr. Smith

Li Po

2006-03-27T23:34:00.000-05:00

In refrence to Li Po's Sitting Alone by Ching-t'ing Mountain, does anyone else feel that he may be yearning to fly off as the birds do since we know about his addictive personality? The poem seems to have a somber tone to me, almost like he wishes he could change his situation.

2,500 year old Homer paintings found in Cyprus

2006-03-20T21:28:00.000-05:00

Fascinating piece on new Homer paintings from antiquity here.

Can someone find something a bit more authoritative and detailed than the CNN link on this and put it on the Homer page?

Dr. Smith

Commercial Sites

2006-03-05T22:59:00.000-05:00

Again guys you need to watch what types of websites you put on the wiki. Some sites are being put up that are pretty much online shopping centers.

links

2006-03-05T22:55:00.000-05:00

Guys you have to watch your links and make sure they actually work. You have to select to make an external link and not a wiki link when the dialogue box comes up. People keep selecting a wiki link and then the link will not work.

Standards

2006-03-03T11:17:00.000-05:00

I don't understand the text on the wiki, sometimes the letters come out really big, sometimes small, esp. for links... It looks really unprofessional and I don't know why it does this...

Hey Guys!

2006-02-25T22:38:00.000-05:00

I just updated the Wiki. Cleaned up some things, fixed some links, added some links, and added pictures. :D

Unfortunately, I couldn't make it look very spiffy because that sort of editing is restricted to Dr. Smith. This makes Heather a sad, sad panda. >:[

Anything cool that you guys want to see added?

.com sites

2006-02-16T12:37:00.000-05:00

Yall need to watch the dot com sites and make sure what you put on the wiki is actually worthwhile and accurate.

About the Wiki

2006-02-14T13:34:00.000-05:00

Does anyone agree that the discussion questions seem kind of pointless on the wiki? What's the point of a discussion question you can't discuss? I vote for removing most of the discussion questions and moving them onto here so people can respond to them. BTW- we need to get this blog a little more organized, these posts are gonna add up, so we should make topics and subtopics to post under.

The Iliad II

2006-02-13T21:48:00.000-05:00

Book VI, lines 128-142.... The Iliad, Part II ???
Dr. Smith says that Virgil is trying to top Homer... is he trying to top him by rewriting his own poem?

PS- Sibyl of Cumae is freakin' weird.

Women: Who Needs 'Em?

2006-02-13T21:40:00.000-05:00

Is anyone else disturbed by Aeneas' habit of losing women? It seems that with both Creusa and Dido that Aeneas barely minds losing them; he even acts as if they're a burden. The relationship between men and women is quite confusing to me. In the Iliad, the whole war is based on Helen and, less directly, Briseis and Chriseis, but in the Aeneid, women are just a nice commodity to whom you can say "Alright, fine, I have to give you up, dang!" Perhaps this distinction between Homer and Virgil is because of the difference between Greek and Roman culture, or perhaps the two are more alike than I give them credit for.

Free Will

2006-02-13T15:56:00.000-05:00

Throughout the Aeneid fate plays a major role. Virgil is trying to make a point that the gods are in total control and that mortals have no influence over fate. In books I and II it seems that Aeneas does have control of his fate, however fate always wins because of his respect for the gods. Instead of using his free will he listens to Venus and goes into the city of Carthage and speaks to the queen. It didn't seem that he was forced to go into the city, he just went out of respect for Venus. He could have very easily brushed her off and not gone into the city. In this story is a fate truly an unconquerable force or does it just seem so? Do mortals have a say in what they do during their life?

Torino

2006-02-13T12:12:00.000-05:00

Although I did not watch the opening ceromonies of the winter olympics I did notice something interesting on the news. The construction for a parking garage that was going to be used for the Torino Olympics was halted due to the recent discovery of ancient Roman artifacts. Although I could not find any more in depth information on the Internet about what artifacts were actually found I was wondering if anyone else had. Does any one else know what was found in the new discovery?

Liveblogging the Torino Opening Ceremonies

2006-02-10T21:29:00.000-05:00

Anybody watching the Torino opening ceremonies? Let's find some allusions to Vergil or Dante!

10:55 EST: It's Venus! She's everywhere! A significant addition to the ceremonies, given the fact that she's the mother of the mythological founder of Rome, Aeneas--though Bob Costas didn't think to mention this.

But there's more . . . .

Here's what they're thinking of--Botticelli's Birth of Venus. The painting is actually based on a literary source--a passage from a poem called the Stanze, by the great Renaissance Italian humanist, Poliziano. We'll talk about this painting when we begin looking at Renaissance literature.

No Dante? Did I miss it? The Ferrari doing donuts was pretty cool. But, alas, this doesn't have much to do with world literature . . . .

Any world lit sightings in your own lives?

2006-02-09T15:07:00.000-05:00

I've been working on the Homer page of the Wiki. We have a pictures section now (yay!) and I sorted through the links, but I noticed some of them aren't working. Can whoever posted the ones that don't work redo them?

On another note, I walked into class today (Thursday) thinking we would still be meeting to discuss the Wiki, and no one was there. What's up, everyone? Do you guys want to fail!? We need to get this thing going-- "Jump into the pool" as Dr Smith would say.

Let's try to make some progress before Tuesday so we don't have an F anymore!!!!!

Registration, and Blogger Problems

2006-02-05T09:10:00.000-05:00

Some of you who were in Honors 150 have been registering under the old collective 150 userid, and I've been deleting these--I want everyone to have his or her own id. So if you registered under the old id, e-mail me and I'll send you a new invitation e-mail (each e-mail only works once).

Also, Blogger has been having problems this weekend. Just keep checking back if you're unable to access the page.

Book Review: All Things Helen, by Bettany Hughes

2006-02-02T19:37:00.000-05:00

Here's a NY Times review of a new book on Helen. DB will like the subtitle. Can someone add this to the bibliography? The book, that is--perhaps with a link to the review in brackets immediately following?

Litblog: The Longwood University World Literature Blog

2006-02-02T13:52:00.000-05:00

I'll send out e-mail invitations to everyone's Longwood account tonight. You should then be able to register and create your own threads, in addition to posting comments. Let's use this thread to figure out what we're going to do here. Here are a few of my thoughts:

Remember that the World Lit Wiki, in conjunction with the new Litblog, constitute 25% of your final grade for this course, so let's try to put some energy into the thing. In addition to using the blog space to exchange ideas about the readings, let's use it to talk about how we can do something really useful with the World Lit Wiki.
As for discussing the literature, let's try to be constructive rather than flippant. This would be a really good place to post questions about things we didn't have time to get to in class, or questions about points of significant confusion.
Here's an idea that just popped into my head: How about using this place to feature world literature "news"? There's a blog called News on the Rialto that does something like this for Shakespeare. Could we do something similar for world literature?