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Module 16 - Part 2: Explorations and Exercises

Other parts of this module include:
Index  |  Part 1: Overview  |  Part 3: Texts and Contexts  |  Part 4: Web Resources

Science and Religion in Seventeenth- and Eighteenth-Century Literature

To respond to these exercises, it helps to have some appreciation of the cultural assumptions explored in them. Click on Web Resources for further insights into the way ideas about the human and divine in each culture colors the literary texts that we are studying.

These questions are arranged into three color-coded categories.

Level A invites you to look closely at some specific aspects of individual texts. Answering these questions shows that you have read carefully and understand the significance of important words and ideas as they appear in context.

Level B asks you to think more deeply about the implications of some of the details that you have isolated.

Level C allows you to build on the findings of the first two categories to theorize broadly about the relationship of the text to social and historical forces beyond the work itself.

Topics in this module's Exploration and Exercises section include:

Focus on Molière’s Tartuffe

Level A

  1.   In Act 1, scene 2, Dorine describes how Orgon acts in the presence of Tartuffe. How do her observations help the audience understand that Orgon’s response to his so-called religious counselor is in fact irreligious (see lines 15 ff.)?
  2. Given Molière’s tendency to ridicule the pretensions of medical quacks, what is unusual about the abilities of the physician who attends Elmire (1.4)? How would it distort the play if Elmire’s sickness persisted?
  3. What is the significance of Tartuffe’s first lines? What is a hair-shirt? What is a scourge? Why has the translator included a stage direction to indicate that Tartuffe speaks these lines after he sees Dorine?
  4. 4. Explain the relationship of the scientific method to the means by which Orgon learns that Tartuffe is a hypocrite.

Level B

  1.   Which characters in Tartuffe act according to the dictates of reason? How successful are they in enlightening the characters who seem unreasonable?
  2.   Why is everyone so worried about the strong box that Tartuffe has left in Tartuffe’s possession? In scientific terms, what do the contents of this strong box constitute?
  3.   Contrast what it takes to persuade Orgon of Tartuffe’s villainy with that which Mme. Pernelle requires before she acknowledges it. What does the difference imply about the capacity of individual observers to evaluate what they see before them?
  4. 4. How does the play’s conclusion demonstrate the limits of reason?

Level C

  1. In the first preface to Tartuffe, Molière defends himself from accusations that his play “offends piety” (p. 306) by insisting that the target of his satire is not religion but a villain who hides behind religion. Arguing from specific evidence in the play, write an essay that supports or challenges Molière’s defense.
  2. In this preface, Molière reminds his audience that far from being an inappropriate topic for theatrical presentation, religion in fact was the original source of drama as a genre (p. 307). Write an essay in which you explore the role of religion in the classical theatres of ancient Greece or Rome and/or the centrality of religion in the mystery plays that Molière cites. Why has the dramatic presentation of religious material been an important means of transmitting spiritual and theological concepts? How does this history validate Molière’s claim that theatre instructs? 

Focus on Pope’s An Essay on Man, Epistle I

Level A

  1. What is “low” about ambition, the adjective that Pope offers in line 2 of his poem? 
  2. Look up the word “expatiate”: what metaphor underlies the opening lines of An Essay on Man? What kind of activity does Pope suggest that he and Bolingbroke should undertake together?
  3. What is the difference between the organizing principles implied by a maze, a wild, and a garden? How does this range of choices comment on the possibility of vindicating the ways of God to man?
  4. 4. How does section III of Epistle I demonstrate the kindness of divine power (l. 85)?  
  5. 5. What is Pope’s attitude toward the “poor Indian” (l. 99)? 
  6. 6. Explain how the animals mentioned in section VII embody the five senses. 

Level B

  1.   What would Pope think of twenty-first-century American attitudes toward ambition? Do you find his view of human ability out of date? 
  2. How does the question raised in lines 131-32 echo the great debates about astronomy that had preoccupied the late Renaissance? How does the new scientific understanding of the center of the universe work toward Pope’s advantage in his argument against Pride?
  3. Pope addresses the central question of evil in the divine plan in section V of Epistle I.  What contemporary figures might one substitute for Borgia and Catiline? What natural events exemplify “plagues and earthquakes” (l. 155)? What influence might the events of the twentieth century and the opening years of the twenty-first century have on the ability of the populace today to believe in the beneficence of a divine plan?
  4. Pope’s poem was enormously popular in the years after its publication. By the end of the eighteenth century, however, the world had changed. How seriously did people on the verge of revolution take the assertion that “WHATEVER IS, IS RIGHT”? Write an essay in which you explore the relation between a theory that provides a reason for the existence of evil in the universe and the acceptance of things as they are.

Level C

  1. In the first sixteen lines of An Essay on Man, Pope links his poem to Milton’s Paradise Lost. Addressing his friend Bolingbroke, he counsels him to “leave all meaner things / To low ambition, and the pride of Kings.” What characters in Paradise Lost may be associated with these distractions? Do you think Milton and Pope share the same view of ambition and pride? 
  2. Compare and contrast the ways in which Pope and Milton introduce the questions that begin section V of Epistle I. Who wonders about the role of the stars in Paradise Lost (see IV.657-58)? Why should astronomy be of particular notice in the era in which Milton and Pope wrote?
  3. Discuss the relationship between the great concluding passages in Molière’s Tartuffe (the Officer’s speech, V.7.45-82) and Pope’s Essay on Man (sections IX and X). Describe the view of authority and order in each text: do you think Molière and Pope would endorse the other’s presentation? How would you characterize the tone of the two passages? 
  4. 4. Read James Thomson’s Poem Sacred to the Memory of Sir Isaac Newton, published in 1727, available in the Web Resources collected for this unit. Compare the attitude toward Newton and science expressed by Thomson with Pope’s. How does the difference in the two poets’ styles reflect differing attitudes toward order and the nature of the universe?

Focus on Voltaire’s Candide

Level A

  1. Pick two examples from the opening chapter of Candide showing how Voltaire lampoons Pangloss, and through him, Leibniz and philosophical optimism. 
  2. Why does the narrator comment that Candide trembles “like a philosopher” in chapter 3?
  3. Explain the views expressed by the Man of Taste in Chapter 2Why would Voltaire sympathize with them?

Level B

  1. How does Voltaire use the argument that the human will is free in Candide? Look carefully at the end of Chapter 2 and the end of Chapter 2Why are the conversations about free will that occur in these two points in the narrative unfinished? 
  2. What is the religion of Eldorado? Drawing your evidence from Chapter 18 of Candide, how would you describe Voltaire’s personal beliefs?
  3. How does the palace of sciences in Eldorado reflect Voltaire’s experience of England? 

Level C

  1. In the course of Candide, Voltaire makes mention of many religions, sects, and orders, including Anabaptists, Franciscans, Jesuits, Jews, and Muslims. Write an essay commenting on the treatment of any two religious groups referred to in the text, showing how they are introduced and what role they play in the plot. Compare and contrast Voltaire’s view of these groups and try to account for the way in which he depicts them. (You may want to consult the discussion of Voltaire’s play, Mahomet the Prophet or Fanaticism in the Discovery unit.)
  2. Compare and contrast the treatment of evil in Tartuffe and Candide. Which work seems more optimistic about the possibility of containing evil? Explain your position by providing evidence from both texts.
  3. Voltaire greatly admired Molière, but their modes of characterization differ widely.  Imagine that Candide met Tartuffe on his travels and write a dialogue for the two characters, first in the style of Molière and then in the style of Voltaire, and explain how your approach to these impersonations changes as you seek to imitate each of the two writers. 

TEXTS AND CONTEXTS

Francis Bacon, from First and Second Book of Aphorisms

Level A

  1. Bacon frequently uses term “science” in his aphorisms. What definition would he have been familiar with? What does he mean, for example, in Aphorism VIII when he says “the sciences we now possess are merely systems for the nice ordering and setting forth of things already invented”?
  2. What problem does Bacon identify in Aphorisms XII and XIV? What is the current style of thought that he complains about? 
  3. What method of thought does Bacon advocate in Aphorisms XXXI and XXXVI?

Level B

  1. Why does Bacon believe that “the understanding must not . . . be supplied with wings, but rather hung with weights” (Aphorism CIV)? How does his imagery emphasize the value he places on practical experience?
  2. In Aphorism X from the Second Book of Aphorisms, Bacon sums up his ideas about the production of new knowledge. What methods does he suggest for organizing information? 

Level C

  1. Explain the anecdote that Bacon tells in Aphorism XLVI and relate it to Orgon’s behavior in Act I, scene 4, of Tartuffe. What happens every time Dorine offers Orgon some information about Elmire’s health? How would you contrast Orgon’s follow-up questions with the question asked by the man who saw the painting in the temple?
  2.   In his biography of Bacon, Max Patrick discusses the importance of “instances,” specific facts, and their relationship to “axioms,” or general truths. Both are necessary to the conduct of modern science, which tests hypotheses through experimentation (see the excerpts from Patrick’s book available online in Resources). How might one compare the relationship between detail and generalization in science and in literature? What is the role of generalization in eighteenth-century texts like Pope’s, for example? Are generalizations more or less central to literature in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries? 

Pascal’s Wager

Level A

  1.   Pascal begins this thought by noting that the “soul is cast into a body, where it finds number, dimension.” What does Pascal say are the intellectual consequences for human beings who are rooted in a material body? 
  2.   What contrast does Pascal draw between infinity and the finite? Why is it so hard for people to accept the infinite? 
  3. What are the limits of reason, according to Pascal (look particularly at the paragraph that begins “Who then will blame Christians . . .”)?

Level B

  1. Pascal was a Jansenist and believed in predestination. How can one see this disposition in the way he describes the justice and the compassion of God?
  2. How does Pascal describe what may be gained and what lost by deciding to believe in God? What role does reason play in this decision? Is it unusual to suggest that belief is subject to rational decision? 

Level C

  1. Pascal was one of the inventors of probability theory, which is the lynchpin of today’s insurance industry. How does he apply the law of probability in his wager? Do you think there is a contradiction between the problem he addresses and the means by which he seeks to resolve it?
  2. Read the refutation of Pascal’s Wager by Massimo Pigliucci in the Resources section and explain the flaw that he finds in Pascal’s premise. Can the existence of God be decided by the toss of a coin? How does Pigliucci compare the calculating of pension benefits to the wager? 
  3. Compare and contrast the literary form of Pascal’s Pensees and Bacon’s Aphorisms. What do these titles mean? How would you describe the two writers’ intellectual goals?  How important are spiritual concerns in their approach to the world? 
  4. 4. In the Pensee that directly follows the so-called wager, #234, Pascal, who was both a mathematician and a theologian, remarks: “If we must not act save on a certainty, we ought not to act on religion, for it is not certain.” He then goes on to note that we frequently pursue courses of action whose outcomes are not certain. How would you evaluate the relative importance of certainty and uncertainty in the realms of literature, science, and religion? Would you say that the centuries of scientific and artistic innovation that occurred after Pascal’s lifetime show the world to be a place of greater or less certainty? Offer an example from a current development in a field of inquiry with which you are familiar in reflecting on Pascal’s comment.

Voltaire’s Philosophical Letters

Level A

  1. Letter 14 concentrates on the work of Descartes. Explain what is meant by the adjective “Cartesian.”
  2. In what ways is Newton the “destroyer of the Cartesian system”?
  3. What personal contrasts between Descartes and Newton does Voltaire describe?
  4. 4. Voltaire, of course, was a Frenchman. According to the evidence of these letters, what is his view of his compatriots? What is his view of England? 

Level B

  1. In these letters, Voltaire grapples with very difficult scientific material. How does his dramatic training help him illustrate the positions of Descartes and Newton?   
  2. How does Voltaire use the eulogy for Newton given by M. de Fontenelle in the Academy of Science to illustrate the strained relationships of the French and the English?  Can you think of any contemporary incidents in the United States that reflect a basic antipathy of the Anglophone world for the French? How much of this antipathy might be due to the difference between Cartesian induction and the scientific method associated with English-speaking communities?
  3. In the middle of Letter XVII, Voltaire turns to a discussion of Newton’s ideas about chronology. Find some passages in the earlier letters that praise Newton and compare them with the tone Voltaire adopts in explaining Newton’s ideas about the age of the universe. How would you describe the final sentence of this letter? How convinced do you think Voltaire was by Newton’s interpretations of antiquity, as opposed to his powers of discovery?

Level C

  1. Letter XXV of the Philosophical Letters is a lengthy attack on Pascal, whose brilliance Voltaire recognizes even as he accuses him of misanthropy and pessimism.  Although superficially this letter (added in later editions) appears to digress from the subject of the volume—England and the English thinkers and poets whom Voltaire admired—it may be argued that by finding fault in the work of a French genius, as he does with Descartes, Voltaire pursues his admiration for the English style of living and thinking. Taking into account Voltaire’s reaction to the Lisbon earthquake and the tone of Candide, write an essay discussing the praise of England in the Philosophical Letters.   Was Voltaire’s enthusiasm for Newton, Pope, and Locke a fad that passed? What elements in their work typify the Enlightenment in England? 
  2. Voltaire and Pope were master satirists who could also be straightforward champions of ideas they admired. Compare and contrast Voltaire’s prose in the Philosophical Letters and Pope’s verse in An Essay on Man. What kinds of figures of speech do they use to crystallize their arguments? How does their use of language reflect Enlightenment ideas?
 
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