Life has been really busy since we’ve been taking care of my mom. She is unable to get around anymore and we have been arranging everything to get her into assisted living along with my aunt. But there is a LOT to it, and so reading time has been diminished. It doesn’t help that 3 of the last 4 novels have been Henry James, and I really have a hard time getting through his stuff. But anyway, here’s what I DID manage to read.
Purgatorio- Dante (1321)
Continuing through Purgatorio
Canto 15
Level 3: wrath
Still on the second level when the canto starts, the travelers are dazzled by the light from an angel, who removes one of the P’s on Dante’s forehead and then ushers them up a stairway to the third level. On the way up, Dante asks Virgil about Guido del Duca’s phrase: men set their hearts on what necessarily excludes others. Virgil explains that it refers to envy- which, because it hates to see others have something, means that the envious person must exclude others in order to grab as much for himself as possible. In the heavenly order, the more you share, the more you have. Dante doesn’t get this so Virgil explains that Dante is thinking in purely earthly terms about material possessions. But in God’s order, the more one is willing to share out of love, the more God blesses, since God gives as much love as the person gives out. This process just augments as men share.
At this point the travelers arrive up on the third level and Dante is immediately pulled into a ecstatic state where he is given three visions of mercy: Mary meekly addressing Jesus at the temple when Jesus was 12; Pisistratus responding to his wife, who wanted vengeance on a youth who loved their daughter; and Stephen, the first martyr who asked that God not account this sin to them. Virgil explains that these visions were given to Dante so that he would open his heart to the waters of peace that spring from the eternal fountain. Then they see thick, impenetrable smoke coming towards them and they are enveloped. Here the canto ends.
Canto 16
Level 3: wrath cont.
In the thick smoke, Dante hears voices singing, and as he asks Virgil about it, someone notes that he speaks like one still alive. Dante addresses the spirit and asks him to say who he is, and where he and Virgil can find passage to the next level. The spirit says he is Marco, a Lombard, and that he loved courtly values, which no one strives for anymore. This statement prompts Dante to inquire where this corruption of the human nature comes from: is it causally determined by the universe, or is it the fault of men’s choices? Marco answers that it is from men’s choices, though they always look to place the blame outside of themselves. They have free will, and they choose poorly. Marco states that the soul is essentially blank at birth, knowing only the joy of its maker. Accordingly, it seeks joy, but can be led astray in those desires. As such, laws are necessary, and a king as leader to direct the people towards the good. In Italy, the problem is that the church has tried to take on temporal power, which has led it astray, and the people along with it. The church was not supposed to have dominion over the temporal, that was the place of an emperor, so now the church does both badly. Rome had originally given the world both temporal justice and peace, and then a home for the universal church. But when the pope took temporal power, everything went off the rails.
Marco explains that in his homeland of Lombardy, one used to be able to find valor and courtesy, but no longer, because of the church. The canto ends with Marco needing to turn back since Dante and Virgil draw close to leaving the smoke, which Marco can’t do.
Canto 17
Level 3: wrath cont and level 4: sloth
The canto begins with Virgil and Dante exiting the smoke from the last canto. Dante is then given three visions in his imagination, each of the punishment of some example of wrath: Procne, from Greek mythology, Haman from the book of Esther, and Queen Amata from Virgil’s own Aeneid. After that, an angel ushers them to the stairway leading to the fourth level. As they reach the fourth level, the sunlight is fading and they are unable to go on. Dante asks Virgil to explain what sin is punished on the fourth level, and is told ‘sloth’.
Virgil then explains that even our sins are rooted in love, but in love misdirected, weakly applied, or too strongly applied. The three levels below punish love of excellence in order to put oneself above others- pride; love of others being knocked down- envy; and love of punishing those who slight us- anger.
The three levels above punish love misdirected towards created things rather than the Creator. But Virgil will not say anymore, it is for Dante to understand at the proper time.
Canto 18
level 4: sloth
The canto begins with Dante asking about how love leads to both good and evil works. Virgil’s basic response is that the soul is created to respond to that which pleases it. As it encounters things that please it, it is drawn to those things, and just as fire climbs up, so does desire increase for those things, whether good or evil.
Dante then asks how, if this is natural, can man be blamed for doing what he is created to do?
Virgil responds that man is given an intellect and will, so that he always retains the ability to direct his love.
Love is natural, but where man directs his love is meritable.
At this point, it’s almost midnight, and Dante is starting to get really tired, when a group of the sloth penitents comes racing by. The leaders proclaim two good examples of haste: Mary quickly went to visit Elizabeth as soon as she heard Elizabeth was pregnant; and Caesar didn’t delay to go to Spain to conquer Lerida.
Virgil asks one how to get to the next level, and he is told by the former Abbot of San Zeno in Verona to follow him. The Abbot explains that Alberto della Scala, in charge there now, will soon die and regret he ever had any power there, because he installed his wicked son in place of the true shepherd. Dante and Virgil, don’t keep up with the racing penitents and soon find themselves at the back of the pack listening to two examples of sloth: the Israelites who refused to go up in to the promised land, and so died in the desert, and Aeneas’ men who remained in Sicily rather than go to their glorious destiny. Then Dante is so tired he falls asleep and the canto ends.
The Ambassadors- Henry James (1903)
Lambert Strether is sent by his potential fiancé, Mrs Newsome, to Paris to bring back her son, Chad. Mrs. Newsome has a successful business in Woollett, Massachusetts, and is convinced her son has been lured away from home by some immoral woman. Mom wants her son home and running the business. But as Strether finds Chad, he finds him greatly improved from the young man he knew in Massachusetts. The novel explores the allure that European culture can have for Americans, and the appeal America has for the Europeans as well.
Pedagogy of the Oppressed- Paulo Freire (1968)
This book is said to have had a nearly ubiquitous influence in American educational circles. Paulo Freire was a Brazilian Marxist Philosopher of Teaching. The central idea of his book is conscientization- bringing oppressed people into awareness of their situation through reflection, and then movement to action. This reflection > action process is called praxis. He doesn’t directly quote critical theory, but that process is essentially what the critical theorists outlined: get people to reflect on their cultures so they can identify the ideas therein that are contradictory, and then work on rectifying the contradictions.
Freire astutely points out that revolutionary leaders who attempt to overthrow the order, only to impose on it, a new oppressive regime, are not really bringing about revolution. The point is to work with the oppressed to get rid of oppression altogether. This is a well-defined point, and one that socialist revolutions should have taken note of. Any humanizing organization of society must work with the people, not impose upon them.
Of course, when Freire talks about oppressors, he is taking aim primarily at western capitalism, and more primarily the form he saw of it in Brazil in the 50’s and 60’s. He doesn’t push a Marxist program in the book, but he quotes Marx, Lenin, Mao, Fidel Castro, and Che Guevara. Almost all his examples of oppression are western and capitalist.
But to be fair, he also takes aim at leftists who pretend to care about the oppressed, but not only do nothing to really help, but the efforts they do engage in actually maintain the oppression by defining themselves as saviors, and the oppressed as dehumanized objects. The point Freire wants to make is to turn the oppressed into fully human subjects who define their own destinies, and in so doing, escape the oppression.
Chapter 1 covers the dehumanization of the oppressed, essentially meaning they are not treated as fully human.
Chapter 2 covers two approaches to pedagogy: the banking model, whereby a teacher (considered the one with the knowledge) deposits his knowledge into the students (considered empty); and the problem-posing model, where teachers pose problems to the students, encouraging them to take an active role in their education, rather than the passive role of the banking model.
Freire says the problem-posing model treats students as fully human, the banking model dehumanizes students.
Chapter 3 covers the process of dialog with the oppressed in order to discover themes, and arrive at generative themes that can restructure oppressive institutions to make them not oppressive.
Chapter 4 covers ways in which oppression occurs: conquest, divide and rule, manipulation, cultural invasion; and ways in which dialog leading to more just societies must occur: cooperation, unity for liberation, organization, and cultural synthesis
The Good Soldier- Ford Madox Ford (1915)
The story tells the tale of two couples: the English Ashburnhams- Edward and Leonora, and the American Dowells- John and Florence.
Edward Ashburnham is the ‘good soldier’ of the title. The book is narrated by John Dowell, who relates that Edward, despite having the appearance of being a perfectly respectable man, had carried on an affair with Dowell’s wife, Florence over a number of years. The story goes back into Edward and Leonora’s background; John and Florence’s background, and also narrates John’s discovery of a previous long-term affair of Florences.
The narration works as John’s own discovery of things he hadn’t noticed at the time, but understood in light of the way things turned out. But eventually it all comes clear and the story ends in tragedy.
The story is told using a series of flashbacks, then a pioneering use of literary impressionism.