Guest Blogger - Karolyn W.

Hello Everybody! Expanding on the class discussion today, Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick, Swift uses a juvenalian approach, and has low burlesque style.
Taking a low burlesque approach, the satire explores the problem of the many starving children in Ireland. Swift reasons that “… a young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old, a most delicious nourishing and wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or broiled; and I make no doubt that it will equally serve in a fricasie, or a ragoust” (Swift). The Author’s funny yet awful approach is to sell babies to landlords, who will eat them (gross).
Additionally, Jonathan Swift uses writes with a juvenalian style to satirize society. “I grant this food will be somewhat dear, and therefore very proper for landlords, who, as they have already devoured most of the parents, seem to have the best title to the children”(Swift). Jonathan Swift uses a Juvenalian technique to satirize the landlords’ unfair treatment of their tenants. Swift also uses satire in the title of the work, A Modest proposal for preventing the children of poor people in Ireland, from being a burden on their parents or country, and for making them beneficial to the publick. Clearly, this is not a modest proposal. Swift’s conclusion of using children as a food source is far from modest. Also, I found the title harsh. Swift writes that children are a burden to their parents and country. Sad! The poor kids, it’s not their problem they were born into a poor society.
Within Jonathan Swifts’ satire, Swift uses low burlesque style, and a juvenalian approach to point out Ireland’s problem of underfed and poor children.

Guest Blogger - Sarah A.

While reading Alex Pope's Rape of the Lock I found myself laughing at the outrage of such small things. After reading it however, I realized it is not as ridiculous as it sounds. While it is based in the 18th Cenutry the poem has a lot more in common with our world today than one would think. Today many people blow trivial things out of proportion. But one thing that really caught my attention was the last few lines in the poem, “This lock, the Muse shall consecrate to fame, and ‘midst the stars inscribe Belinda’s name.” It is saying that the lock will be set amongst the stars so that everyone can admire them. Belinda put a fight for her lock and was completely violated that someone would take her lock of hair. However, when the hair will be able to be admired by everyone in the world and seems to have a greater value than it did before, then it is okay. I feel people do this a lot today. If something they do not like happens they get very upset and make a scene out of it that it is wrong. But the second they will receive fame or something of greater value then they completely forget they way they felt before, and suddenly everything is fine. Do you feel this is the way people act in our society today? Why? And if you do not think people do this why? It seems that if people were to wait things out they would realize some things happen for a reason. It is in our minds that if something does not go our way, we throw a fit and sometimes give up. If one were to sit and think about the event that happened then maybe they could see the light at the end of the tunnel. Also can you think of examples of something like this happening in our world today?

Blog Assignment #3 - Due March 2nd

Identify and explain an example of an epic characteristic found in "Rape of the Lock." Cite line numbers.

Guest Blogger - Ben A.

To begin, was it just me or did anyone else have a very hard time thinking of anything other than Dante’s Inferno when they saw the word “canto?” Anyways, I thought I would share my thoughts on The Rape of Lock since there really isn’t anything to ask questions on or discuss so far. When I started reading the first canto I thought it seemed pretty enjoyable but as I moved along It got more confusing and I had less and less understanding of what was happening. I don’t know if this was due to my reading comprehension level or, if I was just zoning out while reading, which is a very good possibility. I finally succumbed and read the sparknotes on it (in supplement to the book of course) and then it made much more sense. One of the things I noticed when I was reading the actual book was that this is one of the few poems, albeit epic, that I enjoy. As I thought about this and what made this poem unique and why I liked it I realized it was the end rhyme. For me poetry just isn’t poetry unless it rhymes. Its shocking just how many poets choose not to use any rhyme scheme, I mean is it really that hard to end with a rhyme? All you have to do is stay away from the word “orange.” Another thing that stood out to me was the amount of Sylphs that were assigned to watch Belinda’s petticoat. I don’t know about you, but to me 50 sylphs watching one petticoat is a bit excessive. Was it really that cold?

Guest Blogger - Will H.

Well, its the beginning of another unit, and the most obvious thing to talk about now is the weekend assignment: Rape of the Lock by Alexander Pope, and since the assignment is relatively short, Ill only talk a little bit about the first canto to give room for other people to post. When I first began reading this assignment, I thought to myself I dont understand, what makes this satirical? Its just a description, but after looking it over some more I was able to figure it out. Obviously, the mock epic begins with the invocation of the Muses as we talked about in class for a lengthy five seconds, but moving past that, the first half of the page simply describes the morning rise while dogs stir and sleepless loversawake (Line 17). A bell tolls three times, and Belinda has a dream of a boy named Ariel who warns her to beware of man and that there is an unnamed dreaded event (Line 31-36). Then her dog wakes her up, she gets a love letter, gets dressed, and there is no mention of the dream again in the canto. Although this sounds a lot like oversimplification of the story, that was really all that happened, but within that there are already a few examples of satire that can be picked out. The main example lies in the main character: Belinda. Within the chapter, she has only slept, dressed and put on make-up, all of which are eloquently described with consistent use of rhyming couplets, and it is well summed up with one quote that caught my eye. Now awful Beauty puts on all its arms; the fair each moment rises in her charms, repairs her smiles, awakens every grace, and calls forth all wonders of her face (Line 61-64). Immediately, before realizing that awful also meant awesome, when taken as a negative term, the sentence takes on a slightly different meaning. From a negative perspective, Belinda is someone who puts on an act every day and covers up the awful Beauty, and this can be seen a symbol for the disingenuous state of many people in the world. In this light, it is obvious that Belinda lives through circles of useless frivolous action, flirtation with lords, and lethargy, all leaving her progress as a productive person at a standstill. Of course, this same quote can be taken in a positive light as well with the denotation of awful as awe-inspiring. In this sense, Belinda is a beautiful person at heart that only tries to show that to the world by accentuating it. This idea, is what mainly what makes this description a satire, because it mocks the trivial actions of women through an anecdote by using the double meaning of words and the epic style. Anyway, now that this has all been explained, I would really like to pose a similar question to all who read this: what else makes this a satire and how does it mock certain elements of the world?

Guest Blogger - Steph W.

Before we started reading Candide, we had learned that Voltaire ( the author of Candide) had written a play but was not clear enough for his readers so he wrote Candide with a very dramatic tone so he could get his point across. Throughout Candide's adventure, he makes many decisions and usually they end with complete disaster or mishap. Although Voltaire was optimistic, all of the choices Candide made ended up causing his fate. In someways I believe that Voltaire is contridicting himself in that he was optimistic but then finds himself writing about all the failures that came with Candide all the way from him getting 36 runs through the gauntlet for taking a walk out of free will, to killing the two women's lovers (monkey's) who he believed were attacking them. All of this misfurtune leads me to believe that Voltaire's point was not very clear to me but rather a book written out of sheer entertainment. Any opinions?

Guest Blogger - Maddy F.

One thing that I got out of Candide is that you get the most out of life when you stop trying to philosophize it so much and instead just live. I found this kind of ironic since Voltaire himself was a well known philosopher. Throughout the novel, Voltaire strongly satirizes Leibnitz’s philosophy on optimism (Leibnitz was a popular German philosopher, an optimist, and one who deemed that the world they were living in was “the best of all possible worlds”). Clearly, Leibnitz is portrayed through the character Pangloss and his ridiculous ideas... even after all these terrible things happen –earthquakes, war, rape, death- Pangloss still clings to his theory that everything is for the best. Even when James/Jacques is thrown into the sea and then drowns; Pangloss still declares that it was all supposed to happen like this, and that the sea was made in order for James, the one person that Pangloss owes his survival to, to drown in. We’ve all read the book, hopefully, and we know about all the misfortunes it entails and how Pangloss responds to them. To the end, Pangloss clings to this theory that they live in “the best of all possible worlds”. However, in chapter XXX, the group goes to see a dervish, “the best philosopher in Turkey” (Voltaire 118). When they ask the dervish the reason for good and evil in the world they live in, he tells them to keep quiet saying it is none of their business. To me, this came across as even if you do philosophize about life and have great theories and all…will that change anything? Voltaire ends Candide with, “we must cultivate our garden” (Voltaire 120). This could be taken a number of ways, but my thoughts on these last words were that life is best lived when one uses their own skills and lives life instead of worrying/thinking about it so much. I could be way off on this though, what are your thoughts?

Guest Blogger - Chelsee F.

While reading the book Candide written by Voltaire, a variety of philosophy’s are touched on including Pangloss’. Pangloss’ philosophy of ‘all is for the best’ is what Candide bases his life on. Candide thinks that Pangloss is “the greatest philosopher of the whole province, and consequently of the whole world” and believes that every philosopher that says something different is wrong and Pangloss is always right. This statement is mostly false because throughout the book there is nothing good that happens to any of the characters yet everything is for the best. I really don’t understand why anyone would listen to what Pangloss says because it does not make any sense at all. When the Anabaptist John falls into the harbor, Candide was going to help him back onto the boat but Pangloss stopped him and just said “Pangloss the philosopher stopped him by proving to him the Lisbon harbor was formed expressly for the Anabaptist to drown in”. How can someone justify that a harbor is specifically made for a certain somebody to drown in? Just because Pangloss is a philosopher he gets to make these decisions? The idea of all is for the best also doesn’t fit when we hear the old woman’s story about how she was going back and forth between all those different men. She was constantly raped and no one really cared about her. “Cut off one buttock from each of these ladies’ ‘and you’ll have a delicious mean”. How does Pangloss give good reason for everything she was put through? After many bad things that happened to Candide he starts to doubt the things that Pangloss says, and does not believe that everything happening is good. At the end of the book we find out that Pangloss himself does not even believe in what he says so Candide was following everything this philosopher said for nothing.

Guest Blogger - Patty M.

Candide is dependent upon other characters in Candide by Voltaire by needing them to tell him how to think and how to act and how to look at think of the world. He starts out with Pangloss whose philosophy is that everything is for the best and the world is the best world there is. After Pangloss, Candide finds Cacambo and then after Candide’s separation from Cacambo he enlists Martin to travel with him to France.
For my blogging I’m going to talk about Candide’s dependence upon each of the characters I’ve already mentioned. First is Pangloss: Candide clings to Pangloss’s philosophy throughout the book and depends upon it to help him cope with and explain away all the tragedy and misfortunes around him. Pangloss explains syphilis away by saying that it came back with Christopher Columbus and it was ok because along with syphilis Columbus brought back chocolate and because Pangloss says it Candide believes it.
Next is Cacambo: Candide doesn’t look to Cacambo for philosophical advice he depends on Cacambo to help him through all of the messes he is inexplicably drawn into. Like for example after Candide kills Cunegonde’s brother, the Jesuit Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh Candide looks to Cacambo to help him chose a plan of escape. It was Cacambo who talked their way out of being eaten too when Candide did nothing to save himself.
Lastly is Martin. Martin is the exact opposite of Pangloss. He is a pessimist whereas Pangloss is a optimist. Martin is forever finding the negative and harsh side of life and Candide begins to believe him. The two had many arguments and bets and debates on happiness in life. It says “Candide stopped in Bordeaux only long enough to sell a few Eldorado pebbles and provide himself with a good carriage—a two-seated one, for he could no longer do without his philosopher, Martin” (Voltaire 81) this proves Candide’s dependence upon his new found companion.
So obviously Candide is just a dependent person and isn’t really very picky about who it is he depends on. He went from a optimist philosopher to a experienced companion that helped him out of sticky situations to a philosopher was is so pessimistic it turns the stomach. There is a million different things I could say but I’m not going to, I’m going to depend upon you guys to keeps talking about this blog in the comments.

Blog Assignment #2 - Due February 23rd

Choose an item from the list of Symposium Topics in your Candide Study Packet. Answer/address the item using textual support. 5 points

Guest Blogger - Garrett S.

Is it really all for the best? Does syphilis not matter when you have chocolate? Was the ocean’s one and only purpose to drown you at a certain time in your life? If you ask any of these questions today, people (I would hope) would say of course not. However, in the early 1750’s, when optimism played a very key role in people’s religious lives, they would say it all happened for a reason; it really all was for the best. It was this “blind optimism” that inspired Voltaire to write “Candide”. While this wasn’t his first attempt to raise questions about religion in general (Voltaire’s failed “Poem on the Lisbon Disaster”, was one of his earlier attempts”), it certainly was his most affective piece of literature. But did it really change anything? I personally think it did just a little bit. If the people reading can realize that Candide changes from a blind optimism to a more realistic sense of the world around him, maybe they would too, and begin to question more things, and further fuel The Age of Enlightenment. Also, the ridiculous things that happen in this book could have an impact as well. If someone reading were to say “How can Pangloss say it’s for the best when he has syphilis?” they might look at their own lives and realize that they might have said it’s for the best about something ridiculous too, like say an earthquake followed by a tsunami, then fire, and finally the Black Plague. But those are just my thoughts. Just one last thing! A quick question I was thinking of. If something like “Candide” were written in a modern sense, what would it be written about? What would the issue be? What impact would it have on today’s society? Thanks, and if you have any questions, just comment!

Guest Blogger - Quinn J.

About five years ago, my family stopped at the Augustana College in South Dakota on the way back from a wedding in Wyoming. At the college bookstore, I purchased the Barnes & Noble Classics copy of “Candide”. In the back of this book, I found some discussion questions. One discussion question asked:

“What do you understand Candide to mean when he says that from now on he will “tend his garden”? Refrain from public life? Accept things as they are? Try to expand this phrase into a program for living.”

Gardens appear numerous times in “Candide”; the first garden shown is the garden by the castle of Baron Thunder-ten-tronckh, where Cunegonde sees Pangloss and Paquette doing “experiments which were repeated before her eyes” (if you know what I mean); this is what inspired Candide and Cunegonde to kiss, which ultimately leads to Candide being kicked out of the castle. Some critics (including this reviewer on Amazon.com http://bit.ly/bdnWB9) have likened this event to Adam and Eve’s expulsion from the Garden of Eden.

Another proverbial garden is the mysterious hidden utopia of El Dorado, where the dirt is made of gold, riches are bountiful (although they are not considered riches there; the landlord claims that El Dorado is a “poor village”), and, in Candide’s words, “no monks among you to dispute, to govern, to intrigue, and to burn people who are not of the same opinion as themselves.” Some other gardens include the Jesuits’ garden, Pococurante’s garden, Cacambo’s garden, and the garden Candide and his friends create when they live in Turkey. With all of these examples of gardens, it’s clear that Voltaire (an avid gardener himself) intended to have a garden motif.

I think that what Candide means by “tend his garden” is the fact that he wants to establish some sort of solace. By the end of the story, the whole company (Candide, Pangloss, Cacambo, Cunegonde, Martin, the old woman, Brother Giroflee, and Paquette) has survived numerous terrifying events, including rape, flogging, hanging, disease, and natural disasters. Taking care of this garden, recuperating, and exercising their individual talents provides a quiet, safe atmosphere of which they haven’t experienced in a while.

This situation concerning gardening can be phrased into a program for living that Voltaire would approve of: living is better with a purpose, a purpose that can be used to help ourselves and others.

Blog Assignment #1 - Due February 16th

Find an example of satire. Post the link and a genius statement. 5 points.