Fall Schedule 2011

Fall is finally here! Our summer reading session has come to a close and we are ready to tackle some new books for the next study period. On tap are several wonderful choices selected the very end of the period, 1400-1599.

Once again, we are going to allow readers to choose which books they would like to read over the next few months.

William Shakespeare

Option 1:  William Shakespeare's Plays and Sonnets

Any good reading program must contain it's fair share of Shakespeare, and our group is not to be left out. Therefore, this fall, readers who are not familiar with the plays of Shakespeare may want to read one or more of the following choices:

• The Twelfth Night; or What You Will
• Othello, the Moor of Venice
• Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

All other plays can be accessed via Bartleby.com's Oxford Shakespeare webpages.

In addition to the above plays, readers may want to also read through the Sonnets, which can be found here as well.

John Donne

Option 2: John Donne, Poems and Sermons

Readers may wish to read from a selection of John Donne's poems as well as his most famous sermons. A nice selection of poems can be accessed via Luminarium's website.

Izzak Walton's brief biography of John Donne is a nice compliment to reading the poems and sermons. You can find it here:  http://www.bartleby.com/15/2/

Thomas Hobbes

Option 3: Thomas Hobbes "The Leviathan"

For readers interested in reading Hobbes, consider "The Leviathan" as an alternative to our other selections. You can find a very nice HTML formatted version via Oregon State's website.

Discussion questions as well as some general background information and study notes can be accessed via Sparknotes. General biographical information can be found via Wikipedia or another online encyclopedia.

Summer Courses, 2011

Well, summer has finally arrived here in Phoenix, and we are experiencing daily high temperatures in the upper 90's to low 100's (F and not C). It is a good time to stay indoors and read, so here is the summer schedule.

I have decided to offer this summer as an elective, and allow readers several books to read instead of just one. Perhaps this will generate more interest in the courses offered.

• Option 1: Miguel de Cervantes, "Don Quixote"
• Option 2: Edmund Spenser's, "The Faerie Queene"
• Option 3: Christopher Marlowe's, "Doctor Faustus"

All three book choices span our period, 1400-1599, and are well-known novels.

Readers are free to choose to read one of the above books or they can choose to read them all. I will provide links and textual information for easy reading online as well as for finding hard copies at libraries or used book sources. Questions and other background information will be available here and in the Yahoo Group files section.

Updated Fall 2011 Schedule

For now, the following schedule seems doable. Fall readings will begin in September and run through December 2011.

• William Shakespeare
• John Donne

Updated Spring 2012 Schedule

For Spring 2011, the following selections will be scheduled:

• Jonathan Swift's "Gulliver's Travels"
• Alexander Pope's "Rape of the Lock"
• William Wordsworth

More details will follow, so stay tuned.

Option 1: Miguel Cervante's "Don Quixote"

For readers who would like to attempt this book, my suggestion is to read this over the entire summer. It is a long book, and will require two months of consistent daily (or weekly reading) to finish it.

Online HTML Text can be found here: http://www.classicreader.com/book/1148/
Audio Book at Librivox: http://librivox.org/don-quixote-vol-1-by-miguel-de-cervantes-saavedra/
Book notes: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/donquixote/
Study questions: http://www.columbia.edu/itc/lithum/adams/sq9.html

Option 2: Edmund Spenser's "Faerie Queene"

For readers who want to read this book in Middle English, the following links are available.

Online version: http://www.luminarium.org/renascence-editions/queene1.html
PDF Format: http://scholarsbank.uoregon.edu/xmlui/bitstream/handle/1794/784/faeriequeene.pdf?sequence=1
Audio at Librivox: http://librivox.org/the-faerie-queene-book-1-by-edmund-spenser/
Book notes: http://www.sparknotes.com/poetry/fqueen/
Canto by Canto reading guide: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl331/fq.html

Option 3: Christopher Marlowe's "Doctor Faustus"

Online Text: http://pd.sparknotes.com/lit/doctorfaustus/
Audio Book at Librivox: http://librivox.org/the-tragical-history-of-doctor-faustus-by-christopher-marlowe/
Book Notes: http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/doctorfaustus/
Study Questions: http://cla.calpoly.edu/~dschwart/engl331/faustus.html

If you would like to join us this summer and read some great classical books, please feel free to visit our Yahoo Group here: http://groups.yahoo.com/areteclassical

2011 Reading Schedule

We are still reading through the Renaissance, focusing now on the latter portion of the 16th century.  Continuing on through the 16th and into the 17-18th centuries, we will focus on the following literature, philosophy, religion, and poetry:

• Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes (1547-1616)
• The Faerie Queene by Edmund Spenser (1552-1599)
• Essays by Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1626)
• Doctor Faustus by Christoper Marlowe (1564-1593)
• William Shakespeare (1564-1616)
• Sermons by John Donne (1572-1631)
• Paradise Lost by John Milton (1608-1674)
• The Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan (1628-1688)
• Gulliver's Travels by Jonathan Swift (1667-1745)
• Essays by Alexander Pope (1688-1744)

Book links, backgound information, study notes, and other important information will be posted as soon as we finish up Sir Thomas More's, Utopia.

Utopia by Sir Thomas More

Utopia (in full: Libellus vere aureus, nec minus salutaris quam festivus, de optimo rei publicae statu deque nova insula Utopia) is a work of fiction by Thomas More published in 1516. English translations of the title include A Truly Golden Little Book, No Less Beneficial Than Entertaining, of the Best State of a Republic, and of the New Island Utopia (literal) and A Fruitful and Pleasant Work of the Best State of a Public Weal, and of the New Isle Called Utopia (traditional).[1] (See "title" below.) The book, written in Latin, is a frame narrative primarily depicting a fictional island society and its religious, social and political customs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopia_(book)

Background on Sir Thomas More
Sir Thomas More (pronounced /ˈmɔr/; February 7, 1478[1] – July 6, 1535), also known as Saint Thomas More, was an English lawyer, social philosopher, author, statesman and noted Renaissance humanist. He was an important counsellor to Henry VIII of England and for three years toward the end of his life he was Lord Chancellor. He is also recognised as a saint within the Catholic Church and in the Anglican Communion.[2] He was an opponent of the Protestant Reformation and of Martin Luther and William Tyndale.

More coined the word "utopia" - a name he gave to the ideal, imaginary island nation whose political system he described in Utopia, published in 1516. He opposed the king's separation from the papal church and denied that the king was the Supreme Head of the Church of England, a status the king had been given by a compliant parliament through the Act of Supremacy of 1534. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London in 1534 for his refusal to take the oath required by the First Succession Act, because the act disparaged the power of the Pope and Henry’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon. In 1535 he was tried and executed for treason by beheading. More was beatified by the Catholic Church in 1886 and canonised, with John Fisher, in 1935. In 1980, he was added to the Church of England's calendar of saints.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_More

Articles from Luminarium
http://www.luminarium.org/renlit/tmore.htm

Links to Online Texts

Utopia at Oregon State
http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/more/utopia-contents.html

Utopia at Online Literature
http://www.online-literature.com/more/utopia/

Utopia at Project Gutenberg
http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/2130

Study Notes and Guides for Utopia

Sparknotes for Utopia
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/utopia

Study Guide with Detailed Information
http://thomasmorestudies.org/utopia/Utopia_guide_ed1.pdf

Schedule of Readings

This is a fairly short book, and could be read in a few weeks (depending on your own schedule). I would suggest reading it at your leisure and taking the time to think about what Sir Thomas More might be suggesting in this story. You might want to spend a little time and review some British History so that you can understand better why this book is so important. Thomas More lived during the reign of Henry the VIII. It was his stand against Henry's wish to divorce that eventually led to More's execution (a must see -- watch Paul Scofield's dramatization of More in the movie, "A Man for All Seasons").

The Prince by Niccolo Machiavelli

The Prince (Italian: Il Principe) is a political treatise by the Italian diplomat, historian and political theorist Niccolò Machiavelli. From correspondence a version appears to have been distributed in 1513, using a Latin title, De Principatibus (About Principalities). But the printed version was not published until 1532, five years after Machiavelli's death. This was done with the permission of the Medici pope Clement VII, but "long before then, in fact since the first appearance of the Prince in manuscript, controversy had swirled about his writings".[1]

Although it was written as if it were a traditional work in the Mirror of Princes style, it is generally agreed that it was especially innovative, and not only because it was written in Italian rather than Latin.[2] The Prince is sometimes claimed to be one of the first works of modern philosophy, in which the effective truth is taken to be more important than any abstract ideal. It was also in direct conflict with the dominant Catholic and scholastic doctrines of the time concerning how to consider politics and ethics.[3][4]

Although it is relatively short, the treatise is the most remembered of his works and the one most responsible for bringing "Machiavellian" into wide usage as a pejorative term. It also helped make "Old Nick" an English term for the devil, and even contributed to the modern negative connotations of the words "politics" and "politician" in western countries.[5] In terms of subject matter it overlaps with the much longer Discourses on Livy, which was written a few years later. In its use of examples who were politically active Italians who perpetrated criminal deeds for politics, another lesser-known work by Machiavelli which The Prince has been compared to is the Life of Castruccio Castracani.

The descriptions within The Prince have the general theme of accepting that ends of princes, such as glory, and indeed survival, can justify the use of immoral means to achieve those ends.[6]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Prince


Links to Online Texts

http://www.constitution.org/mac/prince00.htm

Study Notes for The Prince
http://www.sparknotes.com/philosophy/prince/

Suggested Reading Schedule

This book is very short, and can be read quickly.  I would suggest reading it at your leisure, and thinking more deeply about the reasons why Machiavelli wrote this philosophical treatise.

Le Mort d'Arthur by Sir Thomas Mallory

Courtesy of http://www.celtic-twilight.com/camelot/malory/lemorte_darthur.jpg

Our next book will be Sir Thomas Mallory's, "Le Mort d'Arthur'. This is the classic tale that began the fascination with King Arthur and his knights of the Round Table. A few years ago, I had the pleasure of reading T.H. White's, "The Once and Future King," which was awesome. I have not read Mallory's text, so I am really looking forward to it this summer.

This is a rather long book, and I think we will read as much as we possibly can given the time we have on the schedule. I found an online HTML text that seems very readable. I will post other links later, if I can find good translations, and they are easily accessed. I will also be posting study questions, but for now, here is some background information as well as a link to the HTML formatted book.

Background

You can read some interesting background information on Mallory as well as on his writing of this text here.

Online Texts

The following two websites have the book in HTML format. You can also download the text file through Project Gutenberg. I personally find HTML to be easier to read, but if you would rather download it to your computer, have at it.

• Le Mort d'Arthur Vol. 1 and 2
• University of Virginia Etext - Vol 1. (through Book 9)
• Project Gutenberg Etext - Vol 1 and Vol. 2

Audio Versions

• Librivox Vol. 1 and Vol. 2
  

Resources

• Glossary for Book 1 and Book 2
• Lugodoc's Guide to Mallory's Le Mort d'Arthur
• Cliff Notes Study Guide
  

Reading Schedule

The following schedule is fluid and may change, given the nature of our readers preferences. However, for now, this is a good schedule to start this book.

• June 14 - Book 1
• June 21 - Book 2
• June 28 - Book 3
• July 5 - Book 4
• July 12 - Book 5
• July 19 - Book 6
• July 26 - Book 7
• August 2 - Book 8
• August 9 - Book 9 (end of Vol. 1)
• August 16 - Book 10 and on for readers who wish to continue with Vol. 2

Happy reading ~ Enjoy!

The Canterbury Tales by Geoffrey Chaucer

Welcome Spring (or Summer for us in hot AZ!) Readers:

We are set to begin a four-week study in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. This is a quick reading through these stories, simply to give our readers a taste of Chaucer's wit and style. Feel free to join along with our reading group on this next adventure through late Medieval classical literature.

Lets begin reading through a few of the Canterbury Tales. I chose those which are most often read in college courses (and the ones I could find study
questions on -- LOL!) I think these will give you enough of a feel for these stories without having to read them all. If you want to read more, go ahead at
your own leisure.

Brief Background from Wikipedia

I would suggest reading the background on the Tales themselves, either at Wikipedia, in your own text, or as a general introduction at Sparknotes or Online-Literature.com.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geoffrey_Chaucer
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Canterbury_Tales

Literature Study Guide from Sparknotes

Sparknotes will provide some good summaries of the tales, a great help for struggling readers who need a little hand-holding to help explain the story.

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/canterbury/

Book Links

http://www.online-literature.com/chaucer/canterbury/

Modern Prose in PDF (each tale is it's own file)

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/webcore/murphy/canterbury/

Audio from Librivox

http://librivox.org/the-canterbury-tales-by-geoffrey-chaucer/

Schedule

Week 1 - Introduction and Prologue
Week 2 - The Knights Tale
Week 3 - The Miller and The Reeves Tale
Week 4 - The Friar and The Summoner's Tale

Guesstimate on reading: The Knights Tale is fairly long, the others are shorter readings. I would guess four weeks to cover these tales only. If at the end of this period, you all want to read some of the other Tales, we can add a few more in. Let' wait and see how every does with these stories, OK?

Begin date: you are welcome to start this week or next. I will post the first set of questions today and then will try and stay a week ahead of everyone.

I think you will enjoy reading these stories, and will find the modern translation (PDF files linked above) a good source (helpful notes and explanations are included).

Happy Reading!