CLIT 30B

Lecture 9 Tuesday, February 10, 2015

- Calderon: Life is a Dream
• Pedro Calderon de la Barca 1600-1681
- Main themes: political order, free will, personal honor.
- The big question: how should we act if life is a dream?
• Why does my behavior matter? Why so important?
- Plot Structure
• Segismund: embodies these themes.
- 1. In prison and ‘awake’
- 2. Free and ‘dreaming’
- 3. Where is the prison? What is the dream?
- Elements of Deception
• Segismund
• Rosaura
• Basil
- Segismund
• First describing by Rosaura:
- “I spy unlighted hollows that appear/To be dark prison cells./The rank tomb where some
live cadaver dwells…There within,/A squalid man lies clad in animal skin,/Restrained by
chains” (I.ii.92-6)
- Disguise and deception in his captivity?
• Elements of his disguise repeat in the play.
• First big monologue (I.ii.103-172)
- 1. The crime of being born
- 2. The bird, the beast, the fish, the stream…/“Should I enjoy less liberty?”
- 3. “Which edicts, laws, codes, or decrees/Deny a mean who’s sepulchered/That
sweetest privilege proffered,/The natural perogative/Just God above would freely give/To
beast and stream, to fish and bird?” (I.ii.67-72)

1
 • God refers to divine law/authority. Law of order based on the natural world. Positive
law, codes, written by people for people. Divine justice > all of that coming together.
- Self-Description
• “A living skeleton stripped of life, A dead man only live by grace” (I.ii.201-2)
• Pattern of language — try to describe what the function of a pattern might be.
- “I’m a man of a beast, And a beast of a man” (I.ii.211-2)
• Kind of repetition, same ideas. Man and beast are repeated in these two lines. But the
order is in verdict.
- = Chiasmus (Gk. chi = X) > a rhetorical or literary figure in which words,
grammatical constructions, or concepts are repeated in reverse order, in the same
or a modified form
• What is the effect?
- Rosaura
• What is her disguise and motive? Note theme of honor:
- Motivated by vengeance > man fools around with her in Russia, she lost her honor
(lost her virginity). And then he leaves her behind to go marry Stella.
• Puts on man’s clothing and goes to get him.
• Rosaura to Clotaldo: “You’ve given me my life back, sire; “It’s thanks to you I walk this
earth” (l. viii.898-9).
• Clotaldo: “I cant have given you your life back,/You didn’t have one when you came./A
life defamed is not a life” (I.viii.905-9)
- Doesn’t know that Clotaldo is her father yet. Explains to him that she is on a quest,
doesn’t reveal her gender yet. Makes it sound like she is a in a lot of trouble.
• Clotaldo bound by the king to take in Rosaura. Fortunately for him and dramatic
timing, the secret got out that day. Now he can spare her life.
- There is repetition and overlap in the language of this play in the descriptions
of characters
- Is Clotaldo responsible for Rosaura? Yes, he is her dad! He didn’t marry her
mother, bastard child so maybe he doesn’t have responsibility in that way for
her. We could also say that Rosaura has enough autonomy now and does not
need her dad’s help.
• Clotaldo is a very conflictive figure here: Abandons a pregnant woman to go
to another country. Kept a man captive for years. When Rosaura gives him
a riddle, to give him a hint at the truth. (go to I.viii.962-73).
- What is Clotaldo’s dilemma? Forces him to redirect his thinking, honor of women
vs. that of men.

2
- King Basil
• Where does he look for truth?
- Basis for these decisions: “the sciences/Are what we’ve loved and cherished most” (I.vi.
613) > Astrology!
- A way of taking natural science and giving it a cultural narrative. Referring to events in
the future. Kind of way of interpreting the natural world.
- Astrology
• Motto: looking up to see down
• Reads the patterns and reapplies them to events down on earth > no room for
chance or free will. > Basil
- What is an Omen?
• A sign whose meaning is in the future > an event regarded as a portent of good or evil.
• Divine messages, human readers.
- Basil’s Concerns
• (I.vi.760-785)
• The good of the country
• Natural order (natural law)
• Segismund’s free will
- What experiment does he propose?
Thursday, February 12, 2015
Lecture 10
- Life is a Dream Act 2
• On dreaming and truth, Segismund Basil/Clotaldo, A neutral perspective.
• The Knight’s Dream (de Pereda/1640)
• Baroque Themes
- Life is ephemeral/short
- Worldly things are unimportant (“vanitas”)
- “Eternally it stings <— quickly it flies and kills”
• Segismund
- What are Segismund’s first impressions?
• Scared of his own reflections, had never seen himself. No sense of who he is.

3
 • Music is played to welcome him, disturbing to him — bombarded with too many
impressions at once. New environment where he has to process everything at once.
• Looking for permanence, reference point which would connect him with the self he
was in prison. Some sense of continuity. Struggle to find this.
- “God save me! What’s this I perceive?/ God help me grasp what I’ve seen here!/I’m
awed and not untouched by fear/But can’t be sure what to believe…/Still, isn’t
Segismund my name? / Fair heavens, won’t you disabuse my fancy’s flight?
…” (1224f/1240f)
- How does Segismund try to find certainty? His ‘astrology’
• Heavens and astrology — “fair heavens” = god. There is also a dynamic here.
Characters who have celestial names in this play: Estrella, Rosaura (star)
• How he reacts to this constellation of female character.
- Segismund
• “I beg you woman, stay. / Don’t Make the sun set at the break of day” (1572f)
• Segismund: What’s this I perceive?
• Rosaura: I cant trust my own eyes, yet must believe.
• Segismund: Ive seen this loveliness before… I’ve found my life again!…you owe me
allegiance, yet/Some strange bond links us more (1578f).
- Segismund’s Behavior
• What is his model of sociability?
- Nature, animal kingdom. Animals connect to each other, which are more or less
powerful, some independent.
- Qualities: Clear hierarchy, strength and power.
- Segismund’s Animal Nature
• Minotaur: “I know I am/Some mongrel mix of mean and beast”
• Examples of his violence: pushed servant over the balcony, tries to rape/assault Rosaura
(takes this celestial figure and corrupts it with his desire for her).
• “He plunged into the sea below and god let no one intervene!” (1430-1)
• to Basil: “depot! You’ll soon breathe your last!” (1504)
• to Clotaldo: “I’ll crush you in my arms, detested foe!” (1691).
- Segismund
• Human vs. animal hierarchy:
- Power expressed through gesture and language.
- A battle of words.

4
- Power and Language
• Segismund: “God keep you, sir”
• Astolf: “You might have earned a stern rebuke, For having failed to see in time, That rank
deserves more reverence”
• Segismund: “So, when I saw ‘God keep you’ here, What does that greeting undermine?”
• Second servant: “Such brusqueness…still occurs, Throughout his speech and cause chills,
But then they raised him in the hills” (1352f).
- How Segismund speaks to men vs. women:
• “Vile traitor” to Clotaldo
• “Prone as you are to boastful rot” to Astolfo
• “What human goddess…let me kiss that gorgeous hand, a snow white chalice…” (to
Stella)
• “The rose, whom others call, their empress, being loveliest of all” to Rosaura.
- Power and Language
• Courtly language:
- Politeness and artifice
- Segismund’s language
• Brutal, direct, ‘natural’
- Fits Basil’s prediction.
- Objectivity
• What Segismund needs: someone who:
- Sees clearly… ally source, who can speak honestly to him
- Speaks clearly
- Has an outside perspective.
• Who is this ? —> Clarion
- Clarion
• Means “trumpet” or “bugle” > loud instrument with a piercing sound.
• Fits his character, also fits notion of clarity.
- Clarion as an Observer
• “What window offers finer views- Not counting those in front-row seats, That ticket vendors
hold for you- Than man’s own eyeballs in his head? For, with or without sense or cent,
Whenever there’s a show to see, He’ll sneak a peek with impudence” (1171-1174).

5
 • Clarion is the one that has a metafiction, insider and outsider status, in the play but also
able to come about the play itself.
• When he speaks he refers to playwright… theatricality.
- A Complicated Character
• Clarion as a name:
- “For if I ever did sound off/To Astolf, Stella, or the king,/They might be shocked by what
they heard. Both manservants and clarions toot/Like trumpets in this noisy world/And
just don’t harbor secrets well…”
- “The sonf I sing might well be this:/No clarion blaring at first light/Did ever sound more
right.” (1205f).
- Play on words (spanish) > using this for “suena” counterpoint to “sueno”. Play between
dreaming, certain and uncertain, much more clear in the spanish language.
- Two Final Thoughts
• An ethics of dreaming: ONE OF THESE WILL BE ON FINAL
- Then let’s suppress/ The fury of our savage state, / The vile ambition and the hate, / So
when we dream we won’t transgress. 2148f
- What’s life? A frenzied, blurry haze. /What’s life? Not anything it seems. / All we possess
on earth means nil, / For life’s a dream, think what you will, / And even all our dreams
are dreams. 2182f
- A Preview
• Deceit within a history of violence and vice:
• Important role in Act 2
- Conflict between characters: Astolf left Rosaura behind to be with Stella and be king.
Stella gets the impression that Astolf has feelings for another woman, because he has a
necklace with a picture of Rosaura in it. Stella tells him to give her that picture so that
she knows he isn’t thinking about another woman than her. He can’t deliver to her, which
frustrates her.
- Think of deception as repeating history. In this play deception is characterized by
violence and vice.
- Political dynamics > Basil and Segismund: Took his son out of line, he created this
equilibrium in which there is going to be a cycle of problems and violence within the state
until things are brought back in balance.
• Rosaura and her mother, they are both abandoned. Rosaura tries to right the wrongs.
Repetition that may keep going until some permanent solution is reached.
• Rosaura describes herself as a copy of her mother: “I issued forth, my mother’s twin/A
living picture when it came/Not only to her comedy countenance/But all her sorrows
and travails”. 2770-2773

6
 - Caught on a loop until things are fixed, Rosaura’s identities suggests this as well.
Both politically and socially.
• Act 1: man/woman
• Act 2: mother/daughter, life/art
Lecture 11
- Life is a Dream Act 3
• From philosophy to political theory (and action!)
- Calderon’s Politics
• What political values does this play endorse?
- Supports divine right, Segismund and his right to the throne.
• State law conforms to divine law
- Everything together in balance
• Consequence of breaking the law
- Repetition of violence, cycle, creates instability (injustice to Rosaura’s mother, then
herself…) (instances of Segismund assuming power in punishing law breakers)
- Can be interrupted — order can be restored. Outlook is positive by the end of the
play
- One example: Rosaura
• From last week: a “portrait” or copy of her mother. In an elegant way, repetition of violence,
crime, and honor being taken from both her mother and herself.
• Idea that we haven’t come to a point of chance, things continue to repeat until justice is
done.
• Astolf: wants to replace Rosaura with Stella
• Problem: he is acting “outside” the law
• Stella to Astolf: “I’ve no doubt that these gallant words/Are spoken with the best intent/But
you must mean them for the maid/Whose painted likeness hung about your
neck” (1750-1753)
• Rosaura wants to break the cycle, return Astolf to the law
• In the meantime: states of uncertainty
- Rosaura
• Astolf’s deception: “I’ll take her portrait from my chest/And lovingly hang in its place/The
image of your loveliness. /For where fair Stella shines, no shade/Can fall, no lowly star
besmirch/The sun’s bright realm!/I’ll fetch it now. Oh, fair Rosaura, pardon this/
Transgression, but you aren’t around./When men and women are apart/Their troth
(promise) is worth no more than this” (1768-1777)

7
 - Promises — broken, tension between the image and the word.
- Image as the symbol of his promise. Image is still there until he physically detaches from
it.
- Calderon vs. Plato —
• Astolf is popping into the astrology of the play - literal constellations of stars. Starry names
of Stella and Rosaura — Segismund also tap into this science.
- Used as a king of logic to justify their own decision making.
- Second Example: Basil and Segismund
• Does Basil follow the law of the land?
• Does Segismund understand the law?
- NO
• Threat of repetition
• Bringing Segismund into power is not a solution because there is still repetition — he’s
been trained to be by education > Human laws: the ruler must submit to them
- Segismund: Political reality vs. dream
• Main question: how does Segismund learn the law?
• A process of reasoning…
• Step 1:
- Beginning of act 3, the rebels release Segismund from the tower
- What’s the problem? Escaping repetition.
• Repetition of his “false liberation”. No reason for him to believe it is real, to understand
that this rebellion is really happening.
- Confused and skeptical of the soldier and what he is being told.
- “What’s this? Must I be held enthralled/Again, cruel skies, to fleeting dreams/Of
grandeur Time will surely mock?” (2307-2309)
• Finding certainty = a political problem
• “This cannot be. It cannot be./Behold me here, a slave again/To fortune’s whims. As I
have learned/That life is really just a dream,/I say to you, false shadows,
Go!” (2319-2322)
- One possible solution: withdrawal from the world
• Step 2:
- A second possibility:

8
 • Rebel soldier: “Great events/Are oft preceded, good my lord,/By portants, which is
what occurred/When you did dream these things before.” (2352-2355)
• Past reality = “dream”/present “dream” = reality > going along with a lie
• Is this a reasonable idea?
• A call for action in the present moment
- What Segismund learned from his “dream”
• Worldly power is limited.
• How is this principle of kingship?
- Caution as protection against disillusion (2366)
- Power is not absolute, but only “lent” (2370)
- Why these scenes matter
• Use of reason and logic vs. force
• Moral principles must govern us
• He is not an exception (Basil never learned this!). He will get there eventually, but
how? He mutualizes the animal life of his nature and becomes the man that he is
supposed to become eventually.
• Step 3: A test of political will
- The return of Rosaura, her name means dawn
• Why is this a problem for Segismund?
- Her story contradicts the “dream” explanation
- Her being dishonored, how she is trying to regain her honor.
- Segismund’s animal instincts
• She aroused these in him, alongside of what is real and what is dream.
• She is very peculiar in that regard, rich female character not reduced to stereotypes in
this play.
- Rosaura as a “test”
• “It was true then. That was no dream…/Do this world’s glories so/Resemble dreams in
what they vaunt/That even the most genuine/Are destines to be reckoned false/As
fake ones are considered true?…/Why must the copy counterfeit/The true original so
well/That none dare hazard which is which?” (2934-2949)
- Repeating metaphors — Using Rosaura’s own presence to test himself in
determining what is real and what isn’t
- Note the oppositions

9
 - What is the danger?
• Admitted inability to define between reality and dreams — attempts to make it
matter anyway
• Rosaura gives him a huge monologue, gives him her whole story > what are her
3 disguises or appearances? Male in act 1, act 2 as a woman but not herself, and
then “a monstrous and unnatural freak/Attired in female finery/Yet bravely
searingly manly arms” (2725-7)
- “should you find yourself inclined/To woo me as a woman, rest/Assured that,
as a man, I’d be/Compelled to kill you” (2914-2917)
• She is missing ___________
• Does Rosaura need Segismund?
- As man and woman she is not available
- She needs Astolf in name only for honor > but does he need her? What
are his choices? Worldly (desire, lust, power) things vs. eternal values.
- Passing the test
• Taking the divine perspective
• no difference between “real” or “imaginary” glory on earth
• A transformative moment: the whole play builds up to this and this decision, his ability
to think like that. Vouches to fight for her honor — “But who’d pass heaven’s glories
up/For human ones, had the choice?” (2969-71)
- Life is a dream, pleasure is fleeting
- Seek the eternal: “renown that never dies…” (2983)
- To be a good ruler must seek the greater good
- An Unexpected Consequence
• Segismund and Clarion
- The rebel soldiers mistake him for the prince
- Soldiers: “Long life the prince, whom we love well!”
- Clarion: “Is it the custom in this realm/To seize a body every day/And make a prince of
him before/He’s thrown back in the tower? Must be,/Since each day there’s a different
lord./Looks like I’ll have to play the part” (2241-2245)
- Theater and politics
- Final words to Basil and Clotaldo:
• “Think you by feeing you’ll be fine.And cheat death in the way again?/You’ll die
precisely where and when/Your deaths fulfill God’s grand design.” (3092-3095)
• Basil refers to him as a “talking corpse”

10
 • Icky but interesting… “whose wound is but a second mouth/From which that trickling
liquid drips/Like wisdom off a bloody tongue” (3102-4)
- Clarion’s Death
• What does he die?
• Possible answers:
- Pure chance?
- God’s plan? (he spoke the truth!)
• Logic: Attempt at distance — “I’ll step aside, avoid distress” (3049)
- Failure to keep that distance, dies for it.
- Collapse between our world and the play
- Also: Segismund’s new perspective
- Reinstating the law
• What happen’s after the battle?
• What happens after the battle?
• Two important decisions:
- He pardons Basil and Clotaldo
- He punishes the rebel solider
- Why?
- Threats of repetition…
Thursday, February 19, 2015
Lecture 11
- Moliere - Misanthrope
• 17th century France, ruled by Louis XIV
• Social class: aristocracy
• Location: “Celimene’s salon” What was a salon?
- Meeting place for conversations, entertainment, exchange of ideas.
- Often run by women
• Bosse: Meeting of Women (1636)
• Lemonnier: Mme. Geoffrin’s Salon (1755)
• de Troy: Reading from Moliere (1728)

11
 - An aspect of having these salons in intimate, private spheres is that there is this
dynamic of interpersonal relations/interactions.
- The Misanthrope as “Comedy”
• 17th century comedic modes
- French farce and Italian comedy dell’arte (stock characters, plots, some improvisation)
• Improvisation with some constraints, not pure creativity.
• French farce also fall under this
- Belle Comedie (comedy of manners: more refined, elegant language)
• During carnival time, people would have distinctive association with them. Italian in
origin but known across Europe.
• Other expectations from Moliere’s audience in comedy:
- Classical unities (Aristotle) > unity of time (day); unity of place (single physical place
such as the Salon in Misanthrope), unity of action (one central theme).
- Two other requirements:
• Verisimilitude, true to life
• Propriety
• Moliere: critiqued for his extreme characters
- Provocation in how he lets his characters be, how they position themselves with
relation to society (rebellious side). Gets into trouble for this.
- Misanthrope Act 1 Scene 1
• Alceste: angry, contemptuous of others, rigid in his views
• Philinthe: voice of compromise, moderation
- First clip: Carpetbaggers Theatre Group
- What to look for: What is Alceste’s criticism of Philinthe? How does Philinthe respond?
• Alceste says that Philinthe likes everybody, universal friendship — insecure to Alceste.
Friendship not worth anything, too cheap.
• By honoring everybody you honor nobody. Actions have no meaning to him, no
connection to how he really feels. Doesn’t reflect true feelings, calls him a liar in words
and action.
• Philinthe says: Where is authentic personhood? Doesn’t want to be a mirror of what is
acceptable behavior. Argues for reciprocity, our behavior should mirror that of others.
- Alceste also values originality.
• Language that does not hide.

12
- Do we share those values?
• Why do we value politeness?
• Where do we draw the line between politeness and hypocrisy?
• (When) is it acceptable to lie? Some say never acceptable to lie.
• Possible criteria:
- Potential for harm, economy in communication, fear of reprisal…?
• Clip 2 what to look for: how to they translate the Misanthrope’s values?

- Alceste: Strengths and Weaknesses

• Is he a hero, a deceiver, or a dupe?
• Philinthe is a deceiver, doesn’t want to disappoint anybody and etc…
• Alceste is dupe, but to what degree?
- Makes himself vulnerable.
- Positive traits: honesty (eternal truth)
- Negative traits: insensitivity, egoism
• Alceste hurts people’s feelings, smart enough to know what he is doing though.
• Puts himself as the hero of honesty against all society - lots of self confidence.
- Another Weakness of Alceste: Celimene
• I can see she has defects, for I’m not blind. Although I love her madly, yet I’m still the first to
point them out, and try correcting what is worst. It’s true I see that she’s got faults; but I
confess, Although I criticize, they couldn’t matter less. I’m weak as water with her. All that I
can do, is go on loving her. I’m sorry, but it’s true. She charms me so, I can’t resist — it’s
very strange — Let’s hope my love can educate her, make her change.
• Alceste as “judge”
- Offensive in a deliberate way - his company is sought out. He is a judge of humanity,
his love and those who surround him. Oronte is also in love with Celimene, and he is
critical of him as well.
- Possible comparisons with other characters?
• Iago is judgmental of many other characters.
• Alceste is also “on trial”… let’s take a closer look.
- “I mean the filthy beat who’s taken me to court: everybody knows his manner’s a
charade…Call him confounded liar, no one will object; say he’s a fraud, and nobody
will contradict. Yet, with his smirking face, he gets himself received in the best
circles, though his hosts are not deceived. It cuts me to the quick to see him get

13
 away with every dirty trick. I feel mortified by all mankind, and long to run away and
hide”.
- We don’t know why he is on trial yet, or against whom.
- That means the reason isn’t important!
- Philinthe: Which layers have you briefed to plead on your behalf? Elects: Why
justice, fairness, human rights.. When I hear what the verdict is, I’ll know: I’ll have
the confirmation men can sink so low; I’ll know that they can be so wicked and
perverse, That they deny my rights, before the universe.
Tuesday, February 24, 2015
Lecture 12
- Misanthrope Overview
• Act 1: the misanthrope introduced
• Acts 2-3: Celimene’s salon
- Alcaste (vs. Alceste), Clitandre…
- Interchangeable
- Stereotypical characters (commedia dell’arte)
- Comedy of manners (belle comedie)
- Act Briefly: The Poetry Slam
• This time: Alceste as judge/critic:
- The plaintiff: Oronte
• A poet
• Also in love with Celimene
• What is on trial here?
- Oronte’s poetry
- Alceste’s honesty
- How Good or Bad is Oronte’s Poem?
• Hope, it is true. alleviate our woe, / And helps us for a moment to endure. / But Phyllis this
advantage brings us low, / If nothing further comes to bring a cure… / If I must wait for you
eternally, / I won’t hold out against my misery… / Oh Phyllis, we grow hopeless when we
find / That hope prolonged just turns into despair.”
- Features:
• Passion tamed through language — awkward artificial language. Convoluted phrases.
Lack of individuality.

14
- Act 1
• Philinthe: That ending! Brilliant! Romantic, yet so clear! (333)
• “… such well constructed verse” (336)
- How does Alceste frame his critique?
• “someone I once knew… Was showing me his verse, and asking me my view / I said,
a decent man should struggle to control / The urge to write in verse, and base his
inner soul” (343-6)
- Side note the Misanthrope is in verse as well — The “alexandrine”, 12 syllable lines,
rhyming couplets.
- His critique:
• Substance: “inspiration from a doubtful source… artificial.. lacks force…
contrived, and unconvincing… full of clever puns, elaborate word play, It’s must
too far removed from what real people say”
- Alceste’s ideal: truth in both life and art
- Alceste as judge: …but his preferred poetry is also on trial: If the King had sold
me cheap His great town of Paree (Paris) But I was not allowed to keep My
darling there with me, I’d say to King Henri: “Take me back you great Paree.
For I would rather sleep, And me own dea with me”.
• Can you see the problems with this poem?
- Wrapping up political ideals in a literal piece.
- Act 2 Celimene’s Salon
• What do they talk about? Gossip, about the guy that always brags about his possessions…
Malicious, back stabbing. Going into detail about what makes certain people so annoying.
• Eliante to Philinthe: “Malicious gossip is to be today’s concern: / The conversation taking
quite a lively turn” (II.iv.583-4)
- Character Sketches
• Clitandre and Celimene: Cleonte
• Alcaste and Celimene: Damon
• Celimene: Timante, Geralde, Belise, Adraste, Cleon, Damis. She gets on a roll about a lot
of people.
- Alcaste: “I saw, God damn it, what a portrait! It’s all true” Clitandre: “you paint them all
from life, and no one matches you” > French— Alcaste: “Dieu me damne, voila son
portrait veritable” Clitandre: “Pour bien peindre les gens vous etes admirable”
• But this is not a truth, rather a point of view. Plato question of whether there is truth in
art.

15
 • Celimene is a master artist in this context — talented at constructing these images
and putting language together in a funny yet hurtful manner. Making them present in
the room while they are not there.
- The “portraits” of the Salon
• What do these do?
- Example: Timante.
• Celimene: “From head to tow, the man’s a walking mystery. He rushes past, and nods
distractedly at you. He’s always busy though there’s nothing much to do. He pulls the
oddest faces that you ever saw, He always makes a fuss — he’s the most frightful
bore. He interrupts you, tries to whisper in your ear, But all his secrets are a waste of
time to hear. A triviality will set him all aglow — He even makes a point of whispering
hello.
- Critiquing his mannerisms, interface with society rather than his political views, or
something more innate to him. Not interiority. Very superficial description, how he
performs this superficiality. Shallow representation.
- Portraits
• Their objects aren’t present (backstabbing)
• The portrait conjures them to life
• It does not reveal a person’s true nature
• Superficiality (more about action than thought)
- The portrait paints a picture for the listeners.
- Created through conversation > Salon = performative space. Filled with people with
more or less talent. Put emphasis on the act of creation. Filling the space of the salon
with these portraits, to be ridiculed and hung on the wall.
- Focus on portrait: not the individual — instead the circumstances of artistic creation.
• Johannes Vermeer, The Art of Painting (1666)
- Alceste and Celimene
• What kind of person is Celimene?
• His purism vs. her pragmatism and opportunism
- Alceste: “You say that I’m a lot too jealous. Tell me, what / Advantages do I have, that the
rest have not?”
- Celimene: “The joy of being sure that I’m in love with you”
- Two problems: Whether Celimene is a liar, whether her love for Alceste is unique.
- Alceste’s concern: not whether she is lying to him (impossible!)… but whether she is
lying to other men: “How am I to know? The truth may be that, when / You say you love
me, you're two timing other men”

16
 • Alceste has a blind spot. Doesn’t allow himself to live in the same category as other
people. He excludes himself from the category of dupes. Moliere puts this blind spot
on center stage.
• Potential for broader application.
• Celimene’s portrait for Alceste
• Context: himan vice is reprehensible / And it’s the flatterers that are responsible
• Celimene: “Monsieur simply has to contradict… What others think can never weigh with
him one bit, / His attitude is always quite the opposite. He’d see himself dull and
commonplace indeed / If he found that his fellow men and he agreed / He so loved arguing,
and his feelings are so strong, He even claims his own opinions are all wrong”
- Critique of Alceste
• What’s wrong with his life philosophy?
• Inconsistent
• Childish (more attitude than conviction)
• Naive
• Short sighted
• Egoistic
- Entrance of Arsinoe, “la prude”
• In the 17th century also refers to someone who is prudent. Wise, measured, and
circumspect in one’s morals, in one’s words, in one’s conduct. This woman has always
been extremely prudent. She has always seemed prudent. She has a prudent manner
about her. She affects a prudent manner. This young boy is extremely prudent for his age.
- Les prudes et les coquettes (only women)
- Questions
• To what degree are they honest or hypocritical?
• What aspects of being prude are emphasized?
- Different levels, with concern for appearances and propriety. Nature that is not kind.
Interesting back and forth here.
• How do the actresses reveal true feelings?
• How is Alceste’s absence significant?
- Putting that portrait right in the person’s face. Artificial artistic performance and turning it
into something that would have the potential to be much more direct. Unfortunately
Alceste does not see this happen. Function here is different, he has been on the
receiving end of that as well.
• Do you see any parallels to his poetry critique?

17
- Celimene to Alceste
• A final though on translation:
- They said you’re so uptight, so prudish, and repressed / You set a poor example: no one
was impressed. / You always look so grim, respond so charmlessly, / You try to seem so
wise, and drone on endlessly (III.iv.925-8)
Thursday, February 26, 2015
Lecture 13
- Today:
• Wigs: think of these as a disguise component
• Verdicts (Alceste on trial)
• Celimene on trial - letters
• Our thoughts (The Misanthrope on trial)
- Cultural note: wigs
• Popular in 16th century
• Practical reasons: hair loss, hygiene (lice and etc more common back then)
• Aristocratic status
• Louis XIV
- Much of a trend setter in terms of wigs, same time period as Misanthrope.
- Verdicts: Alceste on Trial
• The case of Alceste/Oronte
- Act 3: The “captain of the guard”
- Alceste’s compromise: “I’m sorry if I’m being difficult/ I wish with all my heart you didn't
feel so sore:/ And if I could, I would have liked your sonnet more” (IV.i.1157-60)
- Eliante: “The way he won’t agree to play the hypocrite/ Does have a bible and heroic
side to it” (IV.i.1165-6)
• Act V scene I
- Key points:
• A triumph for hypocrisy
• Orionte’s revenge
• What remains: “the verdict has to stand… It’s got to be preserved for al posterity"
• Philinthe: Alceste should stay too
- Why? Good people need flawed people in order to practice virtue.

18
 • Letters: Celimene on Trial
- First letter (Act 4, ii-iii)
• Alceste to Eliante: “The proof’s here, in my pocket, written in he hand / O yes
Madame, in here, a letter to Oronte,/ That makes her shame as plain to see as you
could want”
• Philinthe: “A letter isn’t always quite what it appears, / It may mean nothing much, so
calm your jealous fears” (I.i.1236-8, 1241-2)
• The accusation? Betrayal > defense: the truth
- Alceste: “defend yourself…/And don’t keep telling me you’re guilty all the time:/ Try
to persuade me that your letter’s innocent” (IV.iii.1385-88)
• Trying to force her into a lie that she might come to believe herself. Is this
consistent with his philosophy?
- End of Act III; a dark note
• Alceste: “no one loves you as I do, and no one could… I even wish that things would
go all wrong for you… I wish that you’d become degraded, piteous… no home, no
money in your purse…/I’d make sure/That I repaired the dreadful wrongs you might
endure…/I’d rejoice to see/You owing all your wealth and happiness to me” (IV.iv.
1422-32) > he detests the power that she has.
• She is a young widow with much wealth > much power where there is no one to
control her or tell her how to use her resources.
- Act V: more letters (clip)
• Connection to the “portraits”
• Now people are in the room, way of putting her words to her face — now these
portraits that she has been producing are being read back to her. She is confronted
with her own malicious language in the presence of the people she spoke of. She
becomes a victim along with the targeted portraits.
• Clitandre: “these letters who you in quite a novel light, Madame / You know what
name we use when people write/ Such things? But now we’ll spread the word, both
near and far,/ And tell the world just what a charming flirt you are”
• The letters as portrait and mirror
- They show Celimene herself > how do we judge her? How did the actress perform
Celimene?
- Our Thoughts
• The Misanthrope on trial:
- Judging the characters Alceste and Celimene
• In the end he asks her to leave with him and she says no, then he tells her he wants
nothing to do with her. Conclusion that our main love pair doesn’t end up together.

19
 • Are they true to themselves?
- Judging the play > what is it trying to do?
• Perhaps satire about satire. But what does satire do?
- The use of humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule to expose and criticize people's
stupidity or vices, particularly in the context of contemporary politics and other
topical issues.
• Another possibility: staging hypocrisy
- References to acting in the play > Alceste asks Eliante to physically play the part of
his fiancé to make Celimene jealous (but then abandons the idea)
• Possible short answer questions:
- In what way is deception staged in this play?
- In what way is Alceste, who claims to value honesty, either a dupe or a deceiver?
- Two challenges: write that portrait! 10-20 lines/rhyme/no names! OR be proverbial
best revision of man is a wolf to man .
Tuesday, March 3, 2015
Lecture 14
- Jonathan Swift
• 1667-1745
• Born and raised in Dublin
• 1702: Doctor of divinity
• Political activism, Irish causes
• A modest proposal to fight poverty — satirical with a solution to hunger and poverty that is
basically cannibalism
- I have been assured by a very knowing American of my acquaintance in London, that a
young healthy child well nursed, is, at a year old a most delicious nourishing and
wholesome food, whether stewed, roasted, baked, or boiled; and I make no doubt that
…
- Gulliver’s Travels
• Travels into Several Remote Nations of the World, in Four Parts by Lemuel Gulliver — First
a Surgeon, and then a Captain of Several Ships > original title
• 1721-25 (in the Age of Enlightenment)
• Genre: Novel - travel books (“abundance of trash”)
- Ethnography, satire on the human condition
- Frame: name, address, age

20
 - Beneath the picture: “regulated principles of justice and duty in the mind: pure thoughts
within; and a breast filled with an instinctive sense of honor”
- Context: satire by Horace
- Gulliver and Swift
• Portraits are similar to one another.
- 1735 Edition
• “Splendide mendax” > Latin word for liar.
- Mendacity - dishonesty
- “lying magnificently” > in context: lying for a good cause
• Letter from Capt. Gulliver to “Cousin Sympson” > one of the known pseudonyms of
Jonathan Swift. Another way in which he inserts himself into the text. Dispute about certain
editorial changes to the text…
• The name of Gulliver: sounds like gullible in the english language. Is he a dupe/gullible?
• Swift and the tradition of literary hoaxes — once made fun of a famous astrologer who
made false predictions where he wrote a fake astrology book that writes of the death of this
astrologer…
- The Big Picture
• Unfolding narrative of cruelty
- Book 1 - Liliputians, Book 2 - Brobdingnanians, Book 3 - Struldbuggs (eternal moral
decay), and Book 4 - the Yahoos
• Hardships: voyage’s beginning vs. assimilation
- Houyhnhms (“whinnims")
• Collective
• Qualities: moderation, hard work, cleanliness
• Equal education
• Peaceful, low-tech
• Two castes
- Beneath them are the Yahoos
• Is this one’s vision of an ideal society? Yes, despite some point to critique.
• What does their name mean? Perfection of nature
- Idea that they are the perfect creatures. Physical perfection is already emphasized
(strong and no sickness), and again question of whether it is also a perfect society.
- Nature of ideal order

21
 - Do they have laws?
- “Nature and Reason were sufficient Guides for a reasonable animal, as we pretended to
be, in showing us what we ought to do, and what to avoid”
- Houyhnhmland as Utopia?
• Written my Thomas More (1516)
• More: one of the “good” moderns of Swift
• No private property, religious tolerance, order and discipline vs. liberty
• Utopians: by “following reason” you “obey nature”
- The Rational Animal
• One definition of humanity (Aristotle)
• Swift to Alexander Pope (1725): “I have got Materials towards a Treatis proving the falsity
of that Definition animal rationale, and to show it should be only rations capax (capable of
reason). Upon this great foundation of Misanthropy…the whole building of Gulliver’s
Travels is erected”.
- The horses are rational animals
- The thing which was not
• Context: Gulliver tells of his journey
• His master: “replied, that I must needs be mistaken, or that I said the thing which was not.
He knew it was impossible that there could be a country beyond the sea, or that a parcel of
brutes could move a wooden vessel whither they please upon water. He was sure no
Houyhnhm alive could make such as Vessel…” (219)
• Why don’t they lie? Or why don’t they think they lie > inherently counter productive, bad
use of language.
• A problem of bias — a “houyhnhm centric” perspective, a logical problem: language
represents something, even negatively.
- An oversimplification, a lie is not just the spoken opposite of a truth.
- The best lie is an exaggeration of the truth; a fiction, a symptom of self delusion, an
instrument.
- The Yahoos
• Possible sources: travel narratives (a tribe in Guinea); the “savage Irish”; helots (slave
class in Sparta)
- Gulliver vs. Yahoos
• Advantages and disadvantages
- Gulliver is cleaner and less ugly
- Demonstrates some rational behavior, less driven by pure animal appetites

22
 • However he is slower and weaker; less perfect Yahoo than Yahoos. Nails are useless,
wobbles on two feet
• His body needs extra covering, clothing. Not naturally covered by hair.
• Yahoo society
- Greedy, innately violent, no innate moral values, Gulliver’s description of British society
- “I saw there was a society of men (lawyers) among us, bred up from their youth in the art
of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black and black is white,
according as they are paid. To this society all the rest of the people are slaves” (231).
- Institutionalized lying?
• Lawyers (black and white); we are their places
- The “first or chief minister of state”: “applies his words to all uses, except to the
indication of his mind; that he never tells a truth, but with an intent that you should
take it for a lye, nor a lye, but with a design that you should take it for a truth…
(237)
- Shows “furious zeal in public assemblies against the corruptions of the court” (238)
- Looking back: The Prince, Misanthrope
Thursday, March 5, 2015
Lecture 15
- Gulliver’s Travels Book 4
• In the beginning…
- Where do we find a narrative of origins?
• Narrative on the origins of the Yahoos. Oral tradition: “many ages ago, two of
these Brutes had appeared together upon a mountain; whether produced by the
Heat of the Sun upon corrupted Mud and Slime, or from the Ooze and Froth of
the Sea, was never known” (253).
- They multiplied and multiplied until is was an 2 > “infestation”
- Why does the choice of myth matter?
• An alternative: “the two Yahoos..had been driven thither over the sea; that coming to
land, and being forsaken by their Companions, they retired to the Mountains, and
degenerating by Degrees, became in Process of Time much more savage than those
of their own species” (254)
• The value of myth:
- Humanity/animality at stake one comparison: The ‘noble lie’
- Plato: Republic, “virtues” from the earth.
- Positive myth of common origin

23
 • In the middle
- Gulliver as the problem of the middle
- Two competing readings: 1) From Houyhnhms to Yahoos/mankind 2) Houyhnhms —
Gulliver— Yahoos
• “Great chain of being” (scala naturae)
• Traditional model: minerals- plants - animals - humans-angels
• here: Yahoos (dirt) -> Gulliver -> Houyhnhms (super rational)
- Fiction > moral and ethical decisions > who controls the narrative? Who has the most to
lose?
- At stake: the question of Gulliver’s place
- The lie of omission: “he was pleased to conceal one particular, which related personally
to myself, whereof I soon felt the unhappy effect, as the reader will know in its proper
place, and form whence I fate all the succeeding misfortunes of my life (255).
- Gulliver’s identity: hybrid — other “hybrids” in our readings?
• Questions “stability” of chain model
• “Wonderful Yahoo” = oxymoron ?
- What does Gulliver think he is? What does he want to be?
• Gulliver’s Self-Perception
- “When I happened to behold the Reflection of my own form in a lake or fountain, I turned
away my face in horror and detestation of my self; and could better endure the sigh of a
common Yahoo, than of my own Person” (260)
- Does he see the truth or a deception? A thought: Gulliver as living emblem of “the thing
which is not”
• This is a reminder of the Narcissus myth where he is the perfect image
- Hows does he reconstruct himself? (260) — “I fell to imitate their Gait and Gesture,
which is now grown into a Habit; and my Friends often tell me in a blunt Way, that I trot
like a Horse…Neither shall I disown, that in speaking I am apt to fall into the Voice and
manner of the Houyhnhms, and hear my self ridiculed on that Account without the least
Mortification”
• The end
- Expulsion from paradise
- Re-assimilation > hates being with his family (thinks the wife is filthy and can’t tolerate to
sit at the same table, disgusted with his children because he thinks he procreated
Yahoos, plugs his nose because can’t tolerate the smells)
- Guliver has become a Misanthrope — both try to withdraw from society as much as
possible

24
 - Symptoms — physical disgust, hatred, terror. Two explanations: brainwashing,
“stockholm syndrome”
• Better: an ideological collapse experience where he has to reenter Yahoo society after
being completely being integrated in Houyhnms ideals.
• Gulliver’s maxim: “that I would strictly adhere to the truth”
• A complement to the portrait at the beginning.
• ‘The example of my noble master’ > Latin quote: “nor, if fortune has made Sinon
miserable, will she also in her spite make him false and a liar (Virgil, Aeneid) >>> Who
is Sinon here?
- Maybe Gulliver!
- What is the equivalent to the Trojan Horse?
• The Houyhnhms? Gulliver?
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
Lecture 16
- The Ossian Controversy
• The last reading in the course reader.
- James Macpherson
• 1736-1796 > writer, poet, translator…liar?
• 1760: Fragments of ancient poetry, collected in the Highlands of Scotland, and translated
from the Gaelic or Erse language.
- “Original” — claimed he had found old, genuine documents. He wasn’t extremely
forthcoming regarding his course material.
• Sometimes claimed physical manuscripts.
• Sometimes claims interviews of other Scots.
- Epigraph: You poets too, who with your praise give eternal life to the brave souls
destroyed by war, in safety have poured out an abundance of poems… (Lucan)
• A quote that references a tradition of poetry in warfare and etc.. Lost loves and lives.
Tradition of epic poetry.
- The Ossian Epics
• Ossian: “bard”
• Father: Oscar > Oscar’s lover: Malvina
- Sample: Fingal:
• A tale of the times of old! The deeds of days of other years! The murmur of thy streams, O
Lora, brings back the memory of the past. The sound of thy woods, Garmallar, is lovely in

25
 mine ear… Two stones, half sunk in the ground, show their heads of moss. The deer of the
mountain avoid this place, for he beholds…
- The Ossian Poems
• Themes: battle, death, passion
• Missing specifics (religion, culture)
• Landscape: misty — to be as vague as possible, not by chance.
• Time: ??? unclear
• Source: ballads + Gaelic manuscripts — but he was never able to provide the physical
evidence
• Macpherson: Introduction to the History of Great Britain and Ireland (1771)
- Worked as a historian as well as a poet. Inscribed his poetry into his work as a historian
later on.
- Ossian’s poetry inscribed into a history, encouraged “Celtomania” — obsession with the
Scottish.
- Impact: Political
• Jefferson: “These pieces have been and will, I think, during my life, continue to be to me
the sources of daily and exalted pleasures. The tender and the sublime emotions of the
mind were never before so wrought up by the human hand. I am not ashamed to own that I
think this rude bard of the North the greatest poet that has ever existed” (Letters and
Addresses)
• Napoleon: mysticism and battle scenes
• Godfather to King of Sweden and Norway
• Oscar the First
• Ossian receiving the Ghosts of the French Heroes > Girodet 1801 (painted for Napoleon)
- Impact: Cultural
• Battle of Culloden 1746 - The Scottish people wanted to become their own independent
people, free of British influence (on and off throughout history, even this year). This battle
was a big step towards demilitarizing the Scottish.
- In the English suppressing Scottish culture, the best way to do it is — significance of the
battle in that it is the defeat of Scottish/Gaelic culture. They were demilitarized, their
language was suppressed.
- Ossian: celebration of heroism > a lost “paradise”, but it is a paradise that never really
existed.
• The original was never really there. These epic battles being described never really
took place in the way they were in the Ossian epics.
- Problems

26
 • Irish historians — problem with free-willing of mythological traditions
- Fingal=Fionn mac.
- Cumhaill (Finn MacCool)
- Other inaccuracies:
• Fingal > defeats Carausius (3rd cent), defeats Danish invaders (8th cent)
- Modern aesthetics.
• Battles scenes, use of detail (vs. Homer)
• Sense of balance, proportion
- Samuel Johnson
• English author, critic. Worse nightmare someone could imagine because he was like a
dog with a bone.
• Letter to Macpherson 1775: I thought your book an imposture from the beginning…
But however I may despise you, I reverence truth…what I have heard of your morals
disposes me to pay regard not to what you shall say, but to what you can price. You
may print this if you will
- Arguments: where are the manuscripts? They can be shown if they exist, but they
were never shown. “What cannot be produced must be treated as nonexistent”.
• Does a critic have to be impartial?
- Samuel Johnson’s bias > against the Scottish people. The simplicity of the Gaelic,
Scots as barbarians, no manuscripts over 100 years… But there are some that
were found to be 500 years old!
- Different Voices
• That of the skeptics, the dupes (blindspots, like Alceste believing that he sees the
hypocrisy of society and cannot be tricked)
- A Third Voice?
• John Gordon 1762: a shining instance of British genius, in whatever age it was first
produced.
• Nathan Drake: even if Ossian were written in the last forty years it stands on the same
shelf with Homer, Shakespeare, and Milton
- Today: aesthetic value and historical significance vs. “truth” > a selective use of history?
- Final Exam
• Part 1 - fill in the blank. Part 2 - quotes. Part 3 - agree/disagree. Part 4 - Short answer.
• Focus on the 2nd half of the quarter, no blue book required.
- Agree/disagree > certain statement, state your opinion and support it with evidence. “Yes
because ____” > make sure to list something from our readings, not just your opinion.

27
 - The rest of the exam will be very similar to the midterm.
Thursday, March 12, 2015
Lecture 17
- Final Review
• “Astraea” is one of the celestial women in Life is a Dream, and the name with with Rosaura
conceals her true identity
• The thing which was not refers to lying in Gulliver’s Travels
• The portraits found at the beginning of Swift’s novel help blue the distinction between truth
and fiction by using latin phrases to… Ask TA to elaborate on this.
• Segismund’s understanding of power hierarchy and order is based on his observation of
nature.
• Can you name one or two of the expectations for a French drama in the 17th century?
Unities of theme and time, same location/day AND true to life — propriety well mannered
decency.
- In general, do the plays we have read conform to or challenge these expectations?
Shakespeare did not, known for this. One of the reasons a playwright can draw attention
is by experimenting and experiencing with new things. Geographical distance, away
from conventional expectations.
• Quotes
- Then let’s suppress/The fury of our savage state/ The vile ambition and the hate, /So
when we dream we don’t transgress > Life is a Dream — different steps Segismund
goes through in the progress he makes when he thinks about how he should act.
Comes to moral realizations he can’t act like an animal. Balance between man and
beast (hybridity).
- I’d say to King Henri: “Take back your great Paree. For I would rather sleep, And my
own dear with me”. > Moliere — Alceste criticizing Oronte’s poem, here comes Alceste
with a real poem with basic and honest speech.
- He “applies his words to all uses, except to the indication of his mind…he never tells a
truth, but with an intent that you should take it for a lye, nor a lye, but with a design that
you should take it for a truth…” > Gulliver’s Travels — weird capitalization of nouns
common in Swift writing; ask TA to elaborate on significance of this quote
- “What window offers finer views/Not counting those in front row seats/That ticket
vendors how for you/That man’s own eyeballs in his head?” > Life is a Dream —
Clarion and his status as a character; acts as a mediator. One foot on and one foot off
the state. Commentator and observer of the events.
- “many ages ago, two of these brutes had appeared together upon a mountain whether
produced by the Heat of the sun upon corrupted mud and slime, or form the ooze and
froth of the sea, was never known” Gulliver’s Travels — description of the Yahoos; the
horses’ description of them shows their opinion of them. Frame things from their own
perspectives expressed to the detriment of the Yahoos.

28
 - Although I love her madly, yet I’m still the first/To point them out, and try correcting what
is worst. She charms me so, I can’t resist — it’s very strange Lets hope my love can
educate her, make her change — Moliere; Alceste loves Celimene, being called out
loving someone that is against his ideal comportment. Can see it but can’t help himself.
Calculated approach to society but he himself is at the mercy of his love for Celimene.
Still has the idea that he thinks he can change who she is.
- “no one loves you as I do, and no one could… I even wish that things would go all
wrong for you” Moliere — Alceste speaking to Celimene; trying to write somebody’s
story and to put them under your control by narrating their life. Different kind of portrait
not describing one character or a quality one sees, more of an alternative reality.
- “I fell to imitate their gait and gesture, which is now grown into a habit; and my friends
often tell me in a blunt way, that I trot like a horse… Neither shall I disown, that in
speaking I am apt to fall into the Voice and manner of the Houyhnhnms, and hear my
self ridiculed on that Account without the latest mortification” — Gulliver’s Travels > He
feels that he is in Limbo between human society and the horses. The trojan horse, the
betraying horse, embraces the horse ideals — questions whether he has been brain
washed to a model society that might not be as great as he thinks. They still do have
ability to deceive.

• Agree/Disagree
- Define you point of view and make a clear reference to one of the readings.
• Although he is skeptical about many things, Alceste puts his faith in the legal system >
help needed here
• Freedom is understood as ‘freedom from deception’ > Like Segismund who literally
becomes free. Becoming free for him involves also learning a way to distinguish
between dreaming and reality.
- Alceste wants to become independent, live alone, leave deceitful society > AGREE
EXAMPLE
- Segismund’s freedom from prison is really the freedom o come to his own
philosophical conclusion that the distinction btw deception and dreaming doesn’t
matter > DISAGREE EXAMPLE
• Animals don’t lie > Gravitate to Gulliver’s travels perhaps… Houyhnhnms as animals,
or artificial constructs that Swift projects human problems onto?
- Disagree by saying the horses are capable of deception by withholding information
even if they have no word for lying.
- Agree by saying that the horses are not real animals, but projects of human flaws
like deception and subjugation of others onto animal forms.
• Short Answer
- Make sure to add your own analysis to details, not pure flat details.

29