|
Read
Aristophanes’ The Clouds
or The Birds and discuss what criticisms of Socrates are made and
how he may be defended. |
|
Read, summarize
and discuss one Socratic Dialogue from an early text by Plato |
| Investigate the Oracle at Delphi – who or what
was it? what famous sayings and incidents are associated with it? Where does
it appear in later western literature? |
| Identify Platonic themes
in Herman Hesse’s Siddhartha.
Other, Eastern, philosophies are referred to in this text:
investigate them in relation to Plato’s ideas (Buddhism, Zoroastrianism)
|
| Discuss the central
“Caves” section of Forster’s novel Passage
to India in terms of Plato’s philosophy.
|
| Identify and discuss
Platonic themes in Shakespeare’s Troilus and Cressid, or Iris
Murdoch’s The Black Prince, or Peter Ackroyd’s The Plato
Papers, or any other literary text you may agree upon with the course
instructor.
|
| Why did Plato dismiss the
poets from his ideal city (Republic Book X)? How did Sidney defend
them (Apology/Defense of Poetry)?
|
| Read Aristotle's Poetics
and one of the following plays, discussing the extent to which the play
you have selected conforms or otherwise with Aristotle’s dicta:
Sophocles Antigone, Oedipus Rex,
or Oedipus at Colonus; Shakespeare Othello, King Lear,
Hamlet, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra.
|
| The Britons who had lived before and
during Roman occupation, seem to have been expelled by the Anglo-Saxons.
What happened to them, and have they had any influence on the
subsequent history of the
nation? |
|
In what ways were the Anglo-Saxons, the Franks,
the Vikings, and the Normans related? What cultural features did
they share? |
| Find
out more about the Viking people, their raids and settlements in Britain,
and any effects they have had on English culture or society. |
| In
what language(s) was the Bible originally written?
Trace the history of Bible translation, and
consider why it took
so long for vernacular translations to be accepted. |
| The history of the established Church of
Rome is largely one of suppression of heresies. What is a heresy? Investigate
one or two (for instance, Arianism, or the Albigensian Heresy).
How did the Church attempt to control them? |
| Discuss the influence on the English language of the
Authorised (King James) translation of the Bible and of the Book of Common
Prayer |
| Read Graham Greene’s
The Power and the Glory and/or
The Heart of the Matter, then Identify and discuss the importance
of christian elements to the novel(s)’s plots and themes |
| Later Medieval
literature all over the Europe was dominated by a single, long, poem.
This is the Roman de la Rose.
Find a description of this work, or a summary such as is provided
by Curtius, and discuss what is so particularly Medieval about it |
|
This is the period of the Crusades.
What exactly were the Crusades and when did they happen?
Discuss the different strands of typically Medieval concerns that
combined to make them such ‘popular’ events. What influences, if any, did they have
on European society? Which English legends arose around the Crusades? |
| From
one of the Harry Potter books, or from one of C S Lewis’s books of
The Lion The Witch and The Wardrobe series, identify
as many typically Medieval ideas and features as you can and discuss the
extent to which they have been either used exactly as they were in the
Middle Ages and the extent to which they have been adapted for the modern
story. |
| Erasmus of Rotterdam
was perhaps the most famous of humanists.
Read about his life, ideas and writings, read one of his pieces of
writing, and then discuss
what is ‘humanist’ about them |
| Read Thomas More’s Utopia,
and discuss Renaissance and humanist aspects of this work |
| Printing
by moveable type was introduced around 1451.
What role did it play in promoting Renaissance ideas? |
| Read Machievelli’s
The Prince, and discuss Renaissance and humanist aspects of this work |
| The
Reformation in England was led by political, not religious concerns, and
those who had wanted reformation for the sake of religion were left deeply
unsatisfied. What were the
consequences of this? |
| To
this day the Anglican Church (also called the Church of England) maintains
elements of both Catholicism and Protestantism.
Try and find information about this church (an encyclopaedia should
help), and discuss which elements belong to which category. |
|
It has been argued that the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination
led to Western capitalism. How
can this argument have developed? |
| Trace the histories and characteristics
of the following Christian groups: Quakers,
Baptists, Methodists, Unitarians |
| What sort of errors in
textual transmission were eliminated, and what new
sorts of errors in textual transmission were introduced by the invention
of printing?? |
| Consider the role of
printing in the Renaissance and Reformation. |
| List
as many different types of items that are printed as you can think of, and
using this as a base, discuss some of the ways in which printing has
changed the world |
| Find
out about the Counter Reformation in France, Italy, Spain and England |
| Does the Index still
exist? What famous books have
been on it? Discuss one such
book, identifying the reasons for its inclusion in the list. |
| Discuss why Bacon was
so particularly against Aristotle’s teachings |
| Discuss Renaissance and
Medieval aspects of Bacon’s philosophy of science |
|
Apply Bacon’s Four Idols to a field of research that interests
you. Show how they may affect
such a piece of work. |
| Read at least 4 of
Bacon’s Essays and analyse his approach to the subjects he treats |
| We have now come
across three named techniques for advancing knowledge: dialectic,
induction, and deduction. Write
a brief explanation of each, with examples.
What other named forms
of learning or thinking are there? Describe
them. |
|
Compare the ideas
about science expressed by Bacon and by Galileo, then discuss these
compare with present-day attitudes towards scientific research? |
| One of Galileo’s many discoveries was
that of how to make more accurate time-keeping devices.
Research the history of concepts of time and of the measurement of
time, |
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