This paper is on any one of the following: Desmond Tutu, Tolstoy, Edmund Burke, or Basho.
PAPER #3 PROMPT:
Consider these added questions:
Desmond Tutu argues for a middle path between two extremes. What are these extremes and what is Tutu’s middle path? His solution?
Compare Desmond Tutu’s argument for a path of forgiveness with MLK’s argument for his program of non-resistance. How are these ideas similar?
Desmond Tutu’s argument follows what is known as the he Hegelian dialectic in which a thesis is measured against an antithesis. Joined together, they form a synthesis [a new idea which combines the other two]. Demonstrate how this works.
Identify Tutu’s method of writing expository prose at the beginning [identifying the problem] and his turn to the argument.
Tolstoy describes “universal art” and he goes on to try and explain what it is and why it is superior to the “perverted” art of the upper classes. Does he convince you? How, exactly, does he make his case?
Tolstoy’s essay is an indictment of the upper classes and what he considers an “elitist” point of view about art. What is this elitist notion and in what ways are they wrong for believing that art needs to be not understandable to be good.
What does Tolstoy mean by the “bread and fruit” art of his time?
Find in Tolstoy’s essay evidence that his point of view is religious. Where does this come through? Does it have anything to do with his affection for the masses, for the working class?
Edmund Burke’s The Beautiful and the Sublime is organized according to four features of the sublime, including obscurity, power, dimension, and infinity. Analyze these four parts.
Burke’s essay is an attempt to understand the “sublime” in art. What, exactly, is the sublime? Does Burke explain it well enough for you. In this essay you might go outside of Burke’s essay and look into the concept of the sublime to see who else wrote about it [Longinus, Aristotle to name a few]. Maybe start with a working definition of the concept of the “sublime” and see if Burke identifies it well enough.
Edmund Burke begins his essay by first explaining what sublimity is in nature. He then goes on to argue that it is possible to express it in art. Show how he does this.
BASHO: The NARROW ROAD OF THE INTERIOR is Basho’s STUDY IN ETERNITY and a “monument he has set up against the flow of time…” Explain this.
The following represents the design of Basho’s Narrow Road of the Interior. Use it as the basis of a paper:
BASHO: THE NARROW ROAD OF THE INTERIOR: Discuss the following fundamental principles [in any order, in any way]—you might have to look them up:
KOKURU—a poem is both emotional and logical–explain [heart/mind aspect of poem]
MAKOTO—a poem asks one to be direct and sincere [sincerity/directness]. Is Basho either?
MONO-NO-AWARE [the perception of the natural poignancy of temporal things] like Basho’s cherry blossoms, we too will whither and die—does Basho suggest this?
DEMAND THE FULL EXPERIENCE OF THE MOMENT:
There is no separation from Basho’s poetry and his practice—they are all one—he lived the idea.
CODEPENDENT ORIGINATION: Japanese Buddhist monk, SAIGYO believed in “co-dependent origination”—the Buddhist philosophy that all nature is interdependent [discuss the following three ideas in relation to this]:
Be in perpetual communion with the natural world
Live from the center
There is an inter-connectedness of all things—and this is vital to know
AMARI-NO-KOKORO [state a poem reaches when the heart and soul of a poem leaps at us from a place beyond the words themselves to leave a haunting “after-taste” in the center of the reader, especially of…
SABISHI [spiritual loneliness]—in what ways did Basho express this concept?
