Category: Analects

“I think we deserve a happy ending”

Kathryn Donlan (CAS ’18) is a writer and aspiring archivist (an an alumna of CC 111!). She likes talking about literature from the perspective of social history and historical context, and in keeping with this outlook she recently shared her thoughts on Twitter on the news of a new cinematic adaptation of Jane Austen‘s Persuasion. […]

Analects of Core: Tate on Dante

“We think of Dante as a poet who concentrated and defended the medieval order. The medieval order evidently did not want to be concentrated and defended by a poet, for the works of Dante were publicly burnt by Pope John XXII.” Source: “The Translation of Poetry”, a lecture delivered by Allen Tate in 1970 at […]

Analects of the Core: Mead on the sexes

The knowledge that the personalities of the two sexes are socially produced is congenial to every programme that looks forward to a planned order of society. It is a two-edged sword that can be used to hew a more flexible, more varied society than the human race has ever built, or merely to cut a […]

Analects of the Core: Woolf on music

‘Like’ and ‘like’ and ‘like’ — but what is the thing that lies beneath the semblance of the thing? now that lightning has gashed the tree and the flowering branch has fallen and Percival, by his death, has made me this gift, let me see the thing. There is a square; there is an oblong. […]

From the Core Journal: “The Analects of Prof. Nelson”

These “Analects of Professor Nelson” were recorded during class discussion by Core student Matthew Spencer, and published in The Journal of the Core Curriculum, Vol. IX, Spring 2000: The Professor said of Rousseau’s Confessions, “Boy, it’s so nitty, and it’s so gritty!” Only then did Matthew understand. When Matthew thought he really understood Rousseau, the Professor said, […]

Analects of the Core: Tocqueville on complacent legislators

Today’s analect relates to CC203’s study of the foundation of social sciences: Propitious circumstances and good laws might succeed in drawing to the legislature of a democratic people men very superior to those who are returned by the Americans to Congress ; but nothing will ever prevent the men of slender abilities who sit there […]

Analects of the Core: Ferry on storms

In view of the coming storm tomorrow, the Core would like to remind everyone to remain calm and intellectual. To aid this process, here is a sample from David Ferry’s Epic of Gilgamesh (studied in CC101), on the relevant topic of storms: “In the early hours of the next morning dawning there was the noise of […]

Analects of the Core: Austen on the joy of reading

Relating to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, which is studied this semester by CC 202, is today’s analect: I declare after all there is no enjoyment like reading! How much sooner one tires of any thing than of a book! — When I have a house of my own, I shall be miserable if I […]

Analects of the Core: Montaigne on fear

The Core wishes students and faculty a very fruitful and enjoyable New Year and semester, and welcomes everyone back to the trials and tribulations of intellectual life. To boost students’ courage for the coming months, and instill some Core spirit, here is today’s analect: “A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.”

Analects of the Core: Dostoyevsky on the eternal book

Relating to the work of CC202 is the next analect, from Dostoyevsky: The candlestick had long since burned low in the twisted candlestick, dimly lighting the poverty-stricken room and murderer and the harlot who had come together so strangely to read the eternal book.