28/9/07 - English Literature - Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Woman

A Vindication of the Rights of Woman was a response to the French revolution, and it is also a feminist and Romantic text. It came directly out of the events of the French revolution. The term 'rights' got tied up in political debates of the time. The word 'vindication' means a claim or a defence or a justification. The idea of 'rights' developed around the time of the Glorious Revolution, and based on the philosophy of John Locke, and later the idea formed the basis of political philosophy.

"The natural rights of freedom, life and property are not suspended in the social state; they are only, as it were, exchanged for state-sanctioned civil rights, as the powers of the individual no longer suffice for their assertion. The government may have the power to regulate commerce between the owners of private property, but never so much power that it can intervene against the property rights of even a single person without his agreement, ‘for this would be no property at all’."
[Jürgen Habermas, Theory and Practice, Boston: Beacon Press, 1973]

So property is the result of our labours to be disposed of as we wish because we have the right to do that. Work is the basis of rights: freedom, life, property (i.e. enjoying the proceeds of work) are encompassed by the term 'natural rights'. Locke wrote that we do not exist as isolated individuals and we cannot always make the things we need ourselves. So on the basis of fundamental natural rights, the government is entrusted with the responsibility to support the people. This idea gave birth to 'civil rights'. However, the idea of society and natural rights has wider ramifications, e.g. one does not have the right to remove someone else's property.

Everything was changing during the French revolution. Previously secure foundations were now up for question. Preconditions were being torn apart. The changes were fascinating to outsiders from England such as Wordsworth and Wollstonecraft. For them it signified a new age, a confirmation of life. For others in the government it was terrible news. In the aftermath of the 1790s things were insecure and imbalanced. Human rights became an issue for many British writers. Richard Price, Edmund Burke, William Godwin, Thomas Paine and Mary Wollstonecraft are included. In 1789 Price delivered a lecture at the London Revolution Society (the society of the Glorious Revolution, that is, which consisted of liberal intellectuals). The lecture explored revolution in relation to rights. It was relevant to the radicals and the French, and was published to popular acclaim and controversy. In it Price listed three rights to which he believed everyone was due:

"First: The right to liberty of conscience in religious matters.
Secondly: The right to resist power when abused. And,
Thirdly: The right to chuse our own governors; to cashier them for misconduct; and to frame a government for ourselves."
[Richard Price, from ‘A Discourse on the Love of Our Country’, 1789]

The second question becomes political in nature: who decides when abuse has occurred? It implies that oneself is the person who decides. At the second part of the third right alarm bells began to ring in the ears of those people with power. The last was in progress in France, and so Price's writings caused an uproar.

According to Burke, we do not reinvent the real. We cannot cashier the government, but we must obey and respect our superiors. He said that rights are passed down through generations and they accumulate over time. He spoke of the idea of national identity, in that we become guardians of our own history and pass it on to the next generation. His Reflections on the Revolution in France was seen as a direct attack on radicals.

Wollstonecraft responded to Burke with the comment that he used "empty rhetoric." The rights of those now dead in France was equal to the rights of the previous generation, i.e. they had none.

Paine's response was to say that we must choose our own way and not necessarily that of our forefathers. He was a brilliatnr hetorician and widely published his works.

Willian Godiwn published his Political Justice later. He was openly an atheist and considered inspirational to poets. His tone was not as controversial as Paine's because he used long words that were difficult to understand and because his book was published only in hardback and so was ridiculously expensive to buy: he had a very select readership. Its ideas were no less radical than Paine's but he did not cause such a large fuss because his book was not so readily available.

At the centre of all these debates was Mary Wollstonecraft. She had already written The Rights of Man, but felt that the word 'man' tended to be interpreted in the gendered sense rather than the sense of all humanity. Hence, she wrote a vindication of woman, a defence, a justification. She produced the idea of gender relations against accrued traditional perceptions of male empowerment and superiority. She swept aside the positivity of the Puritan Reformation against James II, in which William of Orange was invited to fight for Protestantism and Scotland against James's Catholicism. This is because the submissiveness of woman had been equated with the production of an orderly society. Her rationale was drawn from the Bible, especially Genesis and Corinthians. She realised that man and woman are one under the law, because when a woman marries, her existence appears suspended: she did not own property any more; she was not allowed to sign contracts or to divorce; nor did she have any right over her own children or have any protection against domestic abuse. In 1792 Wollstonecraft claimed those rights for women. By natural and civic rights, women should be allowed to exist.

Wollstonecraft argued that women did not have any rights simply because it was thought that they would cause problems for society if they existed. Therefore, society is a slave society: women are the slaves and even men are slaves. She contests the idea that women are naturally inferior to men because there is no evidence for it. However there seems to be an assumed inferiority of women because of the social and educational system.

"Strengthen the female mind by enlarging it, and there will be an end to blind obedience; but, as blind obedience is ever sought for by power, tyrants and sensualists are in the right when they endeavour to keep women in the dark, because the former only want slaves, and the latter a play-thing."
[Mary Wollstonecraft, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, 1792]

The organisation of society in the patriarchal system produces women to be females rather than humans. Women have the potential to be as rational as men. Wollstonecraft's own rationality demonstrates this (intertextuality), but society opposes this by emphasizing women's beauty rather than their intelligence. She states that men would be better off with an intelligent wife with whom he could have rational conversation. Women's inferiority is a societal, not a natural thing. It can be changed. Natural equality can come to the fore if culture and society are changed. Wollstonecraft says that "women have been put on pedestals ..." or, in other words, they are objects of art and poetry, and this is only because they have not been taught how to speak, only how to be objects (frivolous, pretty, etc.). She uses Enlightenment language, the language of reason; she is witty, exaggerated, sensible, rational, clarified and ironic. She shows that women's right can benefit everyone because they lead to freedom for all. She says we must strengthen female minds through education so that they become less like objects and more like "rational creatures".

27/9/07 - Architectural History - Early Christian to Romanesque 300-1100 AD

The periods of early Christian architecture are not distinctly isolated. The Early Christian period, for the purposes of this lecture, is divided into two: the Early Christian, which runs from 313-550 AD, and the Byzantine from 500-1000 AD. Following the Early Christian period roughly is the Romanesque period of architecture, separated into the Carolingian and Ottonian period, from 800-950 AD and the Romanesque which runs from 900-1100 AD.

The Emperor Constantine (272-337 AD) legalized the Christian religion in 313 AD. Earlier emperors had persecuted the followers of the Christian religion. But the change in the law meant that places of worship for Christians could now be built.

The Roman Basilica was the first place of worship for Christians. Its form is longitudinal, its main aisles separated by a row of columns, forming arcades on each side, such as those in the Basilica at Trier, Aula Nova. The aisles were used for Christian rites, prayer and worship and as a gathering place. The basilica construction was easy and economic to build because it was a well-known and much-used form, based on Roman precedents. One such basilica is the one at Leptis Magna in Libya (c. 220 AD).

The most basic basilica form was that of S. Apollinare in Classe. Here, focus was on the interior rather than the exterior. While the interior was decorative, the exterior was mostly unadorned. Examples of Early Christian basilicas include Santa Sabine in Rome (422-32 AD) and San Paolo fuori le mura (c. 382-400 AD). Of the latter, only an engraving survives.

Old St Peter's Basilica in Rome had a few variations from basic type such as an external courtyard (taken from Roman precedent), a narthex, double aisles and a transept which comes before the apse. The use of the apse is not known, but is thought to be linked to the shrine of St Peter. The formation of the basilica was developed later in the periods of Romanesque and Gothic architecture as a symbol of the cross, and the cross design became the standard one for Christian architecture.

However, the basilica form was not the only one. Circular or octagonal buildings were used from Roman precedent and had their own symbolism. The circle symbolises the eternal and infinite God and the perfection of God and Heaven. The octagonal shape refers to the resurrection of Christ. The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem (c. 380 AD) has a round form, like the Pantheon in Rome. In fact, the Pantheon itself began to be used as a Christian church in the seventh century.

Santa Costanza in Rome (c. 350 AD) was built over the tomb of Constantine's daughter. Ambient light flows down through a Pantheon-like hole in the ceiling, giving a Heaven-like ambience and symbolism. Apses are set into the outer wall, and it has wide arches. It also has a symbolic reference to the Holy Trinity. It does this by a hierarchical arrangement of space: from the centre of the ceiling to the outer walls of the church is an isosceles triangle, pointing towards Heaven. It has come to be known as Byzantine architecture, named after Constantinople (otherwise known as Byzantium). Constantinople was an important city because it gained precedence over Rome after its collapse.

San Vitale in Ravenna (526-47 AD) was built concurrently with basilicas, but takes its influence from elsewhere. Its central space is equivalent to the nave. The interior is lavish with coloured marble and mosaic murals. It is a Byzantine creation, influence coming easily to Ravenna at the political centre between the eastern and western empire of Constantinople.

Hagia Sophia (Church of Holy Wisdom) was built in Constantinople, now Istanbul, between 532-37 AD, and is similar to San Vitale in several respects. It is a technical feat, being very tall and involving revolutionary rectolinear into circular formation of towers. Its axis is basilica-shaped, but the central space has become the focal point, giving the symbolic Greek cross shape. The building is a kind of unification of east and west. It is now a mosque, but was once covered in Byzantine mosaics which have since been recovered. The formation of the circular dome covering a square space involves a four-arch base which has a cylindrical peak, and supports a cylindrical tower made up of a pendentive, a drum, and a dome, and the dome then supports a smaller cylinder called a lantern, with a small domed top, or cupola. The building also makes use of aisles, galleries and buttresses, all of which would become significant architectural features in the future.

S. Marco is also an interesting blend of east and west which has kept its original lavish gold mosaics. This interior gives us some idea of how the San Vitale interior may have looked originally. The light in S. Marco reflects off the gold mosaics with grand effect. There is again a sense of spatial hierarchy, with the centre being also the centre of the Greek cross plan.

In Europe (mainly France and Germany), there was a revival in the basilica type during the new Carolingian dynasty in which Charlemagne expanded his empire. He was a whoremonger, but also a socially and culturally rounded individual. He accepted the old Roman ideology of power which gave him ultimate empowerment. He adopted and developed Christian architecture with the inclusion of transepts and apses. Fulda, the monastic church built c. 790-819, was based on St Peter's in Rome. It demonstrates that architecture could be used to associate with imperial power. Fulda was a symbol of Charlemagne's connection with the Roman empire and it gave him credibility as the new emperor.

During the Carolingian period, the turrets of early Christian architecture were replaced with towers. This highlighted their new liturgical functions, which were as spatial indicators of the altar and tombs. For example, St Riquier in France (c. 790-9) has crossing towers and prominent transepts and the addition of a forecourt imitating Roman precedent. The monastery of St Gall in Switzerland (c. 830), Corvey, westwork of abbey church (c. 873-85) and St Michael in Hildesheim, Germany (1001-33) are other prime examples of the use of towers. Notice also how St Michael is built based on a grid system of proportioning space.

There formed a new western tradition of Christian architecture. This focused on a trend of upward movement, symbolically reaching into the heavens, and this idea is still prevalent today.

In St Michael we see how the exterior corresponds to interior space, with the help of the square units of the grid plan. The Abbey of Maria Laach in Germany (1093-1156), St Pantaleon in Cologne (c. 980), and Speyer Cathedral in Germany all reflect this growing trend.

Monks began to hold a more significant place in the Christian religion, so churches were built to house them. Fontenay in France, completed 1147, and Senanque in France, built in the late twelfth century, are some examples. The Third Abbey at Cluny in France (completed 1147) is also one of them. The building is entirely different from the basilica churches: it is larger, more elaborate and complex because it was the centre of pilgrimage and was used for ceremonial rites of worshippers and monks. People spent more time than ever in church. It is designed on the prominent cruciform plan, with two transepts and many chapels.

Other churches were built specifically to accommodate vast numbers of pilgrims. These include St Sernin in Toulouse (1080-1120) and the church of Santiago de Compostela (1075-1122). Notice the clear Latin cruciform, and the large and complex plan of the buildings.

Romanesque architecture differs from Christian and Byzantine architecture because it needs an arch and column structure to support great weight and small windows to maintain the stability of the building. Large piers and barrel vaults were constructed. Romanesque churches were heavy and uneconomical so they need thick walls. The simple groin vault developed out of Romanesque architecture and became one of its most distinguishing features. These features are demonstrated by San Vincente in Cordona, Spain (1040).

The interior and exterior of architecture became much more elaborate, with decorative columns, arches and ceilings. We can see this in St Etienne in Caen, Normandy (c.1060-77) and Ely Cathedral in England (begun c.1090). These continued the longitudinal aisle plan. The vaulting and round arches give a sense of rhythm and continuance along the aisle. Architecture had come a long way from the heavier, more unified, austere church (such as St Cyriakus in Gernrode, 961) to the slightly lighter, more broken up, decorative style (exemplified by Norwich Cathedral, England, begun in 1096).

The symbolism of Christian architecture is very important because church architecture was imbued with religious meaning: the shape of the Greek or Latin cross symbolised Christ's death, the number 3 referred to the Holy Trinity, 8 to Christ's resurrection, 12 to the number of disciples and 40 the number of days and nights of the Great Flood. For example, Fulda is based on the Latin cross, Santa Costanza has twelve pairs of columns, the gatehouse of the Lorsch monastery (c. 790) has three openings and is based on the triumphal arch, celebrating the triumph of life over death, the west front of Saint Gilles-de-Gard (late twelfth century) has three doors and San Vitale's octagonal shape represents the baptism which is associated with the number eight.

Geometric proportions were widely used in Christian architecture. Geometric units could be used to organise the dimensions of a church; the ratio between the side of a square and its diagonal could be used to lay out a cloister and adjacent buildings; and proportions based on the square root of 2 were used in Norwich Cathedral.

So church architecture was alive with cultural intent. Everything had a purpose; nothing was coincidental.

Bibliography
Barrel i Altet, X., The Romanesque: Towns, Cathedrals and Monasteries (Cologne, 2001)
Conant, K. J., Carolingian and Romanesque Architecture 800-1200 (New Haven, 1978)
Krautheimer, R., Early Christian and Byzantine Architecture (New Haven, 1986)
Stalley, R., Early Medieval Architecture (Oxford, 1999)

26/9/07 - English Literature - The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin

Benjamin Franklin was one of America's founding fathers. He was born in 1706 and died in 1790. He wrote his Autobiography on and off for eighteen years, which accounts for some of its oddities. It is a retrospective account so it is not reliable as an accurate document.

Franklin was an important man: he was a public figure, an inventor, and a generally good all-rounder. He came from humble origins; his father was a candle maker. His is a typical rags-to-riches story. European eighteenth century culture did not allow for such social mobility, but America's did. Franklin's Autobiography is addressed to his son, and is formed as a manual to young people on how to be a successful, as well as a good man in the world.

So what makes the Autobiography so important? What are its literary qualities?

'Autobiography' literally means self (auto) life (bio) writing (graphie) in Greek etymology. It is defined as the account of the self written by the self. One critic said we should first define what is not autobiography, such as a diary or journal. Autobiography is a single coherent work (note that Franklin's autobiography does not conform to this definition). Autobiography is retrospective, so a detailed diary entry on the immediate past would not conform to the autobiographical type. In certain parts of Franklin's autobiography it is likely that the narrative has been heightened or that it is completely fictional, simply for dramatic effect (e.g. the account of his wife seeing him as a young penniless boy). This is why the Autobiography is considered to be a literary work. There are in fact many contrivances in many works that are labelled 'non-fiction'.

Franklin's Autobiography amplifies and exaggerates parts of the life it relates. It plays on the ideas of the Puritan stories of the south. It is based on the idea that Puritan accounts of the self repress the personal opinions of the individual. This is known as the 'effacement of "I" in Puritan narrative.' In it, the individual's will is subservient to the will of God. Franklin, in his Autobiography, clearly believes in the sovereign self over God. He imposes his own will on all his circumstances, which is different to the Puritanical belief of suppression of the will. Franklin considered himself to be self-made; he did not attribute his success to divine intervention.

This indicates a shift in belief towards Enlightenment thought. The modern idea of the value of the individual's ability to distinguish themselves in the world is still inherent in our society. While Puritans thought that people were naturally riddled with original sin, Franklin says that individuals have the capacity to be moral or not by will. He believed that he never 'became' moral because he was already a 'tolerable' person. He tries to justify his own views in moving away from Puritanism. He has a regimented form of viewing his own actions and deeds, possibly because he felt under pressure to come up with, or justify, a new secular rationing. His is the bourgeois adaptation of the Puritan genre of spiritual narrative. Franklin celebrates industry, thrift and temperance, which benefit him in a material way rather than a religious way. His hard work helps him toward a life of material success and public recognition. This is known as the 'Protestant work ethic' and it is based on self-determination and self-advancement.

"The peculiarity of this philosophy of avarice appears to be the ideal of the honest man of recognized credit, and above all the idea of a duty of the individual toward the increase in his capital, which is assumed as an end in itself. Truly what is here preached is not simply a means of making one’s way in the world, but a peculiar ethic … Now, all Franklin’s moral attitudes are coloured with utilitarianism. Honesty is useful, because it assures credit; so are punctuality, industry, frugality, and that is the reason they are virtues … According to Franklin, those virtues, like all others, are only in so far virtues as they are actually useful to the individual, and the surrogate of mere appearance is always sufficient when it accomplishes the end in view."
[Max Weber, from ‘The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism’ in L. Lemay and P. Zall (eds) Norton Critical Edition of Ben Franklin’s Autobiography. New York, 1986. 282-83]

The philosophy of the time was about capitalism, the so-called 'philosophy of avarice', or 'utilitarianism.' In part of the Autobiography Franklin lists the virtues, ways to be good. He forms a table of temperance as a kind of governance. His scheme is formulaic, probably because he had moved away from Puritanism and wanted to set up his own rules to follow. He details, in essence, how to get on in a new capitalist economy. Eighteenth century culture underwent great social changes, recorded in his autobiography. The book is not so much about Franklin but the ways in which culture shapes an individual - the culture is most important here. It allowed Franklin to become a success. The Autobiography shows the transformation of American economy through the lens of a successful man. It is presented as a 'self-help' book; it is instructional. For Franklin, the self-determination of the individual is concurrent with the self-determination of the American nation, both aiming for individuality and independence. America is defined as a 'self-made' nation.

The book is quintessentially and uniquely 'American', with its focus on social possibility, its egalitarianism, which reflect the aspirations of the 'American dream.' The book is dynamic because it is less class-determined than Europe.

The Great Gatsby by Fitzgerald, written in 1925, is a classic on the American dream. It, too, is the story of a self-made man; Gatsby. It questions how Gatsby does this. At the end, we read Gatsby's schedule and it is extraordinarily similar to Franklin's table in its rigorous self-discipline. It encompasses the idea that any humble American can rise to great material success.

25/9/07 - Architectural History - Roman Antiquity

History and Geography of Roman Antiquity
The Roman Republic was probably founded in 753 BC. In 480 BC Rome still did not feature on the map, but by 323 BC it most certainly did. In 74 BC Rome expanded over most of the Mediterranean. It was a still a republic, but this seemed to be breaking down by this time. In 230 AD the republic structure dissipated and became an empire due to great upheavals. In 476 AD the Western empire collapsed, but the Eastern empire continued into the early Renaissance.

The Aources of the Architectural Ideas of Roman Antiquity
The Romans were not at first great innovators. Their idea came from Etruscan and Greek civilisation, and there is also some Egyptian influence in their architecture. Etruscan temples were raised on a platform, only accessible on one side. It seems that the Romans adopted this method of building temples, for example in the Roman Republic Fortuna Virilis from the second century BC. Other similar temples include the Mars Ultor (part of the Forum Augustan) begun in the first century and completed in the second century BC, and the Maison Caree and Nimes, from 1-10 AD. As the Romans became more prosperous, their architecture became more developed and distinctive.

Roman Society
The features of Roman social and political structure which influenced architectural development were:
1. By late republican times Rome was a complicated political and military bureaucracy. This created the need for large government buildings (basilicas).
2. Roman economic and political structures led to concentrations of population in towns and cities. This created a need for recreational buildings (bath houses, theatres, amphitheatres) and mass housing.
3. Roman economic structures led to a concentration of wealth which allowed large building projects to be financed.

Roman architects and builders therefore had to evolve a range building types which had not been required by the small city states of Greek antiquity. This led to significant developments in Classical architecture.

Government basilica buildings include the Basilica of Constantine, built 307-312 AD. Recreational buildings include the Arena and Theatre at Arles, Gaul (France), built in the late first century AD and the Baths of Caracalla in Rome, built between 212 and 216 AD.

Technical Innovations
Roman architects and builders were responsible for three important innovations which greatly extended the range of Classical architecture: arcuated construction, concrete and separation of structure and ornament.

Arcuated construction includes arches, vaults an domes. These allowed wide spans and large interior spaces. The Pont du Gard, at Nimes, Gaul, from the late first century BC, is an example of the wide spans that could be achieved through this innovation. The aqueduct at Segovia, Iberia (Spain) from the early first century BC is another, and is still in use for carrying Segovia's water supply. The Greeks had been aware of arcuated construction but chose not to use it, which meant that their trabeated spans and therefore interior space were limited. The Baths of Caracalla have vaulted ceilings, and this allowed for its massive interior space and high ceilings. The Baths of Diocletian, 298-305 AD, had an equally large interior based on a complex long-span vaulted structure.

The development of concrete allowed for cheap construction of complex vaulted and domed structures. The concrete was the formwork of the building, and was covered with a brick skin. The Basilica of Constantine uses concrete for economical construction.

The separation of structure and ornament was important because it allowed for the cheap construction of richly decorated interiors. The ornamentation of most Roman interiors was a thin skin of marble applied to a basic structural armature of brick and concrete. After the fall of Rome, most buildings were robbed of their marble interiors, principally at the time of the Italian Renaissance. The Basilica of Constantine and the Baths of Caracalla both had richly decorated interiors when they were first constructed.

Selected Buildings from Roman Antiquity
Temple of Fortuna Virilis, Rome, second century BC; Ionic
Maison Caree, Nimes, early first century AD; Corinthian
Temple of Mars Ultor, Rome, late first century BC; begun under Augustus, the first emperor, and is still his principal contribution to the architecture of Rome
The Pantheon, Rome, 118-128 AD; constructed under Hadrian, it is a unique example of a concrete vaulted structure faced in marble
The Colosseum, Rome, 75-80 AD; built under Vespasian, a comples feat of vaulted construction and internal planning with a distinctive combination of orders with arcuated construction on multi-level facade
Thermae of Caracalla, Rome, 212-21 AD; a supreme example of Roman building technology, it is compact with ingenious planning where vaulting is used to create a sequence of interior spaces of varying size and complex geometry but on a very large scale and with rich decoration in marble
Basilica of Constantine, Rome, 307-312 AD
Arch of Titus, 81 AD
Arch of Constantine, 313-315 AD.

Roman buildings tended to be influenced by the Etruscan design, which also includes pseudoperipteral temples. They added a fourth order, the Tuscan. It was derived from Etruscan temple design. It had a similar capital to the Greek Doric order, but the column was not fluted and it did have a base. Another characteristic of the Tuscan order is that the column spacing is much greater than in the three original Greek orders. This is because Etruscan temples were built of timber which was lighter and could achieve longer spans than masonry. Attempts to create Tuscan in masonry usually caused structural problems. The rustic Tuscan column was used for part of the Maison Caree in Nimes. The Mars Ultor also has Tuscan columns on its entrance facade. The Tuscan order has since been imitated in St Paul's Church in Covent Garden, built in 1631 by Inigo Jones. The horizontal structure is light because it is formed of timber faced in stone.

The Temple to Mars Ultor was a developed temple form. As Augustus's principal contribution to the city, there was a distinctly political aspect to its construction. It was built to confirm the legitimacy of the Roman empire. Since then, Classical architecture has often been used throughout history as the official style of totalitarian regimes such as Nazi right-wing and Marxist left-wing politics. We see examples of this in the Zeppelinfield of Nuremberg, built in 1936 by Speer, and the House of German Art, Prinzregentenstrasse in Munich, built 1934 by Troost.

The Pantheon in Rome was constructed under the emperor Hadrian as a temple to all of the gods. It is important because it is still on the whole intact and its design is a cylinder capped by a hemispherical dome, with an attached temple front. There is a circular oculus at the crown in the dome. The building was designed principally as an interior, which was unique to Roman architecture at the time. The interior was formed out of the necessity of structural design: the proportions are such that a sphere could be inserted into the interior and would be tangential to the floor, i.e. the base of the dome is the precise diameter of the sphere. concrete was used to build the temple, and faced with marble on its walls, except for the interior of the dome. The voids in the walls and coffers in the dome were formed to save material and to lighten the structure, to give a heightened impression of ascension. They were incorporated into the architectural scheme to create a distinctive architecture of the interior. Light shining through the oculus focuses at certain times of the day on ornaments in the wall.

The Colosseum in Rome was built by Vespasian to project his magnanimity. It required great technical ability compared with its Greek temple predecessor. It can accommodate an astonishing 50,000 spectators. The method was to build radial walls with vaults between them. There were corridors and passageways through the vaults to guide spectators into the Colosseum without the problem of crowding. It is important firstly for being multi-storey, and secondly because it has arches, neither of which had precedent in the Greek world. The trabeated structure use the Doric order on its ground floor, Ionic on the first and Corinthian on the second, a system which was applied to multi-storeyed Roman architecture thereafter, for example, the Palazzo Farnese in Rome, built in the sixteenth century. The top storey of the Colosseum incorporates a new order: a combination of Ionic and Corinthian known as Composite. It is similar to Corinthian but with much larger volutes.

So the new Roman orders were the Tuscan, Roman Doric (which has a base) and Composite (Corinthian and Ionic combined).

The Baths of Caracalla in Rome are a supreme example of Roman building technology, involving compact and ingenious planning. The building was huge and complex, and popular with the public for whom it was built. It consists of a series of lower buildings, which include libraries, gymnasia and a park, with the large bath house in the centre. It was a built as a place of huge social gathering, a place that would please the masses. The rooms in the bath house were well organised, divided into rooms of different temperatures and a collection of changing rooms. The building allowed large amounts of light into the interior, as well as allowing steam to circulate. It was ornamented by beautiful and intricate mosaics and other decorative objects, now unfortunately lost to looting. Its plan is similar in design to the Basilica of Constantine.

Triumphal arches were built as celebratory pieces of architecture. The Arch of Titus, of 81 AD, and the Arch of Constantine, completed in 315 AD, are just two examples of the triumphal arch. The Arch of Constantine is praised for its perfectly disciplined arches that conform to proportional values: one small alteration would lead to heavy repercussions for the rest of the construction. The discipline of proportions was enforced to make the resulting construction most satisfactorily pleasing on the eye. If the proportions are not adhered to, we end up with something that is aesthetically uncomfortable to look at, such as the disproportioned arches of the Nash Terraces in London, from the early nineteenth century.

Architectural Treatise
The only architectural treatise to survive from Antiquity is De Architectura, or The Ten Books on Architecture, written by a Roman architect called Marcus Vitruvius Pollio (active 46-35 BC) at the very end of the republican period. The book was dedicated to the first emperor, Augustus. It was highly influential during the Classical revival in the Italian Renaissance, both in its own right and because it served as the model for several important architectural works that were written in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, including those by Alberti and Palladio.

The Principal Features of Roman Architecture
To summarize, then, the principal features of Roman architecture are great buildings and cityscapes, sumptuous interiors and the triumphal arch (one of the most potent symbols in the Classical language of architecture).

Bibliography
Musgrove, J. (ed), Sir Banister Fletcher's History of Architecture, 19th edition, Butterworths, Oxford, 1987

Ward-Perkins, J. B., Roman Imperial Architecture, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1981

24/9/07 - Architectural History - Greek Antiquity

The architecture of Greek antiquity has had a lasting effect and influence right up to the present day. Buildings that are built in the classical language of architecture include Blenheim Palace in Oxfordshire, built in 1708 by Vanbrugh in the English Baroque style, and Antigone in Montpellier in France, built by Bofill in 1988 in the Post-modernist style. The notion of emulating the classical language stems from the belief that Greek architecture, especially the Parthenon in Athens (477-423 BC), is the most beautiful and perfect architecture there is.

History and Geography of Greek Antiquity

There were three periods of classical Greece: the Aegean, home to the Minoan (5000-1400 BC) and Mycenean (1400-1100 BC) civilisations, from the island of Crete and the mainland respectively; the Dark Age, in which little developed occurred, 1100-800 BC (this is discounted for the purposes of a discussion of Greek architecture); the Hellenic, between 800-323 BC, in which the Greek city state emerged, there was the expansion of the Greek empire to Italy, Sicily and Ionia, the great philosophers were born and wrote, the climax of Athenian prosperity was reached, Pericles lived 444-429 BC and the ultimate development of Hellenic art occurred; and the Hellenistic, ranging from 323-30 BC, during which the Greek empire included all of Greece, Asia Minor and Egypt.

Outline of Architectural Development

In the Archaic period, the most significant buildings for the history of architecture are the Palace of Knosses, Minoan, from the second millennium BC, and the Palace at Mycenae, built around the same time. The Greek inconic image of architecture originates from this early date. The Palace at Phaistos was built in Crete in the seventh century BC.

In the Hellenic period, the Temple of Athena Nike in Athens was built in 424 BC and the Parthenon between 477-423 BC are the most important buildings of note. The houses in Greece at this time were not of any great architectural distinction.

In the Hellenistic period there was more interest in public buildings rather than religious ones, such as the Agora in Athens, dated to the second century BC.

The Greek Temple

The Greeks essentially invented the classical language of architecture, although it has been refined over time. Temples such as the Parthenon and the Temple of Hephaistus in Athens, built in 449 BC, were used to worship the gods, or a particular god, and to house the statues and dedications to the gods. They were not places of assembly. The Greek religion was polytheistic, meaning that they worshipped a number of gods rather than one. The Greek gods were not associated with morality, but with the supernatural and superhuman.

Greek temples, by definition, had to have grand exteriors to demonstrate peoples' dedication to the gods, but also to represent the power of the society to which they belonged. The interior did not necessarily need to be grand because only a privileged few were allowed inside. The temple has a peripteral octastyle plan - 'peripteral' refers to the long thin shape of the temple and 'octastyle' refers to the number of columns. Occasionally the Greeks built circular temples, but they were most often rectangular. The Parthenon has a trabeated structure, or rather, post-and-beam. This kind of structure is not capable of providing long spans (spaces between columns) because the columns offer essential structural support. Large temples need to have internal walls or rows of columns in order to support the great weight of the roof.

The Orders
The Greek temple represents an architecture that is all about exteriors. The were two systems for developing columns and beams from an early stage in Greek architectural history: the Doric and Ionic. Later, another form, the Corinthian, began to appear. An 'order' means the column and its entablature. The column consists of the base, shaft and capital. The entablature is divided into three parts: the architrave, frieze and cornice.

The Doric order, used at the Parthenon, is identified in several ways: it has no base; its columns have plain flutes; it has an architrave; the entablature has a metafrieze and triglyphs. The Vitruvian explanation of the origins of the Doric order is that it came from primitive timber forms of construction. The columns had to support rafters and beams on houses, which were then covered with thatch.

The Ionic order, used for the Erechtheon, has the following characteristics: a more slender shape than the Doric; 'scrolls' or volutes on its capital; its capital faces two ways, which was problematic when it came to corner columns; and it has a plainer entablature.

The Corinthian order, used at the Temple of Olympian Zeus, is very similar to the Ionic but more decorative: it has an ornate capital with volutes; extra faschias on its architrave; smaller dentils in the cornice; and a more ornate plinth and base.

Greek builders were not too much concerned with proportions. No two Greek buildings have the same proportions.

The orders were given characteristics which made them more or less suitable for a particular building. The Doric was associated with masculinity and therefore reason, logic and the military because of its fatter and squatter shape. The Ionic was associated with femininity, and therefore delicacy and intuition. The Corinthian was complex and decorative and more expensive so it was associated with wealth and power.

The Refinements

Temples were places of philosophy and idealism, and so their form had to represent these qualities; the temples had to be the peak of perfection. The columns were made by cutting up perfect drums of stone. Bricks were also finely and accurately cut. No one since Greek antiquity has used solid stone to construct buildings, except of course, the classical Greeks. Entasis was used for the columns, i.e. they have a slight curvature of profile. This was done to make the temple look more perfect in a visual way than it would have looked had entasis been disused. So there were no strict rules in building for the ancient Greeks; instead, perfection was reached by bending the rules.

The other refinements are: upwards curvature of the entablature and stylobate; inward inclination of the columns and entablature (column slant increases towards corners); variation in column thickness (corner columns thicker); adjustment of intercolumnation (especially at corners); variation in depth to which column fluting and relief sculpture is incised.

The Parthenon is considered the most perfect building in the world because it used all the above refinements. It was an amazing feat of construction because it achieved such a high level of perfection. These factors have contributed to the Parthenon's reputation as the most important classical building in the world.

Three Important Buildings from Greek Antiquity
The Acropolis in Athens was the central fortress and principal sanctuary of the city throughout Antiquity. It is no wonder that three of the most important buildings in Greek Antiquity are situated there: the Parthenon (477-423 BC); the Erechtheon (421-405 BC); and the Propylaea (437-423 BC), which uses both the Doric and the Corinthian order.

The Parthenon's most characteristic features are that it was made of Pentelic marble, it was a temple dedicated to the goddess Athena, it is an octastyle peripteral building, it uses the Doric order, its architects were Ictinus and Kallicrates, and its master builder was Pheidias. It is considered the greatest of all the Greek temples because it embodies all of the 'refinements'.

The Erechtheon was built for Poseidon, it uses the Ionic order, it has an irregular plan which makes it unusual for a temple, it has three porches including the Caryatid porch in which the columns are draped female figures, and its architect was Mnesicles.

The Propylaea is the entrance gateway to the Acropolis, it uses both Doric and Ionic orders, it has an irregular plan much dictated by the site on which it was built, and Mnesicles designed this temple too.

Bibliography
Fleming, J., Honour, H. and Pevsner, N., The PenguinDictionary of Architecture and Landscape Architecture, Penguin, Harmondsworth, 1999.

Lawrence, A. W., Greek Architecture, 5th edition, Yale University Press, London, 1996

Musgrove, J. (ed), Sir Banister Fletcher's History of Architecture, 19th edition, Butterworths, Oxford, 1987

Coulton, J. J., Greek Architects at Work, Elek, London, 1997

24/9/07 - English Literature - Individualism and the Rights of Man

In the 'Age of Reason', literature expressed reason, progress, affectibility, clarity and secular response to the world, which was the focus of scholarly thought throughout the period. In 1707, the Scots went on to theorise the new modernity, for example, William Robertson in his History of America and Adam Smith, who theorised the new capitalist economy and became a great Enlightenment figure. By the end of the eighteenth century, there was a prevalent belief that the height of the Enlightenment had been achieved with Karl Marx and Industrialism.

In the mid-to-late eighteenth century the Declaration of Independence was a beacon of light to the world, but a terror to crowned heads. It was an unforeseen democratic revolution. It was a sign of Enlightenment. Many people gave up their lives to make a new start in America, to find freedom from arbitrary rule and to find liberty. Enlightenment politics were the result of the Revolution.

Mary Wollstonecraft was outraged by Edmund Burke's writings on the French Revolution. Burke's opposition to the French Revolution of 1790 was written before the dethronement of the French monarchs. Wollstonecraft's was the first written response to Burke and the second was Thomas Paine's. Burke's Hymn to Unreason was in praise of prejudice and blind obedience. He supported colonisation; he had an organic model of society.

Godwin's Principles of Political Justice was published at sold at the enormous price of three guineas: a sum that only a lucky few could afford. He was the most influential Enlightenment figure of the time. Wordsworth read his works avidly, and Coleridge was also one of his admirers. Mary Shelley was his daughter, and she married his closest follower, Percy Shelley. There was not a liberal thinker in the English-speaking world that didn't know his name. He cohabited with Wollstonecraft, but did not marry her at first because they both believed that marriage was an unnatural construct of society. He was the most radical and vocal thinker of the time, so why did he disappear from the literary and celebrity world?

He was England's first anarchist philosopher: he went against the rational accrued political parish and was in favour of anarchy. The twentieth century Industrial Revolution practised his ideas of equality and independence. Godwin went into hiding to escape the repercussions of his philosophy. His avid follower, Percy Shelley, wrote about the effects that Godwin's philosophy would have on the wider world if it was taken into action, in his poem "Prometheus Unbound":

"And behold, thrones were kingless, and men walked
One with the other even as spirits do,
None fawned, none trampled; hate, disdain, or fear,
Self-love or self-contempt, on human brows
No more inscribed, as o'er the gate of hell,
'All hope abandon ye who enter here;'
None frowned, none trembled, none with eager fear
Gazed on another's eye of cold command,
Until the subject of a tyrant's will
Became, worse fate, the abject of his own,
Which spurred him, like an outspent horse, to death.
None wrought his lips in truth-entangling lines
Which smiled the lie his tongue disdained to speak;
None, with firm sneer, trod out in his own heart
The sparks of love and hope till there remained
Those bitter ashes, a soul self-consumed,
And the wretch crept a vampire among men,
Infecting all with his own hideous ill;
None talked that common, false, cold, hollow talk
Which makes the heart deny the yes it breathes,
Yet question that unmeant hypocrisy
With such a self-mistrust as has no name.

The loathsome mask has fallen, the man remains
Sceptreless, free, uncircumscribed, but man
Equal, unclassed, tribeless, and nationless,
Exempt form awe, worship, degree, the king
Over himself; just, gentle, wise: but man
Passionless? - no, yet free from guilt or pain,
Which were, for his will made or suffered them,
Nor yet exempt, though ruling them like slaves,
From chance, and death, and mutability,
The clogs of that which else might oversoar
The loftiest star of unascended heaven,
Pinnacled dim in the intense inane."
[Shelley, "Prometheus Unbound"]

The limits of mankind are without boundary here. His procedures could make a new and desirable way of life possible.

In Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, he defended the status quo by attacking the Jewry of the Revolution.

"These gentlemen of the Old Jewry, in all their reasonings on the Revolution of 1688, have a revolution which happened in England about forty years before, ..."
[Burke, Reflections, pp. 99ff]

He defends institutional continuity on the grounds that previous revolutions were a necessary part of organic evolution, but that the French Revolution is not an organic revolution like those in England and America. If the French could only adopt English thought they might keep order and stop "warping." He believes that there is no process of climbing the social ladder: one is born into a station and must keep it. He uses latinate prose, i.e. the long syntax of prostyle. It demonstrates the cultural superiority of the writer and makes the work inaccessible to unedicated eyes, so has a repressive function: if a person couldn't understand it, how could they be capable of political thinking?

"A state without the means of some change is without the means of its conservation. Without such means it might even risque [sic] the loss of that part of the constitution which it wished the most religiously to preserve. The two principles of conservation and correction operated strongly at the two critical periods of the Restoration of Revolution, when England found itself without a king. At both those periods the nation had lost the bond of union in their antient [sic] edifice; they did not however, dissolve the whole fabric. On the contrary, in both cases they regenerated the deficient part of the old constitution through the parts which were not impaired. They kept these old parts exactly as they were, that the part recovered might be suited to them. They acted by the ancient organized states in the shape of their old organization, and not by the organic moleculae of a disbanded people. At no time, perhaps, did the sovereign legislature manifest a more tender regard to that fundamental principle of British constitutional policy, than at the time of the Revolution, when it deviated from the direct line of hereditary succession. The crown was carried somewhat out of the line in which it had before moved; but the new line was derived from the same stock. It was still a line of hereditary descent; still an hereditary descent in the same blood, though an hereditary descent qualified with protestantism. When the legislature altered the direction, but kept the principle, they shewed that they held it inviolable."
[Burke, Reflections, p. 106]

Remember that the Reflections was a plea for unreason. Burke therefore defends all kinds of prejudice.

Wollstonecraft's response was to be more reasonable. She praised friendship. She became the leading Enlightenment figure of feminism. However, she was essentially 'airbrushed' out of society when information about her private life was published in her biography written by her widowed husband. The did keep a small following, including Jane Austen, who pcked up and developed her sober and humane arguments for the just treatment of women.

Paine's response to Burke was to point out that Burke "pities the plumage but forgets the dying bird."

21/9/07 - English Literature - Coleridge and Wandering

The concept of English literature in the early nineteenth century depended on writing having a purpose in itself, needing no outside explanation or meaning.

There came two competing conceptions of the sublime, by Burke and Kant, both of which influenced Coleridge's writing. He explored the effects of wandering on the imagination. Organic form and content was key to Romantic writing at this time, of which Coleridge was a factor in its popularisation.

The thing that makes wandering of such interest to poetry is that it has no route or predetermined form. But could it have an inner form?

Burke's conception of the sublime is defined by fear and indeterminacy. Fear, he thought, was the most overriding human emotion.

"Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is a source of the sublime; that is, it is productive of the strongest emotion which the mind is capable of feeling. I say the strongest emotion, because I am satisfied the ideas of pain are much more powerful than those which enter on the part of pleasure."
[Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1759]

The mind feels overpowered by massive objects, causing a form of paralysis, like a rabbit in the headlights. Indeterminacy stems from human lack of comprehension, from the human search for the truth and the inability to reach it. This engenders a feeling of inadequacy.

"This matter might be pursued much further; but it is not the extent of the subject which must prescribe our bounds, for what subject does not branch out to infinity?"
[Burke, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful, 1759]

So the infinite is a sublime trope. The mind's inability to assert order on the world creates pain. Coleridge found this concept of the sublime odd. Burke's rhetoric was used by French speakers, evoking the sublime.

For Kant, the sublime is less important for humanity than beauty. Experiencing beauty is very human. Conversely to Burke, Kant's version of the sublime is when humans apply order to the world. For Kant, beauty involves communication; it speaks to us. There is therefore a harmony between the mind and nature. The sublime is when disharmony occurs, when things go wrong. Sublimity is not an interesting factor of nature for Kant. He disagrees with Burke that the sublime occurs because of the mind's inability to conceive of something. Kant believes that the mind reflects, while aware of failure, that failure is in a way a success. The sublime for Kant is therefore paradoxical: both pleasurable and about failure.

"Hence the feeling of the sublime is a feeling of displeasure that arises from the imagination’s inadequacy, in an aesthetic estimation of magnitude, for an estimation by reason, but is at the same time also a pleasure, aroused by the fact that this very judgement, namely, that even the greatest power of sensibility is inadequate, is [itself] in harmony with rational ideas, insofar as striving toward them is still a law for us."
[Kant, Critique of Judgement, 1790]

There is a triumph in failure.

For Coleridge wandering is connected with the sublime. It involves solitude like the sublime. There are two ways of wandering: without a purpose, and appearing to wander without a purpose. Burke's theory belongs to the first, while Kant, who realises that wandering without a purpose is the point, belongs to the second.

"And now this spell was snapt: once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen -
Like one, that on a lonesome road

Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows, a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread."
[‘The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,’ 1798, 442-51]

This passage influenced Mary Shelley and Lord Byron, among others. It signified the Gothic. Coleridge's imagery is strange: we know they are at sea, but the mariner is a solitary wanderer on a lonely road. This ideal of the image of the lonely wanderer was significant to Coleridge. He was a wanderer himself - he turned from his father's religion and became an Anglican. He felt guilty much of his life and thought of himself as isolated from God. Coleridge's attitude to France is also important. The French Revolution left everyone on edge and Coleridge was affected by paranoia under France's threat; he saw the country as a kind of Cain.

"Methinks I see his grand and noble countenance […] that look of humourous despondency fixed on his almost blank sheet of paper, and then its silent mock-piteous admission of failure struggling with the sense of the exceeding ridiculousness of the whole scheme - which broke up in a laugh: and the Ancient Mariner was written instead."
[Preface (1828), ‘The Wanderings of Cain’ (1798)]

Coleridge was beset by financial difficulties, had marital problems and became addicted to opium. But he shared his love of walking with Wordsworth. In the eighteenth century people began walking in nature as a pastime and people became more aware of their responses to nature. But Coleridge was different: his wandering was less gentile, more rugged, and he liked to compose poetry as he was walking. Wordsworth did this also. It greatly affected their styles of poetry.

"Coleridge’s manner is more full, animated, and varied; Wordsworth’s more equable, sustained, and internal. The one might be termed more dramatic, the other more lyrical. Coleridge has told me that he himself liked to compose in walking over uneven ground, or breaking through the straggling branches of a copse-wood; whereas Wordsworth always wrote (if he could) walking up and down a straight gravel-walk, or in some spot where the continuity of his verse met with no collateral interruption."
[William Hazlitt, ‘My First Acquaintance with Poets,’ 1823, Norton II p.523]

Hazlitt is saying a lot about Coleridge and Wordsworth's personalities too. The physical world and the imagination were two branches influencing the effects of walking. Cook's travels were happening concurrently with the writing of Coleridge and Wordsworth, which demonstrates how popular exploration was in life and literature at the time.

"In consequence of a slight indisposition, an anodyne had been prescribed, from the effects of which he fell asleep in his chair at the moment that he was reading the following sentence, or words of the same substance, in Purchas’s Pilgrimage: ‘Here the Khan Kubla commanded a palace to be built, and a stately garden thereunto. And thus ten miles of fertile ground were enclosed with a wall."
[Preface, ‘Kubla Khan: A Vision,’ 1798, Norton II p. 439]

The Purchas' Pilgrimage passage created inspiration for Coleridge, with emphasis on symbolism rather than the literal. In Coleridge's visionary poems there is a leaning towards colonialism which exemplified Said's belief that the human wish to understand is always linked to the human wish to dominate.

For Kant, form determines content. He thought that beauty came not from aesthetic pleasure, but from recognition of its aesthetic form. We must treat something as beautiful in itself. Applied to poetry, it is not then the purpose of poetry to please and instruct but to express its own form for self-sufficiency. It is impossible to reduce poetry to its exterior purpose. Coleridge said that we must stop using poetry as a vehicle; one must read for reading's sake, and wander for wandering's sake. The activity is a pleasure in itself. Coleridge said that the relationship between a poem and reality is the same as the poem's influence on reality, but it is not reality's influence on the poem. This means a poem is an organic form, rather than a mechanical form in which reality would be affected by the poetry but not vice versa.

"[…] a Symbol is characterized by a translucence of the Special in the Individual or of the General in the Especial or of the Universal in the General. Above all by the translucence of the Eternal through and in the Temporal. It always partakes of the Reality which it renders intelligible; and while it enunciates the whole, abides itself as a living part of that Unity, of which it is the representative."
[The Statesman’s Manual, 1816, Norton II, p.490]

A symbol transforms the thing that it represents, like a leaf on a tree (organic form). An allegory stands for something in an arbitrary way (mechanical). Poetry is like the leaf on the tree.

Coleridge thought that one should treat everything as a means in itself, not as a means to an end. He offers Kant's conceptions of the sublime; we offer the mean of the conception of the world, rather than the world providing the means for us. We shape our own reality. We blend the supernatural mind with nature; so the sublime is more significant than nature itself.

20/9/07 - Architectural History - Ancient Egyptian Architecture 2600-1200 BC

Most ancient Egyptian architecture is centre around the river Nile. This is because Egypt is mostly desert, but the area around the river, including its banks and mouth, flood every year, bringing vegetation and more water. The Egyptians therefore settled here, where the environment was hospitable and could provide everything they needed.

The ancient Egyptians strongly believed in the afterlife. They thought that the afterlife was a world parallel to the land of the living. Egyptian art and sculpture strongly reflects these religious beliefs. The most important thing in the lives of the ancient Egyptians was the sun, as it was seen as a life-giving force and therefore as a kind of deity, named Ra. Pharaohs were seen as the human manifestation of the god Horus, son of Ra (drawn as a falcon), and so they were very important people, worshipped as a divine being.

The rays of Ra (the sun) were depicted by the Egyptians as a wedge-shaped beam shining on the earth. But this symbol was not restricted to representations of the sun. It was used more widely in Egyptian art. The pyramid form, we notice, is clearly related to this symbol, to their strong concern for the effect of the sun on life and the afterlife.

The earliest form of Egyptian architecture came in the third dynasty, around 2630 BC. The first pyramids were stepped, such as the Djoser pyramid of Saqqara, which was built on the river bank and symbolised the life-giving properties of the sun. There exists a statue of its architect, Imhotep, so architects were celebrated in ancient Egypt. The pyramid is based on domestic housing and were called 'mastaba' tombs, or 'eternal homes' of the dead. Pyramids began to be built from the Pharaoh's birth, not after his death. The Djoser represents the birth of life from the sun god Ra (i.e. his rays beaming onto the earth), but more generally, the steps of the pyramid provide a stairway for the deceased Pharaoh to reach heaven. The life of Egyptian Pharaohs, as we see from the symbolism of the pyramid, was all about preparation for death. The pyramids were the mode of transportation from one life to the next, and they had to make the transition as comfortable as possible for the dead Pharaoh.

The Great Pyramid of Cheops, called Khufu, was built with a great degree of accuracy, in order to mirror the perfection of the gods. The inner chamber was thought by archaeologists to be a conduit, but it is now commonly thought that it was a useful tool for the builders of the pyramid to get its dimensions right. The chambers had to be at the precise axial centre of the pyramid and the inner chamber, and from this all the other rooms and passages were arranged proportionally.

The pyramid form as we now know it developed slowly over a period of around two hundred years. This is a very short period of time considering the length of time of the Egyptian rule. The Great Pyramids at Giza were built between 2550-2460 BC. The Great Pyramid of Cheops alone used two million blocks of stone. This is a huge feat of human achievement. Over thirty-five thousand people worked on its construction, and that included both quarrying the materials and laying the stones. The work was also very precise. At the point where the top half of the pyramid weighs exactly the same as the bottom half is the entrance into the King's Burial Chamber, the 'Great Step'. This very fact indicates the great technical ability that went into the planning of the building of the pyramid. This kind of technicality was used in Egyptian art, too.

The pyramids were built on the top of slopes, or causeways, that ran from the foot of the pyramid to the river. This made it easier for the Pharaoh's body and a hoard of valuable objects to be transported down the river and up the ramp, followed by a ceremonious crowd. He would be worshipped and finally interred in the sacred pyramids. The Great Sphinx was built to be the guardian of the pyramids. His features are said to be modelled on Pharaoh Khefre.

It is amazing to think that these massive pyramids were built without the use of wheels or hard metals. These were as yet undiscovered. But the Egyptians were far from primitive in their methods. Thousands of farmers were employed to build the pyramids during the drought season, as during this time of year there was little work for them to do; without water there could be no growth. A system of ramps and pulleys was used to transport the stones up the side of the pyramid. The great accuracy of the construction is astonishing and shows the care and dedication of the workers and reflects the importance of the work that these employees (for they were not slaves) carried out. Management of the work was entrusted to a chief official of the Pharaoh, who was in fact his cousin, Hemon. A statue of him shows the care and sense of duty on his face, a reflection of the importance of his position in ancient Egyptian society, and of his work on the Great Pyramids.

But he must consider what the Great Pyramids would have looked like at the time. Cashmere-like vermeer is still seen in remnants on the surface of the pyramids, and would have positively gleamed in the sun. The appearance of the pyramids would have been much more pristine and clear-cut and fresh than they are now. Cases found inside the pyramids were stuffed with furniture, ornaments, trinkets, and even boats, to be interred alongside the Pharaoh with the purpose of giving him the most comfortable afterlife possible.

Civil war racked and changed the society of the Egyptians. These wars were expensive and so grand buildings such as the pyramids could not be built, for they were extremely costly. The status of pharaohs in the new Middle Kingdom became reduced significantly compared to their predecessors. Their burial places look more like temples than pyramids, but they are a combination of the two.

The terraces of the temples originate from step pyramids, but they do not contain the body of the pharaoh. The body was kept in a very small chamber at the back of the building. This type of burial was not monumental, and neither was the architecture, but it did set the model for the future.

Queen Hatshepsut had the mortuary temple of Deir el-Bahari built in preparation of her death. But she was not buried in the temple itself; she was buried on the other side of the cliff, along with her belongings. This shows that the temple was built mainly for monumentality rather than for the specific purpose of holding the body of the queen.

The Great Hypostyle Hall at the Temple of Amenophis III, built c. 1350 BC, was the template that the Greeks later used for there buildings such as the Parthenon.

The temple complex at Karnak was built for Amun, but also to house the new priesthood whose job it was to dedicate itself to the sun god. The complex is therefore a type of ancient Egyptian monastery. The columns here are in the closed-papyriform style, but those in another temple, the Great Hypostyle Hall of Ramesses II, use the open-papyriform. There are two rows of columns in the Great Hypostyle Hall that are taller than the rest. These allow for a clerestory window space which let light shine into the interior of the temple. Other column types included fluted, palmiform (palm fronds lashed to a pole) and lotiform (closed buds of the lotus flower). The temple and columns would have been decorated and painted in a garishly colourful way. The colours have faded with time, and now are completely gone. David Roberts repainted the Temple of Philae between 1846-50, to give an idea of what the temple, and other ancient Egyptian architecture, may have looked like when they were first built.

Egyptian architecture drew on nature for inspiration. The column types are one example of this. Another is the gateway to the Temple of Amun, which consists of two great pylons, mirroring the twin mountains of Bakhu and Manu to the east. These were considered important mountains because the sun rises between them every day.

King Ramesses II (the Great) was a very important ruler for Egypt. He had a Great Temple built at Abu Simbel between c. 1285 and 1255 BC. He was famous for building a number of great temple complexes, which is true; siring hundreds of children, which is perhaps untrue; and winning a great war, which is known to be untrue. The reason why these stories have circulated about him is that he edited his own life story in the Great Temple so that it showed him to be a great man. The temple itself is very impressive. It has a pillared hall with sculptured figures appearing to hold up the ceiling, a relief sculpture of Amun-Ra on its front facade and a statue of Horus as a falcon on its exterior.

We can see that the Greeks were highly influenced by ancient Egyptian architecture because they borrowed many details from it for their own much more renowned architecture. For example, the colonnades of the mortuary temple of Queen Hatshepsut look like they may have been the origins of the Greek Doric order.

Bibliography
Alfred, C., The Egyptians (London 1987)
Lehner, M., The Complete Pyramids (London 1997)
Romer, J., The Great Pyramid: Ancient Egypt Revisited (Cambridge 2007)
Shafer, B. E. (ed.), Temples of Ancient Egypt (London 1998)
Stevenson Smith, W., The Art and Architecture of Ancient Egypt (New Haven 1998)
Wilkinson, R. H., The Complete Temples of Ancient Egypt (London 2000)

19/9/07 - English Literature - Ossian

The term "Ossian" refers to a general kind of poetry as well as a specific type. It derives from around the 1760s when translations from Scots Gaelic poems were published (although it turned out that they were not).


In 1713 Pope wrote "Windsor Forest":


"Ye vigorous swains! while youth ferments your blood,
And purer spirits swell the sprightly flood,
Now range the hills, the gameful woods beset,
Wind the shrill horn, or spread the waving net.
When milder autumn summer's heat succeeds,
And in the new-shorn field the partridge feeds,
Before his lord the ready spaniel bounds,
Panting with hope, he tries the furrow'd grounds;
But when the tainted gales the game betray,
Couch'd close he lies, and meditates the prey:
Secure they trust the unfaithful field beset,
Till hovering o'er 'em sweeps the swelling net.
Thus (if small things we may with great compare)
When Albion sends her eager sons to war,
Some thoughtless town, with ease and plenty blest,
Near, and more near, the closing lines invest;
Sudden they seize the amazed, defenceless prize,
And high in air Britannia's standard flies."

The poem is full of life, vigour and action. We can imagine the scene; the pack of dogs bounding and crouching. It is about availability and order; dogs obey; there are plenty of birds. There is a natural and universal succession of the seasons, ordered, recurring, seasonal year. Pope gives instructions on how to read the poem: in the lines, "if small things we may with great compare," he asks us to compare his 'humble' poem with the great ones. So it is a metaphor, it is urbane, and we must compare the poem to greater things. The poem can be descirbed as rural, rustic, Georgic and pan-British (Scotland, as well as England, for note the last line).

MacPherson also writes about a hunting scene in his Fragments of Ancient Poetry:

"VINVELA
My love is a son of the hill. He pursues the flying deer. His gray dogs are panting around him; his bow-string sounds in the wind. Whether by the fount of the rock, or by the stream of the mountain thou liest; when the rushes are nodding with the wind, and the mist is flying over thee, let me approach my love unperceived, and see him from the rock. Lovely I saw thee first by the aged oak of Branno; thou wert returning tall from the chace; the fairest among thy friends.

SHILRIC
What voice is that I hear? that voice like the summer-wind.—I sit not by the nodding rushes; I hear not the fount of the rock. Afar, Vinvela, afar I go to the wars of Fingal. My dogs attend me no more. No more I tread the hill. No more from on high I see thee, fair moving by the stream of the plain; bright as the bow of heaven; as the moon on the western wave.

VINVELA

Then thou art gone, O Shilric! and I am alone on the hill. The deer are seen on the brow; void of fear they graze along. No more they dread the wind; no more the rustling tree. The hunter is far removed; he is in the field of graves."

[from Macpherson, Fragments of Ancient Poetry (1760)]

Firstly, no one knew how to receive this poem. It is far removed from Pope's traditional poetry. For example, Pope uses rhyming couplets and iambic pentameter and rigid line structure. Instead of parallelism, MacPherson's poem uses fragmentation, with no connecting device and no instruction on how to read the poem. Pope had not intended to surprise us, but Ossian was strange. Pope's poetry was intellectual and logical, whereas Ossian was affective, it worked on the senses of the reader. It has no underlying meaning; we must only listen to the incantatery, mystical language rather than work out intellectual meaning. Pope's poem has a celebratory tone: it talks of blood, plenitude, fecundity, the seasons, the predictability of the universe, and Britain. But Ossian's poem is about mourning and loss, and bareness: "no more." Are these people literally there or are they speaking from beyond the grave? Pope's poem is set in the present; it is about modernity. Ossian's is set in the distant past, in an archaic and mystic past which is impossible date; it is universal. It is not set in 'Britain'. Pope's poem is set in Britain; Windsor Forest is seen as the epitomy of all British country. Ossian's poem is set in the vague mystic past of Scotland. After the Fragments were published, Scotland suddenly became important for poetry and other literature.

Ossian poetry was published under the pretence of being newly-translated by James MacPherson in the 1760s. The Poems of Ossian was published in 1765. MacPherson was a Highlander who understood Gaelic and was familiar with the stories of Ossian in Ireland and Scotland. The term "Ossian" was used to describe phenomenon. "Ossiant" at first described something stirring, grand, ancient and vague, as quoted by Robert Burns in the Oxford English Dictionary. MacPherson claimed that his Ossian publications were real translated works of literature, and his own poetry became very popular. Napoleon was fond of Ossian and carried the poetry with him everywhere, even into battle. MacPherson claimed to have discovered ancient manuscripts of Gaelic Ossian, but people began to be sceptical and it turned out that he could not produce the manuscript. In fact, he had merely written down the oral folk tales that were commonly told in Gaelic speaking countries, and had made up the story of the manuscripts to create attention for his works. These stories were ancient but had never before been written down. MacPherson made them more literary.

What does this tell us about readership in the 1760s? Hugh Blair, the first professor of English Literature in the world, worked at the University of Edinburgh. He wrote a critical dissertation on Ossian poetry.

"His poetry, more, perhaps, than that of any other writer, deserves to be stiled, The Poetry of the Heart. It is a heart penetrated with noble sentiments, and with sublime and tender passions; a heart that glows, and kindles the fancy; a heart that is full, and pours itself forth."

[From Hugh Blair, A Critical Dissertation on the Poems of Ossian]

He advises us to let the literature wash over us and give us noble sentiments. He is not interested in history but in affectivity. However, Samuel Johnson was one of MacPherson's detractors and tried to debunk him. Boswell, a friend of Johnson's, was frequently mocked by him for being Scottish. This shows that Johnson was probably prejudiced against the Scottish in any case.

"We spoke of Fingal. Dr Johnson said calmly, ‘If the poems were really translated, they were certainly first written down. Let Mr Macpherson deposite the manuscript in one of the colleges at Aberdeen, where there are people who can judge; and, if the professors certify the authenticity, then there will be an end of the controversy. If he does not take this obvious and easy method, he gives the best reason to doubt; considering too, how much is against it a priori’."

[From James Boswell, Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides (1786)]

For Johnson, all stories must have a written origin. However his opinion was in the minority. As a result of the public admission that MacPherson had written down ancient oral stories, the oral tradition became much more popular. The lyrical ballad enjoyed literary success and Johnson was proved wrong.

The controversy over Ossian poetry shows how tastes had changed. Poetry no longer had to be intellectual. Blair praised Ossian for bringing back sentiments of ancient beings who were supposedly more in touch with their feelings. Scotland tried to negotiate individual national identity at this point: there was a rise in the Scottish Antiquarian Society. Intellectual institutions were founded which tempted modern readers to change. Scottish independence coincided with Catholic Rebellion. The new prime minister was Scottish. Scots were perceived to be power-hungry. There was an increase of Scot phobia in England. But Blair embraced Scottishness, and promoted the rekindling of noble feelings, of ancients, of the past. The difference was emphasized between modern enlightenment thought and the ancient romanticism. MacPherson contributed to modernity as the difference from the past. This tradition was identified and named and a new group of people began to class themselves 'modern.' The term 'romance' grew out of Scotland, and tends to mean literature that appeals to the senses. Access to the past was provided through modern means.

The old past died, and a revival affectedly reawakened the experience of the past. Scotland emerged as a site of interest. The most popular authors and poets originated from Scotland (no one knew Wordsworth or Coleridge then). It was the beginning of a specific kind of Romanticism: that of Sir Walter Scott, Sir Robert Burns and James MacPherson. The past was not just narrative history, but romance, i.e. vague, magical, and not really sequential. It opened up a flood of poetry that wasn't immediately comprehensible of describable like Pope, but more like MacPherson.

18/9/07 - English Literature - Enlightenment and History: The Age of Reason

The so-called "Age of Reason" is a convenient periodicity, but it confounds scholars because it did not have an exact beginning of, say, 1700.

“The men of the Enlightenment were divided by doctrine, temperament, environment, and generations. And in fact the spectrum of their ideas, their sometimes acrimonious disputes, have tempted many historians to abandon the search for a single Enlightenment. What, after all, does Hume, who was a conservative, have in common with Condorcet, who was a democrat? Holbach, who ridiculed all religion, with Lessing, who practically tried to invent one? Diderot, who envied and despised antiquaries, with Gibbon, who admired and emulated them? Rousseau, who worshipped Plato, with Jefferson, who could not bring himself to finish the Republic?…. These questions have their uses, but mainly as a corrective: they keep historians from sacrificing variety to unity and help to free them from simplistic interpretations that have served them for so long and so badly – interpretations that treat the Enlightenment as a compact body of doctrine, an Age of Reason, and then take the vitalism of Diderot, the passion of Rousseau, or the skepticism of Hume, as foreign bodies, as harbingers of Romanticism. This is definition by larceny; it is to strip the Enlightenment of its wealth and then complain about its poverty…. I shall respect the differences among the philosophes which, after all, supplied the Enlightenment with much of its vigor, generated much of its inner history. Yet, mindful that general names are not Platonic ideas but baskets collecting significant similarities, I shall speak throughout of the philosophes, and call the totality of their ideas, their strategies, and their careers, the Enlightenment, and I shall use these terms to refer to what I shall call a family, a family of intellectuals united by a single style of thinking…. There were many philosophes in the eighteenth century, but there was only one Enlightenment. A loose, informal, wholly unorganized coalition of cultural critics, religious skeptics, and political reformers from Edinburgh to Naples, Paris to Berlin, Boston to Philadelphia, the philosophes made up a clamorous chorus, and there were some discordant voices among them, but what is striking is their general harmony, not their occasional discord. The men of the Enlightenment united on a vastly ambitious program, a program of secularism, humanity, cosmopolitanism, and freedom, above all, freedom in its many forms – freedom from arbitrary power, freedom of speech, freedom of trade, freedom to realize one’s talents, freedom of aesthetic response, freedom, in a word, of moral man to make his own way in the world.”
[Walter Benjamin, The Enlightenment: An Interpretation, "Preface" (1973)]

"'Enlightenment', in the eighteenth-century sense, is one of those useful but difficult terms, like ‘romantic’ or ‘classical’, which paradoxically are about as indefinable as they are indispensable. A good definition is that of Norman Hampson in The Enlightenment (Penguin, 1968), who suggests that there is a cluster of characteristic attitudes which, when they occur in a high enough concentration, we call the Enlightenment. Among such attitudes would be:
i) anticlericalism tending in certain cases to antireligion;
ii) a celebration of the pagan classical past as a healthy alternative to Christianity;
iii) a stress on the exercise of reason;
iv) a growing desire for the systematic, particularly scientific, investigation of nature;
v) a belief that such an investigation would reveal a set both of natural and moral laws;
vi) a deep distrust of excess;
vii) a delight in order brought about by a balance of competing forces."
[S. Eliot and B. Stern, The Age of Enlightenment (vol. 1, 1979, pp. 1-2)]

It could be said to start in the Islamic period because here the texts of philosophers were resurrected.


At this time was the corruption of the papacy. The Protestant Reformation could not have happened butt for the translation of the Bible. People hadn't previously read the Bible, they only took the word of the priest. However, after its translation people no longer needed an intervening power to preach to them. Instead there came liberation and access to knowledge. People who could read could therefore speak directly to God and He to them, giving empowerment. The Bible spoke of things that priests had not mentioned, e.g. kings slaughtering each other and fornicating. People were shocked about this, because this had not been told to them by the priests. The priests had simply taken out the parts that were protective of the papacy and the king. But now people could see that what they'd been told was false. They challenged powerful people and used the Bible as their sword, their gospel of liberation. This is enlightenment; the movement towards a popular monarchy.


In 1660 the monarchy was restored. The Quakers developed trade and education. They created a system wherefrom modernity occurred. This process was largely unrecorded. In 1694 the Bank of England was founded, and in 1695 the Bank of Scotland. This created the condition from which a market society could develop. 'Good' people opened up markets and developed trading republics; capitalism began. They made conditions right for the Enlightenment. Mathematical logic and experiments meant there was a boom of science. Reasonable procedures, knowledge, instruments of analysis were all key developments, which affected the way people reasoned and thought. Things had to be done properly, otherwise another person might dispute them and say that they were not being reasonable.


There were many different enlightenments happening at different moments all over the world: in Israel, in Scotland, in France, in Germany. The Enlightenment was real, it changed the way humans perceived the monarchy, language, the world and reason. This meant that superstition faded. Superstition was seen as irrational, not real materially, as an inhibition of intellectualism. Superstition was linked to religion and so people looked at structures of religious faith. Religion was also revealed as unrealistic, irrational, superstitious and unscientific, which greatly affected priesthood. However certain sects of Protestantism didn't hold with these theories. People such as David Hume analysed miracles and exposed them as chimera. Atheism was a dangerous word so other words were used instead, e.g. "sceptic", which only means "doubting." A form of religion, deism, was developed, which removed all the miraculous theories and took only the belief of an all-powerful being, a creator, or the "great Architect", "great Watchmaker", "great Designer." These terms involve reasonableness aned refer to methods of rational thinking.


Hume thought the Scots should be most acclaimed for the Enlightenment, for literature and for progression. The European Enlightenment was chiefly, but not solely, a Scottish invention. They had great intellectual power, with figures like Adam Smith, David Hume, William Robertson and Adam Ferguson. They took a materialist analysis of history, an imperialistic one. They explored questions such as how ideas shape language and the brain, how societies develop and how people interact.


In the eighteenth century history writing came of age using science, reason, logic, cause-and-effect connections and descriptions of real world developments. It looked at how things were; it became factually accurate.


The Banks gave people credit, they materialized people's fantasies. With credit, businesses could be set up by people who could perviously never have afforded to. "Fantastic project" and "the projecting age" are terms used by Daniel Defoe to describe the events of his time. While in an earlier age religion had moved mountains, now credit could build ships!


Newton changed scientific thought with optics and mathematics: he shows how a white light shining through a prism refracted into a rainbow, and he discovered gravity. This meant that the cosmos could be measured. The old 'being' and metaphors were no longer needed to explain the universe. They gave way to scientific, measurable rationality. Now we use language, we live in a hierarchical society. We can think our way through any problem.

There are many problems with the label 'Enlightenment'. For example, Hume was a historian, not a philosopher.

"In the text, only the reader speaks."
[Roland Barthes (S/Z, 1975, p. 151)]

"Always historicise!"
[Fredric Jameson. The Political Unconscious: Narrative as a Socially Symbolic Act [1981] (1989, p. 9)]

Theories of history brutalized the world, created the idea of colonization.

"There is no document of civilisation which is not at the same time a document of barbarism. And just as such a document is not free of barbarism, barbarism also taints the manner in which it was transmitted from one owner to another."
[Walter Benjamin ‘Theses on the Philosophy of History’ [thesis vii, 1940] in Illuminations (1969, p. 256)]

The Enlightenment had a dark side while freeing up human possibility.

"The program of the Enlightenment was the disenchantment of the world; the dissolution of myths and the substitution of knowledge for fancy."
[Quoting Francis Bacon (1561-1626)]

“The sovereignty of man lieth hid in knowledge; wherein many things are reserved, which kings with their treasure cannot buy, nor with their force command; their spials [spies] and intelligencers can give no news of them, their seamen and discoverers cannot sail where they grow: now we govern nature in opinions, but we are in thrall unto her in necessity: but if we would be led by her in invention, we should command her in action.”
[Theodor Adorno & Max Horkheimer (Dialectic of Enlightenment [1947, reissued 1969], 1979, pp. 3-4)]

"The disenchantment of the world is the extirpation of animism."
[Dialectic, p. 5]

"The Enlightenment treats its own ideas of human rights exactly as it does the older universals. Every spiritual resistance it encounters serves merely to increase its strength."
[Dialectic, p. 6]

"The universality of ideas as developed by discursive logic, domination in the conceptual sphere, is raised up on the basis of actual domination. The dissolution of the magical heritage, of the old diffuse ideas, by conceptual unity, expresses the hierarchical constitution of life determined by those who are free."
[Dialectic, p. 14]