DISCUSSION: Machiavelli's THE PRINCE and Shakespeare's KING LEAR

Good discussion this week.  The 2 texts worked well together, especially as I happened to read THE PRINCE before KING LEAR which worked well.

Stephen started the discussion giving a brief overview of 4 theories of man's progress:

Darwin, who believed in a process of gradual change and progress; Steven Jay Gould proposes "punctuated equilibrium", where the world as a whole evolves slowly & gradually but with occasional abrupt event causing dramatic sudden change.  Thomas Coombs had a theory of a paradigm shift and Toynbee described cycles (no longer in favour) where we think something is new but it is really just a new cycle

I'll have to read more about these and think about them to be able to come to any thoughtful perspective on these theories.

Steve mentioned a few events occurring around the time these texts were written:

Start of Renaissance – 1493-1520

Machiavelli – 1470 – 1503

1453 – Ottoman Turks occupy Constantinople, end of Roman Empire (eastern empire was last bastion), end of Byzantium

1492  - Columbus encounters America; completion of Christian re-conquest of Spain

1497 – Cabot in Newfoundland

1498 – Da Vinci’s Last Supper

15_ _ -Michaelangelo paints Sistine Chapel

1517 - Luther nails his 95 proclamations to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg on October 31st.

1520 – Magellan circumnavigates; Cortez invades Mexico

1526 – Suleiman the magnificent conquers Hungary and lays siege to Vienna

Machiavelli called the 1st modern writer – why?

·         Amoralization of politics – separating from personal ethics – were connected in middle ages

·         Focus on nation state - nationalism

Jonas presented The Prince.  He asked us to consider whether Machiavelli's theories could be applied to families.  I had a hard time with this as I felt that Machiavelli was all about winning and power and that isn't the goal we want to strive for in our relationships (whether work or family and friends).  I thought that Machiavelli has a lot to offer capitalism and the corporate world but when you take ethics out of it, or morals, you are left with a pretty inhuman world (not that humans aren't capable of nasty acts of self-interest but we have the capability of looking outward and thinking and acting more broadly and this is what separates us from non-humans.)

We had an interesting discussion about how up until Machiavelli's time, ethics was rooted in religious texts – after the Renaissance we started to move towards a morality that is not rooted in religion, to a secular framework - Machiavelli was starting to move this way and so he is considered modern.  We spoke about the role of Fortune – some things happen that you can’t control but the choices you make and how prepared you are, how you react etc make a difference (50%?).  Bruce brought up luck and how some people are lucky.  I feel there is luck but I don't think there are lucky people (in the 'good luck' sense of the word - Byron pointed out that a lucky person could be a good lucky person or a bud lucky person, both would be lucky).  I think people who seem to have a lot of good luck, make their luck through seizing opportunity, taking risks, or through personalities that seem to take adversity in stride.

I mentioned that rather than just being a text to win favour with a Medici prince, I thought (based on Machiavelli's last chapter) that he was trying to encourage and support Lorenzo Medici in seizing power and maintaining it well enough to continue on and reunite all the Italian states (and maybe expand past Italy's borders).  “This opportunity must not therefore be allowed to pass, so that Italy may find her liberator."  There was not much support in the room for this view.

Steve mentioned Thomas Hobbes (5 April 1588 – 4 December 1679) and his view that people act out of self-interest and people are self-aggrandizing.  Apparently Rousseau takes an opposing viewpoint (which I'll have to keep in mind in November when we get to him).  We discussed how this view really gained ground as we moved from feudal systems or guilds to atomistic systems during the industrial age where workers get plugged into various jobs.  Unions became powerful:  What do “workers” want?  MORE.

One possible outcome to the terminal collapse of western self-interest (now global self-interest) could be the currently impending environmental Armageddon - though maybe that would be just an example of one of Toynbee's cycles - or Darwin's natural selection given the human race's star role in this Armageddon.

Laura presented King Lear.  She gave us some brief background:

Shakespeare – 1464 – Stratford-on-Avon

Prosperous family

Lived through some plagues

Queen Elizabeth and King James I

38 plays, >158 sonnets, poems

There were 4 folios of his plays produced at about the same time, these vary – so several options for some play – depends on the folio used.

In our previous texts, we have often seen madness as a symptom or result of a character’s excess passion or excess reason. We see the madness, but where is the Passion in this play?

Kent – passion and reason – is the Machiavellian minister that will speak truth to the king – this (according to Machiavelli) is who the King should keep around him but he dismisses him – keeps the flatterers around him

Edgar – passion (not a lot of reason)

Lear – passion - his love for Cordelia changes to hate; later Greed – lots of greed in this play (Edmund as well, Goneril & Regan)

Edmund – passion and cunning, some reason (fairly cold-blooded or Machiavellian)

Cordelia – reason – one of only characters who doesn’t change, is “constant”

Goneril and Regan – passion, strategy, reason?

Laura felt that Lear was being punished because he went against his duty by dividing his kingdom amongst 3 daughters (instead of keeping it intact).  I don't agree completely as he said he was dividing it now to avoid strife after he dies (if he didn't put in place a succession plan before he died).

We saw both reason and passion in this play.  I'm not sure at the end whether one quality was transcendent.  Passion caused the most change (primarily death but that seems to usually be the case) but the only ones left standing at the end were the less passionate, more reasonable characters (Kent, Edgar, Albany).  I'm still curious to explore good passion vs bad passion and good reason vs bad reason.

Dante's The Divine Comedy: The Inferno

Dante The Divine Comedy Volume 1: Inferno Transl. Mark Musa.  Penguin Classics 1971



We've jumped 12 centuries to the 1300s this week.  Dante Alighieri was a Florentine (b. 1265, died in exile in Ravenna in 1321).  We are only reading the 1st volume of his Divine Comedy.  I'll have to put Volume 2 (Purgatory) and Volume 3 (Paradise) on to my ever-expanding reading list for when the course year is over.  After reading the Inferno, I feel as if I really need to know who makes it to the next levels!

This was an interesting book for me.  We went to church when I was growing up but the imagery and the elaborate structure of Hell described in this book is not anything I was ever exposed to before.  It was intriguing to think that Dante based much of his structure on Virgil's Aeneid.  As the Inferno shows, Virgil was not a Christian and so he is relegated to Hell and not able to aspire to Purgatory or Paradise.

I found the imagery in this poem to be stunning.  Much of it was horrifying and I can't imagine what it would have been like to live believing that these torments are actually what you would be suffering after death.  I was hooked right from the beginning of this book, with the opening line (Canto I, 1-3):

Midway along the journey of our life
I woke to find myself in a dark wood,
for I had wandered off from the straight path.

Even his description of Virgil has so much packed into 3 lines (Canto I, 60-63):

While I was rushing down to that low place,
my eyes made out a figure coming towards me
of one grown faint, perhaps from too much silence.

Some of the content was familiar to me, such as the famous (though I didn't realize or remember that it came from Dante) warning (Canto II, 9):

ABANDON EVERY HOPE, ALL YOU WHO ENTER

But much of the imagery was new to me: rivers of boiling blood, the geryon, the various torments.



The intricate structure of the Inferno was amazing and confusing.  Now I'll have to read Virgil and Aristotle to see where some or much of this may have come from.  The 9 circles of Hell (+ the outer vestibule for worthy un-baptised and non-Christians) and all of the fine gradations within: the three rings in the 7th circle, the 10 malabolgias (bad ditches) in the 8th circle, the Upper and Lower parts of Hell, the City of Dis, the various rivers and marshes, the physical structures (bridges, towers, castles, abysses, burning sands, gates and barriers), and the various monsters (Minos, Cerburus, Plutus, Furies, Erinyes, harpies, Gorgons, Minotaur, Centaurs, black devils, black cherubim, giants and then the giant Lucifer stuck upside down at the very bottom of Hell.



It was also quite interesting to see how Dante ordered the various types of sinners.  He makes a difference between the sins of the intellect and sins of action.  The Inferno was divided into Upper and Lower Hell with Upper Hell being for sins of Incontinence (essentially lack of control), which he calls the Sins of the Wolf; and Lower Hell being for sins that are deliberately done - the Sins of the Lion.  The division is at the City of Dis.  Heretics are separate, being based on intellectual pride.  The Heretics are within the Gates of Dis, and so placed between the sins of Incontinence and those of Malice.  In Outer Hell are the Lustful and the Gluttonous outermost, the hoarders and the spendthrifts, then the wrathful, the Heretics, the Violent (least sinful were those violent against their neighbours, then those against themselves - the Suicides - then most sinful were those violent against God and nature.  He includes Fraud as being very sinful, putting it lower (more serious) than Violence, down the abyss to the 10 stone ravines in the 8th circle of Hell containing the Sins of the Leopard (from least sinful to most sinful):

• panderers and seducers
• simonists (churchmen who took money for religious acts)
• sorcerers
• barrators (secular simonists, grafters, sellers of public office)
• hypocrites
• thieves
• deceivers
• sowers of discord
• falsifiers



Then the giants.



It was strange to have those who committed violence considered less sinful than the hypocrites and thieves or deceivers; those committing suicide more sinful than those who killed their neighbours.  He also puts the Profligates in with the Suicides in the Wood of the Suicides, because they violently waste what they have.

There was certainly much passion in the Inferno, with many of the sinners those who had let themselves be governed by passion.  Some obvious cases like Francesca da Rimini and Paolo (Canto V) in the 2nd circle of hell who gave in to their love for one another and betrayed family (her husband who was his brother).  Dante writes about "those who make reason slave to appetite" (V.39), probably as neat a summary of the usual conflict between reason and passion as anyone could write.

It also contains a line I've heard before that contains so much in what it doesn't say.  Francesca is speaking to Dante about how she and Paolo came to give in to their lust while reading about Lancelot (from a french text Lancelot du Lac),
"That day we read no further."  (V.138)

Regarding passion again, Dante writes, as the Pilgrim visits the 3rd circle of hell (Gluttony), in canto VI, "...for pride, envy, avarice are the three sparks
that kindle men's hearts and set them burning."

Virgil tells Dante (The Pilgrim):
"...Remember your philosophy:
the closer a thing comes to its perfection,
more keen will be its pleasure or its pain."  (VI, 106-108)

In the 6th circle (Heretics), in canto XI, Virgil instructs the Pilgrim on philosophy:
Philosophy...points out to one who reads with understanding
how Nature takes her course form the Divine.
[...]
From Art and Nature man was meant to take
his daily bread to live - if you recall
the book of Genesis near the beginning;
(XI, 97-108)

At the edge of the Wood of the Suicides they come to the Burning Sands and a river of boiling blood (the Phlegethon) and Virgil tells the Pilgrim about the Old Man of Crete whose tears are the source of all the rivers in Hell (Acheron, Styx, Phlegethon  which all eventually collect to form the pool Cocytus at the bottom of the Inferno.)

Several Cantos deal with their travels in the 8th circle of Hell, over the 10 malabolgias (bad ditches, a series of stone ravines traversed by stone bridges).  In the 5th bolgia (for Barrators) Dante writes (XXI.42) "You can change a 'no' to 'yes' for cash in Lucca".  Again such a succinct way to say so much - though when we were in Italy in 2007 Lucca was a favourite city to visit and I had no idea of its medieval reputation for barratry.  Dante considered barratry as secular simonry.  It later acquired other meanings including the vexatious stirring up of quarrels or bringing of lawsuits; or the offense of persistently instigating lawsuits, typically groundless ones.



In the 7th bolgia ((Thieves, whose torment is applied by serpents) Dante talks about fame, something we've discussed in class with other texts.  When you start to consider the meaning of life, what a good life is, what is the purpose of it all, there have been many discussions about how whatever one does in one's live it is unlikely to last for very long.  Any descendants you have won't remember much about you after a couple of generations.  If you leave a work of art (painting, writing, pottery etc) it may or may not last very long, if it does last for centuries or millenia, those coming after may not know much about you (such as Sappho or even Lucretius) so what does it mean.  Virgil tells Dante :

Come on, shake off the covers of this sloth,
the master said, for sitting softly cushioned,
or tucked into bed is no way to win fame;

and without it man must waste his life away,
leaving such traces of what he was on earth
as smoke in wind and foam upon the water.
(XXIV, 46-50)

In canto XXIV Dante enumerates many exotic reptiles from the sands of Libya (which interestingly in some background reading for my essay I read was considered by some to be the location of the Elysian Fields or the Isles of the Blest): chelydri (which leave smoking paths), jaculi (which dart in the air and pierce), phareans (which makes paths with their tails), cenchres (which leave a wavering course in the sands) and head-tailed amphisbenes (2 heads, one at each end).


Again it's always nice to see a reference to something we've read this term and have more understanding of the reference now.
In Canto X (X.14-15), Dante writes:
...Epicurus and his followers
who make the soul die when the body dies.


The sheer number of references to legendary and historical figures and events, to places, to myths was staggering and again, I want to read so much more about them.
All the mythological figures (too many to list), Dolcino and Margaret of Trent, Caesar hesitating to cross the Rubicon (which I always thought was a Napoleonic reference and probably was used for him referring back to Caesar), Bertran de Born a Provencal troubadour in the 1100s who caused the rebellion of Prince Henry against his father Henry II of England, Nimrod building the Tower of Babel, Mordred (wicked nephew of King Arthur), Ganelon who betrayed Roland to the Saracens (making me remember Arezzo and their annual jousts which we saw in June where men on horseback from various factions in the city tilt against the wooden figure of a Saracen holding a shield and 3 wooden balls), Tolomen (Ptolemy), Caiaphas who advised Pontius Pilate, Michael Scot (a scottish soothsayer at Frederick II's court at Palermo), the Donation of Constantine, Cato and Pompey and the Caesars, Camilla, Penthesilea (Queen of Amazons), Semiramis (Queen of Assyria), Dido (Queen of Carthage), Tristan (sent by his uncle King Mark of Cornwall, to obtain Isolt).

So many stories and historical events that I'm dying to read more about.  This book was so rich.  It makes a strong case for not letting your passions overthrow your reason.  Our other text this week is Rumi's poetry - incredibly different.  Lots of passion but in a more transcendent way.

Discussion: Antigone and Phedre

On one level a play about conflicting laws, on another level a play about passion and duty.  The play ANTIGONE was full of dualism, a word I've never really thought much about prior to this class.

Youth [Antigone]  vs. Age [Creon]
Female [Antigone] vs. Male [Creon]
Ruler [Creon] vs. subjects [Antigone]
Passion [Antigone] vs. reason [Creon]
Duty to Family and Gods [Antigone] vs. duty to the State/Thebes [Creon]

Some of the group felt that Antigone was a rebellious teenager and the main conflict was between youth and age.  I didn't get that perpective from my reading of the text.  For me the main conflict was between the duty to the gods to bury a family member vs the duty towards the state to stand strongly against threats to the city state (and NOT bury the body of a traitor - as a warning to others who might try to attack Thebes).

Stephen set possible resolutions out as Aristotelian moderation vs a Hegelian requirement for synthesis (a better and more progressive solution, working out a way to have family loyalties AND loyalty to state).  Creon eventually did bend and decide to provide a proper burial and to pardon Antigone but too late.

Antigone is very single-minded: her duty to her family (brothers, parents) comes above all.  She even says that she would not go against the state for her husband or children as they can be replaced.  It's hard to know how she feels about her sister as she doesn't seem too concerned about any duty towards Ismene.  Creon feels equally strongly (though I'm not sure if he is equally passionate) about Thebes.

182    

But it’s even worse when he plays favourites

Puts family or friends ahead of fatherland.

Someone mentioned that in Greek plays, women are the holders of passion and men are the holders of reason but they get thrown off course by passion.
Lorraine mentioned that the cover of the text is a photo of Simone Weil.  I hadn't read the note about the photo.  Simone Weil died for holding to her principles, just as Antigone did.

Other than Creon, no one in the play seems to question Antigone's decision and actions.  At the end, Antigone who has been so strong, suddenly bewails her fate:

…They are taking me against my will.

Look at me O you lords of Thebes:
I am the last remnant of kings.
Look at what these wretched men are doing to me,
For my pure reverence!

Did Antigone feel that the gods would save her?  She seems to suddenly be fighting against her [self-induced] fate – being murdered for her reverence to the unwritten laws of the gods.

During the course of the play, Creon is the only character who really changes.  Unyielding and unwilling to bend at the beginning, before the end of the play he decides that holding to his original positions will lead to injustice.  He changes his mind but too late to avert tragedy.

In Phedre as well, passion seems much stronge than reason though those whose actions are most governed by passion seem to end tragically.  The play by Racine is based on a play called Hippolytus by Euripides.  Stephen mentioned that Racine was raised and educated in a Jansenist monastery in Port Royal.  Cornelius Jansen argued that since the expulsion from the Garden of Eden, man has not possessed free will.  Our lives are guided or directed by "concupisentia" (ardent desire) and subject to grace.  Most people are driven by their desires with only a few being guided  by grace.  This was compared to the Calvinist doctrine of predestination.  Neither the Jansenists nor the Calvinists wanted to admit they felt desire because that would show they were not one of the "elect".

We had a discussion about guilt.  Phedre resists her attraction to Hipploytus because she feels it is wrong but her life is blighted by the guilt she feels over her feelings (though she feels she has been cursed by Venus and this is why she makes poor choices in love).  Hippolytus was a strong character, upright, chaste, strong and brave but he becomes weak and doomed when he falls in love (with Aricia).

Finally we discussed Aristotles' championing of "moderation" and how his works would have been known to the audiences of both plays.  Both Antigone and Phedre would have demonstrated what happens when you go to extremes and don’t practice moderation.

PHEDRE by Racine

PHÉDRE by Jean Racine, Tr by Ted Hughes

This book was quite interesting.  Before reading it, I had looked at some links to movie clips that Stephen had sent out.  There are a few clips and a movie trailer on youTube for  PHEDRE directed in 1962 by Jules Dassin and starring Anthony Perkins and Melina Mercouri.  The clips were very melodramatic.  Black and white with a voice-over describing Phedre in sharp, dramatic terms.  The scenes are emotional, Phedre pacing restlessly and throwing herself on the bed weeping, gazing longingly at Hippolytus, slapping her maid.  These may have coloured my perception of the play and of Phedre.

The language of the play seemed very different.  Phedre was written in the 17^th century by Racine, then translated in the last century by Ted Hughes, poet laureate in Great Britain – and this may be where the stylistic difference comes from.

It is the story of Phedre, married to Theseus.  When she married him, she met his son Hippolytus for the 1st time and fell in love with Hippolytus.  She tried to block out this love by living away from Hippolytus and treating him harshly so that he would take against her.  As the play opens, Theseus has been away for a long time and is reported dead.  This news causes Phedre to confess her love to Hippolytus, who in turn has fallen in love (secretly) with a young hostage, Aricia.  Just as all these conflicting events are unfolding, Theseus returns.  Phedre's loyal nurse convinces Phedre to allow Theseus to believe that Hipploytus has been importuning Phedre. Father and son have a fight and Theseus fatally curses his son.  Hippolytus speeds off in his chariot and dies bravely fighting a sea monster, the nurse commits suicide and Phedre confesses her illicit love to her husband and unable to face the wreckage she has caused, she takes poison (brought to Athens by her "sister, Medea") and dies.

While this play had all the elements of tragedy, it seemed a bit empty - I'm not really sure why.  When I look for reason and passion here, passion has the upper hand.  Theseus' absence and presumed death is the spark that sets off the chain of events.  He likely has been away indulging his passions.  Phedre is tormented by her passion for Hippolytus, which her reason tells her is wrong.  Hippolytus has a reputation for being chaste but he has a passion for Aricia.  He also has the impetuous passion of youth, that causes him to bolt when he is unjustly accused by his father, and which, along with his bravery, leads to his death.  His father Theseus loses his son when he allows his passion and anger at being betrayed cause him to fatally curse his son.  Though he quickly regrets this and tries to undo the curse, it's too late.  The nurse gives in to her passionate love (loyalty, jealousy?) for Phedre and plots to throw the blame on Hippolytus to save Phedre. When this causes more grief for Phedre, the nurse kills herself.  Phedre allows her passion for Hippolytus to ruin her life though when she tried reason to put distance between herself and Hippolytus, she was able to cope and survive, albeit very unhappily.  At the end when she sees what she has caused and what she has allowed to happen, she kills herself (helped by her very passionate sister, Medea).

Discussion of the Bhagavad Gita and of Genesis

One of the interesting facets of this course already is how each text builds on the other texts we have read or are reading.  This of course is one of the main reasons this master's program interested me but it’s also making me want to read so much more: either by the same authors or their contemporaries, or to read about what was going on in the world at the time – and I don’t have time to do this!

Today we spoke about Genesis (the 1^st book of the Old Testament) and about the Bhagavad Gita, an ancient Sanskrit text that was part of the Upanishads (records of conversations between teachers and students about the nature of reality).

We were told that there are some themes that will recur through many of the texts we’ll be reading.

• Dualism – (male/female, black/white) - is this limiting or simplifying?
• Anthropocentrism – humans and the natural world
•  Mutuality – opposite of dualism

There were some similarities in both texts.  Both evolved over many many years as oral texts before being written down (in about 1250 BCE for Genesis and in about 150 BCE for the Gita).  There was some discussion about how these texts would have changed many times during the oral period but then would have become fixed once they were written down.  During our discussion of Plato's Phaedrus, we had learned how Socrates did not want to write any of his ideas down because then they would become fixed, and for him the value was in discussing ideas and then rethinking them, having them continually evolve.

Both texts are smaller parts of larger works: Genesis is the 1^st book of the Old Testament which in turn is part of the Bible; the Gita is part of the Mahabharata epic which in turn was part of the Upanishads.  Both texts try to explain man’s role in the natural world and to provide some hope of a better world, achievable if certain rules or paths are followed, though the Gita seems to be a more coherent work than Genesis.

In discussing both texts, the class spoke about how the Gita came out of a pantheistic viewpoint whereas in Genesis there was only one God, something very unusual in religions at the time.  The Gita conceived of the divine being the universe.  The Gita was very repetitive, with much of the same information or teachings being mentioned over and over again.  Part of this may be because it was originally an oral text and a teaching tool, and the repetition would help with learning and memorization.  Some of it may also be connected to the fact, as Surinder mentioned, that Eastern thought is not linear but is more circular.  Things are repeated but each time you should develop a deeper understanding – like peeling away the outer layers to get to the deeper core.

In contrast Genesis doesn’t really seem to have a master structure or plan.  It seems to be a recounting of some historical events, and occasionally events are used to provide guidance on how to act (or how not to act) but it is not very cohesive and does not seem to be formally organized the way the Gita is.

In the Gita, there is no mention of society, it’s all about the individual whereas Genesis is about lineage, and the cities and tribes founded by various descendants of Adam.  There is less focus on the individual and more focus on the family unit and by extension, eventually, society.  The main message in Genesis is to worship the one God, be loyal to the one God - as well as a message of healthy respect and fear of God.

We had a brief discussion about the theory of the bicameral mind: that the mind in ancient peoples (over 3000 years ago) was divided between the “speaking” mind and the “listening and obeying” mind.  Some propose that this would explain the importance and the quotidian nature of communications between mankind and gods – and the vividness of the accounts of these interactions.

We discussed whether Genesis is an historical account, a sacred text or a fable.  My perception is that it is an attempt at a historical text (though much altered by the centuries of oral transmission) as well as a text to explain the world and guide readers.  The book begins with much anger and punishment as mankind is banished from paradise, destroyed in a great flood, condemned to a life of hard labour and pain, and condemned to confusion and misunderstanding between various peoples.  I hadn’t picked up on the change from this to a religion more about love and forgiveness which occurs by the end of Genesis, being so distracted by the sacrifices, slaughter, famines & plagues, incest, rape, betrayal etc.  But in fact, this 1^st book ends with Joseph forgiving his brothers and alleviating their suffering during the famine.  Genesis suggests that suffering is mankind’s lot in life but if we worship God and follow his rules, he will take care of us.  

There was much passion in Genesis, mostly negative passions: anger, jealousy, fear.  The Gita was more about ridding oneself of passion.  It was more difficult to find examples of reason in Genesis.  It seemed to be more a case of cause and effect: God dictating and mankind either obeying and surviving, or disobeying and being punished.  Towards the end of the book though, reason does seem to emerge. God seems to take a step backwards from direct involvement in mankind’s decisions and actions and we see Joseph interpreting the Pharoah’s dream and then acting in a thoughtful and reasonable manner, a compassionate and forgiving manner, and explaining his actions and the reasons for them.

The Gita contained much ‘reason’ with the entire text revolving on questions about how to live life and how to act, and then a well-reasoned, structured answer about the various ways one can live one’s life with the ultimate purpose being to rid oneself of desire, of clinging to the consequences of actions, and thus eventually achieving Nirvana.  

In both texts there is emphasis on following a circumscribed path to a better existence, with no support being given to straying from the common path or for aspiring anything different.

Imagination è Desire è Suffering

I found both texts very interesting and will continue to think about what they had to impart but I'm still looking for different answers, as a life without imagination is not one I wish to contemplate.

GENESIS

GENESIS
(online text)

It was interesting to read Genesis after reading the Bhagavad Gita.  Both texts begin with a listing of family members: in the Gita both Dhritarashtra and Arjuna, his nephew, list family members as the cousins prepare for battle, a battle between the sons of Dhritarashtra and the sons of his brother Pandu.  Genesis contains a recounting of mankind’s lineage beginning with Adam (and Eve) and extending down to Joseph, younger son of Israel (Jacob) and Rachel.

Lineage and family seem to be important in both cultures and times (India before 150 BCE and the Middle East prior to 1250 BCE.  In the Gita the family relationships are in the background but in the Old Testament the lineages described comprise the main framework of the text.  It describes mankind's original descendants and in particular their interactions and covenants with the Lord.  Genesis ends with mention that from the 12 sons of Jacob (Israel) came the 12 tribes of Israel.

Genesis seems to be an attempt to explain how mankind came to be, and why life in the world is so hard: 

• the fall from grace when Eve and Adam ate the apple and were banished from the Garden of Eden, when Adam was condemned to a hard life of labour and Eve was condemned to the pains of childbirth;
• the great flood which was punishment for the wickedness in the world, wiping out all living things except Noah, his family and the pairs of animals he had selected to save in the Ark;
• the Tower of Babel where man’s one language was forever confused by God because mankind had dared to aspire to reach for heaven;
• the covenant with Abraham and his descendants, a covenant renewed with Isaac, one of Abraham’s descendants.

Both texts (the Gita and Genesis) deal to some extent with living a good life (as opposed to living "the good life"), though the Gita’s message or advice is more structured and consistent.  Genesis seems to be more descriptive of ‘historical’ events that led to the known world (or as it was known prior to 1250 BCE) rather than a  carefully thought out set of advice on how to live one’s life.  Aside from fear and devotion to one god, there is no consistent message in Genesis on how to reach Paradise.

I was struck while I was reading Genesis on how much of it still is present in our everyday conversation or literature.  The text itself has a very archaic style and structure but the words and concepts are very much present and in use today:

In the beginning, God created…

And God saw that it was good

Let us make man in our image

Be fruitful and multiply

Garden of Eden

And on the 7^th day…he rested

You are dust and to dust you shall return

Cain & Abel

Am I my brother’s keeper?

A mark on Cain

Dwelt in the land of Nod, east of Eden [where Cain dwelt]

40 days and 40 nights

Two and two, male and female, went into the ark

The dove came back to the ark after the flood with an olive leaf in her beak (so Noah knew the flood waters had subsided from the earth)

For God made man in his own image

Sold his birthright for a mess of pottage

Tower of Babel

Sodom & Gomorrah

Sold into Egypt

The great Flood

The 12 tribes of Israel

There were many sections that I did not know or remember from growing up in the Catholic school system in Quebec, such as God saying that he would set his bow in the clouds as a sign of his everlasting covenant with the earth that he will never again wipe out all living things with a great flood.   I can see how the terms “old testament” came to mean a severe God and harsh punishment.  There were definite, harsh consequences for actions or sins.  I have more remembrance of New Testament readings from going to mass as a child.  These were very different with their themes of “Do unto others as you would have others do unto you” and of forgiveness and redemption: the forgiving of the prodigal son, of Judas, of Mary Magdalene, the concept of repentance.

As a guide on how to live a good life, the Bhagavad Gita seems more useful and relevant than Genesis.