Hi,

I was just glancing thru the reading assignments for this year for rhetoric. The description of the book Phaedra stated that a woman was madly in love with her stepson and then her husband returns. Could you give me insight into this book, what makes it one of the choices and how does it tie in with Year 2 etc.
I also just realized we used 2 different copies of the Norton Anthology. Further inspection reveals that Norton Western Lit is used for only a few assigments - Arabian Nights Chanson de Roland, Dante's Inferno,some Chaucer, Don Quixote. Will we be using the Norton English for Year 3?

Thanks for any help or insight you can give.
In Him,
Jennifer

Hi Jen. :-) Let me see if I can answer your questions...

1) Phaedra. In the 1600's, French theater enjoyed a golden age which we felt ought to be included in our survey of Western literature. Two of the top playwrights in that era were Moliere (famous for his comedies) and Racine (famous for his tragedies). For our Y2 studies we have chosen to do one Moliere comedy (Tartuffe) and one Racine tragedy (Phaedra). That's how we would say it ties into our Y2 studies.

As for the play itself, yes, it is about a woman who falls madly in love with her stepson (emphasis on the word "mad"). Phaedra is married to Theseus, who is on a journey. She struggles with her feelings for her stepson, Hippolytus. Then she hears that Theseus died on his travels. Phaedra confesses her love to Hyppolytus, who refuses her (he is also in love with someone else). When Theseus unexpectedly returns (alive) in the middle of the play, Phaedra concocts a false report about Hippolytus to save herself (a la Potiphar's wife). After various other plot complications (Hippolytus dies in a battle, etc.), Phaedra eventually despairs and poisons herself.

We find tragedy in general to be worthwhile because studying it gives us an opportunity to talk about the consequences of sin and the difficult side of the human condition. This play is (among other things) about human sin and the way it leads to madness, despair, and death. It is a profound warning against uncontrolled passion, which we find valuable. Our class plan for that week will seek to show you and your student(s) a biblical perspective along these lines.

The names and basic plot of Phaedra are Greek, taken from classical Greek literature because the French playwrights of that era liked to copy their Greek predecessors. This gives the play an additional value because we can compare it with Greek tragedies that your student may have studied (or may study in the future) in Year 1. It is extremely interesting to see the similarities and differences between a tragedy from a Christian culture (such as 17th century France) and one from an ancient pagan culture (Greece).

Besides all this, of course, Phaedra is--artistically speaking--one of the greatest plays ever written in any language. Its literary value is enormous.

Those were some of our reasons for choosing Phaedra. You are, of course, more than free to leave it out of this year's studies. We do study two other tragedies in Y2 (Doctor Faustus and King Lear), so your student won't be completely missing out on the genre of tragedy if you choose to let this one go for content reasons. I hope I've been able to clarify our reasons for including it, but whether or not you use it is completely up to you. :-)

2) Two Norton Anthologies. There are a few other small selections from the Western Lit Anthology that we will probably use (poems mostly) in Unit 3 of Y2, but you have named the major assignments from that book. The English Lit anthology will not be used in Y3 (because it doesn't go into the 19th century), but it contains more than half of our Y2 assignments (about 20 weeks worth).

I know it's rough on the budget to have two Nortons used in the same year, but it really was the most economical way we could find to give you 1300 years of Western literature in Y2. :-/ The good news is that the Western Lit anthology is one of our primary books for Y1, so if you get it this year you won't have to purchase it when you come back around. Meanwhile the English Literature Anthology is our primary book for Y2 and is, I would say, pretty much indispensable if you plan to do even half of the Y2 rhetoric level literature studies.

Thank you so much for all the information and your quick response. I will probably use Phaedra now:-)

In Him,
jennifer

How much are you asking for the books you have left

sharon