1. Is Tartuffe in fact anti-religious, or does it only attack corruptions of religion?
I didn’t find Tartuffe to be anti-religious. From the story and what I read through the play it seemed to me he was more against the corruption established by religion. Tartuffe used comedy and sarcasm to take stabs at the faults and flaws of religious institutions such as the churches.
2. In what respects is Hugo’s Satan a heroic figure? How does Hugo’s account differ from Dante’s?
I found Hugo’s Satan to be a heroic figure because of a previous lesson “A Hero’s Journey,” based on the traits that make a hero. Hugo’s Satan is like the ruler of the underdogs, he started out as a “nobody” angel and worked his way down I should say, to become the ruler of hell. The difference between the two I found was how hell was described. In Dantes journey it was described as different levels. In this version it was just described as this dark abyss.
3. Discuss and compare the images in any two poems assigned for this week.
The two poems I chose were “A young man loves a maiden” and “Ah death is like the long cool night.” The language used in the two stories is incredibly dark and depressing. The first talks about a young man who cheats basically and leaves this maiden. The maiden gets anary and out of this anger marries the first man she meets just to “get back” at the young man. In the second poem it was using a day as a life cycle. When it was day there was life and as it reached night time the life was over there was no more “fun” to be had during the sultry life.
I like how you showed Hugo’s Satan to be more like the heroes we’ve been reading about – he goes from a “nobody” to “the ruler of hell”. I mean, he’s not really a hero, but it’s definitely not Dante’s Satan!
I too found the Tartuffes story to lack anti-religious believes. Mainly because of the comedy put towards the corruption of the religious systems and the hypocritical leaders within the system. I found that this piece was rather accurate in the aspect of our political systems we have today where they are full of hypocritical leaders who try to lead our country but are in some ways leading it into the ground.