ipl-logo

Conversations On The Plurality Of Worlds By Fontenelle

462 Words2 Pages

Throughout the Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, many themes and ideas pluck at the reader’s interest. With the use of many analogies and metaphors, Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle is able to easily seduce the audience in to a philosophic lull, which is only amplified through the use of a female student figure, the Marquise. It is speculated that in a time where such writings were much disesteemed, the use of the Marquise as the student took on many meanings. Such that Fontenelle was able to introduce a very flirtatious environment which, gave him the ability to state that this was merely a work of fiction. Another reason could very well be that, given the book was in French, that any French audience could read and understand the literature …show more content…

This explanation begins on page twelve and directly follows the intimate environment which was set just before and pulls the audience into a more somber and enlightening mood. This begins with his first statement of the second passage, about the nature of philosophy being about two things and two things only. Fontenelle states; All philosophy is based on two things, and two things only: curiosity and poor eyesight. He then goes on to explain how philosophy can only be based on the two things. It could be said that his comment about poor eyesight could really be a jab intended for the Aristotelian community, as this book comes after Galileo Galilei’s observations of the moon, with a telescope that had been greatly altered to see great distances like that of the moon. Only when these observations came about did one truly begin to question the preciseness of the Aristotelian world view and the church. Through even this first sentence we can see how Fontenelle uses literary devices to hide his true meaning and put his readers in their own philosophical daze surrounding his book and the nature of the

Show More
Related

  • Pico's Philosophical Analysis

    1898 Words  | 8 Pages

    With this, Pico holds firm in his theory that the philosophies of many of the earlier medieval scholastics are the same. He elaborates, stating that out of context and through the vehicle of philosophy, there are no differences between Hebrews and Christians. Using the Book of Moses as example, Pico asserts that in both Christian and Hebrew doctrines we find Platonic ideals and philosophies, therefore we may be able to discover similarities in Christian faith and other previous philosophies. From our analysis of this argument, we once more may understand as to why the young humanist would place such importance in philosophy. As stated, philosophy quells the passions, acts as precursor to theology, aids man in understanding the self while elevating him to the divine.

    Read More

  • Elements In John Donne's 'Elegy 16'

    1473 Words  | 6 Pages

    Donne contravenes what had chiefly grown out of literary tradition and tacit custom. But perhaps intrinsic value of such departure from the norm reaches its height in the mechanics of the motif of the woman in page-disguise as carried out in “Elegy 16”. One of the central contrasts at work in his verse is his profound preoccupation with truth from both personal and contemporary angles. The idea of disguise is being a traditional source of deceit, Donne’s does not fail to bring together his reaction against conventional uses, his disposition towards truthfulness, and the attainment of power. In keeping with this, the organization of the main analytical points will therefore comprise a brief overview of the general principles underlying the device of

    Read More

  • The Great Gatsby 'By Klages' Interlude: Self To Subject

    1156 Words  | 5 Pages

    It is a tragic modernist piece of literature that makes it hard for a self like Myrtle to take a subject’s seating position. Characters such as Daisy will always prove in the end that the seat belongs to

    Read More

  • Summary Of Charles Baudelaire's Une Charogne

    1423 Words  | 6 Pages

    To borrow the words of Tucker, “… Baudelaire 's intention was not to rhapsodize his mistresses as his forebears had done” (888). “Une Charogne” is an intricate anti-Petrarchan piece; Baudelaire not only mocks Petrarchan ideals of beauty, but he attacks the blason by making it his own and using the uncanny to highlight its flaws in dehumanizing women and reducing them to body parts and flesh. Baudelaire reminds readers that the reason his poem is unsettling is not only because it is about an aestheticized carcass, but because the conventions he borrows to describe the carcass, the very same ones used to describe women, are questionable and troubling. He uses Petrarchan conventions to implode its own system. By taking the blason to the extreme, he highlights its problems and showcases its true

    Read More

  • Rhetorical Analysis Of I Am Not Pocahontas

    887 Words  | 4 Pages

    French?” (Washuta 1). This question made Washuta very relatable, opening up her audience to her argument and the importance of self-discovery. All of these literary techniques elevated Washuta ’s essay, improving the theme and tone, and making her argument

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Conversation On The Nature Of Things By Fontenelle

    1693 Words  | 7 Pages

    The Imagination before Science (Final) In Conversations on the Plurality of Worlds, Fontenelle creates a universe that is both interesting and factual, while still holding the beauty and magic that a lot of people during that time period needed to be content with such theories about the universe. In Lucretius work On the Nature of Things, he constructed a world that was logically sound using real world observations and making inferences to how the universe worked. While Fontenelle uses a majority of Lucretius theories and ideas of logic and observations, Fontenelle furthers Lucretius’s work by allowing the absurd, at the time, to be possible and also beautiful. Lucretius begins On the Nature of Things, by telling the audience exactly what

    Read More

  • Women In Montaigne's Essay On Education

    1731 Words  | 7 Pages

    What is most shocking is that Montaigne’s disdain for women extends even to his own daughter. In speaking about his education system, Montaigne notes that “…even if my hopes for her should be disappointed, there will be enough other causes for blaming my educational system... I should have followed it still more scrupulously with sons, who are less subservient and are freer by nature.” (Montaigne, p. 142). Montaigne had only one surviving child, a daughter, but instead of educating her well and treating her with the same respect that he would give sons, he blames her failure on her subservient and unfree nature.

    Read More

  • Stereotypes Of The Canterbury Tales

    1330 Words  | 6 Pages

    In General Prologue he represents student who studied philosophy at Oxford University. This sincere student loves learning and for him education is a crucial aspect of his life. This clerk is very poor and he hardly feeds himself because all money that he borrows from his friends, he spends on books and learning. This student tends to get a lot of knowledge rather than chasing wealth. He prefers books of Aristotle’s philosophy to rich clothes and fiddle.

    Read More

  • Envy In 'The Rambler' By Samuel Johnson

    849 Words  | 4 Pages

    Paragraph after paragraph, sentence after sentence, he wrote in parallel grammatical structures that both reiterated and explained his point. In a sentence towards the start of the passage he used multiple parallel structures, first, “The ruin of another will produce no profit to him who has not discernment to mark his advantage, courage to seize, and activity to prove it;” then, “but the cold malignity of envy may be exerted in a torpid and quiescent state, amidst the gloom of stupidity, in the coverts of cowardice.” The sentence included parallelism first in the form of a repeated noun with verb, then proposition with noun, and displayed the variety of ways in which envy can come to reality. In describing the events that lead to a person realizing how truly evil envy is, he used anaphora, and stated, “When he […] find himself pursued […] when he hears the misfortunes of …” This repetitive description of the tragedies caused by envy emphasizes the number of forms that it can take, and leads the reader towards a view that is in alignment with the writers’ intended

    Read More

  • Nabokov And Lolita Language Analysis

    2288 Words  | 10 Pages

    The language is a close part of the identity of Humbert Humbert in which sense we see the link between language and identity. The French language as stated by Antonina Gove is often the language of the ‘intelligentsia’ and is ‘an impersonalizing language’ (Gove 84) in Nabokov’s novels and relevantly Humbert is constantly criticising the American consumer culture and the lower class that Dolores and Charlotte Haze represent. It is also notable that Clare Quilty speaks French, however poorly, suggestive of Humbert’s superiority in this respect. The nonsense that Clare Quilty produces in French shows evidence of Nabokov’s involvement, as it in fact is quite clever and very like the nonsense verse you find in Alice in Wonderland. In one instance Nabokov is creating nonsense out of a verse by Kipling (Nabokov 448), which again suggests this international personality who can manoeuvre though different languages, playing with words, nevertheless, with the English tradition in mind.

    Read More

  • The Confessions Of Jean-Jacques Rousseau Analysis

    1355 Words  | 6 Pages

    The autobiography, The Confessions of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, provides a vivid insight into the complicated, yet exhilarating, life of Rousseau. The beginning of his life was filled with misfortunes, such as the death of his mother which was quickly followed by a distraught and self-sabotaging attitude which his father adopted. This led to his father’s involvement in illegal behaviors and the subsequent abandonment of Rousseau. His mother’s death was the catalyst for his journey to meet multiple women who would later affect his life greatly. The Influence of Miss Lamberciers, Madame Basile, Countess de Vercellis, and Madam de Warens on the impressionable adolescent mind of Rousseau led to the positive cultivation of self-discovery and the creation of new experiences, as well as the development of inappropriate sexual desires and attachments towards women.

    Read More

  • An Analysis Of Shakespeare's The Comedy Of Errors

    1186 Words  | 5 Pages

    Critic Roland Barthes has said “Literature is the question minus the answer”, this theory is evident within Shakespeare ’s play The Comedy of Errors. In The Comedy of Errors, Shakespeare tells the story of a family that is divided and after many years one on the twins begins a journey to search for his long lost brother. Shakespeare proposes a question near the beginning of the novel then, follows up with implicit answers throughout the text. From the interpretation of this question and the implicit answers, the meaning of the literature as a whole is revealed.

    Read More

  • Isolation And Loneliness In Miss Brill By Katherine Mansfield

    256 Words  | 2 Pages

    In the story Miss Brill, author Katherine Mansfield advances her theme “ isolation and loneliness can cause one to imagine distorted realities that they wish were true” through the use of action, third-person omniscient point-of-view, characterization, diction, and dialogue. Examples and proof of her techniques appear throughout the story in the textbook, The Bedford Introduction to Literature, although modern readers may find that few people in this world seem to be out of touch with reality and live their lives through their dreams like the character Miss Brill. While not enough evidence exists to suggest that Mansfield believes the theme she is “auctioning,” modern readers can take away, through the central character 's internal monologue,

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The False Gems By Guy De Maupassant

    845 Words  | 4 Pages

    Final Assignment of English Literature Reading BY YANG ZONGYOU, D01 “The False Gems”by the great writer Guy de Maupassant is a miracle that draws a delicate and precise image of France in the late 19th century. Written in an objective view, woven with sarcasm, this little piece of art reflects the truth of the society and humanity in its era without any obvious rhetoric, like a real old gem that shimmers constantly and gorgeously, leaving an ample space of ambiguity for readers to ponder over and over again. “The False Gems” seems to be objective, however, on the contrary, the plot of the story itself is a barrel of irony, in which the author 's opinion and emotion lies deeply — the genuine ones are found fake, while the false ones turn out to be real; knowing everything is not always good. Mrs. Lantin 's before-and-after contrary is ironic. At the very beginning of the story, everyone is convinced that Mrs. Lantin was a virtuous woman.

    Read More

  • The False Gems Summary

    1325 Words  | 6 Pages

    The False Gems was a short story published in 1883, which was a work typical of Guy de Maupassant’s style. The deep and profound social reality reflected in the story is always a highlight of Maupassant’s short novel, and The False Gems is no exception. It was only a 4500-word story, completely show French society’s reality in the 19th century through objective description and meaningful irony, though. As the skillful use of irony in the text really contributes a lot to the expression of the theme, this paper tries to appreciate the art of using irony in the text. The author wishes to give some interpretations of the ironic symbols in the story on a personal note.

    Read More

More about Conversations On The Plurality Of Worlds By Fontenelle

Open Document