Diffuculty reading Brit Lit concerning French Revolution

[Shannanigan]

Errrrrgggg...

Don't get me wrong, I love reading and I love analyzing what I've read, and I'm excited about this class...but Friday I was assigned to read 43 pages of writing about the French Revolution by Helen Maria Williams, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, and excerpts from the Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner...and I had to have the reading done by 4:00 today and be ready to discuss it.

This is after having equally heavy readings (well, heavy in my personal opinion) assigned Monday night to be read by Wednesday and Wednesday night to be read by Friday...

we seem to just be flying through these very deep readings at top speed, and I feel like I'm not really absorbing anything. Our "discussions" are more like lectures where the instructor starts talking about a peice, and then goes off on a tangent for 15 minutes, then comes back, and does it again...

his argument for going too fast, of course, is that the university requires all of this stuff to be covered in one semester.

Any suggestions as to how I can more fully enjoy these essays and other works? I would love to just relax and re-read these passages until they make sense to me, but these insane deadlines push me to just keep going even when I don't get it. :bawling:

~quickly retreats back to the book~

[Kurtz]

I know all schools are different, but where I attend the oppossite seems to be the case. My teachers seem to profess the idea that course material is subjective to each teacher, and therfore is not held to a rigorous schedule. If anything we end up spending too much time on one person and abandoning others entirely.

As far as advice, I would just relax and get out of what you can. Reading the text is the bst way to understand it, but when time is short and you have to prioritize your reading, some things are more important than others. Hit the peaks and ignore the valleys. Good luck!

[PeterL]

Errrrrgggg...

Don't get me wrong, I love reading and I love analyzing what I've read, and I'm excited about this class...but Friday I was assigned to read 43 pages of writing about the French Revolution by Helen Maria Williams, Edmund Burke, Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Paine, and excerpts from the Anti-Jacobin, or Weekly Examiner...and I had to have the reading done by 4:00 today and be ready to discuss it.

This is after having equally heavy readings (well, heavy in my personal opinion) assigned Monday night to be read by Wednesday and Wednesday night to be read by Friday...

we seem to just be flying through these very deep readings at top speed, and I feel like I'm not really absorbing anything. Our "discussions" are more like lectures where the instructor starts talking about a peice, and then goes off on a tangent for 15 minutes, then comes back, and does it again...

his argument for going too fast, of course, is that the university requires all of this stuff to be covered in one semester.

Any suggestions as to how I can more fully enjoy these essays and other works? I would love to just relax and re-read these passages until they make sense to me, but these insane deadlines push me to just keep going even when I don't get it. :bawling:



I would suggest that you look at the sentence structure. In the last two hundred years typical sentence structure has changed. Today sentences tend to be shorter, usually simple or compound sentences. In the past, there was a tendency toward using compound-complex sentences. The way that people write reflects the way that they think: people with simple thoughts use simple sentences; people who are expressing compound thoughts tend to use compound sentences; while people who think complexly tend to use complex sentences, and similarly for compound-complex sentences. Since literacy has spread to the masses in the last couple hundred years, the average intelligence, thus complexity of thought, of writers has fallen toward the average. That's more than you want to know, but I wanted to provide an example in addition to stating the fact.

Be glad that the instructor lectures and goes off on tangents; it saves you from having to discuss as much.

[Whifflingpin]

I can't speak about the others, but Burke and Paine benefit from being read aloud - read as if you are declaiming to an audience - better still, declaim to an audience.

.

[Charles Darnay]

I can't speak about the others, but Burke and Paine benefit from being read aloud - read as if you are declaiming to an audience - better still, declaim to an audience.

.


I completly agree with you on that one. Last year, I had to read some selections from Burke, Paine and wollstonecraft......

Burke was a bit difficult becasue of his wordiness. I suggest (if you have the time), taking notes; disect what he says until you reach what he means to say. You'll find that in one long paragraph he is often talking about one (could be said in one sentence) idea.

Reading Paine aloud is indeed a good way to understand and appreciate his points. Best of luck

[Shannanigan]

lol...I did notice Burke's wordiness, ugh, it was ridiculous.

So we "reviewed" the readings today in class (he didn't even bother with some of them, UGH!) and it was really just him picking out quotes that he found important, so I just kind of marked them off in my book so I can look over them for tests later...

I dunno, I really want to enjoy and appreciate the works we're going to be covering, but it's not even like I can just speed through for class and then re-read on my own time, because African-American lit is requiring just as much reading (just covering it better in class).

Oh well. Such is what "education" has been whittled down to...

[mono]

Ugh, I agree that some of the subjects your instructor assigned can get rather dull and 'dry,' but very philosophical, nonetheless; and I have had very similar instructors who lecture more than talk, and wander on subjects rather than teaching.
Everyone previously had some excellent suggestions worth considering, also depending on how you learn best: visual, auditory, tactile, or kinesthetic. Analyzing the sentence structure and reading aloud definitely have their benefits, but I may also recommend simply discussing the work with other classmates; obviously you all have the same assignments, and the sharing of different perspectives on reading certain passages can definitely help in comprehension. That your instructor, as you describe, does not quite efficiently teach things for students' understandings, you could, perhaps, approach him/her, too, on really confusing passages of the readings, yet I, personally, have almost always gained benefit by meeting with other classmates.
Good luck! :)

[Whifflingpin]

It's a long time since I read Burke's "Reflections" and Paine's "Rights of Man."

As I remember, Burke's main arguments were that government should evolve steadily. Existing laws should be maintained until lawfully changed. Without this kind of development, there could be no security for anyone other than the strongest, and so-called "freedom" was merely the freedom of the jungle to kill or be killed.

There were three passages that stick in my mind.
One was the description of the mob attacking Versailles - this was a passage of great emotional rhetoric, designed to evoke sympathy for the French royal family, contrasting their goodness and helplessness against the ravening horde - believe that or not, as you will.
One was a passage where Burke says that he won't congratulate the French on winning their liberty. Liberty won't feed them, or develop their trades or commerce, or do anything useful, unless it is backed by the rule of law.
The third passage includes the phrase "power of some kind will remain." Burke prophesies that the revolution, in sweeping away an established power, limited by law and custom, will result in the rise of an absolute leader, exercising power without restraint. Given the examples around the world in the last two centuries, this idea might almost be a platitude today, but it was an amazing insight into the nature of revolutionary change.

..

Paine, if I remember, had three main arguments.

One - the absurdity of using heredity as the basis for selecting a leader.
Two - that no government was valid unless it was based on a constitution that was written down and agreed by plebiscite.
Three - that any economy that was not based on the gold standard was doomed to fail.

Did not Mary Wollstonecraft write a tract on the rights of woman, to complement the French constitution given in "The Rights of Man?" There were certainly ideas around concerning women's suffrage and the place of women in society that the male dominated revolutionaries did not allow to come to fruition.


From a literary point of view, the wordiness that has been mentioned is "a feature, not a bug." It was an integral part of the style of the times. Nowadays we rush to say everything as quickly as possible because time is money and no-one has an attention span greater than that of a goldfish. Prior to the advent of the motor car, time was measured in seasons, rather than minutes. People would listen to hour long sermons on obscure texts twice every Sunday. If something was worth saying, it was worth listening to, at length, with every example from modern history, ancient history and the scriptures brought in to give weight to the argument.

Turn off the television and roll their oratory round in your mind and enjoy it.

[Shannanigan]

I really appreciate everyone's suggestions, and have taken some to heart, thanks :)

Like I mentioned, we sort of zipped throug the French Revolution essays in one class and today we discussed William Wordsworth...now THIS I had a much easier time reading. Most enjoyable was the stuff I read aloud (thank you for that suggestion!) and I felt so good getting to class early and exchanging opinions with classmates...though the time didn't allow us to get too much into detail, it was good to talk about it just to get it put into words.

Everyone in the class and I are experiencing trouble talking to the professor about the issues we are having not understanding some things. Like I said, he claims to "have his hands tied" with all that he is required to teach us, and because the class is video conference and he is on another island, we can't meet him during office hours to get help. We try to ask in class, but he just says "well, let me get done what we have to get done, and if we have time we can look at that..." but we never have time. We never even seem to get the stuff he "has" to get done completed...probably because of his digressions, lol.

I've ranted a bit, but thank you Wifflingpin for the breakdown, that really does sum a lot of it up. And thanks everyone again for the suggestions, I think the class might be bearable if we don't have too much of those essays crammed into one reading to be covered in one hour-long class again!

[PeterL]

Everyone in the class and I are experiencing trouble talking to the professor about the issues we are having not understanding some things. Like I said, he claims to "have his hands tied" with all that he is required to teach us, and because the class is video conference and he is on another island, we can't meet him during office hours to get help. We try to ask in class, but he just says "well, let me get done what we have to get done, and if we have time we can look at that..." but we never have time. We never even seem to get the stuff he "has" to get done completed...probably because of his digressions, lol.


The problem with survey courses is exactly what you have encountered. They attempt to cover too much, so everything is lightly brushed over. Survey courses expose students, but they don't allow students to learn much.

[Mind_Ape]

If you have time on your own some day, Thomas Carlyle's French Revolution is well worth reading. It's a history and a poem, and reflects French history from an English perspective with German philosophical learning. Also, it's exciting as hell.

Check this out and tell me ye aren't stirred:

"All morning, since nine, there has been a cry everywhere: To the Bastille! ... Thuriot mounts with him to the battlements: heaps of paving-stones, old iron and missiles lie piled; cannon all duly levelled; in every embrasure a cannon, — only drawn back a little! But outwards behold, O Thuriot, how the multitude flows on, welling through every street; tocsin furiously pealing, all drums beating the génerale: the Suburb Saint-Antoine rolling hitherward wholly, as one man! Such vision (spectral yet real) thou, O Thuriot, as from thy Mount of Vision, beholdest in this moment: prophetic of what other Phantasmagories, and loud-gibbering Spectral Realities, which, thou yet beholdest not, but shalt!"