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Tag Archives: Pensées

Phèdre’s “Hidden God”

08 Monday Oct 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in French Literature, Literature, The Human Condition

≈ 12 Comments

Tags

Blaise Pascal, Jansenism, Lucien Goldmann, Pascal, Pensées, Phaedra, Phèdre, Port-Royal-des-Champs

 

Phèdre and Thésée, by Léon Bakst, 1923

I believe I should write more on Jean Racine‘s Phèdre (1677). 

In 1955, Jewish Romanian scholar Lucien Goldmann (1913, Romania – 1970, Paris) published a study of Pascal and Racine he entitled Le Dieu caché ; étude sur la vision tragique dans les Pensées de Pascal et dans le théâtre de Racine, Paris : Gallimard, 1955. The Hidden God; a study of the Tragic Vision in Pascal’s Pensées and in Racine’s Theater. The  notion of  a “hidden god” is an insightful description of Pascal’s Pensées and also constitutes a bold depiction of Racine’s Phèdre inability to help herself.

Phaedra is at the mercy of an unkind destiny and her depravity stems largely from her mother’s, Pasiphaë. Pasiphaë sinned by engaging in sexual intercourse with a bull.  Consequently, Phaedra and Ariadne are half sisters to the Minotaur, a zoomorphic monster, a monster combining human and animal characteristics. It is as though they were stained.

Yet Phèdre is the granddaughter of Helios, the Sun, the daughter of Minos, king of Crete and son of Zeus. So, despite her mother’s bestiality, one hopes that Phaedra will be redeemed by other and nobler ancestors, but her sense of guilt turns them into judges.

Blaise Pascal

Jansenism & Port-royal-des-champs

Phèdre’s inability to fight destiny is linked with Jansenism. The theological doctrine of Jansenism is often associated with philosopher, theologian and scientist Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 – 19 August 1662), the author of the masterful Lettres provinciales, eighteen letters written under the pseudonym Louis de Montalte. Pascal was motivated to write Les Provinciales (1656-1657) when fellow Jansenist and friend Antoine Arnauld, from Port-Royal-des-Champs, was condemned by the Sorbonne‘s Faculty of Theology for views that were considered heretical.

But, although Pascal, a Jansenist, wrote Les Provinciales, as explained below, we are looking at a seventeenth-century revival, by Cornelius Jansen, of a doctrine rooted in the theology of Augustine of Hippo and which had a location, the convent of Port-Royal-des-Champs, near Paris.

Jean Racine, by François de Troy

Racine at Port-Royal-des-Champs

Racine, the author of Phèdre, was educated at Port-Royal-des-Champs and had therefore been exposed to Jansenism. Jansenists believed in predestination and emphasized original sin, human depravity, the necessity of divine grace. (Jansenism, Wikipedia). So Phèdre is helpless. She says that “Le crime d’une mère est un pesant fardeau” (A mother’s crime is a heavy burden), a burden she fears her children will also bear (III, 3, 364) as one bears the original sin and as she bears her own mother’s depravity. Moreover, she is not rescued by divine grace (or efficacious grace). Phèdre’s god is a “hidden god.”

Augustine of Hippo and Cornelius Jansen

Jansenistic theology is rooted in the theology of St Augustine (354 – 386) or Augustine of Hippo. However, as indicated above, its “modern” father is Cornelius Jansen or Jansenius, (28 October 1585–6 May 1638), the Dutch Bishop of Ypres (Belgium). It did not spread beyond France and, to a very large extent, it was a reaction against Jesuit casuistry which, quite literally, allowed one to sin without sinning. (See Related Articles, at the foot of this post.

Pelagianism: a Heresy

The debate centered on the matter of grace and, by extension, on the topic of free will. An extreme and heretical view was that of Pelagius (c. 350 – c. 420). Pelagius believed that all Christians could be saved using their free will. This doctrine, called pelagianism, was condemned because it negated the need for divine grace and also negated the original sin.  It therefore had affinities with the laxity of seventeenth-century Jesuits.

Pelagius was opposed to Augustine of Hippo’s conviction that salvation was not possible without divine grace (called grâce efficace). Inextricably linked with Augustine’s teaching is the concept of predestination which limits a Christian’s ability to save himself. Jansenism took this view to an extreme replicating Augustine’s insistance that Christian salvation depends on divine grace.[i] 

I will go no further on the above, as the entire debate gets too complicated. Simply expressed and put in a nutshell, Jansenism conveys a very pessimistic view of a Christian’s ability to determine his or her fate, which is at the heart of Phèdre’s despair. She views herself as the worst of sinners in a universe filled with gods who are her ancestors and will not help her. Again, her god is a hidden god.

Jansenism was crushed by the bull Unigenitus, issued by Pope Clement XI in 1713.

RELATED ARTICLES

  • Jean Racine, Gabriel Fauré & Alexandre Cabanel: a Canticle
  • Casuistry, or how to sin without sinning

_________________________

[i] The best information I have gathered on the quarrel between Jansenists and the Jesuits is La Querelle entre les jansénistes et les jésuites, featured on the website of the Jesuits of France and written in French.
 
Henry Purcell (1659-95)
The Fairy Queen, Z.629 (1692)
“O let me weep” (The Plaint)
Philippe Jaroussky    

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A Little More on Current Events

14 Monday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Sharing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Baptiste Lake, Blaise Pascal, Canada, France, J. Casson, Montreal, Montreal Metro, Pascal, Pauline Marois, Pensées, Project Gutenberg, Quebec, Tuition payments

 
Baptiste Lake, by A. J. Casson (Group of Seven)
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

****************************************************************************

 A. J. Casson (May 17, 1898 – February 20, 1992)
http://www.artcountrycanada.com/group-of-seven-casson2.htm 
 
As my readers probably noticed, the three vignettes presented in an earlier May 14, 2012 post, were related. 
  • People seek comfort in times of turmoil.  The fine arts and music are refuges.  So is literature, but in a less immediate manner. 
  • As for Pascal, he knew that all was not well in seventeenth-century France, but he advocated remedial measures that would not cause a bloodshed.  So he calls peace a « souverain bien », or sovereign good.  Pascal’s Pensées, were published posthumeously from liasses: little bundles of paper neatly tied up.  So there are different classifications: Léon Brunschvicg, Louis Lafuma, Philippe Sellier (probably the most accurate).  They have been translated into English and they can be read online: a Project Gutenberg achievement.  Click on Blaise Pascal.  To read the Pensées in French, click on Blaise Pascal Pensées
  • Finally, the news report tells part of the story that generated my first two vignettes and it trivializes the demands of Quebec students who are mere pawns in these events.  Obviously, the indépendantistes have little to criticize, not to mention that they are the ones who have created the current difficulties in order to rule and secede from the rest of Canada.  

The Cost of Duplicating Services

In Quebec, citizens pay higher taxes: 15% of their taxable income.  Outside Quebec, citizens pay 10% of their taxable income.  The reason for this discrepancy is the duplication of services offered by the Government of Canada.  This, I cannot understand.

Students have been on strike because of a small increase in tuition fees, which shows that someone is behind all this, Pauline Marois.  This I know and so do others.  She is the leader of the indépendantiste movement.  Further negotiations will take place, but a small raise in tuition fees is not central to what is happening and it does not justify releasing harmful fumes into the Montreal subway system.  Some students have been slightly injured. 

I went to Pauline Marois‘s Facebook site.  One woman reported that she had seen policemen entering a subway station with dogs.  She used this as an example of police brutality.  To my knowledge, it is customary to use dogs to tell the origin of a fire, but in this case, they were sniffing to determine where the fumes were released.  This is normal police procedure.  Dogs are the experts in such cases.  I just hope the police is not pushed into brutal acts. 

The indépendantistes are saying that they want to be masters in their own home, « maîtres chez nous, » where they would be a French-speaking majority and, at the moment, they are using the students.  But many students, including anglophone students, think that they are opposing a raise in tuition fees.  They cannot see that they are being used by a political party, the indépendantistes.

* * *      

So, we will continue to examine the history of this country, but I also need to write posts about artists and thinkers who have left a permanent legacy.  The internet is a good tool for diffusing knowledge. 

Updates on the three-month old strike are available if you click on the links.  The government is still negotiating with the students so figures keep changing.

CTV News
CBC News (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) 

10 Track 10 Mendelssohn: Lieder ohne Worte, Barenboim (piano)

Battle of Saint-Eustache (1837-38)

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   May 14, 2012
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Three Vignettes & an Approaching Storm

14 Monday May 2012

Posted by michelinewalker in Sharing

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Blaise Pascal, Fronde, Hague School, Louis, Pascal, Pensées, Willem Roelofs

 
                                                                                                    

In ‘t Gein bij Abcoude (1870)

Willem Roelofs (March 10, 1822, Amsterdam – May 12, 1897, Berchem)

Today, all I can do is post a beautiful picture, quote Pascal and report that the students are indeed being used by the indépendantistes.

Art: Willem Roelofs 

The artist, Dutch artist Willem Roelofs, was Mesdag’s teacher, but he joined members of the Hague School.  Very fine paintings were produced by members of the Hague School. 

Blaise Pascal

Civil War: “the greatest of evils”

In his Pensées, French mathematician, physicist, inventor, writer and Catholic philosopher Blaise Pascal (1623 – 1662), noted that we were mere reeds but thinking reeds (le roseau pensant), which gave us nobility.  Pascal also discussed society pointing out, especially, that humans were easily fooled by appearances and he stated that « Le plus grand des maux est les guerres civiles » or “Civil wars are the greatest of evils.”

Pascal, had witnessed the Fronde (1648 – 1653) which was a twofold revolt.  On the one hand, we had the people who wanted a parliament, la Fronde  parlementaire.  But, on the other hand, the highest of aristocrats: dukes and princes, hungered for power they were denied.  This was called la Fronde des princes (1651 – 1653).

This rebellion, the Fronde, occurred when Louis XIV (1638 – 1715) was a child.  Louis XIV was five when Louis XIII died (1643).  Louis XIV ascended the throne in 1661, when Mazarin died.  Mazarin (1602 – 1661), was Richelieu‘s (1585 – 1642) successor.  Both were chief ministers who, in fact, ruled France. 

At any rate, Pascal had seen social unrest and it had been a painful experience. 

So yesterday, when I wrote disapprovingly about fumes being released into Montreal’s subway system,  I thought of Pascal and reflected that it would be lovely if people pursued a common purpose: creating a peaceful world where everyone would be treated with dignity.

iRREsPONSIBLE POLITICIANS using students 

According to a CTV news report, tuition fees would be increased by $325.00 a year over the next five years.  At the moment, in Quebec, full-time students pay $2,415.00 a year.  Five years from now, in 2017, they will pay $3,793.00 if the premier, Monsieur Jean Charest, succeeds in increasing university tuition fees which, even if he succeeds, would still be the lowest in Canada.  In Antigonish, Nova Scotia, at the university where I taught, StFX, tuition fees are currently $6,205.12 a year.  It would seem that indépendantiste leader Pauline Marois needs martyrs and that they are difficult to find. 

So these are my three little vignettes for the day.  

Landscape with approaching storm (1850)

13 Track 13
Lieder ohne Worte, Mendelssohn, Barenboim (piano)
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May 13, 2012
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Pascal on the Human Condition

25 Thursday Aug 2011

Posted by michelinewalker in French Literature, United States

≈ Comments Off on Pascal on the Human Condition

Tags

Ann Coulter, Arianna Huffington, grandeur, Michele Bachmann, misère, Pascal, Pensées, roseau pensant, Sarah Palin, self-interest

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662). The Jansenist apologia Provincial Letters, written 1656 and 1657, a literary masterpiece written from a Jansenist perspective, and remembered for denunciation of the casuistry of

Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

This post is not altogether about Blaise Pascal’s description of the human condition. I used Pascal to write about Ann Coulter who was not allowed to give a speech at the University of Ottawa, Canada. She had labelled President Obama’s Dreams From My Father a “Dimestore Mein Kampf.” Officials in Ottawa and the University of Ottawa feared a disturbance.

When this article was published, I had just started to post web logs. It is informative, but links to newspapers and other sources are lacking. Fortunately, I have now learned to use WordPress. But this post has relevance. I thought of deleting it, but this no longer seems appropriate. (22 April 2014)

—ooo—

Seventeenth-century French writer and scientist Pascal (Blaise Pascal, 1623-1662) described the human condition as both misère (pitiful, vulnerable, weak, poor) and grandeur (dignity, nobility).  It was Pascal’s view that human beings were repeatedly being deceived by “puissances trompeuses” (deceitful, misleading powers), such as vanity, imagination, self-interest, and other influences that prevented self-scrutiny and, therefore, debased human beings. Those were the reasons why humans were misérables. Moreover, to make matters worse, humans sought frivolous entertainment instead of thinking and coming to terms with their dual condition.

Fortunately, although Pascal considered human beings not only as misérables but also as fragile, as fragile as fabulist La Fontaine’s (1621-1695) humble reed (“The Oak Tree and the Reed”), he granted them superiority over beasts by making his roseau “un roseau pensant,” or “a thinking reed”(Pensées [Thoughts] 113-348). In this respect, he expressed himself beautifully. “La grandeur de l’homme est grande en ce qu’il se connaît misérable; un arbre ne se connaît pas misérable.” Humans have nobility, or grandeur, in that they at least “know they are miserable,” to which he added that “a tree does not know it is miserable,” (Pensées, 114-397) with the notable exception of La Fontaine’s previously-mentioned boastful but unbending oak tree, felled by a powerful wind.

Has anything changed in our contemporary society? We still have “puissances trompeuses.”  

Given most of their recent statements, Michele  Bachmann, Sarah Palin, Ann Coulter and Arianna Huffington might indeed be looked upon as “deceitful powers.”  When Ann Coulter was not allowed to speak at the University of Ottawa, for security reasons, she commented that she “was guessing the scores to get into the University of Ottawa are not very challenging.” (Stephen Chase, The Globe and Mail, Tuesday  23 March 2010) Civil libertarians protested, but there was a very real possibility of violence. “The move [to cancel the address] followed boisterous demonstrations outside that sponsors of the appearance feared could turn violent,” (Stephen Chase, The Globe and Mail), which justified Ann Coulter’s not being allowed to give an address.

There is freedom of speech in Canada, but there exist inappropriate speeches. Responsible parents protect children from exposure to hateful discourse and to discrimination towards minorities, such as the disabled and homosexuals. Responsible parents also protect their children from discrimination against coloured individuals and from depictions of violence. Besides, as French poet, novelist (Les Enfants terribles, 1946), illustrator, artist, playwright and filmmaker (Beauty and the Beast, 1929) Jean Cocteau (1889-1963) put it, “[t]ack in audacity is knowing just how far one can go too far.” “Le tact dans l’audace c’est de savoir jusqu’où on peut aller trop loin.” 

As the Greeks taught us, there are limits to everything, including freedom of speech. They spoke of moderation. We also know that the end does not, of necessity, always justify the means and that when means are unacceptable, they become an end in themselves, an unacceptable end. In other words, since, in April 2008, Ann Coulter allowed herself to describe Barack Obama’s book Dreams From My Father as a “Dimestore Mein Kampf,” thereby comparing the future president with Hitler, it was quite legitimate on the part of University of Ottawa and Ottawa city officials to fear that Ann Coulter may create a violent disturbance. There are laws against violent disturbances in Canada and, I should think, the United States. As well, her above-mentioned statement about the future President of the United States was needlessly provocative. Untruths and offensive speeches have no place on public podiums in Canada, which, I believe, is also the case in the United States.

There was hope for Pascal’s fragile roseau. He could think. He was “un roseau pensant.” However, is redemption a possibility for persons who speak and write like Ann Coulter?  Unlike the fragile reed, le roseau, it is unlikely that she indulges in any form of serious contemplation. When godliness was distributed, little was apparently bestowed on such persons as  Ann Coulter, Michele Bachmann, Sarah Palin and Arianna Huffington. The afore-named ladies and their followers and rich sponsors are not about to grant godliness to the disinherited. They do not seem to care for the common man. If they cared for the people, Americans would have long ago had access to universal health-care and Republicans and Tea Party members would be supporting the creation of more social programs as well as job-creation projects.

These individuals should cease whining about preserving their unnecessary and underserved tax cuts for the rich. And they should also rally behind people who are protecting the environment. As things stand, these people are eating their children’s bread. Ann Coulter is seemingly an educated person, but it would appear her education was not put to good use. When disorder enters the debate, it is best to end it. Even in a world where relativity has gained considerable ground, there is still a right and a wrong.  Look at sports where we find an abundance of rules. All games have rules. But let me reassure you. It could be that the afore-named persons’ private Hell will be in the here and now.

As Sartre put it:  “L’enfer, c’est les autres” (others are hell). Well, do consider that there are plenty of others. Moreover, we always stand a second away from catastrophes of all kinds and death, despite the grandeur granted us as Pascal’s roseau pensant. In this regard, all of us are the same. Humans are mortals who know they are mortals. This is the human condition.  However, thinking does not preclude enjoying our journey into infinity.

P.S.  Pascal’s Pensées were not assembled during his short lifetime.  He bundled them up.  They were in liasses (tied bundles).  The numbers I have used correspond to two of three classifications.  The first is Louis Lafuma’s and the second, Léon Brunschvicg (in italics). The third is Philippe Sellier’s.

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