Professor Cripps
2-1-Q
Chapter 4
Student: Anthony Lacaprucia
2 – Offer 2 Specific Details from the chapter. For each, ID/quote and add 3-8 sentences of your own explanation
- “Wealthy Romans employed (or owned as slaves) personal librarians and clerks who copied books borrowed from the libraries of their friends” (Greenblatt 59). I just found this to be interesting and I wouldn’t have expected people to be so interested in books. I can imagine having the job of copying books from day to day. I get annoyed when I can’t copy and paste quotes and have to type them out so I’m sure having to go even further and hand write entire books would be very tedious.
- “Rumors began to circulate that her absorption in astronomy, mathematics, and philosophy—so strange, after all, in a woman—was sinister: she must be a witch, practicing black magic” (Greenblatt 63). It is crazy how Hypatia was brutally killed by a mob for being interested in these things. The text also says this is what marked the downfall of Alexandrian intellectual life so her death was very important. It also says because of this the library lost all relevance and seemingly vanished. With these things it’s clear that Hypatia’s death was very impactful for the time period.
1 – Make 1 Connection to Self, to World, or to Text – or Extend by offering a little detail about something mentioned in the text (some light research needed to Extend)
- In the text it talks about “In one of the great cultural transformations in the history of the West, the pursuit of pain triumphed over the pursuit of pleasure” (Greenblatt 68). This connects to the world now because it’s quite different. People are very much motivated to avoid pain rather than pursue pleasure. This is the Freudian psychology theory known as the Pleasure Principle..
Q – Give us a Good Question to chew on – 1-3 sentences
- Why did people start pursuing pain instead of pleasure?
