A Picture Worth a Thousand Words

So about a month or two ago as I was walking to and fro a class in the Alexander building, I stumbled across a rather eye-catching and aesthetically appealing poster -especially to an English student. To me, this poster says a lot in itself about the lasting impression the Elizabethan era has had on us.  Look closely at it, and you can draw several connections to the period and the innovations that took place at the time: the proper fermentation of beer, spectacles/glasses/telescopes, and also the beer hat can symbolize the concept of mass consumption and this can be connected to the Elizabethan need to consume resources, wealth and social status… haha I’m not looking too much into this am I?

The 1500s spawned a very progressive time in the world where concepts like mercantilism, imperialism and modernism were taking shape -and making a profound impact on society at that time. The greatest creations of their time have prevailed the test of time and have been carried into today’s culture -whether we realize it or not. Now while this poster isn’t any tangent of the day, and Da Vinci may not have liked the additions to his painting… but we recognize that the Elizabethan era will forever hold a place in our lives; just like Shakespeare’s words will continue to ring throughout our language.

Am I just been facetious, or does anyone else have any comments about this poster?

Sir Francis Bacon in the 20th Century

The tangents presented in class have definitely demonstrated how the Elizabethan Era has been very much connected to the 20th century and directly impacted it. Here are some funny and quirky things I have come across about Sir Francis Bacon and the apparent impact he’s had on some people of the 20th century….

SIR FRANCIS BACON…PEANUT BRITTLE?

Sir Francis Bacon: Renaissance Man and Bacon Inspiration

Sir Francis Bacon was an early scientist and writer. Some people think he might have written Shakespeare’s plays. And he died when he tried to invent an early refrigeration technique (stuffing snow inside a chicken). He doesn’t have much to do with the edible kind of bacon, unfortunately. But his name does give us an easy pun, so I can see why these peanut brittle folks chose it. CHECK IT OUT

SIR FRANCIS BACON… MASKING TAPE BUST?

Sir Francis Bacon lives on via saran wrap and masking tape -betcha he never would of seen that coming!

Here is the artist’s commentary: 

I decided to construct a bust of one of my favorite and most mysterious philosophers Sir Francis Bacon.  Because I think he would have been cool to have around the house doing arts and crafts with and packing a bag lunch for me every day. CHECK IT OUT

Sir Francis Bacon Vs. Sir Francis Drake

Sir Francis Bacon

In class we discussed Sir Francis Bacon and the scientific method that he developed -and I do believe that Fischlin referenced Sir Francis Drake… however in my recent readings of One Hundred Years of Solitude I stumbled across the name and my attention was grabbed at the description of this 16th-century-once British sailor-turned-pirate who pillaged the Latin American coastal communities. I did some research on him and discovered quite a bit that I found very relatable to the tangents of the day and some of the prominent Elizabethan concepts like mercantilism, scientific method, technology & science, imperialism.

Sir Francis Drake being knighted by Queen Elizabeth

During this period as we know there were great advances in world exploration, and the study of the universe (Dr. Faustus – astrology, astronomy, magic etc.). Fascinatingly, good ol’ Drake was the first Englishman to sail around the world! He spent almost three years spanning approximately 36,000 miles across the globe. He is very much tied to British imperialism because this was the beginnings of British influence on the world. He claimed the territory of California in the name of Queen Elizabeth and was the first Englishman to lay the colonial foundation stones, which encouraged the formation of the British East India Company. We know all too well the profound impact that this connection would have on English society, as it demonstrated the beginnings of imperialism (taking other countries/colonies resources for their own profit) and also the potential for mercantilism. There is much reference to these things in much of the works we read throughout the semester. The poem, The Sun Rising by John Donne came to my mind immediately when I was thinking of examples. His line, “Whether both th’ Indias of spice and mine”, reminded me of the imperialistic factor but also of the trading company that was created during this era. Also the line, “all wealth alchemy” reminded me of Faustus and the growing concept of modernism and science… however that’s a little off topic for this entry!

Other Inventions of the Period (For your added interest):

THE BIG ONES:

-Andreas Vesalius founded the study of modern anatomy, and authored De Humanis Corporis Fabrica (On the Workings of the Human Body). The work emphasized the priority of dissection and what has come to be called the “anatomical” view of the body. —Costanzo Varolio engaged in understanding the innerworkings of the human brain. In 1568, Varolio produced a detailed description of the central nervous system, and in particular, of the structure now known as “pons Varolii”.

THE LITTLE ONES:

-The graphite pencil, the modern calendar, time bomb (what!!???), wind-powered sawmill, and the thermoscope. Galileo Galilei’s thermoscope indicated temperature differences and was the predecessor to the thermometer. Galileo also invented the hydrostatic balance, an instrument that could weigh objects in water such that their density could be calculated.

Technological information provided in this post was gathered from: Eras of Elegance.

Endearing Dr. Faustus Rendition via Sock Puppet Performance

 

Enjoy! I know I definitely got a laugh out of it, it definitely captures some of the main concepts of the play… however there is no allegory to this performance.

Doctor Faustus

Where to start? Dr. Faustus was definitely an example of the limits of human knowledge and yearning for more. I agreed with Fischlin’s connection between Dr. Faustus and modernity -the unquenchable thirst. It was definitely ahead of its time, and it brings up some very important questions.

There were a few terms that were drawn into connection with this play:

Psychomachia: In a nutshell is the internalized battle between spirit and flesh. It is a struggle to navigate towards the right choices and understanding the consequences that they entail.

Hermeticism: Is central to renaissance philosophy, and has to do with the essential interconnectedness of all things. Elizabethan lyricists were reading source texts that were called hermetic texts – notion that reality is much more complex than can be adequately expressed. Aligns with the notion that reality is more complex than quantifiable.

Dr. Faustus uses hermeticism because it explores the cosmos, and questions the universe.

There are three parts to Hermetic knowledge:

1. Alchemy: Investigation into the spiritual constitution of reality. This is what Faustus is after –he is trying to get at what really matters in terms of knowledge. Three great mysteries: earth, death, resurrection

2. Astrology: Represented spiritual and symbolic realities

There are many references to astrology in the text; four to be exact.

In one instance Cornelius tells Faustus, “The miracles that magic will perform/Will make thee vow to study nothing else./He that is grounded in astrology,/Enrich’d with tongues, well seen in minerals,/Hath all the principles magic doth require:/Then doubt not, Faustus, but to be renowm’d,” (I.I. lines 138-143) From this one can gander the importance and value one was putting in this interconnectedness of meaning.

3. Theurgy: Ethical goodness, trying to produce good effects on the world. Knowledge that allowed you access to the overwhelming oneness, interconnectedness of all things. Leads to divine consciousness.

Faustus does not do anything good in the world, in fact he only does bad, he wants to kill his enemies and play pranks and tricks on people, “This genius who can conjure wonders on request’ becomes a conjuror not a do-gooder who performs ‘pranks and jokes, making monkeys of his enemies.”

From the Second Key of Basil Valentine, Hermes (connected to Hermeticism) is shown as a healing god carrying a Caduceus in each hand, note he is winged,crowned, the symbol of Hermes/Mercury above his head, Sun & Moon are on Earth, along with a set of wings rooted to the ground.

 

Another term aligned with the text:

Necromancy: Literature is based on necromanctic ideals –summoning up things. Form imagining a techonology that brings greater knowledge into Faustus’s life. Faustus loves magic -a form of necromancy- more than Theology, Medicine, Law and Philosophy. This is because no form of knowledge is satisfactory to him – he craves the knowledge and power of a demi-god.

This is made clear at the very beginning of the play in the prologue, “He surfeits upon cursed necromancy;/Nothing so sweet as magic is to him,/Which he prefers before his chiefest bliss:/And this the man that in his study sits.” (lines 25-29)

Faustus’s Seven Deadly Sins

Last class we discussed the seven deadly sins and the concept of coveting and sinning etc etc… all that fun stuff. I was doing a bit of research on Dr. Faustus and his sinning extravaganza and came across the Westminster Cathedral Choir School website, which provides a run-down of Faustus’s sins and covets. I found them very insightful and wanted to include them in my commonplace book as I agreed with many of them.

My comments on their points/observations are italicized.

This list goes over Faustus’s failures to repent and errs he makes that banish him to Hell.

1. He chooses Necromancy over Theology

Faustus loves magic (Necromancy) more than Theology, Medicine, Law and Philosophy. This is because no form of knowledge is satisfactory to him – he craves the knowledge and power of a demi-god.

My thoughts exactly, Faustus is so full of himself throughout the entire play. He is incredibly selfish, and conceited. I really detested his character and had no sympathy for him -I was actually quite glad at his outcome.

“O, what a world of profit and delight,/Of power, of honour, of omnipotence,/Is promis’d to the studious artisan!” (I.I. lines 54-56) Really? Who says and believes that?!!!!

2. He prizes knowledge over wisdom

His dissatisfaction comes from pride. He does not wish to be constrained by human limits. The downside of this is that he values knowledge over wisdom.

Mephastophilis alludes to Faustus’s plight in the mentioning of how Lucifer became the Prince of Devils, “O, by aspiring pride and insolence,/For which God threw him from the face of Heaven.” (I.III. lines 68-69) Faustus definitely follows in his footsteps… the footsteps to damnation that is.

3. He makes empty promises to achieve goodness and greatness

Faustus initially pretends in Act One to have an interest in greatness. ‘I will build a brass wall around Germany to protect her; dress every student in silk; no one in all Wittenberg will go hungry’.

Twenty four years later, his accomplishments do not reflect honourable deeds but the actions of a lustful and impetuous man. He has asked Mephistopheles to help him ‘kill my enemies, help my friends – make me Emperor of the World.’

Faustus is full of empty promises and presents falsities for his hopes of goodness -this is his decoy for his true motives. Perhaps Marlowe is inferring that when one does things out of goodness that it should be for the right reasons?

4. Indulges in the Seven Deadly Sins

He does nothing to protect Germany or the poor. Instead he commits many mortal and venal sins:

Pride (the mother of all sins: believing too much in our own abilities interferes with us recognising the grace of God).

Faustus casts aside the doctrines available to him, scorning them for being too easy or simplistic for him. He therefore is unsatisfied with being mortal, i.e., subject to the laws of nature and God. He believes God will not give him the answers he deserves while he is on earth, so turns to Lucifer instead.

Covetousness (the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual).

Faustus requests that Mephistopheles brings him ‘money, possessions and sensual delights’ every day, temporal satisfactions that are nothing in comparison to what is promised by God in Heaven.

Envy (the desire for others’ traits, status, abilities, or situation)

Faustus envies the Emperor, the Pope, Lucifer and even God for having power and status beyond him. He summons Mephistopheles so that he can use him to have a power he hopes will exceed the power of them all.

Anger (when love is overcome by fury)

Faustus is so furious at Benvolio’s mockery of him that he indulges in a petty act of spite by conjuring a pair of antlers to appear on the man’s head.

When he cannot face the truth the Old Man offers him – that forgiveness is his if he asks God for it – he becomes angry and asks Mephistopheles to call demons to torture the Old Man to his death.

Gluttony (an excessive desire to consume more than that which one requires)

At the end of his twenty-fourth year, with death close, Faustus is ‘swilling and revelling with his students’ in a feast with ‘food and wine enough for an army’.

Lust (an excessive craving for the pleasures of the body)

The Old Man pleads with Faustus with love to repent and call on God’s mercy. Faustus, prizing flesh over spirit, wastes his remaining time on lechery rather than heed his advice. He instructs Mephistopheles instead to summon Helen of Troy for his lover. She is simply a likeness conjured by the demon but Faustus tells her ‘rivals for your love can burn down Wittenberg in their longing to have you home’. Where is his promise to protect Germany now?

Sloth (the avoidance of physical or spiritual work)

The slothful person, like Faustus, is unwilling to do what God wants because of the effort it takes to do it. He summons Mephistopheles and signs the contract with Lucifer so he can have knowledge, possessions and experiences on-tap without any effort on his part.

5. He performs pranks, not blessings

-He uses his incredible gifts for what is essentially trifling entertainment eg antlers, cherries, summoning visions of past heroes and heroines.

‘This genius who can conjure wonders on request’ becomes a conjuror not a do-gooder who performs ‘pranks and jokes, making monkeys of his enemies.’

-He ridicules the Pope and the clergy with jests and wicked tricks.

6. He succumbs to despair and presumption

By despair, Faustus ceases to hope for his personal salvation from God, for help in attaining it or for the forgiveness of his sins. Despair is a sin because causes a person to lose faith in the promise of God’s goodness, justice and mercy.

Faustus presumes upon his own capacities, (hoping to be able to save himself without help from on high), and presumes upon God’s almighty power and mercy (hoping to obtain his forgiveness without conversion and glory without merit) – ‘What can God do to me anyway, with Mephistopheles at my shoulder? I’m safe.’

7. He fails to repent

-pride and continuing ambition prevents him;

-he sometimes fears that God will not hear his plea

-Mephistopheles simply bullies or distracts or tempts him away from repenting;

-he is consumed by a base earthly mortality rather than the salvation achieved for him by Christ’s sacrifice.

“The Seven Deadly Sins” by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

The Damnation of Doctor Faustus

Doctor Faustus is a play whose textual structuring works as a form of technology and a science in itself… a magical science! Literature matters because it gives you a technology for producing an imaginative relationship to the world, and how we can change it!

More on Psychomachia

Psychomachia – was a poem by Prudentius. The poem describes the conflict of vices and virtues where Christian faith is attacked by and defeats pagan idolatry. It is a famous poem because it is one of the first to reference the seven sins and virtues!

His poem was laden with allegory –which is a reductive way of seeing the world. Like the duality aspect in Faustus (good and bad angels dueling–> good and bad combating each other) The play was structured as a conflict, and a battle over a spiritual outcome related to the soul, much like Prudentius.

Point of Focus: There is something that happens in people that necessitates some sort of strategy to cope with the bad and good in the world that is enacted through the individual who must deal with these forces effectively.

-Nature of evil – Doctor Faustus is connected to the vices as these are what he encounters. It has a very Christian framework – 7 deadly sins and virtues that countered them (faith, hope, charity à theological virtues) + 4 other virtues= temperance, prudence, fortitude, justice) – virtues were all things that Faustus was struggling with. Conveying a morality play (didactic!)

-Conceptions of sexual vice, gluttony, greed, selfish, acedia (sloth) –anticipates modernity. There is a direct relationship between the medieval break down of the seven sins, and existentialism -which focused on the condition of human existence.

-Faustus was trapped in a model of agency that disempowered him -ignorance.

-Faustus converted the energy of one of the 7 deadly sins (sloth) and modernizes it –situating it in a much more complex, and richer context. Setting the stage for imagining the essential problem of modernity –access to all this knowledge overwhelms people and changes them… a movement away from religion and towards science.

DR. FAUSTUS’S ALLEGORY

Allegory –struggle for meaning, a text embeds different meanings at once.

1^st level of meaning – tries to find devil and dies.

2^nd –Faustus learns about magical technologies –associated with literature, power of imagination (Sir Philip Sidney)

3^rd –play is about psychomachias, inner struggle between good and evil.

My main allegorical inference from this play is that it is a moral allegory of universal significance. Despite people denouncing Marlowe and his play, I believe that it’s underlying meaning is that those who stray from the path of virtue and God, and who concede to the Devil in order to attain wealth and honour (power) will be damned forever.

Faustus’s Damnation

Calvinism -is a term created by John Calvin that asserts that all beings are absolutely pre-destined in the outcome of their lives to go to Heaven. Damnation and salvation are key words to Calvinism, but also Doctor Faustus.

The 5 Key Ideas Associated With Calvinism

1) Unconditional Election. Calvinists believe that God decided before the world began who will be saved and who will be lost. According to unconditional election, your eternal destination has been decided. Nothing you may do will change that destiny!

2) Limited Atonement. Calvin taught that Christ’s blood was shed for the elect only-those God planned to save or “elect” to salvation.

3) Total Depravity. That man can, in himself, do nothing to respond to God or to come to Him. According to this idea, faith is all on God’s part-not on man’s part. The Calvinist will tell you, “God does it all.”

4) Irresistible Grace. If God has decided to save you, He will do it regardless of what you do. You can’t resist the plan and power of God. His saving grace overpowers the free will of the elect.

5)Perseverance of the Saints. Anyone who is saved or “elected” by God can never fall away from or lose that salvation-once you’re saved you’re always saved!

Most plays during this era involved a debate/argument betwixt Protestants and Christians. However, Marlowe’s text was modernist and progressive because he did not take part in the debate, his text proves to be anti-Calvinist -with Doctor Faustus being doomed for damnation and hell from the very onset of his decision.

No wonder his play stirred up so much controversy!!!

Heretics and Robotics

Hereticists, people who believed these things, were starting from the knowledge that all reality could be numerically described or have a mathematical equation associated with it.

Hermetic philosophy: We’re all interconnected through a being known as “the one”. In trying to understand that oneness, people like John Dee used mathematical formulae to try to figure out relationships… all numbers had physical and spiritual realities associated with them.

Dee was working on formulae that would allow him to describe angel magic by using practical mathematics, saw the two as completely connected. He created a flying wooden beetle in 1543 -one of the first robots. It caused such a sensation that he was labelled a devil worshipper -he was prosecuted and charged with sorcery! HA!

This tangent can be connected to Doctor Faustus, as the play also had a powerful effect -Marlowe was actually murdered in a bar brawl while his play was in effect after it sent someone into a rage! In a sense, science and hermeticism are very much interconnected.

I can understand why Marlowe and Dee were prosecuted and were charged with heretics and sorcery. While their questions and inventions were leading towards modernization, they also lead people out of their comfort zones. Dee’s invention was mind-boggling to most people of the Elizabethan era -evidently by their reaction. Marlowe’s play would bring into question God, the soul, the supernatural, and the embracing of magic (necromancy/science).

Act I, Scene I, “What doctrine you call this? Che sara, sara,/ What will be, shall be? Divinity, adieu!/ These metaphysics of magicians/ and necromantic book are heaveanly!” (lines 48-51) From the very onset of the novel, there is a direct disregard for God and divinity, and emphasis placed on the science of the supernatural. We see in Act I, Scene III that damnation does not terrify him (line 59), and allows his desires to be attained without thought of consequence (line 113). He believes not in contrition, prayer and repentance (II.I. line 16), but in wealth and honour. He also seeks to prove cosmography -which was thought as a science that maps the universe as a whole, incorporating geography and astronomy. This shows a reliance on science, and a lack of trust in religion and divinity as I earlier stated.

No wonder Marlowe stirred such a ruckus with the Elizabethan crowds, this was some pretty heavy stuff he was grappling with! What a scary thought that one can go to hell to all those Calvinists at the time!

In large, Doctor Faustus reminded me of Shakespeare’s King Lear, as the play is most certainly a tragedy -and Faustus experiences hamartia as only when he faces death and damnation does he realize that giving away his soul and eternal happiness of 24 years of knowledge of magic tricks was a bad idea. Faustus reaches anagnorisis (his epiphany) right before his death in Scene XVI,

“On God, whom Faustus hath abjured! on God,
whom Faustus hath blasphemed! Ah, my God, I would(30)
weep, but the Devil draws in my tears. Gush forth
blood instead of tears! yea, life and soul! Oh, he stays
my tongue! I would lift up my hands, but see, they
hold them, they hold them!” (lines 29-34)

“Lucifer and Mephistophilis. Ah, gentlemen, I
gave them my soul for my cunning!” (lines 36-37)

However, he refuses to repent because he believes himself beyond salvation. Marlowe uses Faustus as an example and the play can he viewed didactically, as Faustus is an example to all those who would allow their ambitions to overthrow their conscience and goodness. “Faustus is gone! Regard his hellish fall, whose fiendful fortune may exhort the wise only to wonder at unlawful things: whose deepness doth entice such forward wits, to practice more than heavenly power permits.” (Epilogue lines 4-8)

The play definitely evoked catharsis in the audience… via the murdering of Marlowe, but also in the lesson that Faustus’s death imparts on us. “Curst be the parents that engender’d me; No Faustus, curse thyself, curse Lucifer/That hath depriv’d thee of the joys of heaven!” (V.II. lines 113-115) His death shows us that we are accountable for our sins and our decisions in life, and that that while human knowledge is expansive -that ignorance and greed are handicaps to this.

Cheers to the Elizabethan Era!

Today’s class we discussed the literary connection between beer and where it was drunk in the Elizabethan period.

Interestingly, during this period brewers discovered bottled beer and the process of the double fermentation. However, from a literary standpoint the connection between beer and pubs tells us a lot. It was at inn-yards where prototypical popular theatre was first performed. These were places where people congregated to drink and make merry. Prior to there being any theatrical organizations, these places were where people went to see performances.

Beer and theatre was important –being crucial parts of popular culture, where people drank and saw theatre… a lot of famous playwrights saw their beginnings in these inn-yards. However, inn-yards were shut down because they provoked strong reactions from such a large crowd.

We also discussed Sir Philip Sidney’s, The Defense of Poesy and that elite courtly culture was also writing itself into a frenzy for a different audience. Sidney was important due to his literary criticism -and this text was the first major one to make an argument for the validity of English as a poetic language, or for poetry as a powerful social tool.  At this time language became a form of national identity.

I found Sidney’s argument for poetry very interesting, and also found that it aligned quite well with Cicero’s 6 parts of argument.

I. Exordium: It begins with an interesting exordium to capture the reader’s attention and interest, and his unexpected narration identifies a moral. He uses this little narrative to lead into a defense for poetry. This anecdote is of him and Edward Wotton were learning the horsemanship of John Pugliano. Pugliano’s teachings display his “strong affections and weak arguments,” where he would, ” add certain praises, by telling what a peerless beast the horse was, the only serviceable courtier without flattery, the beast of most beauty, faithfulness, courage, and such more, that if I had not been a piece of a logician before I came to him, I think he would have persuaded me to have wished myself a horse.” This anecdote leads Sidney into discussing about his advocation, poetry.

II. Narration: He narrates by outlining the subject matter and points to be covered throughout the defense. He provides an etymology of words for “poet” and relates poetry to prophecy. He draws connections of it to Roman, Greek and Biblical authorities. He also aligns the poet with a god-like imitation of God the Divine artist.

Proposition: Sidney presents his thesis statement that poetry “is an art of imitation, for so Aristotle termeth it in the word mimesis— that is to say, a representing, counterfeiting, or figuring forth –to speak metaphorically, a speaking picture –with this end, to teach and to delight”.

III. Division: He divides his argument into parts or topics for discussion. There are three kings of poets: (1) Divine poets or vates; philosophers (moral, natural, astonomical, or historical); makers (heroic, lyric, tragic, comic, etc.)-these being those who make images of virtues or vices with delightful teaching.

Vates: Diviners, foreseers. Not governed by laws, except their own imagination –provide a vent horizon for what language can create. A seeing into how things really are –poets took this on.

IV. Confirmation/Proof: Here he outlines his argument and provides proofs:

-Goal of all earthly learning is virtuous action.
-Philosophy presents itself as able to lead men by argument to virtue.
-Historians argue that, more than philosophers, they give examples of virtue to follow.
-Poetry teaches models of virtue; the poet excels over the historian whose histories must show at times the triumph of evil.
-Poetry moves people to act virtuously; the poet excels over the philosopher by his artistry in enticing people to read his works.
-Follows with examples of different types of poetry and the lessons that each teaches.

VI. Refutation: Here he rejects opposing arguments of poetry.

1. Poetry is not as fruitful as other branches of knowledge is already answered.
2: That poetry is lies–Unlike the sciences that claim truth and fail at it, the poet affirms nothing. He does not say what is or is not but gives pictures of what should be.
3 & 4: Poetry infects people with sinful desires; Plato kicked the poets out of the republic.

IV. Peroration: Poetry is fit for honouring, something magical, special that has much to show us, and that which can immortalize us as well, “to believe, with me, that there are many mysteries contained in poetry which of purpose were written darkly, lest by profane wits it should be abused; to believe, with Landino, that they are so beloved of the gods, that whatsoever they write proceeds of a divine fury; lastly, to believe themselves, when they tell you they will make you immortal by their verses.” Who wouldn’t want to read/write poetry after reading that doozie!!!

Gaddafi & Aporia = Failure

As I watched the news today, the reporter was discussing something Muammar Gaddafi said in a speech, and I couldn’t help but compare it to the Tilbury Speech and see the aporia and his dire efforts to dissimulate his fears. This thought led me to check out some of this other current speeches…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

One of his speeches in late February rambled on for 75 minutes, with threats of violent reprisals against “greasy rats” and to reform a Libyan constitution… however what becomes apparent very soon is his attempt to save himself through his dubious speaking abilities. His speech is full of threats and ultimatums -wreaking of aporia as we can tell that he is stressed, angry and rattled. “I have not yet ordered the use of force, not yet ordered one bullet to be fired … when I do, everything will burn.” -Gaddafi

I was reading a National Post article surrounding Gaddafi’s speech and publisher Arezki Daoud exclaimed, “Who in their right mind wouldn’t be glued to that charade? That’s Gaddafi’s style, you expect that kind of rhetoric.” As soon as I read rhetoric it reminded me of our lecture in our last class, and it really got me to thinking about how obvious it was in his speech -but also at how much his speech failed… I wonder if the Troops at Tilbury knew that Queen Elizabeth had her doubts…. probably.

The National Post article also gave mention to Gaddafi’s use of transcendental signifiers in order to appeal to his supporters. In a more recent speech Gaddafi said, “We won’t give up our children’s wealth, our oil to the Americans, Britons, French and to the Christian countries that formed a coalition against us. We will not leave them to enjoy our oil. They have to know that we will fight on a broad front extending more than 2000 kms. Never, ever, will you be able to make us surrender, this land will defeat you, inevitably.” In referring to the words Wealth, Oil, Christianity, Surrender, Land, and Defeat, Gaddafi is really hitting home his argument and hoping to sway his supporters in convincing them that the West is after their oil and wealth, that Christianity is trying to take over and that they will have to surrender their land. -He is grasping at straws… but as we can see through his aporia, he’s trying everything in the book to keep control.