Monday, March 11, 2024

Reflections on Week 10 (Mar 4- Mar 10)

Link to this week's readings

This was a busy week, but I made it!

Quick review on this week's readings:

Mar 4 Some Fruits of Solitude by William Penn: 3/5 I respect him for making an actual list. Not saying he was going to do a list, and then writing a disorganized essay like a lot of people do.

Mar 5 Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini: 2/5 One of these was enough.

Mar 6 "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe: 4/5 Great poem!

Mar 7 "Of Judicature" by Francis Bacon: 3/5 Include more works on important but little understood subjects!

Mar 8 Don Quixote by Miguel De Cervantes: 2/5 This section in isolation doesn't really work.

Mar 9 "Treatise on Good Manners and Good Breeding" by Jonathon Swift: 2/5 Swift's satire is a little dry for my tastes. Why pick these over "A Modest Proposal" or something?

Mar 10 Philaster by Beuamont and Flescher: 3/5 Hard to judge plays by writing, but seems good.

Weekly Average: 2.71 Pretty average week all around. This is definitely easier to do now that I've thought out the scores a bit better.

Overall Thoughts on The Project:

While not as odious as Burns (who should've never have been included in the first place) I'm not looking forward to more Cellini. He's too embellished to be a good autobiography, but not exciting/interesting enough to be a swashbuckling fiction story a la The Three Musketeers. Most interesting inclusion this week was Bacon's. There's a lot of things about the world/society and how it works that most people don't know a lot about or think about a ton, but are good to know. This was a great introduction to some basic principles of jurisprudence. It'd be really cool to see selections on (making this list up on the spot) leadership, first aid, government (we've gotten a few of these), cooking... A liberal education should prepare you to be a functional and independent member of society, and there's a lot of things that would be good to know.

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