Prompt Number One

In 400 – 500 words, describe how your own thinking has evolved about a single course theme that you have not discussed in any other prompt. Make specific references to at least one historical period, cultural genre, and significant text (listed below) not discussed in any other prompt.
I’ve been very fortunate to have been put into learning situations where a higher level or deeper way of thinking was asked of me. The teaching examples I’ve been exposed to were of a higher standard of expectation of the students. This semester was new not so much in how I think, but what I included as far as what I thought about. Before this semester I would compare one subject or idea to its context or to itself. These past few months I’ve learned to compare similar and even contrasting ideas to each other on their value instead of simply their content. When studying the Baroque period art and music and trying to understand why they changed from the more reserved styles of the Renaissance it was interesting to learn about the mindset behind it. My original concepts about the Baroque style were that over opulence of the upper classes created a demand for equally opulent works of art. It was interesting to find out through studies that it was a stylistic reverting to old Greek foundations in music and a desire to show their love and reverence for the majesty the believed God to be. Murals depicted heaven and its residents as beautiful. Gold filigree and plush clouds, flowing robes and fat cherubs and angels adorned churches and commissioned paintings. Heaven was still the reward for good Christians but artists sought to give a glimpse into the hereafter. Artists wanted to show their patrons and the common church going folk something better than the life they lived. The artwork carried themes from the Renaissance; the ideas of humanism and the importance of the experience of life.
Voltaire’s Candide is an caricature of a man’s reaction to events affecting and often endangering his life. The overarching theme of the book is playing off the lesson Candide learned as a youth; it is all for the best in the best of all possible worlds. Facing exile, near death on several occasions and finding a paradise, all Candide longs for is his lady love, Cunegonde. He clings to the memory of her and the lessons his teacher Pangloss taught him. Through every trial he goes through he berates himself and curses his luck, not feeling fortunate when he is able to escape. Voltaire wished to present extremes in changing fortunes and satirize the reactions of the protagonist in an attempt to show his readers the fickleness of fate, human disposition, and the attitudes of others. Candide’s individualism comes across as selfishness, his reasoning as ignorance, and his adventurous attitude as self-absorption. Reading Voltaire and thinking about the social context, humanism meets individualism and the resulting social change was very interesting. I had never thought of the development of human consciousness other than the great thinkers of the Renaissance, but reading Candide and Voltaire’s history gave me more than the context of the book, and writer. It gave the mindset and motivation of Voltaire, his history and his beliefs. When I was able to look at the whole picture, beginning to end and the parts in the middle it shed light on the complicated facets of changing mentalité. I was able to trace and identify the key and defining characteristics of the Baroque period. This class helped me expand beyond mere context; it helped me find and analyze development of the consciousness of the time.

Word Count: 563