Reading the articles in Diderot's Encylopedia is one of the best ways to understand the French Enlightenment. It shows the attitudes of the philosophes toward everything from Islam to Women to Intolerance to History. While the online translation of the Encylopedia articles does not include the wonderful illustrations of the orginal, you will probably still find much of interest.Browse to an article on a topic of interest to you. Comment on what you found particularly interesting in that article.
7 comments:
Hello!!
I thought the French Encyclopedia was interesting. One part i found intresting about it was the music type Allemand. This type of music has a slow tempo. this piece has come from Germany, but it is made very little use today.
Another part i found intresting about it was this tree called xocoxochitl. If is found in Tabasco which is in New spain, that led the Spanish to call its fruit Tabasco pepper. This tree is very tall and its leaves are like an orange trees.
I thought the French Encyclopedia did a great job giving the information in all aspects of life. For example the definition of "female" does not just explain it but it also puts them in a pedestal showing their grace and how delicate they are. Maybe in a sexist way but it shows that females are important and they inspire and amaze men. Not many guys still talk about females like the Encyclopedia did and i just thought it was interesting the way they were described.
The definition of the word "Fart" also caught my attention: "Fart, air separated in the intestines, and which escapes with a noise through the anus. It is the effect of digestion, the quality of food, of cold, heat, etc.", just made me think about what kind of person would look for fart in the Encyclopedia. Just thought it was kind of funny!
After browsing in the "K" section, I selected the link titled "Koran (Theology)". What I saw was expected for the most part. I assumed (knowing that in this time period the Muslim religion was not popular or well accepted), that this section would be opinionated. This passage was especially interesting- "...or the book of the claimed revelations and doctrine of the false Prophet Mohammed." These words proved my assumption correct.
Reading historic literature and text is always an interesting thing to do because you are given a truly insightful look at what gave birth to much of what we have today.
This was very interesting and it will be fun to refer to in the future.
I first went looking for the entry on tennis that was mentioned in class, because my game needs help. I've been relieing on luck for too long, which made this line from the entry on LUCK interesting:
"A man who enjoys an honest fortune could choose to play or not to play odds and evens, but all his personal qualities would not bring him better luck."
I also found the entry on Sacred Chickens to be of interest. Thanks to the encyclopedia I learned that "Nothing significant was undertaken in the Senate or in the armies, without omens being drawn from the sacred chickens."
Interesting stuff indeed,
John Vogel
The encyclopedia translations are very entertaining for reading pleasure. What I enjoy most are the topics dealing with views/opinions of the time. For instance, the views expressed for the word ‘joke’ are very traditional and different in thought/theory than how we consider a ‘joke’ is in today’s society. A ‘joke’ is described as “a way of amusing oneself that is so dangerous that the safest thing is to avoid it.” However, there are topics, such as ‘rhythm,’ that are very concurrent with today’s views, but musical rhythm is a relatively scientific and concrete term. One item I found very philosophical, which is the objective, dealt with the term ‘leisure.’ Leisure was described as the “free time left over from our duties that we can occupy enjoyably and honestly.” But what I have found inspiring in the description is the quote, “Our leisure time would be the part of our lives that would honour us most after our deaths…We would recall the good actions we had performed through inclination and sensibility alone, without any other motivation than goodwill towards others.”
~Jodi Sunderland
As I was browsing I happened to click on the "man (natural history)" and was somewhat surprised at what I found there. Although the entry was considerably longer than the others that I read it seemed incredibly short for such an immense topic. However, I believe it did the subject justice. It covered the growth of human being, several of their accomplishments, and even many of their invented rituals such as marriage. This one topic really helped me to appreciate the usefulness of the encyclopedia. If it could cover this huge topic in such a small amount of space the rest of the topics must have been easy for the writers.
for some reason the first word that popped out at me when i was browsing was "adultery" so i read that. i thought it was interesting to hear his views on the issue and how it relates to adultery today. also, just like todays politicians, he was careful to say he wasn't going to say whether he thought it was a sin or illegal, as if he did not want to offend anyone...
-Stephen Hettick
MWF 10:00AM
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