| Compare the role of feeling in the Confessions to
the role of reason in Candide. Use several specific examples from each text to
support your ideas. Try to come to some general conclusion about the differences between
the two. |
| Compare the role of nature in the Confessions to
the role of the garden in Candide. How are they similar? How different? What
about the work ethic in Candide's garden? Is there anything like it in the
Confessions?
Use several specific examples from each text to support your ideas. Try to come to some
general conclusion about the differences between the two. |
| Compare Rousseau's ideas about natural goodness in the
Confessions
to Voltaire's ideas about good and evil in Candide. Which seems more true to you?
Why? Be sure to support your ideas with specific ideas from each text. |
| Look at the form of the Confessions--intimate
autobiography--and compare it to the form of Candide--third person satire. How
does the form of each suit the message or content? Which do you find more pleasing? Why?
Support your ideas with specific examples from each text. |
| Compare the central importance of the individual self in the
Confessions with the central importance of a community of friends in
Candide.
Why is this difference important? Be sure to use specific examples from each text to
support your ideas. |
| Rousseau describes himself as living a life more based in
his imagination than in what actually happens to him from day to day. Voltaire describes
Candide as living a life which starts with a philosophical education, but is modified as
he learns by experience. Look at the two texts for specific examples of these two ways of
living. Do you think Rousseau matured during his lifetime? What about Candide? Who was the
more able to learn and grow? |
| Look up and define Romanticism and Enlightenment and note
some of the main ideas of each as found in the texts of Candide and the
Confessions.
Be sure to use specific examples to support your ideas. |
| Can you explain what Voltaire thought would make human life
happy? What did Rousseau think would make human life happy? Support your ideas with
specific examples from the two texts. |
| Write a "Confession of your feelings and experiences
during a short, intense period of your life. Now, compare your confession to Rousseau's.
What similarities do you see? What differences? Why? Refer to specific events/attitudes in
Rousseau's Confessions for your comparisons. Are you a romantic? Why or why not?
If you prefer, you may send this directly to me by email at Diane Thompson, rather than posting it to the public
forum. |
| After reading Book I of the Confessions, make a
list of ideas and examples in it that you think are especially
indicative of romanticism. Now,
consider life today. What examples of this romanticism can you see around you now? Be
specific and explain how you think that the romantic elements you find today relate to the
ideas or feelings expressed by Rousseau. |