Thematic analysis—Due March 12, 1100 to 1250 words.

This is your chance to reflect on a theme in the literary and artistic contexts we’ve encountered—the theme of liberty or freedom. Treat the topic somewhat like Bacon treats topics in his essays, though not with as much compression of style and with expanded consideration of specific examples from our texts. While the idea of freedom continues to be defined, debated, and exploited in the present, it took on great significance during the early modern period we’ve been studying. Somewhere in your essay, you might want to offer a reason why.

Your essay should first define what is meant by freedom or liberty, using the OED, texts we have read, and your own thought and experience. In writing definitions, it is helpful to supply synonyms, to relate the term to opposites, to classify varieties and to adduce examples. Like Bacon, you may want to examine the concept et utramque partem--from opposing points of view.

Read through the passages below that refer to freedom, or to its opposites--bondage, slavery or security--and for as many as possible, go back to the context to learn more about the uses of the term or the related concept. As you develop your essay on the theme of freedom in Renaissance and Reformation texts, relate it to plot (what role does it play in the structure of the story?), to character (who is speaking and how does what they say about it relate to who they are or what they are doing), or to language (how does the manner in which they express their ideas about freedom reflect the content of what they are saying).

Somewhere in the essay make reference to your own idea of what freedom or liberty means (or doesn’t mean) and perhaps to an experience of yours which exemplifies it. Offer your own value judgement on freedom or liberty and back it up with support.

I’ll discuss drafts of your essay anytime in office hours or by email.

Bible

Genesis 2: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

Exodus 16: And the whole congregation of the children of Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness: And the children of Israel said unto them, Would to God we had died by the hand of the LORD in the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots, and when we did eat bread to the full; for ye have brought us forth into this wilderness, to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

Pico della Mirandola

Finally, the Great Artisan mandated that this creature who would receive nothing proper to himself shall have joint possession of whatever nature had been given to any other creature. He made man a creature of indeterminate and indifferent nature, and, placing him in the middle of the world, said to him "Adam, we give you no fixed place to live, no form that is peculiar to you, nor any function that is yours alone. According to your desires and judgement, you will have and possess whatever place to live, whatever form, and whatever functions you yourself choose. All other things have a limited and fixed nature prescribed and bounded by Our laws. You, with no limit or no bound, may choose for yourself the limits and bounds of your nature. We have placed you at the world's center so that you may survey everything else in the world. We have made you neither of heavenly nor of earthly stuff, neither mortal nor immortal, so that with free choice and dignity, you may fashion yourself into whatever form you choose. To you is granted the power of degrading yourself into the lower forms of life, the beasts, and to you is granted the power, contained in your intellect and judgement, to be reborn into the higher forms, the divine."

More:Utopia

At the first constitution of their government, Utopus having understood that before his coming among them the old inhabitants had been engaged in great quarrels concerning religion, by which they were so divided among themselves, that he found it an easy thing to conquer them, since instead of uniting their forces against him, every different party in religion fought by themselves; after he had subdued them, he made a law that every man might be of what religion he pleased, and might endeavor to draw others to it by force of argument, and by amicable and modest ways, but without bitterness against those of other opinions; but that he ought to use no other force but that of persuasion, and was neither to mix with it reproaches nor violence; and such as did otherwise were to be condemned to banishment or slavery.

He therefore left men wholly to their liberty, that they might be free to believe as they should see cause; only he made a solemn and severe law against such as should so far degenerate from the dignity of human nature as to think that our souls died with our bodies, or that the world was governed by chance, without a wise overruling Providence

Marlowe: Tamburlaine

Nature, that framed us of four elements

Warring within our breasts for regiment,

Doth teach us all to have aspiring minds.

Our souls, whose faculties can comprehend

The wondrous architecture of the world

And measure every wandering planet's course,

Still climbing after knowledge infinite,

And always moving as the restless spheres,

Will us to wear ourselves and never rest,

Until we reach the ripest fruit of all,

That perfect bliss and sole felicity,

The sweet fruition of an earthly crown.

Shakespeare, The Tempest

2.1 Gonzalo: I' the commonwealth I would by contraries

Execute all things; for no kind of traffic

Would I admit; no name of magistrate;

Letters should not be known; riches, poverty,

And use of service, none; contract, succession,

Bourn, bound of land, tilth, vineyard, none;

No use of metal, corn, or wine, or oil;

No occupation; all men idle, all;

And women too, but innocent and pure;

No sovereignty;--

… I would with such perfection govern, sir,

To excel the golden age.

2.1 Antonio: Draw thy sword: one stroke

Shall free thee from the tribute which thou payest;

And I the king shall love thee.

2.2 Caliban: No more dams I'll make for fish

Nor fetch in firing

At requiring;

Nor scrape trencher, nor wash dish

'Ban, 'Ban, Cacaliban

Has a new master: get a new man.

Freedom, hey-day! hey-day, freedom! freedom,

hey-day, freedom!

3.1 Ferdinand: I am in my condition

A prince, Miranda; I do think, a king;

I would, not so!--and would no more endure

This wooden slavery than to suffer

The flesh-fly blow my mouth. Hear my soul speak:

The very instant that I saw you, did

My heart fly to your service; there resides,

To make me slave to it; and for your sake

Am I this patient log--man.

5.1 Prospero: Come hither, spirit:

Set Caliban and his companions free;

5.1 Prospero: Be free, and fare thou well! Please you, draw near

Epilogue Prospero: As you from crimes would pardon'd be,

Let your indulgence set me free.

Bacon

Of Truth: What is truth? said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. Certainly there be, that delight in giddiness, and count it a bondage to fix a belief; affecting free-will in thinking, as well as in acting.

Of Marriage and the Single Life: But the most ordinary cause of a single life, is liberty, especially in certain self-pleasing and humorous minds, which are so sensible of every restraint, as they will go near to think their girdles and garters, to be bonds and shackles.

Novum Organum III: Human knowledge and human power meet in one; for where the cause is not known the effect cannot be produced. Nature to be commanded must be obeyed; and that which in contemplation is as the cause is in operation as the rule.

Bradford

The experience that was had in this common course and condition, tried sundry years and that amongst godly and sober men, may well evince the vanity of that conceit of Plato's and other ancients applauded by some of later times; and that the taking away of property and bringing in community into a commonwealth would make them happy and flourishing; as if they were wiser than God. For this community (so far as it was) was found to breed much confusion and discontent and retard much employment that would have been to their benefit and comfort. For the young men, that were most able and fit for labor and service, did repine that they should spend their time and strength to work for other men's wives and children without any recompense. The strong, or man of parts, had no more in division of victuals and clothes than he that was weak and not able to do a quarter the other could; this was thought injustice. The aged and graver men to be ranked and equalized in labors and victuals, clothes etc., with the meaner and younger sort, thought it some indignity and disrespect unto them. And for men's wives to be commanded to do service for other men, as dressing their meat, washing their clothes, etc., they deemed it a kind of slavery, neither could many husbands well brook it.

Donne

Take me to you, imprison me, for I,

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

Mary Wroth

AM I thus conquer'd? haue I lost the powers,
That to withstand, which ioyes to ruine me?
Must I bee still, while it my strength deuoures,
And captiue leads me prisoner bound, vnfree?
Loue first shall [leaue] mens phant'sies to them free,
Desire shall quench loues flames, Spring, hate sweet showres;
Loue shall loose all his Darts, haue sight, and see
His shame and wishings, hinder happy houres.
Why should we not loues purblinde charmes resist?
Must we be seruile, doing what he list?
No, seeke some hoste too harbour thee: I flye
Thy babish tricks, and freedome doe professe;
But O my hurt makes my lost heart confesse:
I loue, and must; so farewell liberty.

Milton, Areopagitica

Many there be that complain of divine Providence for suffering Adam to transgress; foolish tongues! When God gave him reason, he gave him freedom to choose, for reason is but choosing; he had been else a mere artificial Adam, such an Adam as he is in the motions. We ourselves esteem not of that obedience, or love, or gift, which is of force: God therefore left him free, set before him a provoking object, ever almost in his eyes; herein consisted his merit, herein the right of his reward, the praise of his abstinence. Wherefore did he create passions within us, pleasures round about us, but that these rightly tempered are the very ingredients of virtue?

Well knows he who uses to consider, that our faith and knowledge thrives by exercise, as well as our limbs and complexion. Truth is compared in Scripture to a streaming fountain; if her waters flow not in a perpetual progression, they sicken into a muddy pool of conformity and tradition. A man may be a heretic in the truth; and if he believe things only because his pastor says so, or the Assembly so determines, without knowing other reason, though his belief be true, yet the very truth he holds becomes his heresy.

Milton, Paradise Lost

Book I

The mind is its own place, and in it self

Can make a Heav'n of Hell, a Hell of Heav'n.

What matter where, if I be still the same,

And what I should be, all but less then hee

Whom Thunder hath made greater? Here at least

We shall be free; th' Almighty hath not built

Here for his envy, will not drive us hence:

Here we may reign secure, and in my choyce

To reign is worth ambition though in Hell:

Better to reign in Hell, then serve in Heav'n.

Book III

For man will heark'n to his glozing lyes,

And easily transgress the sole Command,

Sole pledge of his obedience: So will fall

Hee and his faithless Progenie: whose fault?

Whose but his own? ingrate, he had of mee

All he could have; I made him just and right,

Sufficient to have stood, though free to fall.

Such I created all th' Ethereal Powers

And Spirits, both them who stood & them who faild;

Freely they stood who stood, and fell who fell.

Not free, what proof could they have givn sincere

Of true allegiance, constant Faith or Love,

Where onely what they needs must do, appeard,

Not what they would? what praise could they receive?

What pleasure I from such obedience paid,

When Will and Reason (Reason also is choice)

Useless and vain, of freedom both despoild,

Made passive both, had servd necessitie,

Not mee. They therefore as to right belongd,

So were created, nor can justly accuse

Thir maker, or thir making, or thir Fate;

…Behold mee then, mee for him, life for life

I offer, on mee let thine anger fall;

Account mee man; I for his sake will leave

Thy bosom, and this glorie next to thee

Freely put off, and for him lastly die

Well pleas'd, on me let Death wreck all his rage;

Book IX

And what is Faith, Love, Vertue unassaid

Alone, without exterior help sustaind?

Let us not then suspect our happie State

Left so imperfet by the Maker wise,

As not secure to single or combin'd.

Fraile is our happiness, if this be so,

And Eden were no Eden thus expos'd.

…But God left free the Will, for what obeyes

Reason, is free, and Reason he made right,

But bid her well beware, and still erect,

Least by some faire appeering good surpris'd

She dictate false, and missinforme the Will

To do what God expresly hath forbid.

Not then mistrust, but tender love enjoynes,

That I should mind thee oft, and mind thou me.

Firm we subsist, yet possible to swerve,

Since Reason not impossibly may meet

Some specious object by the Foe subornd,

And fall into deception unaware,

Not keeping strictest watch, as she was warnd.

Seek not temptation then, which to avoide

Were better, and most likelie if from mee

Thou sever not; Trial will come unsought.

…Why then was this forbid? Why but to awe,

Why but to keep ye low and ignorant,

His worshippers; he knows that in the day

Ye Eate thereof, your Eyes that seem so cleere,

Yet are but dim, shall perfetly be then

Op'nd and cleerd, and ye shall be as Gods,

Knowing both Good and Evil as they know.

…For good unknown, sure is not had, or had

And yet unknown, is as not had at all.

In plain then, what forbids he but to know,

Forbids us good, forbids us to be wise?

Such prohibitions binde not. But if Death

Bind us with after-bands, what profits then

Our inward freedom?

…But to Adam in what sort

Shall I appeer? shall I to him make known

As yet my change, and give him to partake

Full happiness with mee, or rather not,

But keep the odds of Knowledge in my power

Without Copartner? so to add what wants

In Femal Sex, the more to draw his Love,

And render me more equal, and perhaps

A thing not undesireable, somtime

Superior; for inferior who is free?