Well now. Just as I was beginning to think I grasped the readings of Arts 1, Leviathan had to make its way into my life and obliterate all hope of becoming scholarly. I literally have a permanent headache this week from the density of this text.

As much as I find Leviathan really thick and wordy, I also really appreciate how he so clearly lays down each and every concept that he uses in the following chapters. It reads as if he is walking us through an agreement on terms and from there basis his arguments. I am not a very mathematical person, but as Crawford mentioned in lecture, the linguistic equations he uses are actually really interesting to me.

It’s hard for me to picture Hobbes as a modern,forward thinker because of the era that he wrote Leviathan in, but in lecture I really appreciated Hobbes’ point of view on the laws of nature. I found myself ‘hmming’ and ‘hawwing’ over the way that Crawford explains his stance on absolute rule. It is a really well constructed argument, especially when considering how natural law will punish the ruler if they don’t rule in favour of the people. It really all came together for me, and clarified the difficult bits of Leviathan of which there are many…

Megan

No, this is not a blog about vampires or werewolves, but it is about magical forces…

I speak, of course, about Marlowe’s ‘Doctor Faustus’. My first glance at this play started off a bit rocky. Doctor Faustus appears to be a typical medicine man, hungry to learn and discover more. He is a man of faith, and seems to be about as typical as characters get. PLOT TWIST. Enter Magic Talk and Angels.

Things escalate pretty quickly from here on out. I think one of the topics that stand out to me appears to be discontentment, and thirst for power. Faustus is simply not satisfied with an earthly life, and completely betrays his faith. Rather than ‘serve’ God, he wants to ‘BE’ God. Ring a bell? No one would be more familiar with that feeling than the Prince of Hell himself, Lucifer.

So now we have Faustus selling his soul to Satan via a blood-oath, and if that is not extreme enough, as Faustus starts to feel buyer’s remorse, he is given the chance by God to return to his faith, and break the oath with Satan.

I think this is a very climactic turn of events in the story because it pits God and Satan against eachother, Revelations style.

I suppose what jumps out to me the most so far in this play is that the play really hits a lot of big controversies and topics. While reading, I found I could relate to some of Faustus’ desires and confusions, but also wanted to whack him in the head a few times and yell at him to clue in!

This blog post is really a verbal spewing of what I have observed so far, and hopefully the lecture and our seminar will bring to light things that went over my head!

– Megan