My response to the background of our course

As I listened to Podcast 1 and Podcast 2, memories of my high school literature class came flooding back. We read some earlier literary works like Beowulf. I was glad that I was taking English 264 instead of English 263, because I enjoy learning about the major changes of society. I love learning about the events that caused people to question their surroundings.

Personally, I feel as though this time period was an awakening for the population around Britain and Europe. It is interesting studying the strict structure of their political system and how they began to break out of the oppression in France. However, important lessons can be learned about how far people can take things. The pendalem swings both ways. The people seemed to go right along with the government without very many questioning their motives. Then, people began to oppose the government with great strength.

I also feel that since we live in a society based on capitalism and democracy, we should be aware of how the opposite system works. The readings in this book seem to show us a whole new perspective about a life which sounds so foreign to us. I have incorporated Economics into my map, so I already know a little about Adam Smith and his book The Wealth of Nations. It is interesting to see how the shift from the focus of land to the focus of money can change a society so much. This shift towards capitalism brought about a great deal of change. Also, I have studied a small amount of Charles Darwin's work in two of my previous biology courses. It was interesting to learn that this one man's view accelerated the shift of religious belief to religious doubt.

Dr. Glance makes the point to keep an eye open for authors who tend to project what they feel like will happen in the future and those who try to find an analogy to what happened in the past. They both tend to be wrong and inadequate. After hearing these first two podcasts, I can safely say I am looking forward to the text and simply hope that I will be able to understand them as well as I would like.