EDMUND BURKE:

  1. What are the reasons why Burke’s A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and the Beautiful extremely important? (also: check, again?, the difference between the sublime and the beautiful!)
  2. What is the reason why Burke opposes the French Revolution, but supports the American Revolution?
  3. How did Coleridge relate to Burke?
  4. What does (sublime) obscurity have to do with politics and religion? What are the literary implications and what are the political implications of obscurity for Burke? Do they run parallel to each other?
  5. How is the French queen, Marie Antoinette, presented by Burke? Look at the next page as well (the first 2 paragraphs of the ‘Age of chivalry is gone’).Can you analyse his imagery from a feminist point of view?
  6. What are the implications, or what is the purpose of the following, naturalistic description (p. 10)?
  7. What has come after the ‘age of chivalry’? Who are the great enemies of the “glory of Europe”, according to Burke? (12)
  8. What are the consequences of the passing of the “pleasing illusions”, and the tearing away of the “decent drapery of life”? What do these phrases tell us about Burke’s beloved order? What is it, in fact? What is its purpose?
  9. There is a phrase which says that the king has two bodies, in the monarchy. What are these two bodies, how do they relate to each other, and what is their importance in the maintenance of the system? (last par. on p. 12.)
  10. What are the two principles on which European order rested, according to Burke?
  11. What are the things that the “English”, fortunately for Burke, oppose? (Note that the things described by Burke in the negative have a positive connotation for us. – p. 13)
  12. What are the positive characteristics of the English, for Burke? (p. 14)
  13. Burke takes the idea of the social contract from Locke and Rousseau. However, he importantly criticises Rousseau by saying what? (2d par. p. 15)
  14. What are the characteristics of Burke’s ideal society (p. 16)?
  15. How does he legitimate inequality?

THOMAS PAINE:

  1. Give an outline of Paine’s life.
  2. How does Duncan Wu (the editor) define democracy?
  3. How does Wu oppose monarchy and republicanism in Paine’s writings?
  4. What are the cultural and social possibility conditions of that fact that Paine had such a (“dangerously”) large readership?
  5. Look at the first extract from The Rights of Man: what is Paine’s main argument, and which of Burke’s argument does he oppose?
  6. To whom does sovereignty belong, and what rights does it entail?
  7. Think about the implications of the peculiar sense in which Paine uses the term “romantic”
  8. How are men naturally born? (think about the opposite implications of Burke’s use of the same term)
  9. What are their natural rights?
  10. How can the nation be the source of all sovereignty? How will this idea be later realised?
  11. What is the original (good) meaning of the term republic? What is a republican government?