نطق اول

Lecture 1:

Listen to part of a lecture in a theater history class. The class is discussing 18th century plays in Europe and the United States.

Professor: By far, the most popular genre of plays during the sentimental comedy.Now, in order to sort of get our heads around what a sentimental comedy is, where it came from and why on Earth it was so popular, we nee d to understand what sentimentality was as a philosophical movement.

So, during the 18th century, some thinkers, philosophers, political theorists, came up with this idea of sentimentality.The main point in sentimentality is that people are inherently good, people are good by nature. In the past, in other times, some people had believed or claimed that men and women are naturally selfish or naturally evil.During the 17th century there was a very popular theory known as the social contract set up by thinkers like Thomas Hobbes which argued that people are naturally selfish.During the 18th century, on the other hand, thinkers associated with sentimentality came along and said:”No no no, people are naturally good”.Yes, Diane, question.

Student: Yea sorry to interrupt but why was it called that first one, social contract, why was it called that?I mean, if people are supposed to be naturally selfish, isn’t that the opposite of being social?

Professor: The emphasis was more on the contract part.If people are naturally inclined to

do what’s in their own self interest, then in order to have people living together in peace,you need develop some kind of a social contract, a sort of agreement.I won’t hit you over the head and take your stuff if you don’t hit me over the head and take my stuff.But in the 18th century the sentimental theorists came along and said that people are naturally good.

Student: Hard to believe sometimes if you watch the evening news.

Professor: OK, if you try to argue that people are naturally good, you’re going to have to answer the question: What about the fact that bad things happen?How do we account for the fact that people do bad things? Sentimental theorists claimed that evil deeds happen because people are led astray by bad

influences. That is, people can be pressured or seduced or tricked into doing something wrong.And the other question that comes up in relation to sentimentality is: If you are led astray, how can you be redeemed?an you be brought back to your state of natural goodness. What do you think?

Student: I think, Yeah, if you think people are basically good then you probably also think they can be, you know, brought back to being good again.

Professor: That’s right! And they said you do this by appealing to a person’s natural instincts. Trying to return them or connect them to their natural state especially via the emotions.Making someone cry then could make them good again. Picture, for example, the evil villain smirking at his latest robbery, in fact, who happens to see a lost child walking down the street, sobbing, and he starts to sniffle and cry and maybe his heart goes out to this lost child and he wants to help the child and somehow he realizes that he’s been bad or rather been behaving badly, since according to sentimentalist theory he was never truly bad to begin with.Alright.

That’s sort of the hallmark of sentimentality and it’s what became the driving force behind sentimental comedies.

Student: I don’t get why they’re comedies. They don’t sound funny.

Professor: Uh, you’re right a sentimental comedy is not specifically funny. The goal isn’t to make the audience laugh and in fact the goal is to make the audience cry. Thus a sentimental comedy will usually depict someone virtuous but in some sort of distress.Perhaps a good virtuous man or woman who, who’s suffering financial hardships and we see them desperate for food, barely able to survive, tempted to rob someone.But they resist that temptation and still triumph in the end.And again, seeing this, the audience is expected to cry and thus, reconnect with their natural emotional state.

nd for all the same reasons.