Like many of my classmates, I could not find a word that I did not understand that was defined in Hamilton. I did, however, find a word in Terry Eagleton’s Literary Theory: An Introduction that I did not know that I had read in work due for another class as well: “philistine.” I am familiar with the Philistines of the Bible; however, I was not sure of the relationship between the word in Eagleton and this group of ancient people. Eagleton writes, “In England, a crassly philistine utilitarianism is rapidly becoming the dominant ideology of the industrial middle class, fetishizing fact, reducing human relations to market exchanges and dismissing art as unprofitable ornamentation” (17). Dictionary. com defined the word as “smug and ignorant and indifferent or hostile to artistic and cultural values.” I felt that it is important to incorporate this word in our discussion of Hamilton because it seems that people who view art and literature in this manner would have no use of Hamilton. Thank goodness that we care enough about our development as writers to use Hamilton so that we can escape such a terrible label.
Click here to see other difficult literary terms.
Erica, I’m so glad that you looked up that word and that I read your entry on it! Philistine kept popping up in everything I have been reading the past week. I keep meaning to look it up, but then would forget. Like you, I just keep thinking of the Philistines of the Bible. But now you’ve resolved that question for me.
I also wondered to myself what "philistine" was doing in an essay about literary theory when it wasn't, as far as I could tell, being used in the biblical sense. I kept asking myself, "Is there something I'm missing, here?"
Haha. Thanks for clearing it up!