The Idea of a University

John Henry NewmanNonfiction | Book | Adult | Published in 1873

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Download PDF

Summary

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Part 1, Chapters 1-4

Part 1, Chapters 5-7

Part 1, Chapters 8-9

Part 2, Chapters 1-4

Part 2, Chapters 5-6

Part 2, Chapters 7-10

Key Figures

Themes

Index of Terms

Literary Devices

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

Beta

Discussion Questions

Literary Devices

Polemic

Polemic is a literary device that constructs an argument by setting it in opposition to a rival argument. By taking an opposing position as a target or a foil, the points of the writer’s own position can come out with greater clarity by merit of the contrast. Newman’s work frequently employs polemic. Unlike some uses of this literary device, Newman’s is never overly accusatory, bitter, or unfair. Rather, he simply takes an opposing view as the occasion for which to present his argument.

Two major polemical targets emerge in The Idea of a University. First, there is the growing trend of universities doing away with theology as a core part of their curricula. Newman asserts that this trend is driven by what he calls “a form of infidelity of the day” (286): a shallow agnosticism that relegates theology to the realm of subjective opinions and proceeds by ignoring theology rather than honestly engaging its arguments. Second, there is the perceived antagonism between science and religion. Newman attributes this, at least in part, to scientists’ habit of over-extending their principles and methodologies into theological areas, and theologians doing the same to the sciences. Against such practices, Newman presents a vision of a university marked by academic freedom and by a universal participation of all branches of knowledge.

Amplification

Amplification underscores a text’s statements by frequent repetition, restatement, and embellishment. As speeches, Newman’s discourses and lectures are marked by an amplified sentence structure wherein long sentences include strings of short clauses that match the rhythm of a spoken address. These amplified sentences offer frequent embellishments of language, repetitions with parallel imagery, and thorough expositions of complicated ideas by addressing each component of the idea in sequence.

While such embellishments enhance a sentence’s meaning, they can also prove challenging to the untrained eye and ear because they often separate core elements of sentences (like subject and verb) between strings of intermediate clauses. Newman’s use of amplification is so pronounced that it could only be effective in a highly literate society, one with substantial skills in following complicated textual patterns. In at least one sense, though, his amplification is a significant asset: It textually illustrates his main ideas. His amplified sentence structure mimics the structure of his argument about the subsets of knowledge together constituting the unity of truth. By stringing together many dependent clauses into a single idea, he provides a literary parallel to the idea of many university disciplines cohering into a picture of universal knowledge.

Caricature

A caricature is an example or analogy that is presented in exaggerated form to point out the incoherence or absurdity of a position. Newman uses caricatures in several places throughout his book, though less so here than in other works. He was known as an author of keen caricatures and satires, most prominently in his Lectures on the Present Position of Catholics in England (1851) and his pamphlet Mr Kingsley and Dr Newman (1864). By contrast, his use of caricature in The Idea of a University is mild. His caricatures are generally hypothetical (as in the idea of a university that admits no studies that entertain human volition as a cause), and they tend to be useful in making his immediate point. Only in Chapter 4 of Part 2 does he include long and detailed caricatures, and in that case the exaggerations are not overdone, as Newman intends them to represent true-to-life academic characters of. The long caricatures in that chapter are not as effective as Newman’s briefer caricatures elsewhere, but they remain valuable for their detailed presentation of educational practices.