Written in Italian, published in 1532, meant to be a rallying cry for Italy to overcome its former oppressors, a political treatise on how to best maintain power directed towards the princes and their principalities. Think the "Mirror of Princes," a genre that became popular in the medieval period, in instructing (most often through examples - thus histories like Bede's were popular for this mode) how a prince should conduct himself.
The examples were a good mix of contemporary and ancient. It rarely goes to any matter outside of either the current context or the ancient one, and I don't recall it using any biblical examples; by ancient, I mean Greece and Rome.
We know it today as a justification of rule that justifies itself by maintaining itself. Vices, in such a paradigm, are sometimes necessary for the ruler. The trick is to know when to use vices and when to use virtues, and to appear virtuous in any case. Only such practices - those of contingent virtue - can preserve a state with any likelihood. Any other actions are bound by fortune, which can shift to favor one set of actions over another depending on the circumstances. (Indeed, fortune here is much akin to "circumstance.")
There's another side that proscribes incorrect actions. A prince has to keep his people and his armies on his side. While in ancient times keeping armies on his side was sufficient (while checking their excesses), today keeping the people on his side is necessary. Most notably, don't take away their arms, arm them (to ensure their allegiance to you), don't mess with their property, and don't mess with their women. Other forms of advice have to do with relying on one's own arms - don't hire mercenary or auxiliary forces, because they have no reason to be loyal to you. Don't rely on other people too much, since overreliance implies that they can gain much more by getting power themselves. At the same time, keep aside the flatterers and solicit for some targeted advice, while being intelligent enough yourself to know what to ask, and to know what advice is sound. In other words, keep other balances of power in your favor.
(Wow, how tempting it is to fall into second person.)
There were some tantalyzing descriptions, especially in the sections on arms, when the animal comes in. It's necessary for a prince to be both like lion and fox, part force/virtue and part tricks. It's also necessary to be like a centaur, half-man (law) and half-beast (arms). This monstrous version of human nature is quite intriguing, since a lot of what Machiavelli works against is succumbing to baser vices by trumping them with well-guided, and therefore intentionally human, vices.
I'm nearly out of time, but I finally want to mention Fortune one more time. Towards the end, Machiavelli says that Fortune is like a woman. In order to be subdued, it sometimes has to be beaten and knocked about. This is very alarming to me personally, and I wonder what it does to make Fortune into, not allegorical woman (oh, there's a category that needs specification), but Machiavellian woman. The gender dynamic here is quite fraught.
Monday, March 28, 2011
Tuesday, March 22, 2011
The Faerie Queene, Book 3, Cantos 1-6
Wow.
So this is the book on Chastity, ostensibly focusing on Britomart,who is held up as one of the two (after Gloriana) examples of Elizabeth. (Sorry! Belphoebe and Gloriana are the two that can be Elizabeth. It's an easy mistake to make. As I state below, Britomart's lineage does look forward to Elizabeth, implying a vertical (if not horizontal comparison.)The posited allegory, which recurs on occasion, is quite curious. One is stately power, and the other is knightly endeavor. More than that, one is stately power, and the other is the struggle of a maiden to reconcile herself to the fate of eventually finding love and starting a royal line. She hates Arthegall, her prophecied love, but cannot help but to love him, as well as the prophecied future of a royal line (which connects Brutus to Elizabeth).
In these cantos we see the fracture of the singular narrative, which had already seen a little tendency of fracturing beforehand (Book 2 Canto 3, when Braggadochio runs across Belphoebe, who cows him). Canto 1 offers the possibility of continuity, with Guyon, Arthur, the Palmer, and Britomartis meeting. Britomartis fights and defeats Guyon, who must be warned not to fight further by the Palmer. (Sometimes people lose - don't fight fate.) They ride together for some time, until they see a lady (Florimell) pursued by a foster (presumably a forester?). Arthur (and his squire Timaeus) and Guyon (and the Palmer) go off in pursuit, but Britomartis rides alone. She finds the Redcrosse Knight being defeated by six knights who serve Malecasta, the owner of a pretty castle, who scorns men who hold other lovers, or who don't see her. She defeats the men, and gains access to the castle, where after a feast and a lot of sexual tension (Malecasta crushes all over Britomartis), they go to bed. Malecasta goes to Britomartis's bed, who awakens and draws a sword on her. The six knights (representing progressive levels of lust) respond, Gardante lightly wounding B with an arrow. RCK and B go on.
In the next two cantos, we hear about Britomart's story, which largely involves her being raised in arms, stumbling across Merlin's mirror and seeing her lover in it, burning with love, being unsuccessfully cured by her nurse Glauce (including a weird and unsuccessful charm), them seeking Merlin who claims she should seek leach-craft, their insisting until he tells her the prophecy of her line to Elizabeth (including her own life), and their resolving to set out in search for him in Fairy land.
In Canto 4, we turn to Britomart riding (after complaining about her lost love in terms of a ship on a sea of sorrow), who encounters Marinell. They fight despite his warning, and she leaves him as a bloody pulp on the coast before riding off, wondering but thinking little of jewels speckled along the coast. His mother Cymoent comes, and we hear of her story and the story of the coast. Proteus had prophecied that he would have much ill of a woman, which she took to mean love. Eventually they find Marinell, and load him in their sea coach. He still has a pulse, and his wound is cleansed. They curse B, but she's immune to it. She and her nurse split, as they're pursued by Archimage and come to a crossing.
At this point, the narrative vein fractures. We turn to Timias, Arthur's squire, who has also been split from the others in a threeway division. He pursues Florimell, but gets lost in the night, and sees ghastly visions in the dark. In Canto 5, Arthur finds the Dwarf, who pursues Florimell. We learn that Florimell loves Marinell, who was charmed to not love her back. Meanwhile, T gets to the Foster, who with three others waylays the squire. He fights well, kills all three (in a scene with comparatively little blood but lots of beheading), but gradually bleeds out himself. Belphoebe comes up, tracking the blood of something she's hunting. She fins herbs for him, introduces self, and works to cure him. But he falls in love, wounded another way, and gradually succumbs to death in order to preserve her virtue. His blood dries.
In Canto 6, we learn of the origins of Belphoebe, who was conceived by Chrysogonee and sunbeams. Fearing dishonor though she knows she had none, she flees to the woods. Venus, seeking Cupid after a spat, wanders everywhere and finally to a forest where she sees Phoebe naked. Phoebe is scornful of this, but gradually softens in Venus's entreaties, and sends her nymphs to find Cupid in the woods. They find the children. One, for Phoebe, is named Belphoebe. The other, for Venus, is named Amoretta. The narrative then follows Amoretta to the garden of Adonis, where the tapestry in Canto 2 is finally completed - after Adonis died, he came here, where he lives eternally with Psyche and his child Pleasure. Old Genius keeps the door. Children are dressed by him in sin, and come in through the back door to be planted and purified (reincarnation of a sort). Amoretta is much loved, but loves only Scudamore. Then the narrative decides to turn back into Florimell.
Besides the formal shifting around, there are a few other threads. The prefaces of each canto (the first two or three stanzas) normally treat some abstract concern, much like the quatrain before summarizes the plot in an inadequate manner. In this case, most of these are either about the inadequacies of love or the passage of female valor or female ancient glory. The narrator really laments the loss of a tradition of martial women. This is especially clear in Canto 4, when he laments them in different ways depending on whether they're dead or merely lost. Canto 5 is also interesting in that it laments the kinds of love that can occur.
Blood is effusive in these passages, at least in parts, though the most intriguing place to be (besides Timaeus's wound in the thigh that opens as he fights, is closed by Belphoebe, and which opens another wound in his heart, which because he restrains himself from loving his blood gradually dries up) is with Marinell. He is left bleeding profusely, and when they find him, his blood is pretty cruddy. But they (his mother and her helpers) empty the wound of blood and then fill it with balm and nectar such as is good for mortals and gods. It's transfusion! Here again, to cure a wound that Belphoebe has caused, though this time neither knight nor mother know that it came from a man.
Happiness language has died down here, except for the strange proliferation of bowers of bliss. Venus has one!
So this is the book on Chastity, ostensibly focusing on Britomart,
In these cantos we see the fracture of the singular narrative, which had already seen a little tendency of fracturing beforehand (Book 2 Canto 3, when Braggadochio runs across Belphoebe, who cows him). Canto 1 offers the possibility of continuity, with Guyon, Arthur, the Palmer, and Britomartis meeting. Britomartis fights and defeats Guyon, who must be warned not to fight further by the Palmer. (Sometimes people lose - don't fight fate.) They ride together for some time, until they see a lady (Florimell) pursued by a foster (presumably a forester?). Arthur (and his squire Timaeus) and Guyon (and the Palmer) go off in pursuit, but Britomartis rides alone. She finds the Redcrosse Knight being defeated by six knights who serve Malecasta, the owner of a pretty castle, who scorns men who hold other lovers, or who don't see her. She defeats the men, and gains access to the castle, where after a feast and a lot of sexual tension (Malecasta crushes all over Britomartis), they go to bed. Malecasta goes to Britomartis's bed, who awakens and draws a sword on her. The six knights (representing progressive levels of lust) respond, Gardante lightly wounding B with an arrow. RCK and B go on.
In the next two cantos, we hear about Britomart's story, which largely involves her being raised in arms, stumbling across Merlin's mirror and seeing her lover in it, burning with love, being unsuccessfully cured by her nurse Glauce (including a weird and unsuccessful charm), them seeking Merlin who claims she should seek leach-craft, their insisting until he tells her the prophecy of her line to Elizabeth (including her own life), and their resolving to set out in search for him in Fairy land.
In Canto 4, we turn to Britomart riding (after complaining about her lost love in terms of a ship on a sea of sorrow), who encounters Marinell. They fight despite his warning, and she leaves him as a bloody pulp on the coast before riding off, wondering but thinking little of jewels speckled along the coast. His mother Cymoent comes, and we hear of her story and the story of the coast. Proteus had prophecied that he would have much ill of a woman, which she took to mean love. Eventually they find Marinell, and load him in their sea coach. He still has a pulse, and his wound is cleansed. They curse B, but she's immune to it. She and her nurse split, as they're pursued by Archimage and come to a crossing.
At this point, the narrative vein fractures. We turn to Timias, Arthur's squire, who has also been split from the others in a threeway division. He pursues Florimell, but gets lost in the night, and sees ghastly visions in the dark. In Canto 5, Arthur finds the Dwarf, who pursues Florimell. We learn that Florimell loves Marinell, who was charmed to not love her back. Meanwhile, T gets to the Foster, who with three others waylays the squire. He fights well, kills all three (in a scene with comparatively little blood but lots of beheading), but gradually bleeds out himself. Belphoebe comes up, tracking the blood of something she's hunting. She fins herbs for him, introduces self, and works to cure him. But he falls in love, wounded another way, and gradually succumbs to death in order to preserve her virtue. His blood dries.
In Canto 6, we learn of the origins of Belphoebe, who was conceived by Chrysogonee and sunbeams. Fearing dishonor though she knows she had none, she flees to the woods. Venus, seeking Cupid after a spat, wanders everywhere and finally to a forest where she sees Phoebe naked. Phoebe is scornful of this, but gradually softens in Venus's entreaties, and sends her nymphs to find Cupid in the woods. They find the children. One, for Phoebe, is named Belphoebe. The other, for Venus, is named Amoretta. The narrative then follows Amoretta to the garden of Adonis, where the tapestry in Canto 2 is finally completed - after Adonis died, he came here, where he lives eternally with Psyche and his child Pleasure. Old Genius keeps the door. Children are dressed by him in sin, and come in through the back door to be planted and purified (reincarnation of a sort). Amoretta is much loved, but loves only Scudamore. Then the narrative decides to turn back into Florimell.
Besides the formal shifting around, there are a few other threads. The prefaces of each canto (the first two or three stanzas) normally treat some abstract concern, much like the quatrain before summarizes the plot in an inadequate manner. In this case, most of these are either about the inadequacies of love or the passage of female valor or female ancient glory. The narrator really laments the loss of a tradition of martial women. This is especially clear in Canto 4, when he laments them in different ways depending on whether they're dead or merely lost. Canto 5 is also interesting in that it laments the kinds of love that can occur.
Blood is effusive in these passages, at least in parts, though the most intriguing place to be (besides Timaeus's wound in the thigh that opens as he fights, is closed by Belphoebe, and which opens another wound in his heart, which because he restrains himself from loving his blood gradually dries up) is with Marinell. He is left bleeding profusely, and when they find him, his blood is pretty cruddy. But they (his mother and her helpers) empty the wound of blood and then fill it with balm and nectar such as is good for mortals and gods. It's transfusion! Here again, to cure a wound that Belphoebe has caused, though this time neither knight nor mother know that it came from a man.
Happiness language has died down here, except for the strange proliferation of bowers of bliss. Venus has one!
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Faerie Queen Book 2, Cantos 7-12
This one was a doozie. Let's see.
Canto 7 - Guyon goes with Mammon into the underworld, where he's tempted by three temptations (avarice, ambition, and food/drink/rest). He resists the first two, but succumbs to the third, because it's been three days since he's eaten or slept. Poor guy.
Canto 8 - Palmer comes across Guyon's body, with an angel next to it. Pyrochles and Cymochles (with Archimago) find the body and start stripping it of arms. Arthur arrives to defend the body. Pyrochles takes Guyon's sevenfold shield (with the Faerie queen on the front) and Arthur's sword (from Archimago) called Morddure. They fight in a lengthy battle. Arthur's sword won't strike him, so P and A end up wrestling, but A wins against both. Tons of blood. Guyon awakens.
Canto 9 - Arthur asks about the Faerie Queen on Guyon's shield. They ride up and find the Castle of Temperance, held by a damsel, Alma. She represents the body, in bodily balance, complete with allegories for speaking, digesting, expelling, sensation, and thought. The castle is besieged by thousand in a rabble that move about like shades without substance. At the end, after seeing Phantasie, Judgment, and Memory, Guyon learns from a history of Britain and a history of fairy.
Canto 10 - The history of Britain and the history of fairy. It goes all the way back to the days of giants before Brutus, with mythical accounts of pre-Roman kings and placenames (like Lear). Eventually reaches the Roman conquest and Cymbeline, who ruled at the time of Christ. Then more time, Joseph of Arimathia and the Grail, and gradually the Roman recession, Vortigern/Hengist/Horsus, and finally Uther's lineage. Then it goes on to describe the creation of Elves (from Prometheus in the garden of Adonis) and Faeries, with a much shorter lineage going to Oberon and the Faerie Queen.
Canto 11 - Guyon leaves the castle with the Palmer. Arthur rides out to defend the castle. He fights the rabble's captain Maleger, who has two hags Impotence and Impatience waiting on him. He's difficult to catch, mounted on a tiger, and he fires deadly arrows (in the manner of Indians (21)). Arthur deflects the arrows, and tries to take the hags down as they gather the deflected arrows, but is nearly overcome. He gets up just in time to surprise Maleger, who very reluctantly fights. When Maleger is hewn in the chest, he doesn't bleed. Other wounds don't bleed. Arthur tries crushing Maleger to the ground, but he revives. Realizing that Maleger is connected to his mother Earth, he picks up Maleger and tosses him into the water.
Canto 12 - Guyon and the Palmer, with a boatman, journey by sea toward the Bower of Bliss. They see a number of pitfalls, including a Gulf of Greediness, the Rock of Vile Reproach, Wandering Islands, the Whirlpool of Decay, many monsters, mermaids (womanish forgeries), birds of misfortune, and the like. Upon making it to the bower, they ward off a number of animals that approach. Genius keeps an ivory gate with a soft wall (contrast with the hard and high wall of Temperance, its counter-body). He, representing lust, is easily defied. Excess is similarly dealt with, her gold cup dashed to bits. Painted flowers and the like follow, a strange and yet beautiful combination of Nature and Art. Two naked damsels writhe and ogle each other, tempting both themselves and Guyon, but the Palmer has none of it. Music pours forth from Acrasia's bower, where she and a lover (Verdant) recline. Verdant's honor has been long forgotten, his shield empty of engraving. They're seized and bound. They find out that the animals are all deformed into monsters by their lust for Acrasia (and her spells). It ends on a beratement of Grill, the pig, who must remain a pig.
Weird stuff - the body that doesn't bleed? When bleeding has been so effusive elsewhere?
Religious overtones here - Guyon mimicking the three temptations of Christ in his own journey into the underworld, and how he ends up failing on the last one.
Giants and monsters are especially predominant here, always the morally deformed other of human virtue. Yet, sometimes those that might be expected to be deformed (Acrasia's sons P and C) turn out to be fine, and just angry knights. Is this a difference of will here, where one or the other could yet choose to be otherwise, but an animal or monster has been changed essentially and can no longer choose?
Lots of language around happiness, and where one finds ultimate rest, especially in Canto 7. Worldly bliss as opposed to "another happiness." If this isn't Boethian, then I'm crazy.
Model of the mind and body (which aren't separated) as evoked in the allegory in Canto 9. Comparison of this body with the similar body in Canto 12. What gets emphasized? Exchanges of the body with the outside world, and the threefold Averroesean model of the mind, which incorporates the Imaginative capacity.
Nature and forgery, especially in the bower of bliss. Not all artifice is bad, as it lists among the feigned "leasings, tales, and lies" (IX.51.9). In that, it seems to take a similar tack that Sidney's Defense of Poetry later does, having to balance the idea that fiction is constructed with the idea that such fictions can still be instructive and potentially good.
And of course amongst all these religious allegories and philosophical ideas you have the entrappings of romance. Arthur has his sword and his horse named (MORDDURE AND SPUMADOR). You have the lesbians in the bower of bliss, or at least seeming lesbians, since there seems to be a confusion where desirability proliferates unbridled outside of heterosexual bounds. Guyon certainly likes it. >_>
Canto 7 - Guyon goes with Mammon into the underworld, where he's tempted by three temptations (avarice, ambition, and food/drink/rest). He resists the first two, but succumbs to the third, because it's been three days since he's eaten or slept. Poor guy.
Canto 8 - Palmer comes across Guyon's body, with an angel next to it. Pyrochles and Cymochles (with Archimago) find the body and start stripping it of arms. Arthur arrives to defend the body. Pyrochles takes Guyon's sevenfold shield (with the Faerie queen on the front) and Arthur's sword (from Archimago) called Morddure. They fight in a lengthy battle. Arthur's sword won't strike him, so P and A end up wrestling, but A wins against both. Tons of blood. Guyon awakens.
Canto 9 - Arthur asks about the Faerie Queen on Guyon's shield. They ride up and find the Castle of Temperance, held by a damsel, Alma. She represents the body, in bodily balance, complete with allegories for speaking, digesting, expelling, sensation, and thought. The castle is besieged by thousand in a rabble that move about like shades without substance. At the end, after seeing Phantasie, Judgment, and Memory, Guyon learns from a history of Britain and a history of fairy.
Canto 10 - The history of Britain and the history of fairy. It goes all the way back to the days of giants before Brutus, with mythical accounts of pre-Roman kings and placenames (like Lear). Eventually reaches the Roman conquest and Cymbeline, who ruled at the time of Christ. Then more time, Joseph of Arimathia and the Grail, and gradually the Roman recession, Vortigern/Hengist/Horsus, and finally Uther's lineage. Then it goes on to describe the creation of Elves (from Prometheus in the garden of Adonis) and Faeries, with a much shorter lineage going to Oberon and the Faerie Queen.
Canto 11 - Guyon leaves the castle with the Palmer. Arthur rides out to defend the castle. He fights the rabble's captain Maleger, who has two hags Impotence and Impatience waiting on him. He's difficult to catch, mounted on a tiger, and he fires deadly arrows (in the manner of Indians (21)). Arthur deflects the arrows, and tries to take the hags down as they gather the deflected arrows, but is nearly overcome. He gets up just in time to surprise Maleger, who very reluctantly fights. When Maleger is hewn in the chest, he doesn't bleed. Other wounds don't bleed. Arthur tries crushing Maleger to the ground, but he revives. Realizing that Maleger is connected to his mother Earth, he picks up Maleger and tosses him into the water.
Canto 12 - Guyon and the Palmer, with a boatman, journey by sea toward the Bower of Bliss. They see a number of pitfalls, including a Gulf of Greediness, the Rock of Vile Reproach, Wandering Islands, the Whirlpool of Decay, many monsters, mermaids (womanish forgeries), birds of misfortune, and the like. Upon making it to the bower, they ward off a number of animals that approach. Genius keeps an ivory gate with a soft wall (contrast with the hard and high wall of Temperance, its counter-body). He, representing lust, is easily defied. Excess is similarly dealt with, her gold cup dashed to bits. Painted flowers and the like follow, a strange and yet beautiful combination of Nature and Art. Two naked damsels writhe and ogle each other, tempting both themselves and Guyon, but the Palmer has none of it. Music pours forth from Acrasia's bower, where she and a lover (Verdant) recline. Verdant's honor has been long forgotten, his shield empty of engraving. They're seized and bound. They find out that the animals are all deformed into monsters by their lust for Acrasia (and her spells). It ends on a beratement of Grill, the pig, who must remain a pig.
Weird stuff - the body that doesn't bleed? When bleeding has been so effusive elsewhere?
Religious overtones here - Guyon mimicking the three temptations of Christ in his own journey into the underworld, and how he ends up failing on the last one.
Giants and monsters are especially predominant here, always the morally deformed other of human virtue. Yet, sometimes those that might be expected to be deformed (Acrasia's sons P and C) turn out to be fine, and just angry knights. Is this a difference of will here, where one or the other could yet choose to be otherwise, but an animal or monster has been changed essentially and can no longer choose?
Lots of language around happiness, and where one finds ultimate rest, especially in Canto 7. Worldly bliss as opposed to "another happiness." If this isn't Boethian, then I'm crazy.
Model of the mind and body (which aren't separated) as evoked in the allegory in Canto 9. Comparison of this body with the similar body in Canto 12. What gets emphasized? Exchanges of the body with the outside world, and the threefold Averroesean model of the mind, which incorporates the Imaginative capacity.
Nature and forgery, especially in the bower of bliss. Not all artifice is bad, as it lists among the feigned "leasings, tales, and lies" (IX.51.9). In that, it seems to take a similar tack that Sidney's Defense of Poetry later does, having to balance the idea that fiction is constructed with the idea that such fictions can still be instructive and potentially good.
And of course amongst all these religious allegories and philosophical ideas you have the entrappings of romance. Arthur has his sword and his horse named (MORDDURE AND SPUMADOR). You have the lesbians in the bower of bliss, or at least seeming lesbians, since there seems to be a confusion where desirability proliferates unbridled outside of heterosexual bounds. Guyon certainly likes it. >_>
Thursday, March 17, 2011
The Faerie Queene Book 2, Cantos 1-6
I have less to say about Guyon, the knight of Temperance. He travels with a Palmer dressed in black (and who is called, sometimes, the black palmer). The tale seems to make a lot at first of Archimago seeking revenge towards the Redcrosse knight, which gets crossed with pursuing Guyon. However, he only appears occasionally, first to Braggadochio and Trompart (who stole Guyon's horse after Canto 2) where he promises to get them Arthur's sword (when Braggadochio makes excuses for not having a sword of his own), and again at the end of Canto 6, where Archimago comes at the right time to cure Pyrochles, who has been thoroughly burning on the inside after fighting Furor.
The preface has an interesting note, where the author is trying to justify the depiction of the Faerie Land through comparison to such places as Indian Peru and Virginia. As he puts it, the Faerie Land may exist because it hasn't yet been discovered, like these lands. Though, at the same time, that seems a little too much of a tricky point to make, since it is clear in other places that the temporality of the Faerie Land is in both the past and the present. Time and spatial discovery are both troublesome tropes here.
There's really not much to do with Acrasia and the Bower of Bliss yet. As with the dragon in the first book, there are occasional reminders of their existence, but nothing really present. The closest comes when, after Pyrochles fights Furor, Atin gives him up for dead and flees to warn Cymochles. (Pyrochles is the irascible passion, Cymochles the concupiscible passion.) Cymochles is lounging in the Bower of Bliss, alternately getting pleased by all the nymphs and sprites about him and feigning sleep so he can peek at them. Through him, and the example of Phaedra and the Idle Lake, we begin to see the balance of challenges against Temperance. Where in the first book the main opposition to happiness was despair against faith, devaluing the worldly life to turn either to death or a higher life, here the weight falls differently. Phaedra devalues the pursuit of worth in arms and armor in order to promote a life of decadence and pleasure. It's an entirely different way of losing sight of virtue. This time, it is really about maintaining a measure of balance between different extremes that would cloud wisdom and perception. Sometimes the extremes are wrath and idleness. We see this also in the three sisters in Canto 2, Elissa, Medina, and Perissa. They've split a castle in three, each chosen a knight they favor (Medina - Guyon, Elissa - Huddibras, Perissa - Sans loy). Elissa is too sour and ungracious. Perissa is too given to excesses in joys and choler. Medina seems to strike the sweet spot in the middle.
So there's a sweet spot. There's also the strangeness of the child, who at the start of the second Canto cannot wash its wounds of blood. The previous canto has provided an introduction of the themes of extremes through a lady who loved a knight, who was corrupted by Acrasia in the Bower of Bliss. She had his child, tried to win him back, but Acrasia poisons the knight (with yet another cup) and the lady kills herself in despair. The baby has been bathed in their blood and earth, and Guyon with the Palmer has sworn to look after them. Soon, through the second Canto, the blood that cannot be washed away (in a font that is chaste and won't touch the blood) is taken to be a sign and reminder that the Orphan should wreak his revenge. He's called Ruddymane. How this is not a temptation to some later excess, I have yet to see. Perhaps it's like Francis Bacon later explains, that there is a kind of revenge that can be justly sought, when it's in excess of the law but right is on your side. (He doesn't put it exactly that way - he's being typically aphoristic - but the sense is there.)
The preface has an interesting note, where the author is trying to justify the depiction of the Faerie Land through comparison to such places as Indian Peru and Virginia. As he puts it, the Faerie Land may exist because it hasn't yet been discovered, like these lands. Though, at the same time, that seems a little too much of a tricky point to make, since it is clear in other places that the temporality of the Faerie Land is in both the past and the present. Time and spatial discovery are both troublesome tropes here.
There's really not much to do with Acrasia and the Bower of Bliss yet. As with the dragon in the first book, there are occasional reminders of their existence, but nothing really present. The closest comes when, after Pyrochles fights Furor, Atin gives him up for dead and flees to warn Cymochles. (Pyrochles is the irascible passion, Cymochles the concupiscible passion.) Cymochles is lounging in the Bower of Bliss, alternately getting pleased by all the nymphs and sprites about him and feigning sleep so he can peek at them. Through him, and the example of Phaedra and the Idle Lake, we begin to see the balance of challenges against Temperance. Where in the first book the main opposition to happiness was despair against faith, devaluing the worldly life to turn either to death or a higher life, here the weight falls differently. Phaedra devalues the pursuit of worth in arms and armor in order to promote a life of decadence and pleasure. It's an entirely different way of losing sight of virtue. This time, it is really about maintaining a measure of balance between different extremes that would cloud wisdom and perception. Sometimes the extremes are wrath and idleness. We see this also in the three sisters in Canto 2, Elissa, Medina, and Perissa. They've split a castle in three, each chosen a knight they favor (Medina - Guyon, Elissa - Huddibras, Perissa - Sans loy). Elissa is too sour and ungracious. Perissa is too given to excesses in joys and choler. Medina seems to strike the sweet spot in the middle.
So there's a sweet spot. There's also the strangeness of the child, who at the start of the second Canto cannot wash its wounds of blood. The previous canto has provided an introduction of the themes of extremes through a lady who loved a knight, who was corrupted by Acrasia in the Bower of Bliss. She had his child, tried to win him back, but Acrasia poisons the knight (with yet another cup) and the lady kills herself in despair. The baby has been bathed in their blood and earth, and Guyon with the Palmer has sworn to look after them. Soon, through the second Canto, the blood that cannot be washed away (in a font that is chaste and won't touch the blood) is taken to be a sign and reminder that the Orphan should wreak his revenge. He's called Ruddymane. How this is not a temptation to some later excess, I have yet to see. Perhaps it's like Francis Bacon later explains, that there is a kind of revenge that can be justly sought, when it's in excess of the law but right is on your side. (He doesn't put it exactly that way - he's being typically aphoristic - but the sense is there.)
Wednesday, March 16, 2011
The Faerie Queene, Book 1, Cantos 7-12
Today I read the conclusion of the first book.
Crazy. Crazy good. Again, the sense of it is sometimes, or even often, adopted from medieval romances with some epic embellishment from classical sources, but the expression of it is original. It's not often that Spenser falls back on stock phrases and the like that can be traced. The language, intentionally archaic, is quite lively. I'm thinking of the one stanza where the giant is jolted out of his complacency by Duessa's voice in the same way that a gunshot would catch someone's attention (13), but the way the gunshot is described, it's very aureate. It's the stanzaic equivalent of "boomstick," and yet so very evocative and vivid.
Anyway, trends I saw. There's a fight with a giant! Another fight, attempted, with Despair. And finally a fight with the dragon. In all of these, dismemberment and bleeding are quite prominent. Blood must flow. Blood must be on the ground. Blood. Blood. Blood. The fight with despair shows blood operating on a different register. The blood is now frozen in Treuisan as he tries to describe the fate of his friend Terwin, lured to killing himself with a rusty knife by Despaire. Indeed, the malady wrought by Despaire is one that seems to lie in the blood - the Redcrosse knight's doubt lies in the "troubled bloud" that sits in his face (IX.51). This blood in the next canto gets a cure - leeches and the like by Patience (23), and the drawing of blood in particular by Remorse (27). He also gets the blood letters in the bloody book held by Fidelia, and learns further about the bloody sacrifice through Charissa and the example of the City of God, Hierusalem (55). All this is in contrast to the dragon's blood in Canto 11, which is quite effusive, potentially poisonous, and black. Ridding the kingdom of Eden of this black blood is the ultimate task for the Redcrosse knight in this book, an exterior representation of his own purification. It also represents the boundaries between species of bodies. (I can't help thinking of Titus, where Aaron never bleeds. Could they prevent his bleeding in order to prevent seeing how red his blood is as well? By keeping him intact, his blood could be, well, black? It's a big stretch.) Finally, a brief note - compare the giant and the dragon. Both are huge, both bleed a lot, and both fall like mountains. Also, there's the fear of procreation with the dragon, which as noted with the lamia monster ... unnatural procreation is common here.
As I've mentioned, the turn in Canto 10 to the spiritual hospital run by Caelia is a little odd. It's the second time we enter an extended part where the author emphasizes through allegory a spiritual lesson (Canto 4 was the house of Pride.) It preserves many of the classical spiritual divisions, as the RCK is strengthened by the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity (in contrast to the four cardinal virtues, one of which, Temperance, structures the second Book). Faith involves a direct treatment of grace, justice, and free will. Hope involves treatment in the hospital of patience, and the aid of Amendment, Penance, Remorse, and Repentence. Then Love (Charissa), who has been absent due to her birthing a child (Jesus?), is helped by Mercy in instructing him in love and well-being. This then turns to the hermitae held by Contemplation, who talks about reaching a good end, and especially the city of God. Then the Redcrosse knight is revealed as St. George, which should be no surprise to its readers, but is to the knight, who inquires about why he has English blood, if he's Elfin? (He's an orphan.)
Ah, this reminds me. Two threads, one for now, one for later. The one for later - orphanage in these stories. The one for now - happiness. When Arthur has defeated the giant and he's talking with the Redcrosse knight (Canto 8, 9), there's mention of both the sureness of bliss and the unsureness of earthly happiness. This comes to a head when Despaire, in his stanzas, brings up as well the unsureness of earthly life as a reason for ending it soon, because as he puts it, longer life only increases one's sorrows and one's sins. Against this the hospital in Canto X works. It's the discourse on happiness and ends I find intriguing here, because I don't think that people have talked about it in such terms. It's not uncommon, sure, but I'm particularly sensitive to it given the work I've already done with Boethius in Chaucer. Oh, it'd be awesome if there were a tie between it and, say, Troilus and Criseyde.
Prince Arthur is worth some mention too. He's a Prince, before the point that he becomes a queen. He pursues the Faerie Queene as his love. He's valiant, and has a shield of diamond. When he and the Redcrosse knight trade gifts, he gives a bejeweled box that has drops of a healing liquor, and receives a Bible in golden letters. Again, all of these books circulating tempt me to focus on them too, especially the easy elision between a holy and a magic book demonstrated initially with Archimago.
Una as a guide. The way women guide actions here is quite interesting, especially the way that the manner of guidance is so easygoing. She is the one who tells him where to go, because he doesn't know. She is set by him in places to spectate while the battle goes on, and there's something important about her viewpoint. I don't know exactly what, but her spectatorship is required. For honor and worship? For telling that the tale is true? For encouragement? A little of all. I've written on this before in relation to the Tale of Sir Gareth, so I'll keep an eye on it.
Otherwise, I'm keeping my eyes open. The book ends with RCK and Una married. RCK then leaves again, and Una stays in safety, which connects directly with the second book, where a captured Archimago (who tried to accuse RCK of being married to Fidessa/Duessa) escapes.
Crazy. Crazy good. Again, the sense of it is sometimes, or even often, adopted from medieval romances with some epic embellishment from classical sources, but the expression of it is original. It's not often that Spenser falls back on stock phrases and the like that can be traced. The language, intentionally archaic, is quite lively. I'm thinking of the one stanza where the giant is jolted out of his complacency by Duessa's voice in the same way that a gunshot would catch someone's attention (13), but the way the gunshot is described, it's very aureate. It's the stanzaic equivalent of "boomstick," and yet so very evocative and vivid.
Anyway, trends I saw. There's a fight with a giant! Another fight, attempted, with Despair. And finally a fight with the dragon. In all of these, dismemberment and bleeding are quite prominent. Blood must flow. Blood must be on the ground. Blood. Blood. Blood. The fight with despair shows blood operating on a different register. The blood is now frozen in Treuisan as he tries to describe the fate of his friend Terwin, lured to killing himself with a rusty knife by Despaire. Indeed, the malady wrought by Despaire is one that seems to lie in the blood - the Redcrosse knight's doubt lies in the "troubled bloud" that sits in his face (IX.51). This blood in the next canto gets a cure - leeches and the like by Patience (23), and the drawing of blood in particular by Remorse (27). He also gets the blood letters in the bloody book held by Fidelia, and learns further about the bloody sacrifice through Charissa and the example of the City of God, Hierusalem (55). All this is in contrast to the dragon's blood in Canto 11, which is quite effusive, potentially poisonous, and black. Ridding the kingdom of Eden of this black blood is the ultimate task for the Redcrosse knight in this book, an exterior representation of his own purification. It also represents the boundaries between species of bodies. (I can't help thinking of Titus, where Aaron never bleeds. Could they prevent his bleeding in order to prevent seeing how red his blood is as well? By keeping him intact, his blood could be, well, black? It's a big stretch.) Finally, a brief note - compare the giant and the dragon. Both are huge, both bleed a lot, and both fall like mountains. Also, there's the fear of procreation with the dragon, which as noted with the lamia monster ... unnatural procreation is common here.
As I've mentioned, the turn in Canto 10 to the spiritual hospital run by Caelia is a little odd. It's the second time we enter an extended part where the author emphasizes through allegory a spiritual lesson (Canto 4 was the house of Pride.) It preserves many of the classical spiritual divisions, as the RCK is strengthened by the three theological virtues of Faith, Hope, and Charity (in contrast to the four cardinal virtues, one of which, Temperance, structures the second Book). Faith involves a direct treatment of grace, justice, and free will. Hope involves treatment in the hospital of patience, and the aid of Amendment, Penance, Remorse, and Repentence. Then Love (Charissa), who has been absent due to her birthing a child (Jesus?), is helped by Mercy in instructing him in love and well-being. This then turns to the hermitae held by Contemplation, who talks about reaching a good end, and especially the city of God. Then the Redcrosse knight is revealed as St. George, which should be no surprise to its readers, but is to the knight, who inquires about why he has English blood, if he's Elfin? (He's an orphan.)
Ah, this reminds me. Two threads, one for now, one for later. The one for later - orphanage in these stories. The one for now - happiness. When Arthur has defeated the giant and he's talking with the Redcrosse knight (Canto 8, 9), there's mention of both the sureness of bliss and the unsureness of earthly happiness. This comes to a head when Despaire, in his stanzas, brings up as well the unsureness of earthly life as a reason for ending it soon, because as he puts it, longer life only increases one's sorrows and one's sins. Against this the hospital in Canto X works. It's the discourse on happiness and ends I find intriguing here, because I don't think that people have talked about it in such terms. It's not uncommon, sure, but I'm particularly sensitive to it given the work I've already done with Boethius in Chaucer. Oh, it'd be awesome if there were a tie between it and, say, Troilus and Criseyde.
Prince Arthur is worth some mention too. He's a Prince, before the point that he becomes a queen. He pursues the Faerie Queene as his love. He's valiant, and has a shield of diamond. When he and the Redcrosse knight trade gifts, he gives a bejeweled box that has drops of a healing liquor, and receives a Bible in golden letters. Again, all of these books circulating tempt me to focus on them too, especially the easy elision between a holy and a magic book demonstrated initially with Archimago.
Una as a guide. The way women guide actions here is quite interesting, especially the way that the manner of guidance is so easygoing. She is the one who tells him where to go, because he doesn't know. She is set by him in places to spectate while the battle goes on, and there's something important about her viewpoint. I don't know exactly what, but her spectatorship is required. For honor and worship? For telling that the tale is true? For encouragement? A little of all. I've written on this before in relation to the Tale of Sir Gareth, so I'll keep an eye on it.
Otherwise, I'm keeping my eyes open. The book ends with RCK and Una married. RCK then leaves again, and Una stays in safety, which connects directly with the second book, where a captured Archimago (who tried to accuse RCK of being married to Fidessa/Duessa) escapes.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
The Fairie Queene, preface materials and Cantos I-VI
There are times when the stretch towards allegory seems sincere. There are the two Cantos (4 and 5) that are focused on Pride. Pride is a palace that looks quite gaudy and impressive. It has high but thin walls, and an insecure foundation. Once let in (and the doorkeeper Malvenu keeps no one out), one is in the court of Queen Lucifera. Vanitie keeps the court, while the other six sins (idleness, gluttony, lechery, avarice, envy, and wrath) pull her coach. Each one has a three-stanza description, their bodies mirroring their sins in much the same way they do in the Purgatorio and the Inferno. Satan rides the beam of the coach, while Slowth rests in the mire nearby. It is decadent. It is destructive. We don't see the prisoners and the corpses around this court until, at the end of the next Canto, the Redcrosse Knight flees in fear for his life. He's bleeding, but he must flee anyway, out of fear that he will become one of the downtrodden rather than the victorious. (He has just beaten Sans ioy, the brother to Sans foy (who he defeated) and Sans loy (who tries to rape Una).
Yet there are parts of the story that thus far read as unintelligible. What is Archimago doing, except being a stereotypical villain? He appears to be a true hermit and religious type, but it turns out that the book around his belt is a magic book rather than a psalter. If this book is supposed to be about faith, is Archimago (and Duessa too) supposed to represent the failure or subversion of faith while maintaining the false appearance of virtue? Facade - that seems to be the most striking note in these parts. Three times now, Archimago has appeared in disguise. First indirectly, through his sprites, he feigned Una's disgrace. Then he dresses as the Redcrosse Knight to deceive Una, only to be discovered by Sans loy (who knows Archimago). Finally, as a pilgrim, he leads Una and Satyrane into a fight with Sans loy. Coupled with the castle of Pride, and Duessa/Fidessa, there's a lot of disguises going about.
There is also the direct faithlessness of the pagans, paynims, or the Sarazins (Saracens). Nothing direct about their religion - it seems like their faithlessness is enough. Sans foy, Sans loy, and Sans ioy. The first killed at the start. The second currently fleeing after Una, with Satyrane in pursuit. The third killed (and ambiguously healed?) in Pride's court by the Redcrosse Knight. They are large, but somewhat fair in description, even if they are also prone to excesses. They sound a lot like Cohen's giants. They are a physical threat to faith, and also to virtue.
What else? Duessa's descent into the underworld to obtain healing for Sans ioy is fairly interesting (Canto 5). There are tons of descriptive details, including the sinners that are found there. All of this falls under a general strain I've seen of providing classical examples. This happens even in the dedicatory materials, but there's a constant emphasis on referring to Jove, Venus, Mars, Phoebus, and the like. I've mostly left these references out of my notes, being too lengthy and typical to really pay attention to. I think it's interesting where they appear, more than how they appear. For instance, the descent into the underworld seems to closely mirror what the Redcrosse Knight sees in the court of Pride.
Blood, of course, is on my mind. Fighters bleed frequently, and there seems to be an extra satisfaction in these cantos in telling where the blood goes to. This also ties in with monstrous procreation (Satyrane, the lamia monster). For instance, the monster with a woman's top and a snake's bottom has poisonous dugs from which a thousand little monsters suckle (Canto 1). When she is decapitated, black blood rushes forth from her head. Note, the blood doesn't disappear, but it pools on the ground. The little ones consume the blood, become overfull, and die. When the two knights fight in Canto 6, the blood falls fruitlessly to the ground, evoking its alternative uses in reproduction. When Sans ioy is killed, I believe there is reference to his blood being consumed by the ground around him. Unlike most of the romances I've read, I want to say that blood here is at least two-dimensional. It denotes violence, yes. It has humoral valences at times, yes. It also - and this is important - participates in an exchange where it must go somewhere, must come from somewhere, and must rest somewhere. When fighters bleed, it reads as more than a matter-of-fact detail. That blood is as necessary to the fighting as swords, but more than that, it's not just incidental. It's integral to fighting itself, showing it and its effects on each other and the environment around them.
Yet there are parts of the story that thus far read as unintelligible. What is Archimago doing, except being a stereotypical villain? He appears to be a true hermit and religious type, but it turns out that the book around his belt is a magic book rather than a psalter. If this book is supposed to be about faith, is Archimago (and Duessa too) supposed to represent the failure or subversion of faith while maintaining the false appearance of virtue? Facade - that seems to be the most striking note in these parts. Three times now, Archimago has appeared in disguise. First indirectly, through his sprites, he feigned Una's disgrace. Then he dresses as the Redcrosse Knight to deceive Una, only to be discovered by Sans loy (who knows Archimago). Finally, as a pilgrim, he leads Una and Satyrane into a fight with Sans loy. Coupled with the castle of Pride, and Duessa/Fidessa, there's a lot of disguises going about.
There is also the direct faithlessness of the pagans, paynims, or the Sarazins (Saracens). Nothing direct about their religion - it seems like their faithlessness is enough. Sans foy, Sans loy, and Sans ioy. The first killed at the start. The second currently fleeing after Una, with Satyrane in pursuit. The third killed (and ambiguously healed?) in Pride's court by the Redcrosse Knight. They are large, but somewhat fair in description, even if they are also prone to excesses. They sound a lot like Cohen's giants. They are a physical threat to faith, and also to virtue.
What else? Duessa's descent into the underworld to obtain healing for Sans ioy is fairly interesting (Canto 5). There are tons of descriptive details, including the sinners that are found there. All of this falls under a general strain I've seen of providing classical examples. This happens even in the dedicatory materials, but there's a constant emphasis on referring to Jove, Venus, Mars, Phoebus, and the like. I've mostly left these references out of my notes, being too lengthy and typical to really pay attention to. I think it's interesting where they appear, more than how they appear. For instance, the descent into the underworld seems to closely mirror what the Redcrosse Knight sees in the court of Pride.
Blood, of course, is on my mind. Fighters bleed frequently, and there seems to be an extra satisfaction in these cantos in telling where the blood goes to. This also ties in with monstrous procreation (Satyrane, the lamia monster). For instance, the monster with a woman's top and a snake's bottom has poisonous dugs from which a thousand little monsters suckle (Canto 1). When she is decapitated, black blood rushes forth from her head. Note, the blood doesn't disappear, but it pools on the ground. The little ones consume the blood, become overfull, and die. When the two knights fight in Canto 6, the blood falls fruitlessly to the ground, evoking its alternative uses in reproduction. When Sans ioy is killed, I believe there is reference to his blood being consumed by the ground around him. Unlike most of the romances I've read, I want to say that blood here is at least two-dimensional. It denotes violence, yes. It has humoral valences at times, yes. It also - and this is important - participates in an exchange where it must go somewhere, must come from somewhere, and must rest somewhere. When fighters bleed, it reads as more than a matter-of-fact detail. That blood is as necessary to the fighting as swords, but more than that, it's not just incidental. It's integral to fighting itself, showing it and its effects on each other and the environment around them.
Thursday, January 20, 2011
The Prison Writer
I was reading some Richard Lovelace today. A Royalist during the English Civil War, he ended up getting imprisoned in 1642 and again in 1648. So he has some prison poems, most famously "To Althea, From Prison." In it he contrasts these little, sad consolations (like speaking to Althea through a grate and entangling in her hair) with the liberty that something else (in the first verse, gods) cannot know. It's a simple but moving formula.
I was then looking at the criticism through the MLA International Bibliography, such as it is. Many critics consider him a prison writer, and look at those poems authored from prison most closely. I find such groupings curious and compelling as well, though I'm at a loss to explain why. Is it because the desperation that prison represents makes the literature the imprisoned produce into crystals ripe with dramatic tension, as the authors seek redemption, ennobled resistance, spiritual clarity, or unparalleled grief?
There could be a topic here, one that could bridge the medieval and Renaissance world, as well as the classical one before it, and the (pretentiously) modern one. Let me muse on its bounds.
On one end, there's Boethius. Oh, is there ever Boethius, despairing in prison, visited by Lady Philosophy and made to turn away from self-indulgent grief and towards, first, earthly eudaimonism and then spiritual eudaimonism, inclining towards reason, love, and God. His exploration is a philosophical one, and in reading Chaucer's (and to a certain degree Walter Map's) translations of Boethius, I think that late medieval English authors were able to understand the link between philosophical rigor in translation (Chaucer and Walter Map so carefully choosing the words welefulness and blisfulnesse to distinguish between fallible and infallible eudaimonism) and the eloquence that can only be released in the depths of despair (Chaucer's metrical translations ... now I forget. Are they in poetry, or does he render them into prose too? If the latter, he still does an excellent job rendering both the poetic sense and the philosophical one).
Follow that through, and you have some form of prison literature coming through many of the centuries of medieval literature. Saints' lives often provide the transition, and I would argue that anchoritic life was also a form of imprisonment (though one in which the partaker was willing, it had larger symbolic significances of death, and the larger imprisonment involved the imprisonment of the soul in the body (OMG Marvell's "A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body")). Third, there are the characters imprisoned through story, which can include Lancelot in The Knight of the Cart, the knights in The Knight's Tale, and knights or ladies in many of the romances. Fourth, you have the authors reporting themselves to be locked up. Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell ends with an entreaty by the author, as does Le Morte Darthur. From there, many poets afterwards have been at various times imprisoned, like Surrey.
It occurs to me that there's a division here between political imprisonments, religious ones, and other kinds (if there are). Sir Thomas Malory, Marvell, Surrey, and Boethius form a line of people imprisoned due to their political stances, which are sometimes indistinguishable from their personal indiscretions (the accusation of rape against Malory, for instance). The saints' lives and the anchorites have this happen for religious reasons, with an important factor being whether (or to what extent) they were able to determine (or reinterpret) their own imprisonment. The imprisonments that happen to characters are more bewildering. Sometimes it seems like the imprisonment is merely personal or individual, geared specifically against the knight in question. Sometimes, though, as with any romance involving Saracens or Welsh or the like, it seems like there's a geopolitical reason as well, even if it's only elaborated enough to say that religious difference is an excuse to persecute the hero. Finally, it can richly reinforce the present social circumstances of a society, as occurs in many plays where a character is thrown into slavery, desirably or not.
I've long been rambling, but despite their ostensible differences, I think that writing from a form of imprisonment can be compelling way to look at literatures through 1660. I'd have to read more to fill in the gaps.
I was then looking at the criticism through the MLA International Bibliography, such as it is. Many critics consider him a prison writer, and look at those poems authored from prison most closely. I find such groupings curious and compelling as well, though I'm at a loss to explain why. Is it because the desperation that prison represents makes the literature the imprisoned produce into crystals ripe with dramatic tension, as the authors seek redemption, ennobled resistance, spiritual clarity, or unparalleled grief?
There could be a topic here, one that could bridge the medieval and Renaissance world, as well as the classical one before it, and the (pretentiously) modern one. Let me muse on its bounds.
On one end, there's Boethius. Oh, is there ever Boethius, despairing in prison, visited by Lady Philosophy and made to turn away from self-indulgent grief and towards, first, earthly eudaimonism and then spiritual eudaimonism, inclining towards reason, love, and God. His exploration is a philosophical one, and in reading Chaucer's (and to a certain degree Walter Map's) translations of Boethius, I think that late medieval English authors were able to understand the link between philosophical rigor in translation (Chaucer and Walter Map so carefully choosing the words welefulness and blisfulnesse to distinguish between fallible and infallible eudaimonism) and the eloquence that can only be released in the depths of despair (Chaucer's metrical translations ... now I forget. Are they in poetry, or does he render them into prose too? If the latter, he still does an excellent job rendering both the poetic sense and the philosophical one).
Follow that through, and you have some form of prison literature coming through many of the centuries of medieval literature. Saints' lives often provide the transition, and I would argue that anchoritic life was also a form of imprisonment (though one in which the partaker was willing, it had larger symbolic significances of death, and the larger imprisonment involved the imprisonment of the soul in the body (OMG Marvell's "A Dialogue Between the Soul and the Body")). Third, there are the characters imprisoned through story, which can include Lancelot in The Knight of the Cart, the knights in The Knight's Tale, and knights or ladies in many of the romances. Fourth, you have the authors reporting themselves to be locked up. Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell ends with an entreaty by the author, as does Le Morte Darthur. From there, many poets afterwards have been at various times imprisoned, like Surrey.
It occurs to me that there's a division here between political imprisonments, religious ones, and other kinds (if there are). Sir Thomas Malory, Marvell, Surrey, and Boethius form a line of people imprisoned due to their political stances, which are sometimes indistinguishable from their personal indiscretions (the accusation of rape against Malory, for instance). The saints' lives and the anchorites have this happen for religious reasons, with an important factor being whether (or to what extent) they were able to determine (or reinterpret) their own imprisonment. The imprisonments that happen to characters are more bewildering. Sometimes it seems like the imprisonment is merely personal or individual, geared specifically against the knight in question. Sometimes, though, as with any romance involving Saracens or Welsh or the like, it seems like there's a geopolitical reason as well, even if it's only elaborated enough to say that religious difference is an excuse to persecute the hero. Finally, it can richly reinforce the present social circumstances of a society, as occurs in many plays where a character is thrown into slavery, desirably or not.
I've long been rambling, but despite their ostensible differences, I think that writing from a form of imprisonment can be compelling way to look at literatures through 1660. I'd have to read more to fill in the gaps.
Friday, January 7, 2011
Cymbeline
A few things that struck me about Cymbeline:
The very elaborate double-plot going on, where some key figures can be offstage for acts at a time. We don't even learn of the two brothers' fates until the play is halfway over! Structurally, it's not classical at all, and I can imagine why Ben Jonson wouldn't like it. I still did though.
Imogen and her disguising as a man. It's pretty fascinating with what ease she does so, and then how the people who encounter her nearly see through it, and make much of her being a pretty youth. One even says something to the effect of, "If you were a woman, I'd keep you." *facepalm*
More humoral language, not to any great effect, except that I did notice that women have a tendency to be described as slippery only when they are really virtuous. To call someone slippery (this happens also in The Winter's Tale) seems to damn the speaker's intentions more than the one indicated.
Cloten is hilarious. He's such a fop, and doesn't realize it. His beheading is unsurprising. Also, as villains go, the queen is actually pretty masterful. But she still dies of grief with her son, which indicates that she isn't all bad.
And there's so much about people's natures manifesting themselves despite lacking any knowledge of lineage (Guiderius, Arviragus) that I really rolled my eyes. In this way, it really had a sort of fairy-tale quality to it.
Oh, and jealousy. Posthumus's bargain... he was so quickly turned into doubt once the proofs became dire enough, even when the friends around him recognized otherwise. There's something here that can also be read into The Winter's Tale and Othello. Why all the jealous husbands?
The very elaborate double-plot going on, where some key figures can be offstage for acts at a time. We don't even learn of the two brothers' fates until the play is halfway over! Structurally, it's not classical at all, and I can imagine why Ben Jonson wouldn't like it. I still did though.
Imogen and her disguising as a man. It's pretty fascinating with what ease she does so, and then how the people who encounter her nearly see through it, and make much of her being a pretty youth. One even says something to the effect of, "If you were a woman, I'd keep you." *facepalm*
More humoral language, not to any great effect, except that I did notice that women have a tendency to be described as slippery only when they are really virtuous. To call someone slippery (this happens also in The Winter's Tale) seems to damn the speaker's intentions more than the one indicated.
Cloten is hilarious. He's such a fop, and doesn't realize it. His beheading is unsurprising. Also, as villains go, the queen is actually pretty masterful. But she still dies of grief with her son, which indicates that she isn't all bad.
And there's so much about people's natures manifesting themselves despite lacking any knowledge of lineage (Guiderius, Arviragus) that I really rolled my eyes. In this way, it really had a sort of fairy-tale quality to it.
Oh, and jealousy. Posthumus's bargain... he was so quickly turned into doubt once the proofs became dire enough, even when the friends around him recognized otherwise. There's something here that can also be read into The Winter's Tale and Othello. Why all the jealous husbands?
The Tempest and The Winter's Tale
Both plays are around the time 1611, The Tempest perhaps being a little later, though with the fuzziness of dates, that's only an uneducated guess.
So, topics to think about.
There's tons of magic in both of these plays; more in The Tempest, though a little at the end of The Winter's Tale too. It's unclear whether the unveiling of Hermione at the end of the play, her transformation from statue into life, occurs after she was hidden away for sixteen years, or after her actual death. I read it as the latter, a bit of flash and awe to tie things together in this fireside tale. This is also true because of the presence of the ghost, which doesn't make much sense otherwise.
There are other mentions of course. The suspicion that Perdita's garments and the like are "fairy gold," or Mamillus's inclination to tell his mother about tales of "goblins and sprites." It's clear that there's an undercurrent of romance in this play.
I would also note the use of humoral language. It doesn't have a systematic use, like the plays I wrote on last semester, but blood and (in one case at least) melancholy work with the astrological language to provide emotional indices for the characters.
Finally, I don't have much of a grasp on what Autolycus is really doing. He's a swindler, seeming to be amused that the Clown is so easily taken in.
Oh! I guess there's a lot to do with nature and artifice, including the line drawn by Polyxenes with Perdita, and the crafty art of the statue maker. Also some to do with lineages, and who gets the father's stamp. Also a lot about women's place - Paulina gets called down from speaking too loudly at a few occasions.
I haven't talked at all about The Tempest. I can see why scholars like to read the colonial tinges into it. Caliban is the loathed and self-loathing servant figure, who cannot know anything else due to the society surrounding him, first with Prospero and then with Stephano, a servant who can nonetheless pretend to be a lord. There's a lot to do with levels of servitude, how one treats servants, and the like. Caliban chooses his master poorly, but he can't be too much to blame for having fallen in love with Miranda. And we can't ignore race. Sycorax came from Algeria, and there's a lot of talk about Alonso's daughter, who was just married to the king of Tunis. Racism is rather rampant in the play; god forbid you be dark.
Prospero as author, with authority coming from his book. The related status of Ariel, since he's a little bit of a trickster, and also quite eager, and finally rather powerful. Prospero doesn't do too much magic on his own.
And the magic itself bears some reflection, though I don't know precisely what to do with it now. It requires its practitioner to be learned. It's not inherently evil, but Prospero's renouncing of it signals that it is at least duplicitous, that it is something that he can no longer brook. Why doesn't Caliban have any magic? Levels of earthliness and spirituality are fascinating.
So, topics to think about.
There's tons of magic in both of these plays; more in The Tempest, though a little at the end of The Winter's Tale too. It's unclear whether the unveiling of Hermione at the end of the play, her transformation from statue into life, occurs after she was hidden away for sixteen years, or after her actual death. I read it as the latter, a bit of flash and awe to tie things together in this fireside tale. This is also true because of the presence of the ghost, which doesn't make much sense otherwise.
There are other mentions of course. The suspicion that Perdita's garments and the like are "fairy gold," or Mamillus's inclination to tell his mother about tales of "goblins and sprites." It's clear that there's an undercurrent of romance in this play.
I would also note the use of humoral language. It doesn't have a systematic use, like the plays I wrote on last semester, but blood and (in one case at least) melancholy work with the astrological language to provide emotional indices for the characters.
Finally, I don't have much of a grasp on what Autolycus is really doing. He's a swindler, seeming to be amused that the Clown is so easily taken in.
Oh! I guess there's a lot to do with nature and artifice, including the line drawn by Polyxenes with Perdita, and the crafty art of the statue maker. Also some to do with lineages, and who gets the father's stamp. Also a lot about women's place - Paulina gets called down from speaking too loudly at a few occasions.
I haven't talked at all about The Tempest. I can see why scholars like to read the colonial tinges into it. Caliban is the loathed and self-loathing servant figure, who cannot know anything else due to the society surrounding him, first with Prospero and then with Stephano, a servant who can nonetheless pretend to be a lord. There's a lot to do with levels of servitude, how one treats servants, and the like. Caliban chooses his master poorly, but he can't be too much to blame for having fallen in love with Miranda. And we can't ignore race. Sycorax came from Algeria, and there's a lot of talk about Alonso's daughter, who was just married to the king of Tunis. Racism is rather rampant in the play; god forbid you be dark.
Prospero as author, with authority coming from his book. The related status of Ariel, since he's a little bit of a trickster, and also quite eager, and finally rather powerful. Prospero doesn't do too much magic on his own.
And the magic itself bears some reflection, though I don't know precisely what to do with it now. It requires its practitioner to be learned. It's not inherently evil, but Prospero's renouncing of it signals that it is at least duplicitous, that it is something that he can no longer brook. Why doesn't Caliban have any magic? Levels of earthliness and spirituality are fascinating.
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