When I had initially typed it up, I lacked my notes. Now I have a few, mainly a list of points where I was particularly interested and wanted to later return.
Women and the quest
I had some disagreement with the claim that Cooper makes on page 53, in the midst of discussing the quest and pilgrimage. She dismisses the female quester: "The outside world is masculine space, where few women venture willingly. ... Apart from a few women warriors - Grisandol in the prose Merlin, the eponymous Silence, Yde in Huon of Bordeaux, Ariosto's Bradamante and Spenser's Britomart - women who find themselves in a situation analogous to the hero's quest in romance are most often victims rather than agents, compelled to leave the safety of their own homes and at other people's mercy. The lone woman at large in romance is more likely to be cast adrift in a rudderless boat than to choose to follow the call of adventure" (53). Now, Cooper has undoubtedly read more romance than me. That was a frustrating point of this book, that I didn't have the context to always be able to knowingly agree with the generalizations. Sometimes I granted it to her on faith.
But, and maybe I've read the romances that are exceptional to this, I think the opposition between agent and victim is a false one. Women are often empowered through the quest, and often undertake a line of action that can be considered a quest. I think of the frequent times that women accompany and initiate quests in Le Morte Darthur. If the space they traverse is dangerous, it is not masculine, since they often show themselves to be better at reading the landscape than the males are. Reading women's journeys as quests in fact alleviates the interpretive problems with some romances, since it allows one to recover senses of motive and development that remain lost when the assumed quester remains a man.
For example, The Weddynge of Sir Gawayne and Dame Ragnell only became fruitful for my studies when I realized that the questing figure here is as much Dame Ragnell as King Arthur. Choice isn't a qualification for questing either - neither Dame Ragnell, Arthur, nor Gawain choose the situations they find themselves in. Instead, a quest is about seeking an end that might be unknown, which promises development and worship to the successful pursuant. Ragnell seeks a reversal of the curse that renders her sexuality into a lewdness that then gets displayed in all of her features. To do this, she must find a husband that will grant her her own sexual autonomy, what women in the poem really want. The curse is perhaps a reflection of the common claim that women could not be trusted or virtuous if they were unchaste, and the related claim that no woman can be unchaste in spirit. The hag is the feared reflection of this paranoia, the representative of unrestrained sexuality improperly applied. Gawain is offered the choice of whether she should be ugly during the day or ugly at night. When her own choice is respected, her sexuality is not a cause for lewdness at all, and she is no longer subject to the misogynistic claims that her sexuality is both inevitable and dangerous. Because she is trusted with the decision by her husband, she is truthful, and her beauty shows for Gawain and for everyone at court. The quest logic forms an instantiation in this case of a querelle des femmes debate that relates indirectly to Christine de Pisan and directly to Chaucer, particularly his Wife of Bath, who tells a similar tale after a lengthy prologue that refutes many misogynistic claims. Where the Wife of Bath walks the line of sincerity and parody (though a flawed character could be right in sentiment and wrong in action), Weddynge strikes me as supporting the women's side of the debate.
That's an easy example, because the question is built right into the poem. I think that the woman's quest is often obscured because it is conflated with magic. Quests often get defined by the tools that are used in them, sword and shield and lance and horse and helm and armor and the rest. Magic also forms an important tool, though one that too easily falls into the background. Magic often gets treated as a suspected art, which is used to support or hinder a knight's quests, often without motivation outside of mischief. Think of Morgan le Fay in Malory, showing up to entrap Lancelot randomly. Lyonet is not remembered for her sagacity in guiding Gareth towards the proper way to be a knight, but for the weird magic she pulls that preserves her sister's and his chastity. When women are involved in a quest, they are often wielders of magic. If we interpret their concerns as the material for a quest though, I think that magic and enchantment combine with a more general skill, that of knowledge and sagacity in general. Reading, even reading a situation, is after all a form of magic - grammar, glamour, and grimoire all having the same root.
So, summarily, I agree with most of Cooper's arguments in the book, but she touched a sore point here. I think that women are more agents than victims in many cases, and quite often a combination of both that really renders them worthy of neither name. In some cases, I would even say that the woman quester is the one that earns the most success and renown. (Perhaps Ragnell had to die so that Gawain would remain the most renowned unattached knight.)
Saint's Life and Romance
I liked her tendency on pages like 124, in the chapter on sea voyages, of comparing legendaries and hagiographies to the romance. I don't really have anything deeper to say here, except that I think the common points between the two are far more common than is typically allowed, particularly in the motifs they tend to trade. They might be somewhat restricted in the different context, but I feel like saints' lives are set aside because we want to mark a distinction between the miraculous and the fictional that may not have been a firm boundary back then.
Women and Enchantment
Whoops, guess I returned here again after getting a lot of my fire out at first. The page I noted (160) discusses perceptions of witchcraft before shifting to a history of Morgan. I wonder why here Cooper is perfectly willing to delve into heroines and their history, but elsewhere is reluctant to conflate such heroines with the quest as an archetypal narrative function. But when I do write on enchantment, I want to return here. Best point: "Witchcraft in the Middle Ages was taken to be an act, not a state, and it was an act that was at least as likely to be performed by men as by women" (160).
Rapacious Sexuality and Antifeminism
Okay, so my notes really did follow a common trajectory. I just liked the example given by Tom a Lincoln of disruptive sexuality on 391. I also liked the example of suspicion given a little later on 398, from The Knight of Curtesy and the Fair Lady of Faguell, except this time the husband's jealousy is unfounded, and ends when he makes his wife die after she eats her best friend's heart. And on that note...
One More Note: C.S. Lewis
Wow, the guy really doesn't get any favor in this book. Mainly it is his depiction of love that is at dispute, one that assumes that an affair must happen extramaritally for there to be a relationship of love. In other words, C.S. Lewis assumes that Andreas Capellanus is the normative influence int he medieval period, when that might not be the case.
Thursday, July 1, 2010
Pearl
Introduction:
Pearl is a dream vision that is the first of four poems in the Pearl Manuscript. The other poems include the homiletics Cleanness and Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The manuscript was written in the late fourteenth century,and first prepared for print by Richard Morris in 1864. (Only Sir Gawain had been printed earlier.)
Pearl is only somewhat different from Cleanness and Patience, and of course Sir Gawain is different from all three. This poem is stanzaic, with each stanza having twelve lines with four stresses each, and rhyming ababababbcbc. It's pretty intricate. The stanzas are in groups of five, thus making each group 60 lines long. The last lines of one group are refrained in the first line of the following stanza, a technique known as concatenatio (Andrew, 34). So think of the structure as a sort of chain, both beginning and ending in the garden. Similarly, there is the Terrestrial Paradise, and then the vision of New Jerusalem at the two poles of the poem. The debate is sandwiched in the middle, and has its own logic of doubt and explanation, parable, and application. Because of the stanzaic regularity, this is a poem that rewards numerological study.
Breakdown of Sections:
Introduction
I. The mourning of the loss of the pearl - setting - connection with scent, Christ, and nature
Dream-Vision - Description of Dream-Garden
II. adubbemente = adornment - description of the dream-setting, complete with the waters of life, though unidentified as of yet.
III. Sees the river, tries to cross it to get to the other side. The crossing, however, is difficult. At the end, he sees a fair maiden resembling the pearl in description.
IV.Further description of the maiden and her adornment, the narrator's reluctance to approach - the supposition "Ho watz me nerre (th)en aunte or nece" implying she is the narrator's daughter or mother or sister.
Debate Part I - Clarification
V. The narrator asks whether she is who he lost, and she reproaches him for thinking the jewel lost when it is set in better surroundings. He is also reprimanded for wanting to cross the water, which he mayn't do.
VI. sorquydry(g)e = pride - She reproaches him for not believing the commandment of God and trusting only to his eyes. He doesn't understand why he must lose the pearl in this lifetime, now that he's found her. She upholds love of God.
VII. He asks forgiveness, and then she accepts it. She demonstrates her marriage to the Lord.
VIII. fonge = find, perceive, notice - He expresses surprise - isn't Mary the queen of heaven? Yes, she replies, but all are king and queen there, though she rules over even them.
Debate Part 2 - The Parable of the Vine
IX. Queen, he asks, but you've never done anything! She gives the parable of the vine, which is incomplete yet, but implies that keeping oneself busy in service is what matters, and he is quick to have more work.
X. She finishes the parable by demonstrating how those who worked were all paid equally, no matter hwen they came. She was late, as a child, but she came. He disagrees, assuming that serving longer implies salvation instead.
Debate Part 3 - Elevation
XI. She sets up the story of the fall of man, and then the salvation through the grace of God.
XII. God will save the rightwise and the harmless men. Followed by a description of the rightwise, and then a story about Jesus allowing the children to come to him despite his disciples.
XIII. She describes herself as coming forth as a child, and being given her might and beauty in mystical marriage. The narrator is still incredulous that she would have attained the top spot.
XIV. Maskelles = spotless, flawless. She claims she never did say she was the top queen, and cites the 140,000 (so it says in Apocalypse) other brides, before going into a description of Jerusalem and Christ's sacrifice, evoking also the spiritual city where the Pearl now resides.
XV. vus ~ eche. She works her way to answering his objection fully, again citing Revelations. It ends with a placated speaker beginning to state another question
Dream Vision - New Jerusalem
XVI. WHere does she live? Jerusalem, she replies, though there are two of them, the city of God and the city of peae, a distinction that must have confused the narrator. He asks to go there, but she says God would not permit him...except she gets the permission.
XVII. He sees the city, in a passage that repeatedly harps on the authority of the "apostel John." He especially sees the twelve gems used in its construction, its cubic shape, its size (12 furlonge space), and so on.
XVIII. More details - 12 gates, and so on. More details, more shock and awe.
XIX. The speaker sees the inhabitants, all glorious as described. They celebrate the Lord coming among them as the Lamb, the angels serving as heralds. The speaker sees the little queen and has "luf-longyng in gret delyt," language that echoes te spiritual tradition of longing for Christ and salvation.
Return to Earthly Garden
XX. Impetuously the speaker tries to leap the river, but fails and wakes up. Humbled by his lack of restraint, he resolves to live well and serve him as his pearls do.
Questions
Repetition of purpose - what does it mean? (185, 267, 508, etc.)
There are many other studies that could be done with particular words. More generally, what I wonder is how this fits in with other dream visions, and with similar genres. For example, a related genre to which this might be relevant is the lapidary, a description book of the powers of various gems. There nearly is a magic overtone to the pearl, and this is exacerbated when the city is described being decorated in twelve jewels, which are subsequently listed (group XVII).
Also the repetition of twelve is intentionally reduplicated in the form. But there are possible flaws. One group has six stanzas, XV. There are other points that one could pick on.
Pearl is a dream vision that is the first of four poems in the Pearl Manuscript. The other poems include the homiletics Cleanness and Patience, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The manuscript was written in the late fourteenth century,and first prepared for print by Richard Morris in 1864. (Only Sir Gawain had been printed earlier.)
Pearl is only somewhat different from Cleanness and Patience, and of course Sir Gawain is different from all three. This poem is stanzaic, with each stanza having twelve lines with four stresses each, and rhyming ababababbcbc. It's pretty intricate. The stanzas are in groups of five, thus making each group 60 lines long. The last lines of one group are refrained in the first line of the following stanza, a technique known as concatenatio (Andrew, 34). So think of the structure as a sort of chain, both beginning and ending in the garden. Similarly, there is the Terrestrial Paradise, and then the vision of New Jerusalem at the two poles of the poem. The debate is sandwiched in the middle, and has its own logic of doubt and explanation, parable, and application. Because of the stanzaic regularity, this is a poem that rewards numerological study.
Breakdown of Sections:
Introduction
I. The mourning of the loss of the pearl - setting - connection with scent, Christ, and nature
Dream-Vision - Description of Dream-Garden
II. adubbemente = adornment - description of the dream-setting, complete with the waters of life, though unidentified as of yet.
III. Sees the river, tries to cross it to get to the other side. The crossing, however, is difficult. At the end, he sees a fair maiden resembling the pearl in description.
IV.Further description of the maiden and her adornment, the narrator's reluctance to approach - the supposition "Ho watz me nerre (th)en aunte or nece" implying she is the narrator's daughter or mother or sister.
Debate Part I - Clarification
V. The narrator asks whether she is who he lost, and she reproaches him for thinking the jewel lost when it is set in better surroundings. He is also reprimanded for wanting to cross the water, which he mayn't do.
VI. sorquydry(g)e = pride - She reproaches him for not believing the commandment of God and trusting only to his eyes. He doesn't understand why he must lose the pearl in this lifetime, now that he's found her. She upholds love of God.
VII. He asks forgiveness, and then she accepts it. She demonstrates her marriage to the Lord.
VIII. fonge = find, perceive, notice - He expresses surprise - isn't Mary the queen of heaven? Yes, she replies, but all are king and queen there, though she rules over even them.
Debate Part 2 - The Parable of the Vine
IX. Queen, he asks, but you've never done anything! She gives the parable of the vine, which is incomplete yet, but implies that keeping oneself busy in service is what matters, and he is quick to have more work.
X. She finishes the parable by demonstrating how those who worked were all paid equally, no matter hwen they came. She was late, as a child, but she came. He disagrees, assuming that serving longer implies salvation instead.
Debate Part 3 - Elevation
XI. She sets up the story of the fall of man, and then the salvation through the grace of God.
XII. God will save the rightwise and the harmless men. Followed by a description of the rightwise, and then a story about Jesus allowing the children to come to him despite his disciples.
XIII. She describes herself as coming forth as a child, and being given her might and beauty in mystical marriage. The narrator is still incredulous that she would have attained the top spot.
XIV. Maskelles = spotless, flawless. She claims she never did say she was the top queen, and cites the 140,000 (so it says in Apocalypse) other brides, before going into a description of Jerusalem and Christ's sacrifice, evoking also the spiritual city where the Pearl now resides.
XV. vus ~ eche. She works her way to answering his objection fully, again citing Revelations. It ends with a placated speaker beginning to state another question
Dream Vision - New Jerusalem
XVI. WHere does she live? Jerusalem, she replies, though there are two of them, the city of God and the city of peae, a distinction that must have confused the narrator. He asks to go there, but she says God would not permit him...except she gets the permission.
XVII. He sees the city, in a passage that repeatedly harps on the authority of the "apostel John." He especially sees the twelve gems used in its construction, its cubic shape, its size (12 furlonge space), and so on.
XVIII. More details - 12 gates, and so on. More details, more shock and awe.
XIX. The speaker sees the inhabitants, all glorious as described. They celebrate the Lord coming among them as the Lamb, the angels serving as heralds. The speaker sees the little queen and has "luf-longyng in gret delyt," language that echoes te spiritual tradition of longing for Christ and salvation.
Return to Earthly Garden
XX. Impetuously the speaker tries to leap the river, but fails and wakes up. Humbled by his lack of restraint, he resolves to live well and serve him as his pearls do.
Questions
Repetition of purpose - what does it mean? (185, 267, 508, etc.)
There are many other studies that could be done with particular words. More generally, what I wonder is how this fits in with other dream visions, and with similar genres. For example, a related genre to which this might be relevant is the lapidary, a description book of the powers of various gems. There nearly is a magic overtone to the pearl, and this is exacerbated when the city is described being decorated in twelve jewels, which are subsequently listed (group XVII).
Also the repetition of twelve is intentionally reduplicated in the form. But there are possible flaws. One group has six stanzas, XV. There are other points that one could pick on.
The English Romance in Time, Helen Cooper
The whole subtitle reads, "Transforming Motifs from Geoffrey of Monmouth to the Death of Shakespeare." To be clear, the motifs themselves are transforming with the shift in time. The book does not purport to change them.
Helen Cooper is an author I've seen a lot in medieval scholarship. I'm familiar with her Chaucer writings secondhand. I chose this book because it was written in the past ten years, and seemed to be a general, thematic treatment of the medieval romance, one that made nothing of crossing between the medieval and Renaissance (a linchpin I want to study in more detail).
I like her approach. It is a basic one - pick out several of the motivating memes of different romances, and trace them as they progress through time. How do they develop? For what reasons are they appropriated at a particular time? Do their valent associations change through time? Do the tropes cross genres, as for instance with tragedy and comedy? In other words, what is the convention developed with the audience, how is it regularized, and in what ways is it broken? (21-22). Finally, what does all this mean for the work and its audience?
She emphasizes the word meme rather than trope in order to get at the social significance I was hinting at in the last few questions. A trope can be interpreted as something that exists in the literature, that is primarily static and formal. A meme is more fluid, dependent on social currency and spreading rather like a virus. Certainly the terms are interchangeable in this case, but it changes the determination.
The memes/tropes she focuses on include (copped with paraphrase from the Table of Contents):
Pilgrimage and questing - think of motifs of traveling, with its parallels with interiority in direction, motivation, setting, and so on.
Providence and the sea - "So we set this ship into the water, gave it no means of orientation or propulsion, and let God sort it out."
Faulty magic - "I got this cool ring but never got to use it," or "I tried using this ring but it didn't work," or "I guess the magic worked, but it was totally incidental and misleading."
Fairy rulers and so on - What happens when you ride the liminal line between the benign supernatural and the diabolic?
Desirable desire - is women's desire a good thing in different works? How does its motif get treated?
Women on trial - Pretty much about what it sounds like, with particular focuses on alleged and proven adulteries, and the normally supernatural interventions that attest the truth.
The Rightful Heir - inheritance, the Fair Unknown, the dangers of lacking an heir (ELIZABETH!!!)
Unhappy Endings - what happens when the typically happy romantic ending doesn't happen?
The book also comes with an extremely useful appendix listing the romances that were current in England after 1500. I don't trust the list as exhaustive, but it's sufficiently detailed that I've written down a lot of pertinent information from it.
To say one interesting focus that comes out of this, her approach to romances demonstrates something that I've thought to be true since I first sat down with Le Morte Darthur: one of the key subjects of romance, which one avoids only to the subtraction of one's work, is women. Women's place in chivalric order, in feudal order, in inheritance, in desire, in magic, in the quest, in trial (you can see I'm picking out the major memes of the book), all these are often far more progressive than one might expect, and are even interesting when they turn out to be antifeminist.
I can expand that to include gender. I think that the romance is a rather amorphous genre that often includes works due to superficial reasons like, "Well, the magic in that is kinda funny," or, "Well, she went on a quest of sorts, nevermind that it was spiritual and totally a pilgrimage." In its collection of memes or tropes, every romance has the parts that don't fit the others, the part that gives the whole renown because it defies expectations in a way that is nonetheless desirable. Now, one place where expectations can be played with is gender. There is the woman who wields a sword, whether or not she uses it. There is the trope of disguise, whether as a man or as a woman. One can also be mistaken, without intention, as is the case in Le Morte Darthur when Lancelot falls asleep in a pavilion only to have another man snuggle up with him, because he thinks that Lancelot is his beloved lady. Even in more general terms, the romance often struggles with the question, "What makes a man the ideal man? What makes a woman the ideal woman?" Virtue, faith, fidelity, reason - whatever the guidelines, what happens when they succeed? Still worse, what happens when they fail?
And an observation - many times the criteria for men and women are actually quite similar. To say that men quest and women are rescued is far too simplistic. To say that women are punished for unchastity and men aren't is likewise reductive. Now, perhaps these are just true enough to become generalizations, but the rules are often broken. Sometimes the markers of assumed gender fall away, in such a way that it would be worthwhile to study a few romances in parallel to see how gender might have functioned. A theoretical structure for such a work might be to figure out whether the romance was a place where one could experiment with gender, or whether such flexibility was inherent in the society? Is this flexibility, or is it simply that we see flexibility as compared to what we think the past would hold gender to be? Perhaps its boundaries are different, its intersections different.
Helen Cooper is an author I've seen a lot in medieval scholarship. I'm familiar with her Chaucer writings secondhand. I chose this book because it was written in the past ten years, and seemed to be a general, thematic treatment of the medieval romance, one that made nothing of crossing between the medieval and Renaissance (a linchpin I want to study in more detail).
I like her approach. It is a basic one - pick out several of the motivating memes of different romances, and trace them as they progress through time. How do they develop? For what reasons are they appropriated at a particular time? Do their valent associations change through time? Do the tropes cross genres, as for instance with tragedy and comedy? In other words, what is the convention developed with the audience, how is it regularized, and in what ways is it broken? (21-22). Finally, what does all this mean for the work and its audience?
She emphasizes the word meme rather than trope in order to get at the social significance I was hinting at in the last few questions. A trope can be interpreted as something that exists in the literature, that is primarily static and formal. A meme is more fluid, dependent on social currency and spreading rather like a virus. Certainly the terms are interchangeable in this case, but it changes the determination.
The memes/tropes she focuses on include (copped with paraphrase from the Table of Contents):
Pilgrimage and questing - think of motifs of traveling, with its parallels with interiority in direction, motivation, setting, and so on.
Providence and the sea - "So we set this ship into the water, gave it no means of orientation or propulsion, and let God sort it out."
Faulty magic - "I got this cool ring but never got to use it," or "I tried using this ring but it didn't work," or "I guess the magic worked, but it was totally incidental and misleading."
Fairy rulers and so on - What happens when you ride the liminal line between the benign supernatural and the diabolic?
Desirable desire - is women's desire a good thing in different works? How does its motif get treated?
Women on trial - Pretty much about what it sounds like, with particular focuses on alleged and proven adulteries, and the normally supernatural interventions that attest the truth.
The Rightful Heir - inheritance, the Fair Unknown, the dangers of lacking an heir (ELIZABETH!!!)
Unhappy Endings - what happens when the typically happy romantic ending doesn't happen?
The book also comes with an extremely useful appendix listing the romances that were current in England after 1500. I don't trust the list as exhaustive, but it's sufficiently detailed that I've written down a lot of pertinent information from it.
To say one interesting focus that comes out of this, her approach to romances demonstrates something that I've thought to be true since I first sat down with Le Morte Darthur: one of the key subjects of romance, which one avoids only to the subtraction of one's work, is women. Women's place in chivalric order, in feudal order, in inheritance, in desire, in magic, in the quest, in trial (you can see I'm picking out the major memes of the book), all these are often far more progressive than one might expect, and are even interesting when they turn out to be antifeminist.
I can expand that to include gender. I think that the romance is a rather amorphous genre that often includes works due to superficial reasons like, "Well, the magic in that is kinda funny," or, "Well, she went on a quest of sorts, nevermind that it was spiritual and totally a pilgrimage." In its collection of memes or tropes, every romance has the parts that don't fit the others, the part that gives the whole renown because it defies expectations in a way that is nonetheless desirable. Now, one place where expectations can be played with is gender. There is the woman who wields a sword, whether or not she uses it. There is the trope of disguise, whether as a man or as a woman. One can also be mistaken, without intention, as is the case in Le Morte Darthur when Lancelot falls asleep in a pavilion only to have another man snuggle up with him, because he thinks that Lancelot is his beloved lady. Even in more general terms, the romance often struggles with the question, "What makes a man the ideal man? What makes a woman the ideal woman?" Virtue, faith, fidelity, reason - whatever the guidelines, what happens when they succeed? Still worse, what happens when they fail?
And an observation - many times the criteria for men and women are actually quite similar. To say that men quest and women are rescued is far too simplistic. To say that women are punished for unchastity and men aren't is likewise reductive. Now, perhaps these are just true enough to become generalizations, but the rules are often broken. Sometimes the markers of assumed gender fall away, in such a way that it would be worthwhile to study a few romances in parallel to see how gender might have functioned. A theoretical structure for such a work might be to figure out whether the romance was a place where one could experiment with gender, or whether such flexibility was inherent in the society? Is this flexibility, or is it simply that we see flexibility as compared to what we think the past would hold gender to be? Perhaps its boundaries are different, its intersections different.
Monday, June 28, 2010
The Romance of the Rose, Jean de Meun
I've taken a longer hiatus than I had hoped.
I have just finished reading Jean de Meun's version of the poem. I should call it an addendum. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
One fair point is that he uses the allegory differently. Guillaume de Lorris is not inclined to long speeches. His allegorical characters are significant in their dress, behavior, and how they act to each other. Jean de Meun keeps these aspects somewhat, but deluges them in the very long speeches that many of his figures (like Friend, Reason, Wealth, the Old Woman, Nature, and Genius) give. They speak for long periods of time, such that it becomes difficult to remember that it isn't just the narrator speaking. This leads to delightful confusions, like being confused about why the main character hates women so.
I needn't repeat the allegorical figures, since they are largely the same as Guillaume's, with shifts in their qualities. It is similarly difficult to summarize each speech, but I will attempt to do so.
We left Guillaume (hereafter the name of the speaker) when he was despairing over never entering the castle. He gives a fair summation of the current predicament. Then Reason comes along. In this version, she presents a separate allegory, featuring such figures as Youth, Old Age, Delight, Death, Travail, and Suffering. This leads into a long discussion on love, and particularly a debate between what loves are appropriate and inappropriate. The speaker is unconvinced, though, because the pure loves that Reason speaks of are irrecoverable after the fall. He misses the point of holding such a pure love, one outside of Fortune's domain, as an ideal. After a long turn into a debate about Justice, a concept that ties into Love through Christian theology, and then to Fortune and its mishaps at greater length, Reason abandons Guillaume.
Then Friend comes, again reflecting the order of the original. After his advice of ways to reach the rosebud, he then speaks at length about courtship. His main contention, which has several other parts, is that there is no such thing as a good woman. His contradictory advice vacillates between recommending that they should be avoided, and counseling him on how to handle women when the seemingly inevitable hitch occurs. Like Reason, Friend brings to mind a postlapsarian view of life in his own allegory, with Fraud, Sin, Misfortune, Pride, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Poverty, Larceny, Faint Heart, and Lady Laverna (goddess of thieves) overtaking Contentment. Quite a rabble. To the fallen men and women, little bits of good advice emerge, like not restraining women, correcting them kindly in the case of jealousy, and so on, pieces of advice that might double as willful but fortunate blindnesses.
Soon they assemble an army of Love. Again, they have the trouble of False Seeming and Constrained Abstinence (who will in the course of time have the Antichrist?!?). False Seeming, while convincing them that he should be there, delivers a sermon of his own that is duplicitous, though I don't recall the details. He marches a contingent to confront Evil Tongue, and after a debate between them, they fight and Evil Tongue is killed with all of his Norman soldiers. The tongue is cut out, and he is cast into a ditch. Perhaps the only way to quell the lashes of unfair rumors is to appear more virtuous than the tongue can attack, though such seeming will be false.
Then comes Old Woman, who gives plenty of advice as a woman who had once lived the life of a lady swindling her way through men. Fair Welcome and she have a discussion, as she urges him to wear the chaplet that Guillaume has given for him. He finally does, but she seems always to be egging him on to admit of some greater affection, one of the points that I suspect the work keeps male-male sexual tendencies uneasily alongside the allegory that places those affections as towards the rosebud. As for Old Woman's speech, she loved but one man, who swindled her. In the trading of gifts for the goods (if not the affection) of love, she emphatically preaches for trickiness and wariness in all dealings between the sexes. Her ultimate caution is to not wait too long - his youth will turn to age someday.
After the speech, Fair Welcome reiterates his honorable friendship with Guillaume, and they soon meet (with Pleasant Looks accompanying). Fear, Shame, and Rebuff prevent an extended reunion, and thus the assault on the castle picks up steam. At this point, the crux of battle, arround lines 15105 and 15165, Jean de Meun makes an important disclaimer. He doesn't want to offend men, or especially women by the following account. The words are intended only to instruct. His defense of his own conduct partly foists the blame on other authors that report the same thing, and (where it is true, I suppose) begs leave to tell truth for the sake of instruction. Talk about seeking suitors.
Then Nature and Genius come after the battle, and the account is nearly done. They talk between each other for a while, Nature then gives a confession in which she admits the power that she has and its one limitation towards the sinfulness of man. Genius hears the confession, absolves her, and excommunicates all of those who work against Nature's commands to procreate, in metaphors of plowing, writing, and so on.
Finally, Guillaume takes up his place, puts a staff in a hole, breaks the barrier in the aperture, and gains access to the rosebud. And by all that, I think it means they have sex. :P
Overall Observations
It's painfully obvious now why there is not a plot summary on Wikipedia. The introduction of this book attempts one, but acknowledges its own inadequate brevity. It is just not an easy thing to summarize, especially when many of the events happen twice, allegory depends on the details imparted to its characters, and much of the second part consists of speeches that often constitute stories and tangents of their own. Only a schematic plot description is possible if one wants to spend less than an entire day on doing just that.
I can imagine that this poem was read in installments on evenings to a particularly refined audience that would have been intimate witness to the contemporary allusions of Jean de Meun or Guillaume. Each poet's rendition perhaps appealed to its own time, but certainly Jean de Meun's work was only an addition rather than an adaptation based on how it occurs after Guillaume's in manuscripts. So Guillaume's version had not lost much if any currency. Instead, much like the new Star Wars movies did to the old, perhaps Jean's version capitalized on the first one's fame while itself appearing as a product of its time, with better special effects and the same dressings of the original wrapped in somewhat worse dialogue.
This is the classic example of medieval allegory. It does not descend into a simple allegory of virtues and vices. Wealth, Love, Shame, Jealousy, Reason, and False Seeming each have their own advantages and disadvantages, light sides and dark sides and rather gray sides that emerge in their actions. No post-Capellanus lover would argue that Jealousy was unnecessary to Love. No lover would argue that Love was always fair to them. The same with Reason, the Boethian complaint against some of Reason's attempted consolations foremost in my mind when Guillaume refused Reason's advice. This is an allegory that seeks to imprint itself in the bustle of things, amongst humanity, and the need to reproach men and women both for their behavior is a needed reproach against the subjects of such allegorical realism. Of course allegory appears prior to and after this, and not nearly always in this mode. But I think that religious and political allegories both owe something to this example. I wonder what those terms are.
I have just finished reading Jean de Meun's version of the poem. I should call it an addendum. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
One fair point is that he uses the allegory differently. Guillaume de Lorris is not inclined to long speeches. His allegorical characters are significant in their dress, behavior, and how they act to each other. Jean de Meun keeps these aspects somewhat, but deluges them in the very long speeches that many of his figures (like Friend, Reason, Wealth, the Old Woman, Nature, and Genius) give. They speak for long periods of time, such that it becomes difficult to remember that it isn't just the narrator speaking. This leads to delightful confusions, like being confused about why the main character hates women so.
I needn't repeat the allegorical figures, since they are largely the same as Guillaume's, with shifts in their qualities. It is similarly difficult to summarize each speech, but I will attempt to do so.
We left Guillaume (hereafter the name of the speaker) when he was despairing over never entering the castle. He gives a fair summation of the current predicament. Then Reason comes along. In this version, she presents a separate allegory, featuring such figures as Youth, Old Age, Delight, Death, Travail, and Suffering. This leads into a long discussion on love, and particularly a debate between what loves are appropriate and inappropriate. The speaker is unconvinced, though, because the pure loves that Reason speaks of are irrecoverable after the fall. He misses the point of holding such a pure love, one outside of Fortune's domain, as an ideal. After a long turn into a debate about Justice, a concept that ties into Love through Christian theology, and then to Fortune and its mishaps at greater length, Reason abandons Guillaume.
Then Friend comes, again reflecting the order of the original. After his advice of ways to reach the rosebud, he then speaks at length about courtship. His main contention, which has several other parts, is that there is no such thing as a good woman. His contradictory advice vacillates between recommending that they should be avoided, and counseling him on how to handle women when the seemingly inevitable hitch occurs. Like Reason, Friend brings to mind a postlapsarian view of life in his own allegory, with Fraud, Sin, Misfortune, Pride, Covetousness, Avarice, Envy, Poverty, Larceny, Faint Heart, and Lady Laverna (goddess of thieves) overtaking Contentment. Quite a rabble. To the fallen men and women, little bits of good advice emerge, like not restraining women, correcting them kindly in the case of jealousy, and so on, pieces of advice that might double as willful but fortunate blindnesses.
Soon they assemble an army of Love. Again, they have the trouble of False Seeming and Constrained Abstinence (who will in the course of time have the Antichrist?!?). False Seeming, while convincing them that he should be there, delivers a sermon of his own that is duplicitous, though I don't recall the details. He marches a contingent to confront Evil Tongue, and after a debate between them, they fight and Evil Tongue is killed with all of his Norman soldiers. The tongue is cut out, and he is cast into a ditch. Perhaps the only way to quell the lashes of unfair rumors is to appear more virtuous than the tongue can attack, though such seeming will be false.
Then comes Old Woman, who gives plenty of advice as a woman who had once lived the life of a lady swindling her way through men. Fair Welcome and she have a discussion, as she urges him to wear the chaplet that Guillaume has given for him. He finally does, but she seems always to be egging him on to admit of some greater affection, one of the points that I suspect the work keeps male-male sexual tendencies uneasily alongside the allegory that places those affections as towards the rosebud. As for Old Woman's speech, she loved but one man, who swindled her. In the trading of gifts for the goods (if not the affection) of love, she emphatically preaches for trickiness and wariness in all dealings between the sexes. Her ultimate caution is to not wait too long - his youth will turn to age someday.
After the speech, Fair Welcome reiterates his honorable friendship with Guillaume, and they soon meet (with Pleasant Looks accompanying). Fear, Shame, and Rebuff prevent an extended reunion, and thus the assault on the castle picks up steam. At this point, the crux of battle, arround lines 15105 and 15165, Jean de Meun makes an important disclaimer. He doesn't want to offend men, or especially women by the following account. The words are intended only to instruct. His defense of his own conduct partly foists the blame on other authors that report the same thing, and (where it is true, I suppose) begs leave to tell truth for the sake of instruction. Talk about seeking suitors.
Then Nature and Genius come after the battle, and the account is nearly done. They talk between each other for a while, Nature then gives a confession in which she admits the power that she has and its one limitation towards the sinfulness of man. Genius hears the confession, absolves her, and excommunicates all of those who work against Nature's commands to procreate, in metaphors of plowing, writing, and so on.
Finally, Guillaume takes up his place, puts a staff in a hole, breaks the barrier in the aperture, and gains access to the rosebud. And by all that, I think it means they have sex. :P
Overall Observations
It's painfully obvious now why there is not a plot summary on Wikipedia. The introduction of this book attempts one, but acknowledges its own inadequate brevity. It is just not an easy thing to summarize, especially when many of the events happen twice, allegory depends on the details imparted to its characters, and much of the second part consists of speeches that often constitute stories and tangents of their own. Only a schematic plot description is possible if one wants to spend less than an entire day on doing just that.
I can imagine that this poem was read in installments on evenings to a particularly refined audience that would have been intimate witness to the contemporary allusions of Jean de Meun or Guillaume. Each poet's rendition perhaps appealed to its own time, but certainly Jean de Meun's work was only an addition rather than an adaptation based on how it occurs after Guillaume's in manuscripts. So Guillaume's version had not lost much if any currency. Instead, much like the new Star Wars movies did to the old, perhaps Jean's version capitalized on the first one's fame while itself appearing as a product of its time, with better special effects and the same dressings of the original wrapped in somewhat worse dialogue.
This is the classic example of medieval allegory. It does not descend into a simple allegory of virtues and vices. Wealth, Love, Shame, Jealousy, Reason, and False Seeming each have their own advantages and disadvantages, light sides and dark sides and rather gray sides that emerge in their actions. No post-Capellanus lover would argue that Jealousy was unnecessary to Love. No lover would argue that Love was always fair to them. The same with Reason, the Boethian complaint against some of Reason's attempted consolations foremost in my mind when Guillaume refused Reason's advice. This is an allegory that seeks to imprint itself in the bustle of things, amongst humanity, and the need to reproach men and women both for their behavior is a needed reproach against the subjects of such allegorical realism. Of course allegory appears prior to and after this, and not nearly always in this mode. But I think that religious and political allegories both owe something to this example. I wonder what those terms are.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
The Romance of the Rose
Guillaume de Lorris wrote the first 4000 lines of this poem between 1225 and 1230. Jean de Meun wrote the remainder, feeling perhaps that the poem was unfinished, between 1269 and 1278. In total, the poem is about 22,000 lines long. Jean de Meun had a lot to say. The poem is preserved in over 200 manuscripts. (More than The Canterbury Tales.) Chaucer produced a translation of this poem.
I've read Guillaume's portion today, and the allegory is quite tasteful and pleasant. It is easiest to go through if I give a catalogue of character, a brief summary of the plot, and then a few observations.
Characters
After citing Macrobius's commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio (rather like one of Chaucer's heroes, though that hero is actually reading it), the Dreamer falls asleep. He soon dreams of coming across a walled garden in May, and sees the images on the walls, perhaps intended to keep people away that are old, hateful, covetous, and hypocritical. Then he searches for a door and finds only a small one. After he knocks, Idleness answers and lets him in. After wandering through the garden for a bit, he witnesses a dance, and is soon asked to join by Courtesy. A cavalcade of characters follows (not to be misleading though it alliterates - no horses are mentioned), encompassing the positive qualities of the garden, including pleasure, wealth, largesse, love, and youth.
Eventually the Dreamer is encouraged to wander again, and he comes across the Spring of Love, prefaced by the story of Narcissus and Echo. The Dreamer looks, sees the rose bushes and the most beautiful rose bud, and is immediately stricken by the five arrows of Eros meant to inspire love. He is then hunted and taken captive, until the Dreamer swears fealty to the Lover, sealed with a kiss on the mouth. The Lover then gives his commandments, which amount to suffering Love with the few consolations given the Dreamer - to think on his love, to talk about his love, and to see his love.
Dreamer then approaches the bushes, and is greeted by Fair Welcome, who is content to allow him to rest near the bud. When he asks to take the bud away, he is refused, and soon Rebuff and his cronies come by and kick Dreamer out. Disconsolate, he seeks a Friend for the solace of Pleasant Conversation. The Friend counsels diplomacy, which with the intervention of Pity and Generosity of Spirit softens Rebuff enough that he allows the Dreamer back in. He sits with Fair Welcome, who soon allows the Dreamer to kiss the bud.
Upon doing so, Evil Tongue spreads rumors about Fair Welcome and Dreamer. Soon, Jealousy is in on the act, and proclaims that they ought to build a tower around the bud, and keep Fair Welcome at the center of it. Once armed, garrisoned (with Norman soldiers!), and kept, Dreamer despairs, loving from afar both the bud and Fair Welcome.
Thoughts
First, homosocial. There is clearly an implied relationship between Fair Welcome and the Dreamer, and the Dreamer's responses to his absence indicate that, though the allegations might be salacious, it is less a fabrication of what isn't there than a misconstruing of what is. Fair Welcome serves as the point of access to the bud, a benevolent Pandarus-type character who indulges Dreamer in return for the pleasure of having given welcome. The two are warm, and in the earlier sense of the word intimate. The concluding speech by Dreamer indicates that he misses Fair Welcome more than he does the bud. It is nearly as if the rosebud is the object of Dreamer's affections, but Fair Welcome is its agency, a male duenna who receives the poet's advances. He does not restrict access altogether, but makes sure that such access is appropriate, within the strictures of courtliness that Love must be constrained to serve. In my mind, such agency could easily collapse into a Cyrano-like situation, where the Dreamer ends up loving the agent more than the pretty face, Cyrano over Christian. Could such a flip have happened then? I must think it could, having no evidence to the contrary.
And that goes without mentioning the kiss on the mouth that passes between the God of Love and the Dreamer. Certainly, they would have been less picky about such gestures than we are today, as we have turned a kiss into something erotic all the time. In this story, it may be an allusion of the sex that is to come. It could also be a greeting, or a seal of fealty. I think that we have more of an issue of the ambiguity between those statuses than they did. Either (the traditional assumption) the umbrage of the kiss depended on the situation such that categories didn't blend together, or (the generous assumption) there was a little swearing of fealty and eroticism in any kiss, no matter the primary context. I incline towards the latter. To do otherwise would be to ignore a key part of the context; would even a medieval man kiss the God of Love and not feel a little erotic about it?
Second, details. It's so funny to see the parenthetical explanations in places where I would never suspect that one was needed. For example, when Joy is described next to Pleasure, the poet quickly adds, "Who did not hate him in the least, but had given him her love when she was no more than seven years old" (14). Oh. Okay. I suppose that this is a jibe against those that would claim that Joy (with its exalted refinement) and Pleasure (with its earthly tones) are separate in theological grounds. Bodily pleasure serves as a distraction to salvation or happiness, while joy is the place where happiness takes its rest. The Thomistic view would disagree with Guillaume on this point, and though I don't know enough about other scholastic movements at the time, I suspect others would too.
Also, the details like dress and surroundings fascinate me. Why does it matter that Wealth is wearing a stone that protects against toothaches? (I wonder if anyone has ever cross-referenced this with lapidaries of the time, which also record these weird traits.) Do the many spices in the garden (cloves, liquorice, fresh cardamum, zedoary, anise, cinnamon, and "many delicious spices good to eat after a meal") make it more lavish? What are those spices good to eat after a meal? All I can think of is "dessert" or "after dinner mint." Oh, how impoverished my understanding is. This early tendency towards making lists is masterful compared to many later medieval poems, which turn these brief descriptive interludes into indulgent and obsessive fights over who can do so most lavishly.
Third, Arthurian allusion. Just a note that it does occur, including the company of Largesse, and an allusion to Kay and Gawain where the former comes off horribly and the latter quite well in courtesy.
Protect me! Tomorrow I plan to put a big dent in Jean de Meun.
(Note - I've also been reading through The English Romance in Time by Helen Cooper and The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I'm nowhere near finishing either, but I might post on them too when I feel less long-winded.)
I've read Guillaume's portion today, and the allegory is quite tasteful and pleasant. It is easiest to go through if I give a catalogue of character, a brief summary of the plot, and then a few observations.
Characters
- Dreamer - Rather self explanatory.Soon falls into a dream vision.
- The Images on the Walls of the Garden
- Hate - (f) woman wild with fury
- Cruelty - (f)
- Baseness - (f) immoderate scandalmonger
- Covetousness - (f) take and give nothing in return
- Avarice - (f) give nothing
- Envy - (f) hates the best, tears down all who do good
- Sorrow - (f)tormented
- Old Age - (f) aged, wrinkled, cold
- Religious Hypocrisy - (f) fearlessly commits any crime, though appearing religious
- Poverty - (f) naked, but for a sack.
- The Dance in the Garden
- Idleness - (f) opens the door for the Dreamer - enjoys amusements
- Pleasure - (m) intimate friend of Idleness, owns garden and built its walls
- Courtesy - (f) invites Dreamer into the dance
- Joy - (f) Pleasure's sweetheart
- God of Love - (m) ruler of lovers, humbler of the haughty, owner of two bows with five arrows each
- Beauty
- Simplicity
- Generosity of Spirit
- Company
- Fair Seeming
- Pride
- Baseness
- Shame
- Despair
- Inconstancy
- Beauty - (f) resplendent lady
- Wealth - (f) lavish lady, wearing the most distinguished jewelry, stones with magical properties
- Wealth's lover, unnamed - a well-kept man
- Largesse - (f) giver of goods
- The accompanying knight from Arthur's court, courageous and strong in tournaments
- Generosity of Spirit - (f)whiter than snow
- Youth - (f) the 12 year old lover, with a boy of the same age constantly kissing.
- Pleasant Looks - (m) carrier of the God of Love's equippage
- Parable of the Fountain
- Narcissus
- Echo
- Gifts of Love - to soothe the aching lover
- Pleasant Thought
- Pleasant Conversation
- Pleasant Looks
- The Rosebud - the object of Dreamer's desire, yet unopen and keeping a fresh, aromatic scent
- Chastity - (f) the keeper of the Rosebud
- Venus - (f) Chastity's mortal enemy, mother of the God of Love (Eros), goddess or fairy in appearance
- Fair Welcome - (m) son of Courtesy, intimate friend to Dreamer
- Keepers of the Bud
- Rebuff - (m) grouch
- Evil Tongue - (m) slanderer, alleges inappropriate relationshp between Fair Welcome and Dreamer
- Shame (f) - daughter by Reason and Fiend, conceived when Reason looked on Fiend
- Fear (f) - daughter of Jealousy, sent when Reason sent Shame to Chastity to help guard the rosebuds
- Reason - (f) counsels that one should forget love, rebuffed
- Friend - (m) hears Dreamer's complaints (in accord with Pleasant Conversation), and counsels diplomacy and patience
- Aid from Heaven - both seek understanding from Rebuff
- Generosity of Spirit - (f)
- Pity - (f)
- Jealousy - (f) argues for building the tower enclosing the buds
- Lechery, Lust - (m) enemies mentioned by Jealousy
- Fortune - (f) the keeper of the wheel that casts the Dreamer down
After citing Macrobius's commentary on Cicero's Dream of Scipio (rather like one of Chaucer's heroes, though that hero is actually reading it), the Dreamer falls asleep. He soon dreams of coming across a walled garden in May, and sees the images on the walls, perhaps intended to keep people away that are old, hateful, covetous, and hypocritical. Then he searches for a door and finds only a small one. After he knocks, Idleness answers and lets him in. After wandering through the garden for a bit, he witnesses a dance, and is soon asked to join by Courtesy. A cavalcade of characters follows (not to be misleading though it alliterates - no horses are mentioned), encompassing the positive qualities of the garden, including pleasure, wealth, largesse, love, and youth.
Eventually the Dreamer is encouraged to wander again, and he comes across the Spring of Love, prefaced by the story of Narcissus and Echo. The Dreamer looks, sees the rose bushes and the most beautiful rose bud, and is immediately stricken by the five arrows of Eros meant to inspire love. He is then hunted and taken captive, until the Dreamer swears fealty to the Lover, sealed with a kiss on the mouth. The Lover then gives his commandments, which amount to suffering Love with the few consolations given the Dreamer - to think on his love, to talk about his love, and to see his love.
Dreamer then approaches the bushes, and is greeted by Fair Welcome, who is content to allow him to rest near the bud. When he asks to take the bud away, he is refused, and soon Rebuff and his cronies come by and kick Dreamer out. Disconsolate, he seeks a Friend for the solace of Pleasant Conversation. The Friend counsels diplomacy, which with the intervention of Pity and Generosity of Spirit softens Rebuff enough that he allows the Dreamer back in. He sits with Fair Welcome, who soon allows the Dreamer to kiss the bud.
Upon doing so, Evil Tongue spreads rumors about Fair Welcome and Dreamer. Soon, Jealousy is in on the act, and proclaims that they ought to build a tower around the bud, and keep Fair Welcome at the center of it. Once armed, garrisoned (with Norman soldiers!), and kept, Dreamer despairs, loving from afar both the bud and Fair Welcome.
Thoughts
First, homosocial. There is clearly an implied relationship between Fair Welcome and the Dreamer, and the Dreamer's responses to his absence indicate that, though the allegations might be salacious, it is less a fabrication of what isn't there than a misconstruing of what is. Fair Welcome serves as the point of access to the bud, a benevolent Pandarus-type character who indulges Dreamer in return for the pleasure of having given welcome. The two are warm, and in the earlier sense of the word intimate. The concluding speech by Dreamer indicates that he misses Fair Welcome more than he does the bud. It is nearly as if the rosebud is the object of Dreamer's affections, but Fair Welcome is its agency, a male duenna who receives the poet's advances. He does not restrict access altogether, but makes sure that such access is appropriate, within the strictures of courtliness that Love must be constrained to serve. In my mind, such agency could easily collapse into a Cyrano-like situation, where the Dreamer ends up loving the agent more than the pretty face, Cyrano over Christian. Could such a flip have happened then? I must think it could, having no evidence to the contrary.
And that goes without mentioning the kiss on the mouth that passes between the God of Love and the Dreamer. Certainly, they would have been less picky about such gestures than we are today, as we have turned a kiss into something erotic all the time. In this story, it may be an allusion of the sex that is to come. It could also be a greeting, or a seal of fealty. I think that we have more of an issue of the ambiguity between those statuses than they did. Either (the traditional assumption) the umbrage of the kiss depended on the situation such that categories didn't blend together, or (the generous assumption) there was a little swearing of fealty and eroticism in any kiss, no matter the primary context. I incline towards the latter. To do otherwise would be to ignore a key part of the context; would even a medieval man kiss the God of Love and not feel a little erotic about it?
Second, details. It's so funny to see the parenthetical explanations in places where I would never suspect that one was needed. For example, when Joy is described next to Pleasure, the poet quickly adds, "Who did not hate him in the least, but had given him her love when she was no more than seven years old" (14). Oh. Okay. I suppose that this is a jibe against those that would claim that Joy (with its exalted refinement) and Pleasure (with its earthly tones) are separate in theological grounds. Bodily pleasure serves as a distraction to salvation or happiness, while joy is the place where happiness takes its rest. The Thomistic view would disagree with Guillaume on this point, and though I don't know enough about other scholastic movements at the time, I suspect others would too.
Also, the details like dress and surroundings fascinate me. Why does it matter that Wealth is wearing a stone that protects against toothaches? (I wonder if anyone has ever cross-referenced this with lapidaries of the time, which also record these weird traits.) Do the many spices in the garden (cloves, liquorice, fresh cardamum, zedoary, anise, cinnamon, and "many delicious spices good to eat after a meal") make it more lavish? What are those spices good to eat after a meal? All I can think of is "dessert" or "after dinner mint." Oh, how impoverished my understanding is. This early tendency towards making lists is masterful compared to many later medieval poems, which turn these brief descriptive interludes into indulgent and obsessive fights over who can do so most lavishly.
Third, Arthurian allusion. Just a note that it does occur, including the company of Largesse, and an allusion to Kay and Gawain where the former comes off horribly and the latter quite well in courtesy.
Protect me! Tomorrow I plan to put a big dent in Jean de Meun.
(Note - I've also been reading through The English Romance in Time by Helen Cooper and The Hero with a Thousand Faces by Joseph Campbell. I'm nowhere near finishing either, but I might post on them too when I feel less long-winded.)
Friday, June 4, 2010
John Donne
Biography:
1572-1631. Born into a devout Catholic family. Distantly related to Sir Thomas More. Converted to the English church sometime in the 1590s. Participated in campaign against Cadiz and Azores in 1596-7 (Earl of Essex). Was secretary to Sir THomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Sal. But he secretly arried Ann More, Egerton's niece, in 1601, and lived insecurely in the country. Twelve children by her.
Donne eventually sought patrons for his works, writing things like Pseudo-Martyr for James I in 1610, Ignatius His Conclave in 1611 against Jesuits, the first two Anniversaries in 1611 and 12 for his patron Sir Robert Drury's dead daughter, and so on. Eventually, in 1615, Donne consented to take the King's offer to begin an ecclesiastical career - court preacher, reader in divinity at Lincoln's Inn, and dean of St. Paul's.
He often circulated his poems in manuscript. In 1633, Songs and Sonnets was published, and went through a second edition in 1635.
"The Flea"
aabbccddd, 3 iambic tetrameter nonets. A poem that compares the mingling of blood in the flea to a sexual act, as the speaker tries to convince his lover to give in. The flea itself stands as an indistinct third personage - for the resulting child? For "the marraige bed and marriage temple?" For the occurrence of sex itself? It is vaguely trinitarian. In the third stanza, the flea is killed, and the speaker changes tack to show how small a thing was killed, comparing once more its smallness to the honor that would be lost.
"The Good-Morrow"
ababccc, 3 iambic pentameter septets. The time before their meeting is treated as a dream of sleep and simple pleasures. Then he gives good morow, and plays with the figure and function of mapping in the remainder of the poem. The lover makes their room a whole entire world, and each other mapped mirrors or hemispheres of each other. The figure is somewhat unusual, but the point is that the two are able to be so perfectly mapped together or mixed that a balance exists, such that neither would die.
"Song: Go and catch a falling star"
irregular nonet, ababccddd. Starts with a series of impossible or unknowable things, like "who cleft the Devil's foot," before making the bold claim to "find / What wind / Serves to advance an honest mind." The second stanza expands the charge, only related by proximity, until he claims that none can find "a woman true, and fair." (Can only ugly women be true? Are true women rather like Laura, unfair?) The speaker in the last stanza makes rather a mockery of himself, first urging a doubter to find her, and then refusing to go see even if she is close, alleging that she would be false before he arrived. It's a rather coy and original appropriation of the misogynist voice.
"The Undertaking"
quatrains of abab rhyme in iambic tetrameter. The poem starts with the speaker claiming that he has done a braver deed than all the worthies (including, presumably, King Arthur). A yet braver thing is to not impart it. He implies that imparting it is futile, since the material has been lost, rather like the futility of "the skill of specular stone." What is to impart? That it is best to love someone for their inward qualities, rather than outward adornment. If one finds "Virtue attired in woman... / And dare love that, and say so too, / And forget the He and She;" well, great! I'm mystified by the last line - is it meant to forget common formal address? Is it wiping away gender altogether? That's the leap I want to make, but it might be a misunderstanding, almost as big as the profane men who would misunderstand this sort of love.
1572-1631. Born into a devout Catholic family. Distantly related to Sir Thomas More. Converted to the English church sometime in the 1590s. Participated in campaign against Cadiz and Azores in 1596-7 (Earl of Essex). Was secretary to Sir THomas Egerton, Lord Keeper of the Great Sal. But he secretly arried Ann More, Egerton's niece, in 1601, and lived insecurely in the country. Twelve children by her.
Donne eventually sought patrons for his works, writing things like Pseudo-Martyr for James I in 1610, Ignatius His Conclave in 1611 against Jesuits, the first two Anniversaries in 1611 and 12 for his patron Sir Robert Drury's dead daughter, and so on. Eventually, in 1615, Donne consented to take the King's offer to begin an ecclesiastical career - court preacher, reader in divinity at Lincoln's Inn, and dean of St. Paul's.
He often circulated his poems in manuscript. In 1633, Songs and Sonnets was published, and went through a second edition in 1635.
"The Flea"
aabbccddd, 3 iambic tetrameter nonets. A poem that compares the mingling of blood in the flea to a sexual act, as the speaker tries to convince his lover to give in. The flea itself stands as an indistinct third personage - for the resulting child? For "the marraige bed and marriage temple?" For the occurrence of sex itself? It is vaguely trinitarian. In the third stanza, the flea is killed, and the speaker changes tack to show how small a thing was killed, comparing once more its smallness to the honor that would be lost.
"The Good-Morrow"
ababccc, 3 iambic pentameter septets. The time before their meeting is treated as a dream of sleep and simple pleasures. Then he gives good morow, and plays with the figure and function of mapping in the remainder of the poem. The lover makes their room a whole entire world, and each other mapped mirrors or hemispheres of each other. The figure is somewhat unusual, but the point is that the two are able to be so perfectly mapped together or mixed that a balance exists, such that neither would die.
"Song: Go and catch a falling star"
irregular nonet, ababccddd. Starts with a series of impossible or unknowable things, like "who cleft the Devil's foot," before making the bold claim to "find / What wind / Serves to advance an honest mind." The second stanza expands the charge, only related by proximity, until he claims that none can find "a woman true, and fair." (Can only ugly women be true? Are true women rather like Laura, unfair?) The speaker in the last stanza makes rather a mockery of himself, first urging a doubter to find her, and then refusing to go see even if she is close, alleging that she would be false before he arrived. It's a rather coy and original appropriation of the misogynist voice.
"The Undertaking"
quatrains of abab rhyme in iambic tetrameter. The poem starts with the speaker claiming that he has done a braver deed than all the worthies (including, presumably, King Arthur). A yet braver thing is to not impart it. He implies that imparting it is futile, since the material has been lost, rather like the futility of "the skill of specular stone." What is to impart? That it is best to love someone for their inward qualities, rather than outward adornment. If one finds "Virtue attired in woman... / And dare love that, and say so too, / And forget the He and She;" well, great! I'm mystified by the last line - is it meant to forget common formal address? Is it wiping away gender altogether? That's the leap I want to make, but it might be a misunderstanding, almost as big as the profane men who would misunderstand this sort of love.
Thomas Campion
1567-1620. He was one of those jacks-of-all-trades, law student, ;physician, composer, and writer. He preferred Latin for poetic form. He has a sweet lyrical quality, even though his topic material is sometimes controversial - e.g., rape.
"My sweetest Lesbia"
Sextet of three couplets, iambic pentameter. The speaker urges the lover to "live and love" even though that might not be wise. A carpe diem sort of poem. Second stanza claims that those that war are the true fools, not those that love. Third stanza repeats the theme of death - people should celebrate after the speaker dies. Last two lines are confusing - does Lesbia die with him, or merely usher him into death?
"I care not for these ladies"
Balladic repetition - 10 lines per stanza, last four repeat. Resists noblewomen who demand so much wealth, turning instead to simple "kind Amaryllis, / The wanton country maid." Pun intended there. Trade of goods in second stanza - the speaker wants to receive goods, not have to give "golden showers." (Har.) Idyllic about Amaryllis. The last four lines repeat a story of seizure, refusal, and then relenting once "we come where comfort is." It's disturbing, as it suggests that he partly wants Amaryllis because she is easy to both love and to simply take.
"When to her lute Corinna sings"
Two sextets, couplet rhyme. Iambic tetrameter. Beautiful overflow at the end of the first stanza, "Ev'n with her sighs the strings do break," "Ev'n" evoking the overflow into mourning. Sympathetic reactions between player, music, and finally the listener, who is also the speaker, and perhaps seeking to impart a similar reaction by retelling it.
"Now winter nights enlarge"
ababcdcdefef, iambic trimeter with a pentameter skip at the penultimate lines of two 12-line stanzas. Unlike many poems that lament winter, this features the turning inward into pockets of warmth and human society. Talk, dally, dance, riddle, lyricize - "Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys, / They shorten tedious nights."
"There is a garden in her face"
ababcc, iambic tetrameter. Along with lyricizing the addressee's face, the poet also has the refrain, "Till 'Cherry ripe!' themselves do cry." Who are "themselves," the suitors judging the "fruit" to be done, or the maid herself, ready to become a woman? The ambiguity plays with the voice of the poet too - does he want to declare her ready? Does the London street vendor cry, ushered from her or their lips, empower her, sell her, or do something else entirely?
"Fain would I wed"
Fourteener - fourteen syllables, seven beats. In a young woman's voice. She longs to move, and seeks men to love and satisfy her, but she never is able to love for long. She will turn to a convent eventually, but wryly implies that first she will become a mother, just like her mother before her. Part cyclical, part unrestrained, the voice of the woman is not at all subdued as one might assume from his other prose. Not that this assumption is correct - one might imagine that this is now Campion's Amaryllis, given the additional dimension of choice. She, too, wants sex, but she changes her mind frequently about who tolove.
"My sweetest Lesbia"
Sextet of three couplets, iambic pentameter. The speaker urges the lover to "live and love" even though that might not be wise. A carpe diem sort of poem. Second stanza claims that those that war are the true fools, not those that love. Third stanza repeats the theme of death - people should celebrate after the speaker dies. Last two lines are confusing - does Lesbia die with him, or merely usher him into death?
"I care not for these ladies"
Balladic repetition - 10 lines per stanza, last four repeat. Resists noblewomen who demand so much wealth, turning instead to simple "kind Amaryllis, / The wanton country maid." Pun intended there. Trade of goods in second stanza - the speaker wants to receive goods, not have to give "golden showers." (Har.) Idyllic about Amaryllis. The last four lines repeat a story of seizure, refusal, and then relenting once "we come where comfort is." It's disturbing, as it suggests that he partly wants Amaryllis because she is easy to both love and to simply take.
"When to her lute Corinna sings"
Two sextets, couplet rhyme. Iambic tetrameter. Beautiful overflow at the end of the first stanza, "Ev'n with her sighs the strings do break," "Ev'n" evoking the overflow into mourning. Sympathetic reactions between player, music, and finally the listener, who is also the speaker, and perhaps seeking to impart a similar reaction by retelling it.
"Now winter nights enlarge"
ababcdcdefef, iambic trimeter with a pentameter skip at the penultimate lines of two 12-line stanzas. Unlike many poems that lament winter, this features the turning inward into pockets of warmth and human society. Talk, dally, dance, riddle, lyricize - "Though Love and all his pleasures are but toys, / They shorten tedious nights."
"There is a garden in her face"
ababcc, iambic tetrameter. Along with lyricizing the addressee's face, the poet also has the refrain, "Till 'Cherry ripe!' themselves do cry." Who are "themselves," the suitors judging the "fruit" to be done, or the maid herself, ready to become a woman? The ambiguity plays with the voice of the poet too - does he want to declare her ready? Does the London street vendor cry, ushered from her or their lips, empower her, sell her, or do something else entirely?
"Fain would I wed"
Fourteener - fourteen syllables, seven beats. In a young woman's voice. She longs to move, and seeks men to love and satisfy her, but she never is able to love for long. She will turn to a convent eventually, but wryly implies that first she will become a mother, just like her mother before her. Part cyclical, part unrestrained, the voice of the woman is not at all subdued as one might assume from his other prose. Not that this assumption is correct - one might imagine that this is now Campion's Amaryllis, given the additional dimension of choice. She, too, wants sex, but she changes her mind frequently about who tolove.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
