I sometimes wonder why a lot of people treat medieval poems as structurally inferior, as if the structure just isn't there. I suppose part of it might be that a lot of it has a paratactic structure, a term that is often bandied about by my mentors and other scholars as a prime structure of oral literatures. Short, simple sentences are combined with simple conjunctions, with a larger structure that might appear to be a list of events.
Perhaps in justification, to preserve the idea that many of these works are far more enriched than the generalization might imply (since "simple" too often becomes the one-word prescription for it, when one is being generous and not using the collocation "bad"), I like searching for deeper structures, or alternately finding deep ambiguities even at the surface, to use an opposition that implies that there is a depth to explore. (Deleuze is on my mind.) This is why I play with puns often, or revert to close reading to make a point. I'm very good with these methods. It's making the large, grand claim where I could use some development.
I say these two paragraphs because my first reaction on finishing this is that it was tough to see the structure. Maybe this was due to the language. I have been reading middle english for a while now, but sometimes alliterative poetry just defeats me. I understood the bulk of it, but a few passages, and several shorter units were very difficult to make out. I chose to read on rather than spend a significant amount of time consulting different dictionaries. My edition has a helpful glossary, but there were a few times when my curiosity would have taken it way further than that.
The poem has what I would call four main parts.
1. Introduction and the Feast Parable
2. Noah
3. Abraham and Lot
4. Babylon
The basic message, to condense it in a trite sentence, is: "God likes cleanliness of body and spirit, and abhors anyone who allows themselves to become impure." Homilies are easy like that.
There are some tentative connections between this poem and the others. For example, between the third and the fourth part, the transition features a pearl, which stands for the purity and salvation that the poem is trying to communicate, and may draw on the prior poem Pearl for much of its power. The form is similar to the later poems, being an alliterative verse with four beats per line. There is no stanza form here. I can't comment much more until I've read Patience, but I expect the two to be similar.
A few things that interested me:
So much about Cleanness relies on having proper sexual relationships. Note that sex is not dismissed outright - it is proper with one's wife, in private (esp. 697-708). God taught it to people. In contrast, the men in Sodom insist on having the two angels come out, in a passage that is rather more gruesome than the Bible, if I recall correctly. Cleanness also concerns itself a lot with pride, especially in the last story, but it is interesting that the two biggest sins here seem to be that and lechery.
The word (yogh)yender as a variant to yonder. I found it quite interesting when used because it looked at first like it could be a corruption of gender, a word already in use at the time in the Latinate sense of genus, generis. The passage is at line 1617; reading it again, it clearly makes sense with yonder, a delightful misunderstanding would give this modernization: "And though the matter is murky that is marked gender..." Har. Doesn't make as much sense.
The reason it doesn't seem to at first hold together well, at least for me, is the event in the beginning, the dinner party. That combined with the emphasis on one's appearance strikes me, someone who has always learned that what's on the inside matters far more than what's on the outside, strange. I think part of the emphasis comes from class structure (oh, of course it does). The entire poem is preoccupied with the relationship between lords and servants. The word wyg(yogh) recurs many times, as do others, sometimes for Lot's servants (890s) and sometimes for the servants of the queen of Babylon (1587), just to give a few examples. If one dresses appropriately for one's position, and one's worth is reflected in the quality and station of the clothing available to her, then appearing slovenly before a lord when one could dress better is a strike against her. Then again, does this mean that peasants are worth less morally because they are unable to dress up? Perhaps the causation isn't there, but the general point remains - one unable to afford such clothes would be morally suspect as compared to the honor of a lord. So what does this poem say about those relations, and how does the emphasis on lord and servant translate here when the preoccupation with clothing is so important? What's the likely theological message? How does it converse with other theologians, whether Thomas Aquinas or Julian of Norwich?
Showing posts with label primary. Show all posts
Showing posts with label primary. Show all posts
Thursday, July 8, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Henry Howard, Earl of Surrey
Biography:
Henry, born in 1517, and died in 1547. The ignoble distinction of being the last person executed by Henry VIII's order, convicted of treason after he opposed the Seymours (remember Jane Seymour?) when power swung to them after Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. He was very high born, the eldest son of the duke of Norfolk, a conservative Catholic faction. He served in the French wars as "Lietenant General of the King on Sea and Land." In 1541 he helped free Thomas Wyatt from the Tower of London.
He was well-loved in the sixteenth century, especially after Tottel's miscellany in 1557 (Songs and Sonnets written by the Right Honorable Lord Henry Howard Late Earl of Surrey and Other). He's the first author known to use the English sonnet form, and the first English poet to publish in blank verse (for the Aeneid partial translation).
Works
"The soote season"
Surrey refers to spring in his translation of Rima 310 by Petrarch. It is beautiful. Summer has come, and various animals are individually renewed and in their accustomed action. Winter is worn away, but "Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs." It's a wonderful juxtaposition.
"Love, that doth reign and live within my thought"
Petrarch's Rima 140, also translated by Wyatt. Surrey differs in that Love's holder conflicts more with it. He resists falling fully into this love, while nonetheless doing so.
"Alas! so all things now do hold their peace"
Translation of Rima 164. Unconventional rhyme here - ababababababcc. It's calm outside - depicting the night. No animals, calm sea. Then the shift in line 6 suddenly, perhaps allowed by the unconventional rhyme in the sonnet. "So am not I." Last poem's "doubtful hope" is this one's "doubtful ease." This is a speaker that is shaken inwardly.
"Th'Assyrians' king, in peace with foul desire"
An English sonnet. Depicts the Assyrian king growing soft by lust. Depiction of it as "womanish delight." Distortion of his body depicted in the way it no longer takes to swords and armor. ("The dint of swords from kisses seemed strange, / And harder than his lady's side, his targe.") Interesting at the end, where he is depicted as depleted, killing himself is done to show some "manful deed," though the tone set by "some" indicates some amount of scorn or derision, the best of terrible options after a depleted life.
"So cruel prison how could betide"
Quatrains, abab, until the concluding couplet. He is in Windsor, where he spent in childhood, and the poem juxtaposes the nostalgia for his youthful games (like joust?) and the company of friends and ladies. Upon remembering "The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just," he laments.
"Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest"
Same format as the last. The title alone gets the hesitating contradiction - Wyatt lived, but now he has died. In praise of Wyatt, dividing him into body parts - head, visage, hand, tongue, eye, heart, and then the "valiant corpse," the body as a whole. Each part serves to deliver some measure of virtue. The body then turns to the heavens after the famous lines about Nature losing the mold. Finally, it turns back to the speaker, lamenting the loss "for our guilt."
"O happy dames, that may embrace"
A woman (perhaps Surrey's wife) laments that she cannot embrace her husband like the other ladies can embrace "the fruit of your delight." No gender is attributed to the dames' loves, but the wife looks to her love on the ocean, having sailed away. This also transforms her, the lover, into the mariner - "Lo, what a mariner love hat made me!" (28). Her questions indicate her struggle to understand why he leaves. Again, "doubtful hope" recurs in line 38, a state for her worry even when the seas are calm.
"Martial, the things for to attain"
A translation of an epigram (10.47). It, like the last poem, has some preoccupation with happiness. But now it prescribes the state of happiness, which tends to avoid strife by embracing simplicity.
Henry, born in 1517, and died in 1547. The ignoble distinction of being the last person executed by Henry VIII's order, convicted of treason after he opposed the Seymours (remember Jane Seymour?) when power swung to them after Catherine Howard was executed for adultery. He was very high born, the eldest son of the duke of Norfolk, a conservative Catholic faction. He served in the French wars as "Lietenant General of the King on Sea and Land." In 1541 he helped free Thomas Wyatt from the Tower of London.
He was well-loved in the sixteenth century, especially after Tottel's miscellany in 1557 (Songs and Sonnets written by the Right Honorable Lord Henry Howard Late Earl of Surrey and Other). He's the first author known to use the English sonnet form, and the first English poet to publish in blank verse (for the Aeneid partial translation).
Works
"The soote season"
Surrey refers to spring in his translation of Rima 310 by Petrarch. It is beautiful. Summer has come, and various animals are individually renewed and in their accustomed action. Winter is worn away, but "Each care decays, and yet my sorrow springs." It's a wonderful juxtaposition.
"Love, that doth reign and live within my thought"
Petrarch's Rima 140, also translated by Wyatt. Surrey differs in that Love's holder conflicts more with it. He resists falling fully into this love, while nonetheless doing so.
"Alas! so all things now do hold their peace"
Translation of Rima 164. Unconventional rhyme here - ababababababcc. It's calm outside - depicting the night. No animals, calm sea. Then the shift in line 6 suddenly, perhaps allowed by the unconventional rhyme in the sonnet. "So am not I." Last poem's "doubtful hope" is this one's "doubtful ease." This is a speaker that is shaken inwardly.
"Th'Assyrians' king, in peace with foul desire"
An English sonnet. Depicts the Assyrian king growing soft by lust. Depiction of it as "womanish delight." Distortion of his body depicted in the way it no longer takes to swords and armor. ("The dint of swords from kisses seemed strange, / And harder than his lady's side, his targe.") Interesting at the end, where he is depicted as depleted, killing himself is done to show some "manful deed," though the tone set by "some" indicates some amount of scorn or derision, the best of terrible options after a depleted life.
"So cruel prison how could betide"
Quatrains, abab, until the concluding couplet. He is in Windsor, where he spent in childhood, and the poem juxtaposes the nostalgia for his youthful games (like joust?) and the company of friends and ladies. Upon remembering "The friendship sworn, each promise kept so just," he laments.
"Wyatt resteth here, that quick could never rest"
Same format as the last. The title alone gets the hesitating contradiction - Wyatt lived, but now he has died. In praise of Wyatt, dividing him into body parts - head, visage, hand, tongue, eye, heart, and then the "valiant corpse," the body as a whole. Each part serves to deliver some measure of virtue. The body then turns to the heavens after the famous lines about Nature losing the mold. Finally, it turns back to the speaker, lamenting the loss "for our guilt."
"O happy dames, that may embrace"
A woman (perhaps Surrey's wife) laments that she cannot embrace her husband like the other ladies can embrace "the fruit of your delight." No gender is attributed to the dames' loves, but the wife looks to her love on the ocean, having sailed away. This also transforms her, the lover, into the mariner - "Lo, what a mariner love hat made me!" (28). Her questions indicate her struggle to understand why he leaves. Again, "doubtful hope" recurs in line 38, a state for her worry even when the seas are calm.
"Martial, the things for to attain"
A translation of an epigram (10.47). It, like the last poem, has some preoccupation with happiness. But now it prescribes the state of happiness, which tends to avoid strife by embracing simplicity.
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