SO MUCH IMAGERY

What struck me most while reading Paradise Lost was the imagery. It's everywhere! And considering that John Milton went blind and was dictating his writing to scribes and managed to write this beautiful, complex, and vivid work of art is crazy to me. I can’t even describe my own head of hair without sounding awful and yet Milton is describing amazing things that he’s never even seen when he wasn’t blind! (At least I’m assuming he’s never seen hell…)

I think he definitely appreciated the beauty in life, even when he couldn’t see it, and even though he was a huge grump. I think that’s what I like about Milton the most. I love the idea of him being so in awe of our world and finding just the right words to describe it.

Another example of Mephistopheles ruinin' some lives (though Faustus had it coming)

SWOOSH

That's the sound of us traveling back in time to when I originally meant to post this, while we were reading Doctor Faustus. (It's interesting to me how many of us continue to post about this play. We all have so much to say that didn't fit into our class time!)

Anyway, what I was thinking about the whole time we wee learning about this play, was the album by the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, "Beethoven's Last Night." (Yes, they do have albums that have music other than Christmas.)

This album is a concept album which means that it tells a single story through the songs. It also comes with a booklet where you can read the story along with it.

The premise of this story is that it is Beethoven's last night on earth. He is going to die that night (though he doesn't know this at the beginning.) He is working on his tenth symphony when he is visited by Mephistopheles who tells him that he has come to collect his soul. he then makes him to offer that if Beethoven gives Mephistopheles all his music and allows him to wipe the memory of his compositions off the face of the earth, he will give him back his soul. The story is about Beethoven trying to decide what he wants.

Obviously this story of making contracts with the devil is a popular one, since we see it so often throughout literature. In the Canterbury Tales, there's also a story of a man meeting with the devil.

You can read the basic story here.

This song is called "Mephistopheles" and is sung by- you guessed it- Mephistopheles as he introduces himself:

And in this next video you can listen to the whole album (which you totally don't have to but there's some musical masterpieces in there (in my opinion of course!)

My favorite is "Mephistopheles' Return," in case you were wondering :)

Isabella's justification

I was baffled today by the question “was Isabella’s choice justified?” and not because I didn’t know the answer: because there is a clear answer and I’m a little bit disgusted that it was actually a question being asked.

No one is ever obligated to justify not wanting to have sex with someone else. Maybe Angelo grossed her out, maybe he was creepy, maybe she really wanted to be a nun, or maybe she just doesn't swing for that team. None of these questions/justifications are necessary. Isabella didn't want to sleep with him, end of story. It doesn't matter if her brother is going to die because of it, it is her choice and her choice should be respected, not scrutinized for how justified it was.

Not to mention that even if you read the story without the scene we watched in mind, even if you interpret it as word for word what is written and no more, Angelo is trying to coerce her into sex. He is using her brother’s death as blackmail for her body. That is rape and she had every right to say no to him.

Sorry, this just bothered me so much during class and I had to post about it.

Golden Book of Marriage and Utopia

Hey guys!

So, I'd like to make a connection here between the Wife of Bath’s prologue and part of Book II of Utopia, something that occurred to me while reading the latter. I’m not necessarily sure of what conclusion I can draw from all of this so I hope someone else can help me!

Also, psa I’m in both Dr. MB’s Chaucer and Brit Lit class and we discussed the Wife of Bath at the exact same time so I hope I’m not mixing up what we covered in each class. If so uh…at least you’ll have some new information!

So, while covering the Wife of Bath, we discussed the book that Jenkin read to her that she eventually ripped pages out of. The book is called “The Book of Wicked Wives” and the section I’m going to be looking at is one we read in class and it at the back of our book on page 358. It is from the section written by Theophrastus, Golden Book of Marriage.
It reads: “Moreover there is no choice in the matter of a wife: one has to take whatever comes along. If she’s nagging, stupid, ugly, proud, smelly—whatever fault she has, we find out after marriage. Now a horse, an ass, a cow, a dog, the cheapest of slaves, clothes, kettles, a wooden chair, a cup, a clay pot—all these are tested first, and then purchased. Only a wife is not put on display—in case her faults are discovered before we take her.”

Ignoring the obvious, horrifying misogyny in this section (I know, it pains me to ignore it and not rant about it), I’d like to point out that there is a connection with Utopia.

In Book II of Utopia, we are being told all of the different ways that the society works in Utopia. This “perfect” land has a distinctive ritual that the men and women go through before marrying; one which several people objected to in class. We see this on page 72.

More is repeating Raphael’s explanation of Utopia and is talking about marriage. “Whether she is a widow or a virgin, the woman is shown naked to the suitor by the responsible and respectable matron; and similarly, some respectable man presents the suitor naked to the woman…When men go to buy a colt, where they are risking only a little money, they are so suspicious that, though the beast is almost bare, they won’t close the deal until the saddle and blanket have been taken off, lest there be a hidden sore underneath. Yet in the choice of a mate, which may cause either delight or disgust for the rest of their lives, people are completely careless. They leave all the rest of her body completely covered up with clothes and estimate the attractiveness of a woman from a mere handsbreadth of her person, the face, which is all they can see. And so they marry, running the risk of bitter discord, if something in either’s person should offend the other.”

So what does this tell us? Well, for one, both Theophrastus and More (the author) or Raphael (the speaker) are comparing women and wives to livestock. Both writings are speaking of marriage as a transaction wherein a woman is bought and is constantly trying to trick men into a bad exchange.

However, More (the writer) does decide that in this Utopia, both women and men are exposed completely before they are married. While only the women is described as being likely to trick the man into “buying” her, the men are also exposed. Is More saying that this could happen with men tricking women into marriage as well? When he gives the example of going to buy a horse, he compares this to marrying a woman and this led me to believe he thought the same thing that Theophrastus did, but perhaps he is thinking this of both genders.

Is More being influenced by Theophrastus? Has he read Golden Book of Marriage? Has he read Chaucer and is he drawing this idea from him? Or was this an idea that a lot of men had at this time period?

I’m really not sure what to make of this connection. Does anyone else have any ideas?

Rape in the Middle Ages

(Trigger warning for rape, obviously.)

(Also warning that I’m totally not a historian and I could be getting everything horribly, horribly wrong in this post. Please forgive me, Dr. MB, if I’m butchering this subject terribly.)

So in this post and in the comments of that post, there was some discussion on how serious of a crime would rape have been in the Middle Ages. I said that I thought it would be a pretty serious crime but that I wasn't sure. So I decided to look it up, and unfortunately, it seems as though I was wrong.

There looks to be  lot of research that has been done on rape in the Middle Ages. just googling "rape in the middle ages" brings up numerous articles and books written on the subject.

I found this post during my search which summarizes the issue pretty well.

In the early Middle Ages, rape was considered theft (nice objectification and dehumanization of women’s bodies, huh?) Women were seen as lesser than men, and so there was not many instances of harsh punishment for rape. Rape was seen as a loss of a woman’s honor and not anything more than that.

Not all rapes were reported (as is still true today.) Rape was a crime that occurred in every social class.

Punishment of rape differed from different classes. Sometimes a man was justly punished with mutilation or death, but sometimes a man would not be punished as justly, often being let off with a mild sentence.

Women could even be imprisoned for the crime of falsely accusing someone. I’m assuming that false accusations occurred a very, very tiny percentage of the time, as it still true today and that women were being accused of false accusations simply for not having enough evidence against their rapist.

The article concludes with the statement that "patriarchal societies tend to 'sweep…under the carpet' instances of rape and sexual violence."

I was really disappointed to discover a lot of this information. For some reason, I assumed that the extreme emphasis on female virginity in this period (which is another sexist idea, by the way) would have made rape a severe crime.

Unfortunately, I guess I overestimated the goodness of men.

Religion in Beowulf

So, full disclosure before I begin: in my senior year of high school, we read Beowulf and discussed religion in it so I'm coming in with previous knowledge already. That was three years ago though, so it's a bit of a stretch to remember.

One of things I notice most about Beowulf is the peculiarity of the religion. From the text, it's pretty obvious that Christianity is the dominant philosophy, both from the context of the story (late 5th century) and the references made by the characters to God and some biblical stories.

There are also aspects of paganism, though these are often subtler. The speaker seems to condemn paganism as an older religion which is not believe in anymore:

"Sometimes at pagan shrines they vowed
offerings to idols, swore oaths
that the killer of souls might come to their aid
and save the people. That was their way,
their heathenish hope; deep in their hearts
they remembered hell. The Almighty Judge
of good deeds and bad, the Lord God,
Head of the Heavens and High King of the World,
was unknown to them." (175-183)

 However, if we look closer at some of the Christian aspects that re present, we can see that there is a sort of hybrid between Christianity and paganism shown.
Grendel and his mother are referred to as descendants of Cain (99-114). Also listed are "ogres, and elves, and evil phantoms and the giants" (112-113). These monsters are not found in Christianity but are from different mythologies that existed before Christianity was introduced to the Anglo-Saxons.
The culture we see in Beowulf is in a state of transition from paganism to Christianity and because this happens over a long period of time, the two religions mix and create a hybrid of the two.
Another time that this is apparent is in line 1690 when Hrothgar begins his speech to Beowulf after Beowulf brings back Grendel's severed head. Hrothgar examines the sword and the text tells us that there are engravings of the past on the hilt and references when "the flood destroyed the tribe of giants." This story is recognizable to us as the story of Noah and the Ark. However it is presented to us as yet again a mixture of Christianity and paganism.
I'm sure there's other ways that religion plays a part in Beowulf and would be really interested to hear anyone else's opinions!