King Lear Acts 1 and 2: Finally Something Written in English!

I would have thought that reading something originally written in English (finally!) would be a relief. However, when it's Shakespeare, it's definitely not any easier than reading translated ancient Greek. (I did enjoy the creative insults, though, "you whoreson cullionly barbermonger" (II.2.30)!)

I found a main theme in King Lear to be the indignity of aging and having to bequeath an inheritance. It seems that this is such a psychological strain that it leads, essentially, to madness. In a conversation with the Fool, Lear says "Dost thou call me fool, boy?" and the Fool replies, "All other titles thou hast given away; that thou was born with" (I.4.145). In aging and giving up his land to his daughters, Lear has lost his youthful vigor and his power over both his land and his children. In this scene, speaks more rationally than the Fool who insults him, but later, at the end of Scene II when Goneril and Regan declare that they will not allow him any servants, he is equally nonsensical and crazed. Without his titles, it seems, Lear is nothing more than the Fool. Another compounding factor in Lear's insanity seems to be that he has only daughters, no sons. I know that the ideas about inheritance are different in Lear's time than in, say, Virgil's, but a patriarchal structure is nonetheless in place: a man's heir to the throne should be his son. In Act 1, Scene 4, Lear curses Cordelia into sterility- something he can afford to do because she cannot actually bear him an heir. This draws attention to Lear's plight and powerlessness that arises from his lack of a male child, as well as providing insight into the extent to which female children are viewed as useless and undervalued.
Lear's honor is further insulted when Regan and Cornwall are deciding what to do with Kent after Kent hits Oswald. They say that to punish Kent would insult Lear, because Lear is his messenger, but that not punishing Kent would insult Goneril because Oswald was her servant. Firstly, this scene calls attention to the fact that property, in this case servants, are intimately tied to an individual's honor and respect. In this case, Lear's honor is valued below his daughters, further emphasizing his depressing loss of power.

Though Love is not the primary focus of King Lear the way it is in Decameron or Symposium, it still plays an interesting role in the relationships and interactions between characters. In Regan's hyperbolic declaration of her love for Lear, she says, "I find she names my very deed of love; Only she comes too short, that I profess myself an enemy to all other joys" (I.1.71). While this is obviously intended to be read as insincere, it does raise an interesting perspective on love. Whereas Boccaccio describes love as pervasive and universal whether you want it to be or not, Regan describes that she actively decided to make enemy to other emotions in order to make room for love. Because her speech is so disingenuous, it seems that this is then a comment both on the fact that love should not prevail over all other emotions, and that it is actually impossible to control it to this extent.
Another interesting love-related twist regards the characterization of what is desirable. While the Duke of Burgundy shuns Cordelia after realizing that she no longer has an inheritance, the Duke of France is impressed by her honesty, saying "my love should kindle to inflamed respect. Thy dowerless daughter . . . is queen of all of us" (I.1.260). This indicates somewhat revolutionary new standards for a wife, beyond dowry and beauty, and perhaps a small victory for females in that it is possible for integrity and intelligence to actually be considered an asset.

A last motif I picked up on was the relationship between man and nature. The play seems to oscillate between the characterization of nature as being in opposition or in alignment to mankind. Lear declares,

"We are not ourselves when nature, being oppressed, commands the mind to suffer with the body" (II.4.105). This statement in itself presents both perspectives: Lear says that it is when nature is oppressed that it causes problems, but he also says that it is the sickness caused by nature which corrupts the mind. Later, at the end of Act II, nature is more obviously antagonistic, when Lear ends up shut outside in a tempest after his two daughters insult him. In both of these cases, there is a clear relationship between failings of the mind (insult, insanity) and chaos in nature (illness and storms), perhaps indicating a view of humanity in which the mind is more (or at least equally) governed by natural forces as is the body. 

Montaigne, Essays: On Cannibals, On Repentance, On Experience

Without question, out of the texts we have read in Lit Hum, Essays is the one most relevant to my life, the one to which I feel the most personally connected. Perhaps it is simply that it is the most modern of our readings thus far, but I found Montaigne's insights on how to live and the human condition poignant and pertinent. 

The picture Montaigne paints, particularly in the final essay, of human values, is markedly different than what we have seen in Dante, Boccaccio, Augustine, or certainly the earlier Homeric tradition. Montaigne's value system is deeply rooted in an individual's inner acts, private actions, and sense of justice rather than public opinion. For example, he points out that "Many a man has been a wonder to the world . . . Few have been admired by their servants" (240). It is more laudable, more difficult, and more rare, to be judged as good by the ones who see you on a day-to-day basis. Montaigne continues on to explain that "the worth of a soul does not consist in soaring to a height, but in a steady movement" (241). In both of these quotes, individual worth is derived from consistent, basal goodness rather than extreme displays of glory or even large scale acts of benevolence. Nowhere else have we seen this sort of value judgment, but I entirely agree that it provides a more accurate and honest picture of an individual's morality. Because "good" is derived from an individual's consistent, smaller actions, Montaigne comments on the failure of society to properly evaluate individuals, lamenting that "my honour and my life depend on the skill and care of my lawyer rather than on my innocence" (352). Because an individual's public image is so much less telling about their morality than their private actions, Montaigne is suggesting that legal and social systems cannot provide any true insight into or judgment.

Beyond this internal evaluation, Montaigne's views on what constitutes "goodness," especially with regard to physicality and pleasure, are novel. While Augustine and Dante condemn pleasure, and see physical bodies and the accompanying lust as something that must be escaped, and Boccaccio revels in lust and physicality, Montaigne aims for a happy medium. He recognizes the futility of trying to escape basic human desires, and points out that because they are part of nature, and nature, having been made by God is inherently good, there is nothing shameful or problematic with desire and physicality. His extensive descriptions of his own physical habits emphasize their value, and he even says that "bodily delights, like bodily sufferings, are the more rational" (395).  Rather than trying to repress these things, Montaigne notes, "I generally give in to those appetites that are insistent. I allow my desires and inclinations authority" (369). While Christian theology requires repression of what seem to me to be large parts of natural human emotion and consciousness, Montaigne recommends that "we too must accept the good and evil that are consubstantial with our life. Our existence is impossible without this mixture, and one side is no less necessary to us than the other" (374). To me, this balance represents the value set most conducive to a happy life out of all those we have seen, hovering in a pleasant intermediate between deprivation and excess. Montaigne accepts the individual as a whole, reveling in mankind's flaws. In his view, the best humans can do is to exist as they inevitably are, and enjoy life in all its glory and flaws. Personally, I loved Montaigne's final comment that "the man who knows how to enjoy his existence as he ought has attained to an absolute perfection" (406). Unlike previous literature's focus on the afterlife, be it the Homeric concern with personal glory, or the Christian conception of hell, Montaigne recognizes that life is fleeting, and deems a perfect life one that has been enjoyed. Personally, this is the philosophy that I subscribe to- what is the point of living life without enjoying it, if you only live once?

Though it may seem that Montaigne's recommendation to relish in life's pleasures might lead to a chaotic, gluttonous and corrupt society, the view he presents of human tendencies counteracts this fear. In his view, "These testimonies of a good conscience are pleasant; and such a natural pleasure is very beneficial to us; it is the only payment that can never fail" (238). He believes that humans are innately drawn to and take pleasure in good rather than evil, again, a perspective very different from Augustine or Dante. I'm not sure whether this was a prevailing view in the time of Montaigne, or what the cause was of the shift, but again, I personally like to believe that this is true. 

Relating to this more uplifting depiction of humanity, Montaigne, somewhat contrarily, presents a relatively dismal picture of the capabilities of the human mind and his own intelligence. Montaigne declares, "I speak as one who questions and does not know . . . I do not teach, I relate" (237). By casting himself as lacking exceptional knowledge, Montaigne places himself on the level of humanity he describes more generally, thus extrapolating his own lack of wisdom to all other individuals. Later, Montaigne explicitly points to the inability of the human mind to attain perfect wisdom, because "connectedness and conformity are not to be found in low and commonplace minds, like ours" (358).

From this paradox of intrinsic human goodness and intrinsic lack of wisdom, it seems that "good" as Montaigne sees it is unrelated to knowledge, or perhaps even exists more easily in its absence. This extremely opposes Plato equation of wisdom with the highest good, though it aligns slightly with Augustine's insight that wisdom is insufficient (or maybe even a barrier) to becoming close to God. 

On a different note, I wanted to make a few comments about the essay On Cannibals. I thought Montaigne's comment that "we all call barbarous anything that is contrary to our own habits. Indeed we seem to have no other criterion of truth and reason" (108) was particularly insightful. In the Greek and Roman literature we have read, there is a strong concept of "barbarians" as lesser human beings, but Montaigne recognizes instead that humans in fact are unable to make this type of value judgment, because our own ideas of "truth and reason" are unavoidably clouded and influenced by the society into which we were born. This recognition seems to mark a shift towards a more equalized view of humanity,  though I do not know enough about the historical context to say whether this is the case. I was also struck by the fact that in what Montaigne describes as an extremely simple, uncorrupted society, the only two values are "valour against the enemy and love for their wives" (111).  Love for wives seems to fit well with Montaigne's positive characterization of humanity, but the fact that the most basal society's main focus is on war seems bizarre. The nation's cannibalism is described as "a measure of extreme vengeance" (113). The prevalence of vengeance and brutality here seems initially to cast humanity in a less positive light, but, upon closer examination, it is apparent that the people of this society are content. Perhaps, then, the relatively happy balance between love and war, two things that would ordinarily be judged as good and bad, in the society of cannibals mirrors the appropriate balance between and cooexistence of good and evil in individuals that Montaigne advocates as the path to a happy, good life.

Montaigne, Essays: To the Reader, On Idleness, On the Power of the Imagination

In reading these first few essays, I was intrigued by the difference between Montaigne's purpose and that of Boccaccio, Dante, or earlier authors we have read. In his statement "To the Reader," Montaigne expresses that he is writing not for personal glory or for "serving you" i.e. the reader, but rather so that his family can remember him. To me, this is the least hubristic and most selfless motive thus far, and additionally, most reminiscent of dedications on more modern works, which are often to family members or friends. In his essay on the imagination, Montaigne provides additional insight into his intent. He is notably unconcerned with hard facts and explicit truth, proclaiming that "fabulous incidents are as good as true ones" (46). This is logical given that his purpose  "would be to tell what might happen" (47) rather than to record physical events. He is interested in patterns of human behavior, rather than explicitly in facts and concrete events. As my mom says, "I'm not interested in facts, only opinions," which seems quite similar to Montaigne's perspective. However, Montaigne in a way redefines what truth actually is: he says that because he doesn't invent examples, "I surpass the most faithful historians in scrupulous reverence for truth" (47). In this view, anything that is naturally thought up by a human mind is a form of truth, but examples concocted for didactic purposes are not. I'm not sure whether this perspective marks a more general shift from interest in history to interest in philosophy, but it is nonetheless notable. A final observation regarding Montaigne's purpose is his lack of hubris. Much as Boccaccio deemphasizes his own talent, Montaigne states, "I have no proper skill in composition or development" (47). This humble statement echoes his earlier claim that he is writing only so that his family can remember him, rather than with the intention of preserving himself and his honor through his writing (as Ovid does).

Related to Montaigne's views about truth are his insights on imagination. I found it interesting that he describes the transformative power of imagination, such as a man turning into a woman on his wedding say, or a bullfight spectator sprouting a horn (38). While Ovid describes love as a transformative power, Montaigne's depiction of imagination's ability to create physical change shifts the emphasis from love, a somewhat external force, to the immense power of the human mind. On the other hand, Montaigne comments on our inability to control physical organs, particularly libido, saying "Does it always desire what we wish it to desire? Does it let itself be guided, either, by the conclusions of our reason?" (43). By commenting about the almost complete lack of control we have over our physical bodies, Montaigne draws attention to the limitations of human consciousness. In this way he is somewhat similar to Augustine: human intellect is not enough. The prowess of human intellect is further diminished by Montaigne's inclusion of animals in these descriptions. He says that "even animals can be seen, like us, to be subject to the power of the imagination" (45). Montaigne doesn't hesitate to draw parallel between us and animals, unlike in previous works in which a comparison or transformation of human and animal marks a regression to baseness and loss of civilization. According to him, imagination is not a uniquely human ability, and animals have a level of consciousness similar to humans and volitional power of imagination as humans (ex. the cat who can kill the sparrow just by looking at it, 46). On the flip side of this, our inability to control our desires is also shared with animals.

On a different note, Montaigne's views on trickery are very different than Boccaccio's. He says, "I am enemy to all subtle deeds of deception . . . if the action is not wicked, the way to it is" (41). In this view, the ends do not justify the means, because Montaigne places so much weight on the power of thought and imagination. It is logical that because he is more concerned with ideas and behavior than with events themselves, he would judge trickery more harshly regardless of the outcome because it represents a perversion of what he views as most important.

One final comment on the essay "On Idleness": I was somewhat shocked by Montaigne's description of how "women, of themselves, sometimes bring forth inanimate and shapeless lumps of flesh, but to produce a sound and natural birth must be fertilized with different seed" (26). After reading Boccaccio, in which women are equally capable of complex thought, if not socially equal, to men, this seems to represent a regression in the views of women.

Decameron, Readings for Day 2:

Because the stories told in Decameron are unrelated, and we read so many of them, I had trouble figuring out what to focus on: which stories are most important? Which themes should I pick apart and focus on? However, while feeling overwhelmed by the number of anecdotes, I simultaneously felt that they were in essence very similar.
I think it is interesting to look at Boccaccio's purpose and approach to art, love, and God. In the introduction to 4th day, Boccaccio says "the Muses are ladies, and although ladies do not rank as highly as Muses, nevertheless they resemble them at first sight, and hence it is natural, if only for this reason, that I should be fond of them" (289). Here, it seems that he uses artistic purpose to justify natural desires, which echoes what seems to be a larger purpose of the book: by artistically describing scandal and lust, it becomes less shocking and more acceptable. Boccaccio more explicitly describes his purpose in the epilogue, explaining how "like all other things in the world, stories, whatever their nature, may be harmful or useful, depending on the listener" (799). His tone here implies a goal of artistry rather than didacticism. Much like Ovid, it appears the Boccaccio's purpose is primarily to reveal multiple perspectives and illuminate common situations, and it is up to the reader, and beyond the authors' control, to extract whatever meaning they may.  Also notable, in contrast, to Ovid, is Boccaccio's lack of hubris. He says, "there is no craftsman other than God whose work is whole and faultless in every respect" (800), indicating a humility towards his own work that certainly does not exist in Metamorphoeses, Aeneid, or the Homeric works. This may indicate his more plebeian purpose, and the fact that he is making no judgment on these universal human desires, but, as a human, is subject to them himself.

Another similarity to Ovid is the number of botched "metamorphoses" that exist in Decameron, which in some cases also echo Dante's idea of contrapasso. For instance, after Friar Alberto convinces the woman that he is "angel gabriel" going to bed with her, his punishment is to be honeyed and feathered (311). This "metamorphosis" is obviously artificial, temporary, and failed, but temporarily "turning" the Friar into an animal is a reflection on the animalistic baseness of his deception, and further echoes the idea of humans behaving as animals during the plague. However, the hilarity of the image of the Friar also adds levity in light of the animalistic horrors of the plague. This punishment is also a contrapasso in that after deceiving the woman, he is forced to appear deceptively to others (in costume).
A more obvious contrapasso-like punishment, which simultaneously echoes the story that Vertumnus tells Pomona about Iphis, who spurns her lover and turns to stone, describes another woman who has rejected her lover, who then, after death, "Every Friday at this hour I overtake her in this part of the woods, and slaughter her in the manner you are about to observe . . . on the remaining days I hunt her down in other places where she was cruel to me in thought and deed" (422). This punishment involving love seemed vaguely out of place among the other stories of Decameron, because elsewhere, regardless of amorous transgressions, no one is severely punished. I'm not sure what Boccaccio is doing here!

However, Boccaccio does seem to make some comment about appropriate versus inappropriate love. In the fourth story on 5th day, which is essentially the only love story without any wrath or complications, the man notices "her charming ways and impeccable manners, and, seeing that she was marriageable age, he fell passionately in love with her" (394). Here, logic and consideration of appropriateness of situation comes before lust, and it appears to be this rationality that enables relatively peaceful marriage. In other stories love and lust take precedent over rationality, and, though hilarity generally ensues, it is clear that Boccaccio does not view lust and love negatively. When the woman whose husband won't sleep with her is debating taking on a lover, she muses, "for I shall simply be breaking the laws of marriage, whereas he is breaking those of Nature as well" (434). Based on this, and the universality of lust in Boccaccio's stories, it seems that natural laws are more important than contractual laws, and that the physical often does, and perhaps rightly should, prevail over the logical. This is especially relevant in time of plague, which is essentially a massive physical force undermining all attempts at reason and rationalization. Boccaccio's views on love are further elucidated in introduction to the story of Guiscardo and Ghismonda, which says "Love, to whose eyes nothing remains concealed" (293). Here, Love is depicted on being omniscient in a similar way that God is omniscient, casting Love in a semi-divine, powerful, and valuable role.

I found the question of intelligence and agency that was addressed at numerous points in the text to be particularly interesting and particularly paradoxical. One of the storytellers explains that "men will come to realize that women are just as clever as their husbands" (490), in a clear acknowledgment of the equality of female intellect. However, there is also an irony here, because though females may be equally intelligent, they nonetheless are given very little agency and in many of the stories, are traded around, married off, and made into mistresses at the whim of the men around them (particularly notable in the story of the woman with nine successive husbands). By setting up this paradox of intelligence and agency, Boccaccio seems either to be making the argument that in fact intelligence is not in itself valuable, or sympathizing with women's lack of sway in their own lives (I'm not sure how likely the latter is). Boccaccio's stories often include some element of intelligent trickery, and it is often here that the hilarity and the action lie, suggesting that Boccaccio places high value on wit (though still acknowledges that it doesn't directly lead to agency). However, trickery is a questionable manifestation of wittiness, as exemplified in the tale of Elena, who tricks her suitor into waiting in the cold, prefaced by the warning: "it will teach you to think twice before playing tricks on people" (586). Perhaps Boccaccio values intelligence, but only with this caveat: it's acceptable that women are smart as long as men triumph in the end, as the spurned lover does in this story.
One final twist to the conception of female agency is in the story of Gualtieri marrying a peasant girl, who "was so gracious and benign towards her husbands' subjects . . . whereas they had been wont to say that Gualtieri had shown lack of discretion in taking this woman as his wife, they now regarded him as the wisest and most discerning man on earth. For no one apart from Gultieri could ever have perceived the noble qualities that lay concealed beneath her ragged and rustic attire" (787). Here, though the woman had no control whatsoever in marrying Gualtieri, she has significant impact on his public image. It is somewhat ironic that females are so powerless in marriage and yet have such dramatic influence on public view of husband, but also offers slight condolence for the general lack of female agency: this is where they can exert at least a little control.

Decameron, Readings for Day 1: Desire, Truth, and Bending the Rules

Background of Plague
Though I'm not sure whether Boccaccio would have read History of the Peloponnesian War, his description of the Plague at the beginning of the Decameron certainly mirrors Thucydides' description of the plague in Athens. Both authors describe the physical infliction of the plague in grotesque detail, but also focus on the accompanying degeneration of social order. Examples of this abound in the Prologue, but I felt that Boccaccio epitomized this chaos in his mention of the animals who are given free reign to eat and roam, but "after a whole day's feasting, many of these animals, as though posessing the power of reason, would return glutted in the evening to their own quarters, without any shepherd to guide them" (12). This is on contrast to many of the people who, believing they have no time to live, are able to exercise no restraint. This description of animals having more reason and control than humans emphasizes the extent to which societal values, rationality, and civility have collapsed as a result of the plague.
I noticed an obvious contrast between the world of the plague and the characters/setting in which the tales of the Decameron are told. The four women and three men are all described as exceptionally tidy, polite, beautiful, and civilized, and the house that they retreat to is luxurious and appealing (19). The group even unanimously decides to have a ruler, and fairly divides up the power by allowing each member to be queen for a day (20). This is the epitome of civilization and order. Initially, I was confused by this dichotomy: why bother setting the book amidst the plague if the "action" occurs in such a removed setting? However, judging by the baseness of some of the stories told, I felt like Boccaccio may use this physical removal to emphasize that the impossibility of actually escaping the chaos, brutishness, and carnal emotions that arise as part of the plague, regardless of apparent physical civility and well-being.

Corruption
Another theme relating to disruption of social order is corruption in religious institutions. It is evident from the levity with which Boccaccio tells these stories that he is not as serious a Catholic as, say, Dante or Augustine, and that his purpose, while maybe not directly to mock the church, is far more light-hearted than that of Inferno or Confessions. For instance, in the second novella of the first day, the narrator describes how Jehannot knew that if his Jewish friend visited the court of Rome, "not only will he not become Christian, but, if he had already turned Christian, he would become a Jew again without fail" (39). Jehannot recognizes the immense corruption within the Church, yet somewhat paradoxically still wants to a) remain a member himself (conversion is not even mentioned), and b) recruit other people to the corrupt institution. To me, this was quite humorous, but I think also illustrates the high level of awareness of corruption, and may be a comment on the necessity of reform (unlike the Jew in this story, most people will not join the church if it remains so corrupt).
Perhaps an even more direct mockery of religious institutions is the story about the nuns seducing a man who works at the convent. The former garden helper, Nuto, says of the nuns: "they seem to me to have the devil in them" (193), which immediately sets up the irony of their alleged religious devotion and actual sexual deviance. In deciding to seduce the gardener, one of the nuns says, "we are constantly making Him promises that we never keep! What does it matter if we fail to keep this one?" (196). In addition to pointing out the lack of adherence to Christian ideals within the church, the nuns devil-may- care (pun intended) attitude to their promises to God echoes the lack of restraint and morality exercised by individuals during the plague. Furthermore, the nuns emphasize the universality and relative harmlessness of human "carnal desires," perhaps suggesting that it is unrealistic for the Catholic church to regulate and limit sexuality (similar to Ovid's comment on the feasibility of regulating human sexuality through the Lex Julia).
One other, hilarious, episode that somewhat ridicules Christianity is of course the "devil in hell" episode (277), depicts two people using religion to justify sex- a perverse but remarkably biting depiction of how individuals can essentially justify anything they want via religion, which, most of the time, is somewhat illegitimate.

Truth
Amidst these descriptions of chaos and corruption, both within and without the Church, I did find an implicit emphasis on truthfulness in these early novellas. For instance, in the third story of the first novella, Saladin's attempts to deceive the Jew fail entirely, but when he simply asks for money straight out, his requests are happily granted. Similarly, Messer Riciardo's former wife initially pretends not to recognize him, but, when confronted, gives him the brutally honest reason for why she doesn't want to come back to him (his impotence), and as a result lives relatively happily ever after (183). He is somewhat upset, but she gets to remain married to her new husband. In both of these cases, everyone ends up better off when truth prevails over deception, which seems to argue for the importance of truth as a basic human value, and perhaps also to contrast the lack of transparency and accompanying hidden corruption in the Church.

Desire
A final theme that is extremely prevalent is desire. Generally, the men telling the stories have a consensus that female desire is more potent than male desire, and that females are less loyal. For example, Dioneo laments "the stupidity . . . of all the other men who are given to thinking . . . that while they are gadding about in various parts of the world with one woman and another, the wives they left behind are simply twiddling their thumbs" (179), emphasizing the infidelity of women. However, the fact that Dioneo laments the "stupidity" rather than the acts themselves, and points out that the men are also "gadding about . . . with one woman and another" illustrates a perspective that this female infidelity is neither surprising nor particularly wrong- a view very different from what we've seen in Roman and Greek value systems.
Another interesting counterpoint to this depiction of human desire is the story of the woman who was married nine times. In one of the many exchanges from husband to husband, 

"the flames of his desire burned correspondingly fiercer, and,  unperturbed by the crime he had just committed, he lay down at her side, his hands still dripping with blood, and made love to the woman who was half-asleep and believed him to be the Prince" (135). This grotesque image that so graphically combines blood and desire casts love as a dangerous force, and echoes a similar perverse combination of sex and violence that occurs when women are captured as "booty" of war. This episode puts a damper on the otherwise humorous and lighthearted tone with which Boccaccio addresses desire, and even offers a bit of insight and sympathy into the powerlessness of females in the context of love and desire- again, a perspective we have rarely seen. 

Inferno (Canto 21-34):

Through the end of Inferno, I continued to find notable deviations from the value set and principles of the ancient Greeks and Romans. After Dante sees crucified Friars, Fra Catalano says, "that one impaled there, whom you see, counseled the Pharisees that it was prudent to let one man--and not one nation--suffer" (23.117). Whereas Homer portrays a certain glory in dying for one's country's war, and Virgil prioritizes the well-being of the city-state over the well-being of the individual, here, Dante implies that it is unacceptable to let one man suffer in place of a whole nation. While of course I'm of the school that it would be better if no one had to die for their country, I think the rationale here is somewhat bizarre: wouldn't it be better for one person to suffer than for many? Part of Dante's purpose in including this may be a glorification of Christ, but I think it also marks an interesting shift in ideas about what an individuals' obligation is to his or her nation.
On a similar note, when Dante accidentally steps on face of one of the treacherous souls buried in the ice, Dante says "I am alive, and can be precious to you if you want fame." Despite the extreme shift in social values, "fame" is still inevitably a significant consideration. The soul replies: "I want the contrary . . . your flattery is useless in this valley" (32.90), emphasizing the important point (often ignored in Homer) that glory does not actually benefit you because you are dead and don't live to enjoy it.

Most of the classical influence in Inferno has been fairly straightforward. However, in two passages of this section, it seems that classical scenes are purposefully perverted. For instance, the scene in Canto 25 in which the Five Florentine thieves, some snakes, some men, combine, morph together, and shift places,  is described incredibly gruesomely. This metamorphosis mirrors those in Ovid's Metamorphoses, but whereas the metamorphoses in Ovid were unidirectional, and resulted in one thing entirely changing into another, the shift here is two-way, and results in a grotesque perversion of nature. Whereas Ovid, as most Romans, was not terribly concerned with the concept of sin, and the transformations that he describes, though they may be enacted as punishments, are not in themselves painful or punitive, Dante uses this transformation as a part of the souls' punishment. As I talked about in the last post, this perversion of the natural world may serve to emphasize both the extent to which the souls have become twisted and malformed as they act upon evil, as well as the extent of the evil present in Hell.
Another interesting reversal of Roman lore is Dante's encounter with Guido da Montefeltro in Hell. This echoes Aeneas' encounter with Anchises, in which Anchises prophecies future of Rome. However, while in Virgil's scene Aeneas is hearing about the future from a shade, in Inferno, Dante, the alive soul, tells Guido da Montefeltro about how his city in present day "lives somewhere between tyranny and freedom" (27.54). The fact that Guido inquires about the world (much as Aeneas asks Anchises), but the best Dante can offer is a description of the mediocrity of his city (rather than a glorious spiel about the founding of Rome) casts humanity's prospects an extremely depressing light. Furthermore, the fact that Dante, the living soul, is the one with knowledge illustrates that one of the punishing elements of Hell is that is causes total disconnect with and ignorance of all that is important to an individual, for one, their city.

On this theme of ignorance, both in and out of Hell, I found that Dante emphasizes the limitations of human intellect. At beginning of Canto 28, he muses on own ability to accurately recount the experience of Dis, says "the shallowness of both our speech and intellect cannot contain so much" (28.4). Confessions similarly alludes to the inadequacy of intellect, in that uneducated people can reach God before educated ones. Another interesting addition to this idea is Dante's encounter with the two men in the innermost circle of Dis whose souls exist in the underworld despite the fact that their bodies still roam the earth. One of these men says, "I have no knowledge of my body's fate within the world above" (33.122). The concept that a human body and soul are so separable that the soul can exist without any awareness of the body emphasizes the extremity of the limitations of human knowledge: if we cannot be aware even of ourselves, then we can never hope to know as much as God. This inadequacy of intellect also seems to emphasize that humans cannot attain good in this way, and so must turn to God instead.

The final Canto of Inferno was totally befuddling to me. When Dante reaches Dis, he says "I did not die, and I was not alive; think for yourself, if you have any wit, what I became, deprived of life and death" (34.25). I feel like I do not, as Dante requires, have any "wit" in this case, because I can't figure out "what I became." The only connection I see here is that "deprived of life and death," Dante is a bit like the figures in the outermost circle of Dis, who did nothing good and nothing bad, but still suffer, emphasizing the sin that exists even in neutrality. I suppose this duality of life and death could only exist when a live human travels into Dis (as Dante does), but perhaps Dante is implying that the pain of Hell arises because the souls there are neither alive nor truly and peacefully dead.

Inferno (Canto 11-20): Pineapple and Purgatory

While reading these ten songs of Inferno, I was munching my way through a massive slice of carrot cake at Magnolia Bakery. Frosting and fraud? Pineapple and purgatory? A bit of a strange combination.

Anyway, here are some of my (less sugary) thoughts on the midsection (pun intended) of Inferno.

As an obviously Christian text, Inferno necessarily contains an omniscient, omnipotent God. However, I thought Dante included some interesting deviations and layers of complexity to this conception of God.

Dante says to Virgil "you are my lord; you know I do not swerve from what you will; you know what is unspoken" (19.37). In referring to Virgil as his lord, and saying that he knows what is unspoken (i.e. has a level of omniscience), Dante casts Virgil as a god-like figure. In a similar vein, at the end of Canto 16, Virgil can hear Dante's thoughts, again occupying the omniscient role of God. I interpreted this in two ways: either Virgil is a manifestation of God (which is problematic in Virgil occupying the role of Christ), or Dante is praising Virgil to the extent holding him at the level of the divine. Either way, this parallel is theologically complicated and I suspect contentious in Dante's time. By granting Virgil these godly powers, God's own power seems diminished. This also comes up when Dante is describing the 7th circle of hell, and says "just so were these embankments, even though they were not built to high and not so broad, whoever was the artisan who made them" (15.10). It is apparent from this passage that God did not create hell. On one hand, this makes sense, because it would be difficult to imagine a benevolent God creating something this wicked (as Augustine points out). On the other, the idea that a) God has not created everything and b) there is this entire world of hell in conflict with the world God did create, draws God's omnipotence into question. 

Because hell is a punishment for sins, Dante's conception of hell reflects upon specific Christian values In general, Dante's description of the different sinners' punishments reflect a policy that you get what you've given (ex. the astrologers and diviners who tried to see the future have their heads turned backwards). In my opinion, this essentially condones revenge, at least in the sense of divine retribution. On one hand, if I believed in God, I would be horrified by a God who was vengeful. On the other hand, this type of punishment also echoes the non-Christian ideal of karma (what goes around comes around).

Speaking of the damned astrologers in the Eighth Circle of hell, I found that Greek and Christian views of theology to differ in an interesting way. In Greek tradition, divination extremely important: we see oracles in Homer, Virgil, and Herodotus, and the word of these oracles is taken seriously. However, in Dante's hell the diviners are condemned. He describes "those sad women who had left their needle, shuttle, and spindle to become diviners" (20.121), alleging that divination is bad because it takes place of other productive tasks. I think, however, that this is not the main reason for its criticism: in Christian theology, divination can't exist because God knows future, so the only acceptable way to try to know the future is through trying to know God.

On a final note, the motif of natural settings permeates all circles of Dis. Almost every Canto in which Dante enters a new circle includes a physical, natural description (for example, the beginning of Canto 13). This, along with the intensely physical descriptions of suffering, seems to conflate the body and soul, and sin of the body/sin of the soul much more explicitly than Augustine suggests in Confessions.
It seems that Dante also sometimes mixes natural metaphors, such as when he is talking about the people who were violent against god, upon whom "above that plain of sand, distended flakes of fire showered down" (14.28). The paradoxical sand, flame, and flakes (snow?) represent a perversion of nature, perhaps intended to reflect the extent to which the sinners have perverted custom or even the natural order of the universe by being violent towards God.

Inferno (Canto 1-10): Beasts, Values, and Epic form

Because the epic genre is defined by the meter, Inferno is not "officially" an epic. However, I think that Dante, while obviously doing a little bit of Aeneid fan fiction, has significantly different purpose from those of the Homeric and Virgilian epics. Dante opens Inferno more or less in media res, in contrast to the extensive background of family feuds, divine bickering, and fates often provided in epic. Immediately, this points the focus to the individual rather than the city-state. Though of course the Iliad, Odyssey, and Aeneid all generally follow one character, they address a far broader scope and more perspectives than does Inferno. Notably, this is also the first fiction written in first person that we've read, a perspective which in a way serves to combine the story of personal journey, introspection, and discovery of Confessions with the more sensationalist backdrop of a mystical world pulled from Virgil's Aeneid.

An interesting motif that prevails throughout the first ten songs (and I expect through the entire book) is the role of beasts. In Book 1, Dante encounters the leopard, lion, and hound, then later Minos and Cereberus. Out of these, all fulfill the stereotypical characterization of the brutality and inhumanity of beasts. However, they also hold significant and important jobs: Minos delegates souls to the circles of hell, and Cereberus is a guard to one of the circles. The prevalence of unfavorable described creatures holding important roles in the underworld seems to serve two purposes: to echo the dismal, basal state to which the souls have returned and thus to emphasize the horrors of hell (perhaps in a Christian, didactic way), and possibly to pervert the normal social order of the upper world for the sake of making a comment on the condition of the real world at the time of Dante's writing.

It is also notable which characteristics are condemned and which are valued within the paradigm of a Christian as opposed to a Greek underworld. Right before Dante enters the underworld, he says "I myself prepared alone to undergo the battle" (2.4), with "battle" alluding to the Homeric culture of war and accompanying pursuit of glory. Even in a culture so removed from ancient Greece, it is difficult to avoid a little self-glorification: the pursuit of renown, whether in battle or in memorialization through literature (or, as we see here, a conflation of both), seems universally and inescapably human.

In Book 3, the ante-inferno, there is a related condemnation of "those who lived without disgrace and without praise" (3.36). The idea that neutrality in life is unacceptable echos the pursuit of renown, but recasts the homeric idea as an action necessary in avoiding hell. 

I noticed one other interesting development of values in the description of Virgil's fear, when "the poet, who was deathly pale, began" (4.14). This depiction of Virgil's fear and decision to continue anyway brings to mind a definition of bravery that I've heard before (though I can't remember where...probably some children's book): bravery is not the absence of fear, but is persevering despite fear.

On a final note, I think there are some subtle (and some not-so-subtle) parallels to Augustine's Confessions here.  Francesca says "there is no greater sorrow than thinking back upon a happy time in misery" (5.121). This echoes Augustine's discussion in Book 10 about the uniquely human capability to remember emotions without re-experiencing them, or even while experiencing the opposite emotion. Though Augustine marvels at this, in Inferno the ability to lament joys passed compounds souls' misery, casting this human capacity in a less positive light. Another parallel lies in Augustine and Dante's treatment of individuality. Augustine discusses the universal human pursuit of joy in truth, and desire for a happy life, eliminating consideration of individual character in this equation. In Dante's underworld, people are characterized only by the nature of their sins, "the undiscerning life which made them filthy now renders them unrecognizable "(7.53). Dante's underworld physically depicts the loss or absence of individuality that I understand from Augustine to be part of belief in a Christian god. 

Confessions Book 6-10

Throughout the second half of Confessions, I noticed that the focus is on truth rather than explicit morality. In book 6, Augustine says "Let us concentrate ourselves exclusively on the investigation of truth" (6.19), and spends much of the later books contemplating various forms of truth: the form (or lack thereof) of God, the nature of memory, and the connection between joy, love, and truth.  For instance, Augustine describes "Eternal truth and true love and beloved eternity" (7.16), conflating the three ideas. At first, I found it difficult to associate love and truth: love, in the modern sense of the word, is irrational and subjective, whereas truth is the ultimate logic. However, it seems that Augustine uses both "truth" and "love" to describe his (or an ideal) relationship with God, redeploying these words as ideals that can be aspired towards rather than properties of our pedestrian lives. To me, this perspective is extremely Platonic. Right after Monica's death, Augustine describes a vision much like a the progression described in Symposium of moving from loving beautiful bodies, to souls, to Beauty itself: "Step by step we climbed beyond all corporeal objects and the heaven itself . . . We ascended even further by internal reflection and dialogue and wonder at your works" (9.24). Both Plato and Augustine describe this ascension from the physical to the spiritual via understanding, but whereas Plato casts the final destination as the ideal form of Beauty, Augustine views this highest stage as wisdom and proximity to God. It seems that this deviation reflects Augustine's distinction between philosophy and religion: Augustine never explicitly praises philosophy (though he carries out Neoplatonic analyses), because he views philosophy as a means to an end- a relationship with god.

Another interesting pattern I noticed was the way Augustine treats women in Confessions. The most prevalent woman, of course, is Monica. I was particularly intrigued when, right after describing the ascension, Augustine says "my life and hers had become a single thing" (9.30). Though I know that many females are key in the Bible (Sarah, Mary, Rebecca, etc), the focus is nonetheless on males. However, in describing Monica in this way, Augustine almost characterizes her as an equal: something we really haven't seen in Lit Hum so far. And though Augustine describes her wine habit (9.18), he generally praises her ability to peacekeep and her good conduct. In fact, he depicts her as more inherently "moral" (though he doesn't use this term) than he is himself before his baptism. Though we've seen "good" females before (for instance, Penelope), the extent to which Augustine depicts Monica as a role model and an equal is unusual. However, Monica is in a way a vehicle for Augustine's own path towards God. The role of women in facilitating this conversion is echoed in Lady Continence, who appears during Augustine's epiphany and seems to epitomize what he attains through his transformation. This is in stark contrast to the frequent Greek depiction of women as seductresses, or even Augustine's minimal description of the women who were the subject of his "carnal pleasures" he condemns.  I'm not sure what the prevailing Christian view of women was in Augustine's time, but I was surprised by their importance and generally positive role in Confessions.

As much as I was surprised by these female roles, I was surprised by how little Augustine mentions Jesus. The first mention is not until book 7, and is only in the context of discussing the form of God. The lack of mention earlier on means that Augustine's early praise of God could almost be read as praise of the Jewish God. Given that Jesus is the distinguishing factor between Judaism and Christianity, it is somewhat strange that Augustine doesn't devote more time to praising Jesus as well as praising God. However, in Book 10, after lamenting the barriers to his proper relationship with God, Augustine labels Jesus as the true mediator between God and man (10.68), a critically important job. This clarified for me the lack of focus on Jesus earlier: Jesus is important as a means to reach God, but not inherently important in himself.  

Out of all of Confessions, I found Book 10 by far the most interesting. I know that one of the big questions for Lit Hum is "what does it mean to be human?" and I think that Augustine begins to address that here in his contemplations of memory. He explains how though beasts can perceive and remember physical images/smells/sounds etc, human memory is deeper. I thought this was best encapsulated when Augustine describes how memories, "were already in the memory, but so remote and pushed into the background . . . that unless they were dug out by someone drawing attention to them, perhaps I could not have thought of them" (10.17), in that we intrinsically possess these memories, thoughts, and ideas, and remembering is merely retrieving them. Other beasts lack this infinitely large intrinsic pool of memories. This reminded me of earlier on in Augustine's discussion of how evil doesn't actually exist, but is simply deviation from the God-created highest form of "being" that all individuals possess. Both of these ideas allude to a basic, universal essence of humanity- something that many of the works we've read this year sought to define.
In a similar vein to this universal human essence, I noticed the extent to which Augustine's treatment of humanity's relationship with God devalues the individual and personality. Augustine says to God, "you are my true life" (10.26). If God is his true life, then God is everybody's true life, meaning that no individual's life is unique, and individuality plays no role in relationship with God. Similarly, Augustine describes how everyone seeks a happy life, and says, "That is the authentic happy life, to set one's joy on you, grounded in you, and caused by you" (10.32), and dismisses joy stemming from anywhere but God as artificial. So, not only is God "true life" but he is the only acceptable source of real joy. He goes on to say that happiness is joy in truth, which is unambiguous and does not depend on individual differences. Between these universal definitions of life, joy, and truth, Augustine greatly reduces the importance of individuality, and seems to imply that all humans have the same ultimate trajectory of life and ultimate goal of their relationship with God. I understand that God is supposed to be "fair" in that he views all humans equally, but I don't understand why Augustine's conception of life and happiness necessitates that individual joys, hobbies, interests, personalities, are essentially irrelevant. Not only is this a hopelessly boring depiction of humanity, but it seems that it would preclude true individual-level, intimate relationships with God.

Confessions Book 1-5 (Augustine's, not mine!)

The most striking element of the first five books of Confessions is, for me, the massive deviation in rhetoric and content from everything we have read thus far. The fact that Christianity overlapped with the Roman empire, and that Augustine uses Ovid, Virgil, Homer, and other Greek literature to discuss the Bible and Christian ideals is simultaneously bizarre and fascinating.

Though we began to see a shift away from individual honor and glory in the Aeneid (towards the success of a city-state and collective glory), Augustine not only diminishes the importance of individual glory, but essentially denies its possibility, saying "Yet you alone are worthy of honor and are glorious for eternity" (2.13). Augustine's continual discussion of how human flaws and evil stem from deviation from the highest way of "being" imbued in everything by God (Book 3) reframes the spectrum of legacy and glory: the best humans can hope for is to achieve this pure form of being, eliminating the possibility of being glorified after death. After such a consistent focus on memorialization and immortality in the previous literature we've read, this shift feels dramatic and abrupt.

Beyond this difference in belief and social structure, something else that stood out to me was the vast difference in Greek and Christian perspectives on sexuality. In Book 3, Augustine outlines that the three causes of sin are lust for domination, lust of eyes, and sensuality. And throughout the narrative of his adolescent and college years, he confesses and condemns his sexual experiences, urges, and even thoughts. This is in stark contrast to the Greek perspective on male sexuality specifically, in which sex and procreation are almost revered, or even a contrast to Genesis in which reproduction is dealt with unflinchingly as a necessity, certainly not anything shameful. The pervasive modern conception that sex is something to be ashamed of and secretive about seems to originate with Augustine. I blame him for the absurd fact that sex is a taboo subject, which is totally illogical given its biological necessity and omnipresence. In a similar vein, Augustine asks that god "cleanse me from these flawed emotions" (4.11), and constantly criticizes (and confesses for!) things that he had felt in the past. As my (social worker) mom has always told me, it's important not to invalidate your emotions, and completely pointless to feel guilty about feeling a certain way. Augustine's idea that there are wrong emotions is also seem to counter to Homeric/Virgilian tradition (though these texts contain criticism of excess emotion). I personally disagree with Augustine here, but recognize the huge impact that this idea of metacognition, evaluating our own emotions, has had lasting implications even through present day.

Another obvious variation relating to this judgment of emotions is the conception of morality. In Oedipus, as well as the Iliad, the act of saying aloud or revealing an action is the point at which the perpetrator becomes accountable for it (for instance, though Oedipus realizes what he has done, he doesn't want to say it aloud). However, Augustine's perspective (and what I already was familiar with as a Christian idea) is that individuals can be blamed for their thoughts and emotions. Since I don't believe in God, I don't think that we can be actually held accountable for having "bad" thoughts, but I can understand how an omniscient God necessitates that emotions/thoughts are as important (and telling about character) as actions.

On a last, unrelated note, I found numerous indirect references to Plato's Symposium, which I found vaguely ironic given the homoerotic content of Symposium and the sexually repressive tones of Confessions. Here are a few:

"To me it was sweet to love and be loved, the more so if I could also enjoy the body of the beloved" (3.1). This reminded me of Plato's discussion of the lover vs. the beloved, and which is love itself. Here, it seems that love is both the lover and the beloved.


"Do we love anything except that which is beautiful? What then is a beautiful object? And what is beauty?" (4.20). Symposium discusses the relationship between love and beauty, and describes the Platonic form of Beauty. While Augustine toys with similar ideas here, it seemed to me devalues physical beauty (or really physicality at all) as a measure of merit, as he tries to shift from appreciating rhetoric to ideas, and from viewing god as a physical presence to something more abstract.