Ignorance is Bliss...?

I have always had this problem with the story of Adam and Eve, and I think it is because I am at heart an academic and I like to learn so much. The problem is with the idea that the cause of all human suffering is...because people knew too much. I hope I'm not harping too much on an a tired question, but this has always been really relevant to me, and I think that the readings I've been doing this week (both for this class and for Core 250) have been engaging with it in a really interesting way.

First of all, in Milton's Paradise Lost, there is a relatively long period of time between Eve eating the fruit and Eve convincing Adam to eat the fruit. In that time period, Eve is really pretty happy about her new state of knowing. As she tells Adam, she would have suffered her fate alone if the apple had adversely affected her, but instead, "I feel / Far otherwise th' event, not death, but life / Augmented, opened eyes, new hopes, new joys" (lines 983-985). It's like in The Wakefield Mysteries when Eve eats the apple and says, wide-eyed, "It's good!" I suppose there's a chance that Eve is only telling Adam because she wants them to suffer their fate--whatever it is--together, but she does thank the snake for telling her to eat the apple, because "not following thee, I had remained / In ignorance" (lines 808-809). At first, they really enjoy the knowledge, and for awhile they're really happy that they've eaten the apple. The misery and the realization of fallenness doesn't happen right away, and Milton emphasizes this idea in Paradise Lost. (In the NIV translation of the Bible, it seems like Eve eats the apple and immediately hands it to Adam, and then both of their eyes are opened at once (Genesis 3:6-7)). Why would Milton emphasize this? Why would there be a pocket of time where knowledge makes them really happy?

I think it's interesting when you compare this idea with what are actually my favorite lines from Lanyer's "Eve's Apology in Defense of Women": "Yet men will boast of knowledge, which he took / From Eve's fair hand, as from a learned book" (lines 63-64). Even though knowledge is what ultimately brought the Fall upon humanity, it is something that men brag about, something that they take pride in. We value it.

My thoughts really didn't come together until I was reading an excerpt from Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov for Core 250 this weekend. In the selection, Ivan's character, the Grand Inquisitor, argues that the church officials help keep the people happy, because they keep them in ignorance of the true terror of the world. They pretend like they are following Jesus, while they have actually made a deal with the devil, and only the church officials are sad because they have to carry with them the truth. They have "taken upon themselves the curse of the knowledge of good and evil" (Baird 380), and because of that they pay. But the thing is, those church officials still take on the curse willingly. When given the choice, they make the decision to know, as Adam and Eve both do--and at first, this is not a decision that they regret. And I think that's an interesting thing that the readings this week kind of discuss: as Lanyer might argue, while women brought the curse of the knowledge of good and evil, at least that's a curse that men value. No one values that Jesus was killed, so whose sin was really greater?

I don't know, this isn't an issue that gets solved...but I've been thinking about it a lot this weekend, so I thought I would reflect on it. At any rate, it's made me read the passages with a different moral type of eye. Was Milton trying to privilege knowledge at least a bit in his writing? I don't know, but I certainly know that this is something I think about a lot...and it's nice to know that this is a debate that is not dead in literature.

Citation for the BOSS:
Baird, Forrest E., Leonard A. Oakland, Meredith T. Shimizu, and Kathleen H. Storm. The Rationalist Worldview: Readings for Core 250. 2nd ed. Spokane: Whitworth University, 2013. Print.

Milton and the Restoration

     Today in class, the question Doug left us with was, "how does Milton's portrayal of the fall parallel the English Restoration?"  This was a very intriguing question to me, so I thought I would struggle through my notes and readings to piece together an answer to Doug's question.

     According to Doug Sugano's history lecture on 17th century England, after the death of Charles I, Milton become the Latin Secretary to Cromwell in 1649 .  Milton's loyal service to Cromwell shows his support to the "Lord Protector" Cromwell and to the Puritan regime as a whole.  Knowing that Milton is a follower of the political Puritan movement, causes his works to favor a puritanical perspective.  Therefore, in Milton's work, Paradise Lost, the Puritan Regime and the reign of Cromwell may represent The Garden of Eden as an allegorical element.
      After Cromwell's death, this puritan regime was succeeded by Cromwell's son Richard, who proved to be an ineffective leader of England (Sugano).  Richard's unsuccessful example of authority perhaps caused people to distrust the Puritan regime, ultimately causing it to fail.  In 1660, however, the Stuart line was restored through Charles II, which is referred to as the English Restoration (Sugano).  Since there is evidence that Milton supports the Puritan regime, he probably saw this English Restoration of the monarch Charles II as a corruption of the good republic instituted by Cromwell. 
     This falling out of the Puritans and the restoration of the Stuarts is parallel to Milton's portrayal of Genesis' Garden of Eden and the fall of humanity in his work Paradise Lost.  In his depiction of The Fall, Milton sets up Adam and Eve's failure similarly to the Puritan regime.  Milton's argument is that through the death of Cromwell and poor leadership of Richard, the once perfect paradise of a republic, under the reign of the Puritans, is now a corrupted state of monarchy, under the reign of Charles II. Thus, Milton sees England as a fallen state after the English Restoration of 1660.


Works Cited:
Sugano, Doug. "17th Century English History." British Literature Before 1800. Whitworth University, Hendrick Hall, Spokane. 5 Nov. 2013. Lecture.

Sonnet 14 (John Donne)

John Donne wrote some intensely inspirational sonnets that point to the passion and agony of his spiritual journey. In Sonnet 14, I noticed something that I wasn't exactly sure how to interpret. The first four lines read like this...

"Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;

That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new."

 There is an interesting pattern of synonyms that are intensified between lines 2 and 4. "Knock" changes to "break", "breathe" to "blow", etc. Donne seems to be caught up in an internal paradox, a constant battle with himself. He wants to turn and change his ways in a gradual way, but doesn't think he can. He wants to be gently guided and encouraged, but knows he won't change "except you ravish me" (l. 14). He knows his spirit has to be annihilated in order to truly be transformed, but the fearful part of him doesn't want this. The intensification showed in these two lines seem to point toward that journey of realization. He almost seems to be blaming God for being too gentle.

 

 

 

 

Double Meanings in The Duchess of Malfi

I am one of those people who makes a lot of noise when they get involved in a story, which is why this weekend was an interesting time to be in or near my dorm room. I spent much of the weekend reading The Duchess of Malfi and reacting--vocally--to whatever tickled my fancy. Around Act 4, however, I came to a somewhat disconcerting realization: that my favorite parts of the play (judging from my reactions) were the parts where characters were playing with double-meanings, generally in a pretty sick way. I'm not sure what this says about me, but I think it's interesting to consider why Webster puns in this way, especially considering the character of the times in which he was writing.

The fun starts when Bosola assures the Duchess and Antonio that Ferdinand wants "his head in a business" and would rather have "his heart than his money" (3.5.27, 33), but it continues in times when Antonio says things like, "My duchess is asleep now, / And her little ones, I hope sweetly" (5.3.39-40). This is a pretty serious case of dramatic irony, since the entire audience knows that the duchess has been killed, but Antonio holds out hope that she is alive until Bosola tells him that she has died, right before he follows her. Also, right before Cariola is strangled, she tries to stop them by claiming to be engaged; at these words, the executioner leers that the noose is her "wedding ring" (4.2.228). These double-meanings are all really clever, but they're also incredibly dark. Perhaps the coolest occurrence of double-meaning in The Duchess of Malfi occurs when Antonio and Delio are in the courtyard, and the courtyard echoes back really ominous parts of Antonio's speech (5.3.9-42). I was just blown away with how clever this word play was, and I remember wondering why other playwrights didn't do this...until I remembered that they did, Shakespeare especially.

So why did I notice the word play more in The Duchess of Malfi than in Twelfth Night? I don't know what this says about me, but I think it's because I enjoy sick word play more than I do sex-related word play, and Shakespeare is known for his clever sex puns. However, this got me thinking a lot about how Webster's use of dark word play and imagery is very indicative of his age of melancholy writing, whereas Shakespeare's Twelfth Night is at the beginning of this movement and is just beginning to introduce the melancholy voice. In some ways, The Duchess of Malfi seems to be an inverted version of Twelfth Night, where Twelfth Night is primarily fun and outrageous with some hard melancholy themes layered in, whereas The Duchess of Malfi has light-hearted sections (generally where Antonio and the duchess first fall in love, and where it turns out that Antonio's son will be able to take over the duchy), eclipsed by the overwhelming melancholy of the play. It seems as if both playwrights are following conventions of their times, but stretching them so that they can make a point: in Shakespeare's case, that there are important, deep themes to think about; and in Webster's case, that true love and goodness can still exist and continue on to rule the next generation.

At any rate, I really enjoyed the word play in The Duchess of Malfi, and I thought that it was interesting to compare it to Shakespeare's word play and consider what that means regarding their respective arguments and time periods. While my roommate is now a little disturbed that I get so much enjoyment out of dark puns, I believe that this was a worthwhile focus to take while reading The Duchess of Malfi.

New TV show and Mary Queen of Scots

There's this new TV show I found on Hulu called Reign, its about Mary Queen of Scots and the time she spent in the French court while being engaged to the prince. It's totally fictionalized and, though I'm not a history buff, I'm fairly sure there is not an ounce of truth in the plot. The show itself isn't bad, if you aren't concerned with historical inaccuracies, however, they do mention an aspect of court that I haven't ever really heard of: the queen has a man who can read the prophecies of the future. I'm almost 100% sure that this is completely fictional, because of the power of the church at this time, but it does make me wonder where the aspect of magic went for this culture. Because I don't think that something so prevalent for such a long time could disappear completely, and that it would pop up in unexpected places of social life, although I don't know what these instances would be.    

Dutchess of Malfi and the Twelfth Night

I think it's interesting that in both the Twelfth Night and Duchess of Malfi there is a romantic element where the female is of higher social standing than the male. In the Twelfth Night it was a source of humor, while in Duchess it is a source of drama, still, it is interesting that the two plays we have studied both portray women as superior's to their male counterparts in at least one way. This could be because of the Elizabethan aspect of the culture at this time, it's definitely the reason in Duchess, that women can hold a higher place in this time periods literature. It could also just be a coincidence that these two plays happen to be back to back. However, when the duchess and Antonio were having their little pow-wow, I half expected her to use the line from Twelfth Night, "some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them." It seemed like it would have fit quite nicely.  

Twelfth Night Reflections -Hanna A.

Something that stuck out to me in Twelfth Night is the fact that Feste the fool is the most profound character in the play. The idea that Feste is the most profound character (instead of the least, which might be the normal assumption) points back to the importance of Malvolio leaving Illyria in the end. Malvolio, the character that would, perhaps, seem to be the most serious character, ends up being the fool of the play, while Feste, the fool, is really the wisest of the roles in the play.

Feste plays along with many of the games within the play, but also has the lines and moments with the most depth. One perfect example of this idea is his line near the end of the play, “Why, ‘some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrown upon them’” (5.1, 366-367). Feste has a habit of pulling catchy and wonderfully applicable little tidbits of wisdom out of thin air. He is not only witty but also wise. In this one line, Feste establishes the entire theme of the play, which is the theme of greatness. What indeed makes a man or a woman great? Is it rank, faith, integrity, or some other abstract attribute? It is clear in Twelfth Night that the Feste the fool is one of the great ones, along with others, especially Viola. The main thing to notice it seems though, is that Malvolio, the serious one who is also a Puritan, is the one who is left at the end as the great fool. It strikes me that this is the case, not only because he is a Puritan, but because he is unable to the moment but is constantly caught up in pride, the way others view him, and his own desire to advance socially in rank. Pride, lust for power, and deep-seated insecurities are what keep him from being great. Feste on the other hand, the fool, is completely able to live into his greatness simply because he does not take himself too seriously, is humble beneath his false pride, and is in no way insecure. This then leads to the conclusion that greatness has very little to do with self-perception.

At the end of the play, Feste finishes off the theatricality with a rather serious song. The song progresses from boyhood to manhood and focuses especially on the idea that “By swaggering could I never thrive” (5.1, 394). This means that bullying, pride, and pushing to the top never gets a person anywhere. So, though Feste is, by all appearances, the “fool” of the play, he is most definitely the instigator of much of the dialogue that contains more depth.