Todd and "find the love"

Katherine and Bianca Find the Love (Todd Douglas)

Katherina’s relationship with her family is one of the most complicated and important relationships in the entire play. The violence she shows towards her sister and father is shown in this scene (Act 2 Scene 1). The scene begins with Katherina dragging her sister, Bianca, in with her arms bound. Her sister pleads with her to let her go. Bianca offers her anything, even one of her suitors. This rather angers Katherina when Bianca implies that Katherina is envious of her. While, of course, this may be true, Katherina would never admit it. It’s implied that her father’s favorite is Bianca. Baptista, Bianca and Katherina father, comes in and breaks up the fight. Instantly he takes the side of Bianca, without even asking what happen. (It also seems that isn’t the first altercation like this between the sisters) He lashes out at Katherina without a second thought, saying things like “For shame, thou hilding of a devilish spirit!” Katherina, not one to hold her tongue, responds with this:

What, will you not suffer me? Nay, now I see

She is your treasure, she must have a husband,

I must dance barefoot on her wedding day

And, for your love to her, lead apes in hell.

Talk not to me. I will go sit and weep

Till I can find occasion of revenge. (2.1.lines?)

This speech is important not only because it shows how Katherina feels about Baptista obvious favoritism of Bianca, but it also shows that Katherina cares. She loves her father and acts out (some of the time) to get his attention. This, in turn, pushes him away, sadly. She cares because she wants him to hear her side, to understand her. Up to this point, when other people called her horrible names and said very mean things about her she shrugged them off or responded to them with an insult of her own. Here she actually responds to him, not with an insult but with her raw emotion. She’s in pain. She actually says “I will go sit and weep.” This is interesting because it showed a new layer to Katherina character that hadn’t been explored up to this point. It actually gave a more rounded view of the character that wasn’t seen in the first act.

Tyler on Petruchio and "find the love"

Petruchio No Love  (Tyler Damerell)

photo source: https://media.salon.com/2014/09/shutterstock_188066681-1280x960.jpg

Most, if not all, marriages in Shakespeare’s time were arranged, and not based on love or passion between partners.  Marriage used to be a purely economic exchange: trade the woman and some other goods (land, cattle, etc.) for a tie to wealth or power.  In the case of The Taming of the Shrew, when we are first introduced to Petruccio in 1.2 he says that his goal is to “wive and thrive” (54), or rather, to seek a wife and his fortune.  He is steadfast in his goal as he asks Baptista about his dowry in 2.1. In this scene it is clear that Petruccio is most interested in his potential gains from his marriage, and not at all interested in winning Katherina’s love.

Jacob on the Shrew intro

Jean Howard's Introduction to Shrew (Jacob Ridenour)

The Taming of the Shrew deals with many themes of womanly obedience and how it is to be obtained in ways we would probably rightfully address as “problematic” if not just overtly “sexist” today.  The Petruccio-Katherina plot is based on northern European folk stories with summaries such as the one provided on page 140, “a strong-willed wife is beaten bloody by her husband and then wrapped inside the salted skin of a dead horse named Morel.” It was, to contemporary readers and play-goers, completely normal to be expected to control their wives and to even be punished if they acted up. It is worth wondering how Shakespeare’s contemporaries saw, for example, Katherina’s monologue: were they conditioned to believing that she had found happiness through resignation or did they see her giving up as done ironically? While its possible that Shakespeare was possibly being ambiguous about this, I can’t imagine reading something today that was potentially ambiguous on this subject. It is worth considering as well, that while the story is obviously inspired by folk stories of men beating their women into submission, violence does not play nearly as much of a role in The Taming of the Shrew as it would in previous works. Petruccio subjects her to public humiliation and private deprivation in order to teach her submissiveness – is Shakespeare condoning one means of subduing women over another? Is he okay with any means of subduing women at all?  Is Taming of the Shrew meant to spark debate on the topic, and is that enough to accept it for what it is?

Picture: a woodcut of the English ballad “A Merry Jest of a Shrewd and Curst Wife Lapped in Morel’s Skin for Her Good Behavior,” which Shakespeare probably derived elements from.

David on Wynkyn de Worde

Wynkyn de Worde (David Jones)

Wynkyn de Worde, whose original name was probably Jan van Wynkyn, was a printer and publisher who revolutionized the printing industry. His date of birth is unrecorded, but believed to be around the mid-fifteenth century. His  place of birth is generally believed to be somewhere in the region of Alsace, in north-eastern France. He was the assistant to William Caxton, although how they met is unknown. What is known is that when Caxton died in 1491, de Worde took control of his printing shop in Westminster. In 1500, he moved the shop to Fleet Street, a London street now synonymous with printing. It was there where he continued to refine the printing process, improving on the quality of the materials utilized by Caxton. He used woodcuts to illustrate many of his printed works, re-using some used by Caxton while commissioning new ones from skilled craftsman. These new woodcuts were of higher quality and were often used more than once in different printed works. de Worde was also the first printer in England to utilize italic font. His publications covered a number of different genres, from traditional literature to contemporary poetry. At the time of his death, he was responsible for over 800 printed works. Some of his most famous publications include Treatise of Love and The Canterbury Tales. His success with popularizing printed works lead many to regard his as England’s first ‘typographer’. Wynkyn de Worde died in 1534.

Sources:

http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/firstimpressions/Pioneers-of-Print/Wynkyn-de-Worde/

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Wynkyn-de-Worde

https://digitallibrary.vassar.edu/node/52

Portrait: https://collectionimages.npg.org.uk/std/mw42774/called-Wynkyn-de-Worde.jpg

Example of printed page:  http://www.library.manchester.ac.uk/firstimpressions/assets/images/content/deworde1.jpg

Tara on Italian Renaissance Architecture: Brunelleschi e Bramante

Italian Renaissance Architecture: Filippo Brunelleschi and Donato Bramante (Tara Olivero)

Classical Roman architecture was the inspiration for much Italian architecture during the Renaissance. In the middle ages, Roman styles had given way to more Germanic designs, and later, a Gothic style of architecture that focused on lightness of construction, exemplified in popular design elements such as pointed arches and flying buttresses. However, people in the Renaissance - and especially in Italy - believed that during the middle ages the quality of the arts and humanities had declined. Their goal was to restore the arts to their previous level of excellence by imitating and even emulating the work of earlier architects, artists, and writers.

Architects of the time also trained as humanists because their goal was to design buildings that would appeal to both reason and emotion. They focused on incorporating specific mathematical proportions as well as measurements that harmonized with the human scale, based on the work of Vitruvius. These ideals allowed Renaissance architecture to be simpler and clearer in terms of design than the more complex Gothic style.

Filippo Brunelleschi

The Renaissance style of architecture is agreed to have begun in Florence, Italy, with the work of Filippo Brunelleschi, born in 1377. Although he was trained as a goldsmith, his interest in architecture led him to study the ancient structures of Rome. As a result, he was the first architect since ancient times to use Doric, Ionic, and Corinthian orders in “a consistent and appropriate manner,” according to The Met. It is worth noting that these orders are originally Greek, though Brunelleschi assumed that they were of Roman origin. Regardless, these classical orders significantly impacted Brunelleschi’s architectural style.

Brunelleschi’s structures were dependent on their system of proportion. Whatever unit of measurement he chose would be repeated throughout the entire design of the building in order to generate and underlying sense of harmony. Arguably, his greatest accomplishment was engineering the dome of the Florence Cathedral, also known as the Duomo of the Santa Maria del Fiore, which was to be the largest dome in the world at the time of its design and construction. The cathedral itself was designed by Arnolfo di Cambio, who died in 1302, and was mostly constructed by 1367, though the dome had not been built except for the frame of the base.

The Duomo offered particularly heightened architectural challenges. The dome atop the cathedral would need to be 150 feet wide and 180 feet above the ground, a feat which no one had attempted to engineer before. It would be possible to achieve if they used Gothic elements such as flying buttresses, but as their rival neighboring city Milan had used Gothic style in its own architecture, they refused. The Opera del Duomo offered a public competition in 1418 for submissions for the construction of the dome, with a grand prize of 200 gold florins for the best design. Filippo Brunelleschi won the competition, with his rival Lorenzo Ghiberti appointed as a co-superintendent.

Brunelleschi’s design, based on the golden proportions (a 1:1.61 ratio), was special because it allowed for a tall, open space in the octagonal dome rather than filling it with structural scaffolding. This was done by using two shells for the dome with space between: one inner shell made of lightweight materials intended to provide the support for the structure, and an outer shell that would be made of heavier, more weather-resistant materials. The support of the dome was a system of ring and ribs constructed from oak timbers, on which the bricks sat. One major building concern was the fear that the bricks used for the domes would fall down during construction. Brunelleschi solved this problem by creating a herringbone pattern with the bricks, which directed the weight of the bricks along the curve and outwards towards the dome’s wooden supports instead of driving the weight straight down to the ground. Brunelleschi also invented a hoist system powered by a yoke of oxen in order to use pulleys and a series of counterweights to lift loads of these heavy brick materials to the necessary height.

Construction began on the dome in August 1420, the cathedral was officially consecrated by Pope Eugene IV in 1436, and the dome was mostly completed by Brunelleschi’s death in 1446. The Duomo is significant in relation to Renaissance architecture because it was a seemingly impossible feat made possible by rational, mathematical, and harmonious design.

Donato Bramante

Donato Bramante was born later than Brunelleschi, in 1444, but he, too, focused on the beauty and the gravity of the architecture from Ancient Rome. He trained as a painter and is known to have painted frescoes at the Palazzo del Podesta, in Bergamo, before he became interested in architecture in Milan under the service of Ludovico Sforza in 1479, where he worked alongside Leonardo da Vinci. Some of Bramante’s architectural designs include Santa Maria presso San Satiro in Milan and the cloisters of Santa Maria della Pace in Rome. Later in life, one of his patrons was Pope Julius II, who commissioned him to help plan the Vatican and Basilica of San Pietro.

One of Bramante’s most famous architectural structures was the Tempietto (Italian for “small temple”) he designed for the cloister of San Pietro in Montorio, in Rome, around 1502. It was a “martyrium” commissioned by Cardinal Carvajal (on behalf of King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain) in order to commemorate the spot of St. Peter’s martyrdom and serves as a commemorative tomb rather than a traditional Catholic space of gathering or prayer, as it is less than fifteen feet in diameter.

It is built as a perfect circle, considered the most ideal of the architectural forms, in order to honor St. Peter. The structure’s ratios are all 1:1 or 1:2, paralleling the Renaissance belief in perfect proportions, and the symmetry of the structure, which has no real “front,” embodies the Renaissance preoccupation with centralized configurations. The Tempietto is domed and surrounded by sixteen Tuscan columns with Doric designs. Vitruvius recommended Doric columns as appropriate for heroic and masculine deities, and therefore Bramante’s simplicity and masculinity of design was meant to evoke St. Peter’s character. The circular composition is also emblematic of antique Roman temples; Bramante uses architecture to appropriate Pagan designs for Christian purposes. Sombre and beautiful, the Tempietto is considered the first great building of the High Renaissance architectural period.

Presentation link: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1NpgyHwLGr0IKTDTdVixYN084X_beQftWXDYyIz-dD1Y/edit?usp=sharing

Sources:

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/itar/hd_itar.htm

https://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/clan/hd_clan.htm

http://www.essential-humanities.net/western-art/architecture/renaissance/

https://www.britannica.com/art/Renaissance-architecture

https://www.museumflorence.com/monuments/2-dome

https://www.florenceinferno.com/the-brunelleschi-dome/

https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/tempietto-at-san-pietro-in-montorio

http://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803095524154

http://www.visual-arts-cork.com/old-masters/donato-bramante.htm

http://www.greatbuildings.com/buildings/Tempietto_of_San_Pietro.html

Additional photo credits for the presentation:

https://fineartamerica.com/featured/1-filippo-brunelleschi-granger.html

https://www.leonardodavinci.net/the-vitruvian-man.jsp

https://www.ducksters.com/history/ancient_greece/architecture.php

https://www.architecture.com/image-library/ribapix/image-information/poster/cathedral-of-santa-maria-del-fiore-florence-cross-section/posterid/RIBA16329.html

http://www.sgira.org/hm/bra3.htm

Alex on Shrew

Shrew Intro (Alex Settle)

The Taming of the Shrew is a comedy written by Shakespeare on or before 1592 which has a few prominent characteristics in it.  In The Taming of the Shrew trickery, entitlement and deceit are the noticeable aspects of almost every male suitor the play has to offer.  Examples of this would be Lucentio acting as though he is a teacher, Sly pretends he is a lord, Tranio, in short, is pretending to be Lucentio, and Hortensio has become a music instructor.  Most of these male suitor’s, which are regular people, have found a way that they can attempt to court a beautiful bride under the false pretense of an alternate identity (which more times than not are completely the opposite of who they actually are).  Petruccio also has a hand in the aforementioned aspects that were previously listed.  More than anything though he is guilty of trickery when he went as far as to put Katherina in his farmhouse and deprive her of normal everyday needs.  Today, what Petruccio did to Katherina was said to be, “…techniques akin to modern methods of torture and brainwashing” (Howard 144).  Finally comes the gender based ideology that just because the suitors are male they can do anything to their spouse.  Sly for instance was noted as having this thought process and it was believed this was because he had no power in his life, leading his to seek it out elsewhere.

    

Hallie on Ronsard

Pierre de Ronsard (Hallie Nowak)

Pierre Ronsard was born in 1524, and was the son of a noble family in a county called Vendome, and was educated at the College de Navarre in Paris. After going deaf from an incurable illness, Ronsard later studied Greek at the College de Coqueret. Studying became Ronsard’s vocation at this time, and he became incredibly dedicated to his work. He became known as the “dark star,” due to his deafness and subsequent silence in French. He served as the official poet of King Charles’s IX’s court, and let a generational movement of poets known as the La Pleiade during the Renaissance. This generation of poets led by Ronsard yearned to evoke the values of Humanism in French poetic verse by producing poetry that would be comparable to the antiquated classical verse. This would be achieved by Rosnard’s application of Classical criticism and scholarship to the French poetic vernacular. Ronsard was experimental in the ways in which he wrote poetic verse, utilizing many established forms and meters in an attempt to explore themes of romantic love and to create portraitures of royal life, encouraged by Charles IX, as Ronsard became a favorite of the King. His first collection of poems, titled Odes, hints at Ronsard’s attempt to be a continuation of or a counterpart to the odes of Horace, an ancient Roman poet. Ronsard was overwhelmingly popular at his time, and this popularity was immediate, and he was known as the “Poet Prince” by many of his time. Ronsard died due to increasingly poor health; but this poor health did not interfere with his work, and he continued to write up until his death in 1585.

Sources:

 https://www.britannica.com/biography/Pierre-de-Ronsard

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/pierre-de-ronsard

D'Jara on Shakespearean Comedy

             Anne Hathaway as Viola and Cesario in Twelfth Night; Photo by Sara Krulwich/The New York Times

Shakespearean Comedy: Controversial and Inclusive (D'Jara Culpepper)

Several of Shakespeare’s comedies incorporate some of the rituals and/or festivities of holidays such as May Day (May 1), Midsummer Night (summer solstice), and Twelfth Night (between Christmas Eve and Epiphany). Protestant reformers of Shakespeare’s day denied the validity of these holidays due to their pagan or Catholic origins and their mixing of the sacred and profane things. Therefore, Shakespeare’s reference to these controversial holidays sets the tone for the common elements found in his comedies. Unlike the one-hero-or-subject focus of Shakespeare’s tragedies and sonnets, his comedies also feature a large collection of protagonists that participate in multiple plots within each play. As will be seen as we read, this is but one aspect of the inclusive nature of the Shakespeare’s comedic play—warning: the scapegoats could be treated a bit better

Kara on William Caxton

William Caxton (Kara Beasley)

William Caxton was born in Kent, England in 1422, and died in London, England in 1491. He was the first English printer as well as a translator and publisher. Caxton had a major influence on English literature. His first piece of literature he translated in March of 1469 was Raoul’s “Le Fèvre’s Recueil des histoires de Troye.” In the epilogue of Book III that he translated, said his, “pen became worn, his hand weary, his eye dimmed.” Because he was having a hard time translating, he did not finish it until September 19, 1471 where he lived in Cologne and started to learn how to print. He printed several books from French to English while he lived in Bruges, then returned to England and established his press at Westminster. Caxton’s first dated book printed in English emerged on November 18, 1477. Unfortunately he had no originality but commissioned special books for kings, nobles, and the rich. He liked to cater to the general public so he printed books on chivalric romance, conduct, morality, history, and philosophy. His first illustrated book he printed in English in 1481 was an encyclopedia called “Myrrour of the Worlde.” Caxton printed almost all English literature available at the time including “Canterbury Tales,” poems by Chaucer, much of John Lydgate’s works, “Confessio amantis,” and “Morte Darthur.” By the time of Caxton’s death, had translated 24 books and published 100 books of various kinds

Abby on New Comedy

New Comedy (Abby Bischoff)

Roman dramatists Plautus and Terrence’s New Comedy stems off older Greek works and is the format of comedy that Shakespeare not only would have grown up with, but written as well. Stylistic traits of New Comedy include: youths in love, a male family figure who tends to oppose the aforementioned love, a reunion of some type, trickery, youthful rebellion, love triangles, marriage, mistaken identities, disguises, and sassy servants. New Comedy was an easy form to reproduce, or as our textbook says, was “recyclable” (p. 124). An interesting thing to note about New Comedies is that characters tended to be normal everyday people. Shakespeare slightly deviates from this trope by weaving marriage plots around characters of nobility. We will see this in The Taming of The Shrew, As You Like It, and Twelfth Night. But Shakespeare doesn’t stop there. Another key difference in Shakespeare’s comedies is that the ladies tend to play bigger roles than more traditional female characters. 

Mariah on Du Bellay

Joachim Du Bellay (Mariah Zimmerman)

Joachim Du Bellay, born in 1522, was a French poet. At age 23 Joachim began to study law but soon left for Paris to study poetry with Pierre de Ronsard under Jean Dorat who taught Latin and Greek literature (biography.yourdictionary.com). Alongside Pierre de Ronsard, Du Bellay was the leader of a literary group named La Pléiade. Du Bellay is the author of the group’s manifesto, The Defence & Illustration of the French Language, which he published in 1549. In this work he asserted that French writers are capable of yielding modern literature that is equal in quality and expressiveness to that of ancient Greece and Rome. One of the main ideas he argued is that French writers shouldn’t strictly look at Classical texts but also those of contemporary Italy for a literary model. These ideas stemmed from his sincere affection for his country and the belief that the country could produce literature that rivals other nations. In 1549-50 Du Bellay published his first sonnets which were inspired by Petrarch. Three years later (1553) Du Bellay went on a mission to Rome and had begun to focus his writing upon religious themes. These ideas and themes appear to have disillusioned him because he began to focus on the vanished splendor of ancient Rome. He also focused his attention on melancholy satire depicted in The Regrets, which is regarded as his finest work (britannica.com). The Regrets can be divided into three various components. The first component pertains to Du Bellay’s unhappiness in Rome and his longing for his home country. The second component is a satire on Rome and the third component regards his return to the French court (biography.yourdictionary.com). The Regrets was published after his return to France in 1558, five years after he had gone to Rome (britannica.com). Ultimately The Regrets shows evidence that Du Bellay was a resourceful master of the sonnet form and conveys his ability to depict a sense of private anguish. Du Bellay died of a stroke on New Years’ Day 1560 (biography.yourdictionary.com).

http://biography.yourdictionary.com/joachim-du-bellay

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joachim-du-Bellay

D'Jara on John Knox

John Knox (D'Jara Culpepper)

John Knox was born at Haddington, Scotland in 1514 and trained to be a theologian. Though most famous as a pioneer of Scottish Reformation, Knox began as a devout priest of Roman Catholicism. Protestant Thomas Guillame was appointed to preach around Scotland by the Regent Arran, James Hamilton, making his and George Wishart’s reformer influence the most likely factors in Knox’ conversion. After the events of Wishart’s execution for heresy in 1546 and the murder of David Beacon, the cardinal responsible for the arrest, John Knox became a Protestant preacher amongst Beacon’s murderers. He became the chaplain for Edward VI of London in 1551, but it was short-lived, as Catholic Mary Tudor—or Mary I of England—took the throne after Edward VI fell under extensive illness. During Mary’s reign, Knox wrote several works that condemned the Roman Church, including but not limited to his best-known work, History of the Reformation of Religion within the Realm of Scotland, and his most infamous work, The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women. Before and during this time, Knox also came to believe fully in the teachings of John Calvin, which came in handy when he fled Scotland in 1556 during Mary Stuart’s reign, as he returned to Geneva as a pastor.

Sources:

Our class text, page 205

http://querelle.ca/john-knox/

http://reformationhistory.org/johnknox.html

Brittney on John Calvin (1509-64)

John Calvin (Brittney Bressler)

John Calvin, born in 1509 in Noyon, Picardy, France, was a humanist and theologian who played a chief role in the French Protestant Reformation and influenced many reformed churches in Europe, including the Church of England, with his interpretation of Christianity. Influenced by Calvin, groups of Christians in England formed their own churches known as Presbyterian and Congregational and brought Calvinism to North America.

            As a young man, Calvin excelled in his studies, primarily in Latin and philosophy. Following his father’s wishes, Calvin studied at the law schools in Orleans and Bourges in France before returning to Paris where he became interested in Renaissance humanism. The movement at the time, prior to the well-known Reformation, sought to reform church and society based on a study of the Bible in its original languages. Calvin was influenced by this movement, along with famous humanists such as Erasmus, and began to study Greek and Hebrew as well as Latin.

As the government in Paris became less tolerant of this movement, Calvin decided to move to Basel in Switzerland. The time in which Calvin officially converted to Protestantism is not clear, but it appears that his transition likely occurred over time. In Basel, Luther began writing more to clarify his own beliefs. Eventually he published the first edition of his most influential work, “The Institutes of the Christian Religion,” originally published in 1536. This work is a series of Biblical commentaries in which he discusses his views on the church, covering topics such as the sacraments, justification, and Christian liberty.

Calvin then moved to Strasbourg, Germany, where he became a pastor to French-speaking refugees. During this time he married a widow named Idelette de Bure, who had two children, and published a commentary on the “Letter of Paul to the Romans.” He also increased his prominence amongst Protestant leaders as he attended international religious conferences. In 1541, he was invited to Geneva, where there was a lack of enthusiasm for Protestantism. The council of Geneva made law his “Ecclesiastical Ordinances,” which was designed after the law of God, and provided for religious education and created an outline for church order. Under Calvin’s design for order, Geneva prospered for many years. Calvin became a busy man, establishing an academy which trained students in humanism and prepared them for ministry and leadership positions. He also preached, performed weddings and baptisms, and continued to publish commentaries on scripture. He kept up with his many responsibilities despite being ill and died in 1564.

Luther and Calvin’s doctrines have many common themes. They both placed an emphasis on the reading of scripture, following the concept of “sola scriptura,” which means “by Scripture alone.” The two theologians believed in original sin and that one can only be saved by faith alone, due to the grace of God. While Calvin admired much of Luther’s theology, his ideas also differed from Luther in many areas. To a greater extent than Luther, Calvin placed an emphasis on the omniscience of God. He believed that humans cannot know anything absolutely, and that the Holy Spirit helps humanity to understand scripture, although it may be beyond human comprehension. While Calvin placed an emphasis on God’s power, he also wrote of God as a father figure, emphasizing his lovingness and mercy. Differing from Luther, who believed the world had been given over to the Devil at the Fall, Calvin believed that the world still belongs to God, and that every human still has good left within him that the Devil seeks to steal.

Calvin also emphasized the concept of predestination, which is arguably his most familiar doctrine. Predestination is the belief that before the creation of the world, God had already elected those who would be granted eternal life and those who would be damned. Despite the appearance of this belief, Calvin intended on it to be reassuring to the Christian anxious about his life after death, as many Christians in Calvin’s time were. 

Kristen on Plato’s Symposium

Plato’s Symposium (Kristen Black)
​
Dated between 385 and 370 BC, Plato’s Symposium is a collection of speeches at a Greek gathering that all make attempts to define love and address love’s complications. The introduction serves to explain that the story is not happening as the reader is reading it, but this is simply a retelling by characters outside of the actual party. Phaedrus is the first to speak and decides to talk to his companions about the presence of bravery through love. A product of Chaos and Earth, love is actually a god, and the bravery that it provokes in men is made apparent in storytelling that Phaedrus performs. Pausanias brings up the differences between Common Love and Heavenly Love. He believes both are worthy of praise, but Common Love is felt through the body; Common Love typically involves sexual acts between males and females. Heavenly Love is more about the connection of minds and souls between two males. Eryximachus believes that love is found in the balance of opposites that exist in nature. Aristophanes describes an origin story in which Zeus, the supreme god of Olympians, cut humans in half, forcing each half to search for the other half, in constant pursuit of wholeness. Socrates is next to speak and claims that love is between ugliness and beauty, between mortal and immortal, and between wisdom and ignorance. He then goes into details to describe the “Ladder of Love” involving love’s end goal of giving birth from the soul.

Joseph on Courtly Love / Fin' Amors

Courtly Love / Fin' Amors (Joseph VanBuren)

Though we may think of it as a universal and eternal human experience, love as we know it may be little more than a literary construct. More specifically, romantic love is seen by some scholars as a product of the lyrical songs and literature of the Middle Ages. “L’amour courtois” or “fin amor” (refined love) originated with the troubadours in southern France in the eleventh century. Literary works before this time are largely devoid of romantic love. Ancient Greek literature speaks of “eros” as passion and lust; religious texts mention “agape” or selfless, platonic love of all humanity. Marriages usually came out of political or economic alliances. The troubadours challenged all of these concepts and created a new type of love that eventually became utilized in courts throughout Europe and influenced writers for centuries to follow, including William Shakespeare.

The general attributes of courtly love once commonly practiced among European lords and ladies of nobility are still easily recognizable today: love at first sight; the knight’s infatuation with the maiden; he showering her with gifts, songs, and various other signs of affection and devotion; his status as as well as a code of conduct and rules of etiquette. But what exactly were all of these rules? Apparently, the system of courtly love was so complicated that a French princess had her chaplain, Andreas Capellanus, write a rulebook: De Arte Honeste Amandi (roughly translated as The Art of Courtly Love). While perhaps not a definitive historical example of love in medieval times, it does discuss some of the well-known aspects of courtly love, including its extramarital status. After all, says Capellanus, “love can have no place between husband and wife.”

It is clear that Shakespeare was influenced by the conventions of courtly love. One example is in Romeo and Juliet. Before falling in love with Juliet, Romeo pursues Rosaline in a very courtly manner. But Shakespeare, being a writer of many dimensions, also rebels against such conventions when it suits his purposes. This is evident in Sonnet 130. In this poem, Shakespeare uses every courtly cliché of the time to say what the speaker’s mistress is not. She is not quite fair and beautiful, her voice is annoying, and she could benefit from the use of Listerine. Not exactly the kind of girl you fall in love with at first sight and shower with gifts and song, yet he swears she is as special as any other woman ever the subject of poetry. Perhaps inspired by the troubadours before him, Shakespeare challenged the notions of love in his time. By both rejecting and embracing certain conventions of courtly love, he helped to immortalize the complexity of human emotion through literature.

Sources:

https://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/medieval/love.html

https://condor.depaul.edu/dsimpson/tlove/courtlylove.html

http://central.gutenberg.org/article/WHEBN0000063792/Courtly%20love

Beth on Albrecht Durer

Albrecht Durer (Beth Olry)

Albrecht Durer (1471-1528) was a German painter, progressive thinker, humanist, intellectual and
God-fearing man. He was best known as one of the most important figures of the Northern
Renaissance. His theoretical concepts included mathematics, ideal proportions, and
perspective, which made him famous by the time he was in his twenties. His dislike for the
pedantic restrictions imposed by solitary minds and popular cultural limitations, allowed his art to
surpass the ingenuity of fellow art predecessors.
Durer could be noted as the first to recognize the benefits of mass printing as a medium for
designing, publishing, and selling his own woodcuts and engravings. He was praised for his
extravagant imagination, even by grudging Italians.
His works included: 20th century surrealism, fantastic visions of baroque, and distorted,
psychoerotic figures. Albrecht Durer spent his lifetime bringing proportion and perspective of the
Italian Renaissance to Europe. He spent time with Willibrand Pirckheimer, a German
intellectual, and also explored the works of theology by humanist Erasmus. Durer was a devout
Roman Catholic and admirer of Martin Luther King. One of his greatest role models was
Leonardo da Vinci.
Although recognized as an amazing visionary with gothic undertones, he wanted to portray
himself as a handsome theorist. So much so, that he even painted a well-known self-portrait
depicting himself in Christ-like fashion. Although somewhat vain, seeing himself as a Christ-like
visionary, his vast contributions of perspective, human proportion, and geometry overcame any
forced utilitarian approaches typical of medieval scholasticism.
Durer’s most famous works can be divided into time periods:
1507-1511: Adam and Eve (1507); Virgin of with the Iris (1508); the altarpiece of the
Assumption of the Virgin (1509); the Adoration of the Trinity by all the Saints (1511)
*Also two woodcut series: the Great Passion and the Life of the Virgin (1511)
1511-1514: Durer concentrated on engraving wood and copper. His major work was 37 subjects
of the Little Passion (1511)
1513-1514: Three most famous works in copper engraving: the Knight and Death (aka the
Knight) (1513); Melancolia (1514); St. Jerome in his Study (1514)
1514-1520: Wide range of work was produced including Tempera on Linen (1516)

1520: Durer secured patronage and completed his last journey.
One of Durer’s most analyzed works was Melancolia I because of universal human images and
the ingenuity from metaphors expressed in every detail. It was exemplary of the ambiguous,
mysterious nature of human psyche. The introspective conflict of turmoil and heroic suffering
portrayed were a revolutionary declaration during the face of famine and plague. His deep
religious conviction, moved by the apocalyptic spirit demonstrated his genius as an inspired
creator.
Examples of the chaotic tools he used as geometrical instruments include the wings not used by
the angel, the compass held lifeless in its hands, the dry spirit of the angel contradicted by the
wreath of watercress worn on its head, and “Melancolia” engraved on the wings of a bat (which
is an animal associated with night fears). People described Albrect Durer’s expressed
melancholy as bringing forth miracles.
A quote by Durer that seems to sum up his perspective and contribution to humanism is, “No
single man can be taken as a model for a perfect figure, for no man lives on earth who is

endowed with the whole of beauty.”

Kate on Sonnet 73

Shakespeare, Sonnet 73 (Kate Niswander)

Sonnet 73 encompasses many things that are both seen easily on the surface as well as hidden beneath. At first look the sonnet seems to be one that justifies the seasons and shows the transition of fall to winter with its effects on the world around it. However, doing a close reading we see that the poem is actually a metaphor for growing old and losing your passion for what you hold dear to you be it a hobby or a literal person. This self pity the writer feels is one that easily can be recognized as they feel as if they are fading in life from age and loss of passion, they feel bad for themselves as well as invite sympathy from the readers. The poem starts out as one of ideal beauty that quickly fades one by one as it continues down through each line.  Everything that is dear to the writer is fading and turning dark just like fall to winter or day to night, things coming to a close to finally end on a note of love. There are many different interpretations of this sonnet, all of which are excellent points. Is it simply about the seasons? About death? Loss of youth? Losing what you love? Motivation? All of these are true for this poem it is just up to your interpretation to find out what it means to you. 

Mads on Michelangelo

Michelangelo (Madison Gonzales)

Michelangelo di Lodovico Buinarroti Simoni, born on March, 3, 1475, is widely known as one of the greatest artists of both his time, and the present. He was a Renaissance painter, author, architect, and sculptor. His best known work would most likely be the frescos he painted on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. While he was a great artist, his family was interested in the banking business, making him raised in moderate wealth. He and his four brothers lived a life of means. However, his father quickly realized that Michelangelo would not be a part of the family banking business when he was reprimanded for paying more attention to paintings on the buildings nearby instead of his schooling. While he did not finish his schooling, he did eventually come to start writing in his later to middle years. They were mainly letters perceived as short stories and sonnets, but noted as a “more original and expressive way” (britannica.com). Most were sonnets, but there were some madrigals, which are similar to sonnets, but not a structure quite as predetermined.
He had many apprenticeships, and eventually started to study sculpting by the Medici family, who was known to be very powerful. He had a “quick temper, which not only got him into trouble, it created a pervasive dissatisfaction for the painter, who constantly strived for perfection but was unable to compromise” (biography.com). Along with this, he struggled with depression and loneliness. Michelangelo wrote letters “expressing strong feelings of attachment to young men” (britannica.com). While many assume that this means Michelangelo was homosexual, as he was never married, there is theory that he was actually solely searching for a male surrogate. Nonetheless, it did not affect his fame and popularity. Michelangelo was the first person to have not only one, but two biographies written about him while he was still alive. Michelangelo died on February 2, 1564 at almost 89 years old.

https://www.biography.com/people/michelangelo-9407628

https://www.britannica.com/biography/Michelangelo#ref261207

Lizzie on Sonnet 55

Shakespeare, Sonnet 55 (Lizzie Britner)

Although this is one of Shakespeare’s most famous sonnets, it stands out because of its differences in tone and beliefs about lasting love. Rather then seeming doubtful or insecure about the complex and unforeseen outcomes of love, Sonnet 55 has a much more confident and determined feel to it. Similar to the other Shakespearean sonnets we have read so far, this one takes the usual form of twelve lines made up of three quatrains, followed by the final couplet.

            In first quatrain, the sonnet argues that even the most grand and magnificent monuments of royalty could not outlive the power of poetry. Therefore, the intense passion the speaker feels for his lover will “shine more bright” in these verses then it could in a statue, or gravestone (3). The second quatrain elaborates on this idea by explaining that material things, such as sculptures or tombstones can all be destroyed by humans and the effects of time. For example, the poet remarks on the fact that things such as war and fire can ruin the memorials that lovers leave behind. But because this poem is a living memory, it cannot be ruined by earthly forces. Moving on to the third quatrain, the focus shifts to the idea that the lover themselves will live on because of this poem. Although time usually leads people to be forgotten, the speaker assures his lover that they will be not be abandoned. Even until the end of humanity, the memory of his lover will never be suppressed. The final couple reiterates that until Judgement Day, when the lover will rise again, they will live immortalized in this poem and in the eyes of all who loved them. And since we are still reading this sonnet hundreds of years later, the speaker seems to have been correct.

            One of the aspects of Sonnet 55 that I found interesting was Shakespeare’s unselfish way of using his poem to immortalize his lover rather than himself. Most poets of this time, and even a majority of writers today, see their work as a way of commemorating themselves rather than someone else. Sonnet 55 never mentions what will become of the poet himself, but instead solely focuses on the memorialization of his lover. This selfless and noble act seems to take Shakespeare’s already complex and arguably unattainable notion of love to an even higher standard.

The picture I decided to include is a statue by William Ordway Partridge of William Shakespeare that can be found in Lincoln Park in Chicago, Illinois. The statue was installed in 1894 and is inscribed with some of Shakespeare’s verses from Hamlet. I choose this picture because I thought it was a little ironic since Sonnet 55 argues against the memorials of statues, yet there are statues of Shakespeare found all over the world.

http://chicago-outdoor-sculptures.blogspot.com/2009/07/lincoln-park-grandmothers-garden.html

Laura on Erasmus

Erasmus, by Holbein

Erasmus (Laura Lauderman)

Desiderius Erasmus, the illegitimate son of a Catholic priest, was born around 1466 in Rotterdam, in what is now the Netherlands. He was afforded a high-quality education at monastic schools, where he studied Latin and classical literature. Erasmus was orphaned as a teenager when both of his parents died of the plague. With little inheritance, he entered a monastery and was ordained a priest in 1492. 

Because of his strength in Latin, Erasmus was made secretary to the Bishop of Cambrai in France, who sent him to the University of Paris with the promise of financial support. But, when Erasmus did not agree with the theology he was taught and when the promised support did not come, he left school. He was granted a dispensation (release from his priestly vows) from the Pope, and supported himself by tutoring young men. 

Erasmus’ work as a tutor resulted in several educational texts: a letter-writing manual, a handbook of writing style, a collection of Latin dialogues, and an anthology of proverbs. In 1499, he was invited to return to England with one of his students, William Blount. During this visit, he made important connections and lifelong friends, many of whom were humanist thinkers; included among these was Thomas More. 

Over the next two decades, Erasmus traveled extensively between continental Europe and England and published a number of texts that became popular, including his Greek New Testament. The annotations he wrote for his Greek New Testament demonstrated his disagreement with some traditional biblical interpretations. He took a skeptical approach to theology, wanting “to compare everything and affirm nothing”— to entertain the idea that something other than traditional doctrine was possibly true, without taking a definitive stance one way or another. Despite this, he always emphasized his willingness to defer to the official positions of the Church. 

Erasmus defended the right of humanists to apply their knowledge of classical languages to the translation and textual criticism of both secular and sacred texts. His writings and positions were celebrated by humanists but criticized by theologians, who doubted his qualifications for any religious scholarship. The last two decades of his life were spent refuting his critics and refuting the notion that he inspired the Reformation and was a supporter of Martin Luther. Even so, Martin Luther himself disapproved of Erasmus’ skepticism and ambiguity, insisting that absolute answers were necessary for questions of doctrine. 

One doctrine in which Erasmus expressed confidence was that of free will. His belief in free will informed his belief in human beings’ ability to continuously improve themselves by way of education. He emphasized all people’s personal obligation to fulfill their highest potential by learning and bettering themselves, and said that this was what sets humanity apart from animals. In one of his texts, he asks “And what is the most harmful influence upon man?” He answers, “Surely it is ignorance.” 

    

Source: 

     Rummel, Erika. “Desiderius Erasmus.” The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Stanford Center for the Study of Language and Information, 27 Sept. 2017, plato.stanford.edu/entries/erasmus/

Kathye on Thomas More

Thomas More (Kathye Macias-Ramirez)

Thomas More was born on February 7, 1478, in London and died July 6, 1535, at the age of 57. More attended St. Anthony’s in Threadneedle Street and was also educated in the household of John Morton, Archbishop of Canterbury, who had a high reputation in the first half of Henry VII’s government. He continued his education at Oxford where he studied Latin and then continued his studies back in London in 1494 where he studied law. While a member of the Lincoln's Inn, a legal society, he sought a vocation as a monk in the Carthusian monastery for four years. More, however, then went on to marry Joan Colt in either late 1504 or early 1505 but, over all of this time, and until the end of his life he was devoted to center his life around God, thru reading and practice. In 1510 he became one of the two undersheriffs of London and remained in that position until July 1518. During this time, in 1511, his wife passed, leaving behind four children which passed on to the care of Alice Middleton who married More weeks later. Middleton had a daughter, but her and More had no children together. Also during his time as an undersheriff, in 1516 he published his most recognized work ‘Utopia’. Utopia illustrates a “communist city-state in which the institutions and policies are entirely governed by reason” which were meant to contrast the reality of European politics while also discussing the topics of “penology, state-controlled education, religious pluralism, divorce, euthanasia, and women’s rights” (Marc’hadour). In 1521 he was knighted and made under-treasurer, in which he “welcomed foreign envoys, delivered official speeches, drafted treaties, read the dispatches exchanged between the king and Wolsey, and answered in the king’s name” (Marc’hadour). Two years later he was elected speaker of the House of Commons. After his move to Chelsea in 1524, he was given the title of chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster and later lord chancellor in 1529. In November, a month later, More opened Parliament which held discussions over the divorce and remarriage of Henry VIII and by 1531 the clergy decided that the king was allowed to go ‘as far as the law of Christ allows’ (Marc’hadour). This then leads the church of England to give up their power to “legislate” if it did not have the assent of the king. More did not attend the ceremony but was asked to declare “the king’s marriage with Catherine void and that with Anne valid” his refusal to go along with the king cost him his freedom and his life (Marc’hadour). His objections only made the testimony of Thomas Cromwell more plausible, in which he states that More “denied the king’s title as supreme head of the Church of England” (Marc’hadour). Before being beheaded he told the crowd that “he was dying.... ‘in the faith and for the faith of the Catholic Church, the king’s good servant and God’s first’” (Marc'hadour). Throughout his life, More was seen as a pure religious man that is described by Erasmus as a ‘man of all seasons’ and is now known as a saint for his actions.

This "find the love" thing

https://www.timeout.com/london/theatre/shakespeare-in-love

Find the Love

This general presentation topic enables you to help us understand something significant about our class theme that we wouldn't normally see--except for you.  I hope that makes sense. 

There are several possible avenues here, but let me mention these.

1.  A writer, text, or general concept about love from the time period we're in with Shakespeare or the eras beforehand, i.e.: ancient, medieval, early modern.  The trick is to find something SPECIFIC that MATTERS and that you can cover or illustrate in FIVE MINUTES.

Ovid, Ars amatoria (see example): an important idea or passage.
Andreas Capellanus, De amore (or, sometimes, The Art of Courtly Love): important idea or passage.
The troubadours (pick one).
1 Corinthians 13, William Tyndale translation
Plato, Phaedrus, or something devoted to love
"courtly love," fin'Amors, l'amour courtois
Chaucer, Troilus and Creseyde
Neoplatonism
Edmund Spenser, Four Hymns

2.  Something scholarly, NOT WIKIPEDIA, on classical, medieval, or early modern conceptions of love.

3. Something visual or musical about love from the time period.

4.  Something from our play or another play by Shakespeare that demonstrates something about love, something that the rest of us won't notice unless you let us know.

5. Your idea.

Walter Cohen on Sonnet 7

https://goo.gl/images/Yx67yU

Walter Cohen on Sonnet 73

In the introduction to our book, The Norton Shakespeare (3E), the scholar Walter Cohen explains in some detail how this famous sonnet works. He analyzes how each quatrain "pursues a different metaphor" to make an argument: autumn, twilight, a dying fire, each equivalent to aging, ending, and death, respectively. He also notes that these cycles in the poem have no transition or completion. There's no winter or spring to follow the fall, night and morning to follow dusk, or a new fire from the old one. But they are all connected somehow to emphasize the mood of the person speaking in the poem and the sadness he is trying to convey. 

Cohen emphasizes the many facets of Shakespeare's words: "leaves" are from a tree and the pages of a book, "choirs" to groups of birds or gatherings of pages, and the importance of the "glowing" of the fire. It's dying, but still alive. Oddly, "Life and death have the same source."

Norton Shakespeare (1790-91)