Oh Franklin

I must admit that the Franklin's tale was a bit of a surprise for me.  I was definitely expecting Dorigen to stray from her husband when he had sailed away.  I thought something would go wrong from the very beginning where their relationship was described to be equal and that they would obey each-other and be humble towards one another... we would not know about this if it didn't cause problems in the end.  

But I was wrong!  The problem was different and Dorigen was tortured by "honor" and so was Arveragus and they did something totally unexpected.  I wasn't expected after Arveragus's release of his wife for Aurelius to feel the way he did and let Dorigen go also.

I won't lie - I wasn't captivated by the story.  It was not my style, so unrealistic.  But I still want to know how the magician/scholar made the rocks disappear.  Maybe I'm not remembering it correctly but what exactly did he do?

Someone else put a little more thought into the tale than I did.  Read a little bit (or maybe a lot) about someone's theory on the tale and the correlating style of medieval English writers at In The Middle.

Another thing about the Franklin's Tale that is of interest to me is the whole concept of marriage.  Averagus and Dorigen's intent for the marriage was supposed to give Dorigen more power.  Or was it?  I don't think that Dorigen really had much power at all.  She ended up being stuck at home and whining about how much her life sucked after Averagus left.  I think she was hopeless and powerless.   

The Franklin's Tale has multiple themes.  Some of these themes are honor, marriage, and power.  I found an interesting article about Chaucer's intended message about marriage in the Franklin's Tale with Chaucer's Real Response to Marriage.

Mandeville's Traveling Mind

After finishing Mandeville I'm not quite sure why this book is so popular.  I can see how it is interesting in the sense that it is an insight into 14th century thoughts of the possible traveler, but it was a little frustrating to read.  I felt at times that it was like a stream of consciousness, or like his mind just kept traveling and wandering.  I tried to trace his travels in my mind, and they made a figure 8 at first, but then I had no idea where he was.  I wonder if the compilers of the book actually traveled or not, because I do not know of much biological/anthropological/archaeological evidence for many creatures and peoples he talked about.  Or maybe, because he was the first to see these foreign things, the only way he could interpret them was in a skewed perception.  Many times I wondered if he was describing animals instead of people, or if he was attributing tribal dress/attire as bodily features.  

The whole thing was incoherent for me.  It's definitely not a Conde Nast or National Geographic Adventure, but how could I dare to compare "the first" travel narrative to a modern magazine anyway.

iDecameron

So I have been reading some of the Decameron on DecameronWeb, translated by a British man in the early 20th century. It is quite different than the version we read in class, and I'm glad we did not read J. M Rigg's translation from the early 1900's. It peppered with "th's" and seems almost medieval to me. To be honest, it's much more boring to read. It might be a more sophisticated way of writing but it's not as free flowing as our classroom version. And now, I could go off into another direction about the effects of translation, but I'll save you my inner turmoil.

Another reason I'm glad we didn't read this version (at least online) - I CAN'T LOOK AT A COMPUTER SCREEN FOR MORE THAN 2 MINUTES BEFORE MY EYES TWITCH AND MY BRAIN RUNS AND HIDES AT THE BACK OF MY OCCIPITAL LOBE. Seriously, I have had professors assign Greek Literature from online sources... think about it, The Odyssey and the Iliad all online... What do I remember from those readings? Checking the sidebar to see how much further I had to go, and some stuff about wars and Greek men of course, but more than that just being annoyed at staring into a gazillion little brightly lit pixels.

Needless to say I can't get too far with Decameron Web before I'm wandering to Facebook and GMail to get some instant gratification. When I'm online I want to find things instantly, the information needs to be short and sweet, and quickly available. If it's time to get my read on, I fancy me an old fashioned paper smellin' book.

Translation Paper

I am feeling considerably challenged as I dive into our short paper on translation.  I am still confused...  How do you make an argument about two translations without using something as a base?  I really want to use art, since I am writing on the Inferno and it's such a visual text, and my natural inclination is that I need to look at two different works of art and compare/contrast them in order to make an argument about translation using the poem as a foundation.  I know if we choose the art option it needs to be alongside the text, so I'm struggling to find and argument using just those two.  With some of the images  I have found that correlate to specific cantos, I am thinking I can talk about the different moods and spirits each emotes, but then again I'm still stuck with the translation bit because I feel like I have to say that each is a translation of the original...  Thus, I have ended up being lost in translation, and maybe you can find me in either the Hesburgh or Cushwa library.

Is anybody else feeling confused?

In the past section of reading for the Decameron, I noticed that when someone was getting caught doing something wrong, or typically "caught in the act", the person doing the catching remained silent.  This person would sometimes be infused with rage, but always decided to prolong retribution or action.  They decided to plot out their next course of action instead of doing something in the heat of the moment.  Normally a high energy confrontation would occur at 'the catching' but it didn't in these stories.  Well, at least I would expect an immediate confrontation, so that's why this all seemed interesting to me.

Failing Attempt at Sonnetry

A Petrarchan Sonnet is a poem with a specific composition of an octet and sestet, and specific rhyme scheme.  The first 8 lines makes the octet.  The last 6 lines makes the sestet.  The octet and sestet may be talking about the same subject, but in a different sense.  For example the octet may be foreshadowing the subject, while the sestet reveals the subject, or the octet deals with physical nature of the subject, while the sestet deals with its spiritual nature and so on and so on.........

rhyme scheme is as follows:

a b b a a b b a c d c d c d *

*the sestet has a variety of rhyme schemes, check out the form here at Basic Sonnet Forms.

So here is my first sonnet!

To others you must seem aloof

And many a time I've called you crazy

As very often you are lazy

And even though you are a goof

I cannot offer much more proof

The evidence of my love for you is hazy

But you're sweet and innocent like daisies

So down to your level I will stoop

To pet my silly furry cat

No matter how you annoy me so

And even though you've gotten fat

I let your roam to and fro

I hate when you claw on this and that

But I will never let you go.

Dedicated to my somewhat unintelligent, but ever endearing cat, Lucy.

Petrarch is like literally a creeper! So random!

From reading about Petrarch in handouts given by Drs. Hicks and Williamson-Ambrose, I have come to the conclusion that Petrarch is so creeperish.  

First of all, do we even know if Laura was real?  My bet is that she's a total fake.  Well at least I like to think so because that makes Petrarch more deranged (in my opinion) and definitely more juicy!  Even if she was real, I think he attached himself to her because she was so unattainable.  It's like if you know you can't have something, you become fixated on the greatest of that something, because you know you will never actually be able to get that something, and it becomes a silly little mind game or show to put on.  Or maybe he really did lust for Laura and as he is clearly socially awkward, never knew how to act.  I think he was too interested in Cicero and other things that to really act on his love for her, even though his poetry is centered on her, I think maybe he was more in love with the thought of her and writing about her rather than really loving her.  This thinking is what Dr. Shinners would attribute to my "soap opera" thinking, even though I have never watched a soap opera in my life!  He thinks I'm too dramatic.

He's also leaning off-center when he talked about Cicero and friends enjoying their country stay together.  Think about it, if one of your friends took a book along a plane ride and when you asked, how was your flight, he replied "It was great.  Will [Shakespeare] and I had a really long conversation.  He's a bit longwinded and I don't understand like 30% of the words he uses, but he's still a great conversationalist.  He gave me his bag of peanuts, which I think was really nice.  Have you met Will before?  He's pretty cool."  How would you react?

I don't want to completely slight dear old P. Arch.  I think he has some great work and I really meditated on one line from his sonnets.  The first sonnet on our handout has an ending line reading "That what pleases on Earth is a swift dream." I think it is true that so many pleasures are fleeting- and yet we still strive for these little flash in the pan moments of happiness.  Depending on how you view life on earth, our earthly lives could be a flash in the pan anyway if our soul lives for eternity.  I interpreted this line in multiple fashions.  Those moments of pleasure on Earth are short lived and hardly deep, and a pleasurable life can be swift.  

But concerning love, is it a swift dream?  Should love be everlasting?  I have come accustomed to think that your soulmate provides a love that is everlasting and unconditional, anything but a swift dream.  I certainly don't have the answer... yet.

I'm still soaking in the sonnets, and trying to come out on solid ground.  

My first-ever- blog

Look how cool you are, checking out my weblog!  Thanks for the attention, I always enjoy sharing my thoughts.  

This was all the thinking I had for my first blog, but I have a feeling my next post will concern Petrarch's sonnets.  Don't ask me how I know, I'm just prophesi-zing (did I make that word up?) that I'll blog about Petrarch.