I Melt With You

I found Shakespeare's The Tempest quite enjoyable on the whole, though I breathed a sigh of relief as I concluded its final acts, because my brain can only handle so much. 
I about died laughing when in act 4.1, line 15 on, Prospero basically warns Ferdinand in typical, protective, fatherly fashion to WAIT TIL MARRIAGE OR ELSE, in his own magical, somewhat threatening, words. 
I found the appearance of the spirits, Iris, Ceres, Juno, etc. lovely, especially as a person with an affinity for the myths, gods, and goddesses of the classical era. Classical references like this were common in the Renaissance, and in this case was used by Shakespeare to reinforce the beauty of the marriage-celebration scene. It was nice and sparkly, and the inclusion of those classical references only heightened the loveliness it evoked. 

Juno and Iris appear in the above picture. ~fancy~

In act 4, scene 1, lines 163-175, Prospero gives a wonderful speech:

You do look, my son, in a moved sort,

As if you were dismayed. Be cheerful, sir.

Our revels now are ended. These our actors,

As I foretold you, were all spirits and

Are melted into air, into thin air.

And like the baseless fabric of this vision,

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,

The solemn temples, the great globe itself—

Yea, all which it inherit—shall dissolve,

And like this insubstantial pageant faded,

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff

As dreams are made on, and our little life

Is rounded with a sleep. 

As I read this passage, I am overcome with thoughts of actors and the world of theater. Since this play was apparently Shakespeare's last, I wonder if this speech is not just Prospero's voice, but Will's too, acknowledging the conclusion of a play as Prospero acknowledges the end of his magical charms. At the beginning of the speech, when Prospero speaks to Ferdinand, telling him to cheer up after the abrupt end to the masque, I felt that I could resonate with Ferdinand's feelings; for instance, sometimes when I am deep in thought, perhaps listening to music, playing a videogame, or deep in a book, and am suddenly yanked out of my glorious fantasy world, I feel some disillusionment and dismay. I feel similarly when I see a play or movie, and walk back out into the harsh glare of the real world. The fantasies that are evoked within that experience are then "melted into thin air... and like this insubstantial pageant faded, leave not a rack behind." When the play ends, the actors pack up their props and go home. The sets are deconstructed and put away. The audience returns to the tedium of daily life. Prospero's spirits "dissolved" just as every experience in visual/sensory media does after we SAVE and QUIT, or turn OFF. This speech, as I read it, also caused me to have an existential crisis - I sat in front of my book wide-eyed, frozen at the thought that we all eventually "melt into thin air," "dissolve," and leave nothing behind.

Same.

Crises aside, I thoroughly enjoyed the play. I really appreciate how much I was actually able to understand it, allowing it to make me laugh, or cower in fear as I contemplated my eventual "dissolving."

How cool is this though?

Witchy Shenanigans

I found chapter 7 of Kors/Peters to take a somewhat more refreshing turn compared to the repetitive, graphic rhetoric of previous chapters (butts and baby-eating) that we've been assigned.  
I really liked Desiderius Erasmus' story on the sorcerer from Orléans, especially in his concluding paragraphs in which he blames the horror of witchcraft directly on the weaknesses of humanity - in this case, greed. He doesn't even refer to the devil at this point, nope. He isn't making excuses for how susceptible humans are to temptation. Additionally, his frankness is extremely refreshing and actually made me chuckle; this is just a man who is freaking tired of witchy shenanigans. He states, "Monstrosities of this sort are of such frequent occurrence everywhere in the Digest that now that I am accustomed to them they do not even amuse me any longer, much less annoy me" (236). Erasmus is just sick of everyone's shit and boy can I appreciate that.

Same.

I also enjoyed Johann Geiler von Kaysersberg's richly detailed descriptions on witches' perceived travel movements, like how witches might think that they are flying through space but are just imagining it because of our crafty pal Satan. Kaysersberg's assertions therefore take the power away from witches (and perhaps subsequently some of the blame) and placing it in the hands of the devil. I was quite content reading until I reached the misogynistic part on why women are more likely to become witches and I had stress-induced flashbacks to the Malleus. I was brought back to reality when I read his concluding sentence: "But those [sorcerers] who can be cured and made healthy ought not to be put to death, but to a lesser punishment" (239), which was a lovely reminder not to get sucked into believing in the stereotype of the ignorant, dangerously uncompromising witch-hunting mob.

So not this. Hopefully. Or at least less of this.

Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola's Strix was fun and interesting because of its format as dialogue. Everyone appreciates a good basic play, right? Sure the story was somewhat contrived, especially with the staunch skeptic Apistius completely renouncing his skepticism on believing in witchcraft after interacting with the witch, but Pico's point was clear. Apistius, seeing the evidence, accepts that witchcraft exists. I appreciated  the implications here: that an accusation must be founded and have evidence. It seems to have connections to the movement of Christian Humanism during the Renaissance; that beliefs must be founded on reason and human experience. Neat.

Finally, while reading Pope Hadrian's On Diabolical Witchcraft, I had but one thought: Holy long sentences, Batman! Seriously. What is it with Popes and long sentences?

Sorcery: The Uncanny

Chapters 4 and 5 in Kors/Peters have certainly taken a sharp turn from the jovial, upbeat magic portrayed in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to graphic, brutal descriptions of terrifying sorcery. A headless, living green man seemed like child's play compared to stories of cannibalism and boiling dead infants for sustenance. I noted extreme specificity in these two chapters in the discussions and denunciations of magical rituals by religious authorities. Additionally, in these chapters, sorcery became completely aligned with heresy.

In these chapters, magic became even more so the enemy of Christianity: sorcerers were the heretical agents of Satan, and magic was their tool for evil - quite the departure from its benign household use as compiled in the Wolfsthurn handbook many reading assignments ago.

Early on in chapter 4, while reading Pope Alexander IV's "Sorcery and the Inquisitors,” I was pleasantly surprised when he advised “inquisitors of heretical depravity” not to investigate magical activities unless there was proof of heretical activity. I perhaps shouldn’t be surprised that he advised people to simply do their job, but with the occasional stereotypical thought of witch-hunting mobs clouding my judgment as I read, I appreciated the Pope’s progressive attitude. On the other hand, his letter effectually opens up sorcery to inquisition, and I am sure there were cases of inquisitors bending this decree for their own purposes. I, perhaps naively, would like to think that this letter was the Pope’s way of preventing these inquisitors from disturbing benign magicians.  

Hopefully Pope Alexander's letter prevented things like this.

Immediately following Pope Alexander's letter, though, are letters from William, Cardinal of Santa Sabina and Pope John XXII on Sorcery and the Inquisitors. These completely oppose Pope Alexander's viewpoints. The Cardinal, for instance, calls sorcerers "infectors of God's flock" (119) and Pope John states that "they ally themselves with death and make a pact with hell. By their means a post pestilential disease... grievously infects infests the flock of Christ throughout the world" (120). Granted, Pope John is speaking from a place of fear, as sorcerers have made an attempt on his life, which is completely understandable. As Pope, these letters had extreme influence and likely reaffirmed the Christian, God-fearing public's anxieties about the malevolent power and potential of magic. 

Perhaps the most memorable reading was Bernardino of Siena's sermon against women sorcerers. He must have been an extremely effective preacher through his fear-mongering, emotionally appealing language. He speaks directly to his audience in an accusatory tone, telling them YOU have committed this sin, YOU have caused this suffering, YOU will then suffer in eternal torment. What a way to terrify his congregation into denouncing any kind of magic for fear of their eternal destiny. Part of me, now, doesn't blame the paranoia that ensued in Salem in the late 1600s. 

Chapter 5 just built on the terrifying heresy established in the the previous chapter, with anecdotes of infanticide and cannibalism. My notes literally read "~evil witchy anecdotes~" and "~bad things~" because some of the stories were so disturbingly graphic.  My favorite one was The Errores Gazariorum because of its description of the process of a person's seduction to the dark side.

I had to do it.

It is specific, backwards, perverse, etc. It is the opposite of normalcy for a typical Christian. It is the inverse, the uncanny - and it makes it all the more terrifying. Again, the fears of average folk at this time was completely understandable. They were molded by their religious leaders and knew little else. How sad. :(

Mind Your Head

While reading  Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, I was at first struck by the rhythmic beat of the lines and the jovial feel given off by the poem's alliteration. When the first description of the Green Knight came, with the line "a mountain of a man," I immediately thought of Hogwarts' favorite gamekeeper Hagrid, but this image quickly faded from my mind as the description continued. The poet spared no detail as they illustrated this impressive spectacle of a man, who is entirely decked out in green. What were the connotations of the color green during that time period? When I think of the color, I mostly think of trees, leaves, and walks in the woods. Soft shades of it seem to evoke peace. However, the color is also synonymous with envy and perhaps greed. I wonder, to a medieval reader of this poem, what feelings the color green evoked? Did the connotations associated with it change over time, and do they differ from the connotations associated with it today?

The first indication of the Green Knight as being a magical figure is indicated on line 198, where he is described as "otherworldly." This isn't just some weird guy with an unhealthy color obsession; as we later find out, "otherworldly" is almost an understatement, and poor Sir Gawain deals with that otherworldliness firsthand. Here, though, the word has only a neutral connotation. Another reference to the Knight's magical nature is on line 240, when he is described as "a miracle or magic," which is perhaps a neutral-positive connotation because of the use of the word "or."

When the Green Knight's massive war axe is being described, the poet writes that its head is "an ell in length at least." I had never heard of an "ell" as a unit of measurement before so I looked it up on my handy dictionary app. An ell is a unit of measurement that is equivalent to 45 inches, which is 3.75 ft. The freaking head of the axe is 3.75 FEET. Not the whole axe, jUST THE HEAD. I am unsure as to whether or not this description is supposed to be exaggerated or not but in any case: how impressive is that?

When the Green Knight does the whole "take me to your leader" business, King Arthur steps up and we learn (or at least I just did because I don't pay attention to things) that this is a story set in the famous King's court and his knights of the round table.

♫ We're knights of the round table, we dance whene'er we're able ♫

When the Green Knight first relayed his challenge, I at first didn't understand what he meant. I couldn't comprehend this mad challenge up until Sir Gawain actually delivers that nonfatal blow to his opponent because it was just that crazy. 

When I think of the word magic, though, the Green Knight's headless horseman type stunt isn't exactly what comes to mind. Where are the witches and potions and spells? The Green Knight was used by the evil sorceress Morgan Le Fay to test the bravery of King Arthur's court, yet that is the extent of it. After the Green Knight gallops out of his court, Arthur's guests merrily resume their feast and that's the end of it. The spectacle doesn't seem to greatly disturb them. It's almost as if this is just another day in the Arthurian world. Another day another chivalric obligation right?