WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

More documents

Recommendations

Info

It is in the moral uncertainty of the narrative that Gower’s version of the story proves to be a powerful answer to this traditional reading. The moral which Genius, in his role as a Confessor, draws from this fable is simple yet sufficiently vague to be emptied of meaning: “Forthi, my sone, tak good hiede/So for to lede thi manhiede,/That thou ne be noght lich a beste.” 214 In presenting a tale of a real and not of a figural change, Genius’s interpretation only complicates what appears to be a simple story. His simple moral seems to draw more questions than answers about what this tale has to say about “vanité”: Does the tale describe “vanité” as beastly? If so, why would Nebuchadnezzar have pride in the shape of a man and inner humility like a braying beast? Moreover, how would being changed into a “beste” be any punishment for a “manhiede” that was lost and forgotten by his “vanité”? Would not Nebuchadnezzar’s punishment be simply an expression of his inner nature, and if this was the case, how could his nature change through contrition? How is it possible for a beastly man to reach human contrition? Do beasts think and feel like men? Or if somehow Nebuchadnezzar’s human mind stayed, why did he have to bray to gain God’s favor? Is this not a tale of “manhiede” in an inner sense, in avoiding the sin of “vanité”? Was it not a beastly braying and not a man-like inner repentance that made God be nothing “strange” to Nebuchadnezzar’s plea of forgiveness? In direct response to Jerome, Genius’s moral highlights the complications of representing truth even through fictitious and miraculous occurrences. Gower conceives of literary language—as a paradox or as an interpretation of a paradoxical event—as always necessitating interpretations and so always alloing “Cristes truth” to be fabled and be the source of endless questions, complications, and further commentary. Just as writing can prevent any one single authority from closing a narrative’s meaning, it also allows all interpretations to be authorial even in “straight-forward” narratives. 214 Gower Confessio 1.3043-3045. 130
For Jerome, God’s truth, authorial truth, is a written truth—deferred from present “sermo” ‘speech’ and made to inhabit a universal system of signs for the benefit of all believers. For the Confessio, God’s truth cannot be deferred—as its universality is compromised by the different readings that all believers bring to it. “Cristes word may noght be fabled” does not mean that Gower sought to situate “truth” for the individual interpretation of a reader as J. Allan Mitchell has recently suggested. 215 Rather, it means that he understood how any linguistic presentation of truth—even one which like Jerome emphasizes the paradoxical state of all communication—could corrupt its authority. 9. Nebuchadnezzar “Transmudado”: Authority as another Language To keep the authority of truth inviolate by readerly interpretations, the Confessio sought ways to distance the idea of “truth” from its corruption by everyday language. The Portuguese translation of Nebuchadnezzar’s punishment particularly helps us understand how in seeking to keep “meaning” separate from presentation, Gower succeeded in presenting himself as a type of authority. At the end of the story of Nebuchadnezzar’s madness, the Portuguese translation presents no moral impasse like the English, but, as if it were wishing to follow Jerome’s advice, it reads Gower’s story as a straight-forward warning against pride: Orafi lho eu te hej mostrado em este enxenplo omal que uem ao que he mal acostumado per ssoberva contra a lei de deus, ao qual nehŭu po de seer parçeiro. Porem para bem mentes ao rregimiento de ty medes que nom seias feito semelhante aa besta. Now son, I have shown you in this example the evil that comes to them who have badly been accustomed, through pride, against God’s law from which no one can be parted. Because of this, pay close attention to your own regiment so that you would not be made similar to a beast. 216 215 Mitchell 14-15. 216 Qtd. in Manuela Faccon, La Fortuna de la Confessio Amantis en la Península Ibérica: Estudio Comparativo de las Traducciones y Edición del MS. Madrid, Real Bibliotca, II-3008 (Prólogo, I, II, III, IV Libros),” Diss. (Università degli studi di Verona, Universidad de Zaragoza, 2007) Print 445, Lines 265-270. I reference the Portuguese O Amante by page and line number within Faccon’s dissertation. 131
Page 1 and 2:
VOICE AND MEANING: WRITING AUTHORIT
Page 3 and 4:
VOICE AND MEANING: WRITING AUTHORIT
Page 5 and 6:
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH Juan David Sier
Page 7 and 8:
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to fi
Page 9 and 10:
INTRODUCTION Although the following
Page 11 and 12:
Italian examples without incorporat
Page 13 and 14:
Martínez which led to the Anti-Jew
Page 15 and 16:
literary masterpiece, a manual of a
Page 17 and 18:
elated to the taking of “infidel
Page 19 and 20:
the last two chapters of this disse
Page 21 and 22:
CHAPTER I COLONIAL HERMENEUTICS: IN
Page 23 and 24:
However, by the fifteenth-century,
Page 25 and 26:
sermonis” was true based upon the
Page 27 and 28:
undeniable that both thinkers are a
Page 29 and 30:
in the Epistle to the Hebrews invol
Page 31 and 32:
Clement VI’s dispensation of the
Page 33 and 34:
asked other Christian authorities t
Page 35 and 36:
end, therefore, requires a particul
Page 37 and 38:
Hostiensis. Hostiensis, commenting
Page 39 and 40:
If the representational status of s
Page 41 and 42:
This catalogue of colonial conquest
Page 43 and 44:
this system from their experience a
Page 45 and 46:
Perhaps, the main change in the Pap
Page 47 and 48:
‘speech’ could stand for the fo
Page 49 and 50:
Word into flesh and hence cannot ho
Page 51 and 52:
is not to say that they are not hum
Page 53 and 54:
creature; the old things passed, an
Page 55 and 56:
Because he understands the authorit
Page 57 and 58:
communicability from which infidels
Page 59 and 60:
such, claiming that natural authori
Page 61 and 62:
tamen laicus ante aliquam constitut
Page 63 and 64:
Augustine reminds Vincentius: “No
Page 65 and 66:
falsify their own name since the la
Page 67 and 68:
causa, quare homo Christus sublimat
Page 69 and 70:
angle, as the rays are declined in
Page 71 and 72:
ad ovile Domini induci valeant, fau
Page 73 and 74:
them and keep them thirsting withou
Page 75 and 76:
“prevaricacione” ‘distortion/
Page 77 and 78:
In Eugene’s lament over these act
Page 79 and 80:
such, the Pope who, lacking the pow
Page 81 and 82:
et utinam non fuisset factum, nec g
Page 83 and 84:
CHAPTER II IBERIAN GOWER: TRANSLATI
Page 85 and 86:
of today’s condition has overcome
Page 87 and 88: From this vantage point, the legibi
Page 89 and 90: classical or exegetical tradition,
Page 91 and 92: work, a translator rarely credited
Page 93 and 94: creation of the poem insufficiently
Page 95 and 96: Portugal) and other works of litera
Page 97 and 98: We can understand why Gower would b
Page 99 and 100: Daniel and Nebuchadnezzar are conjo
Page 101 and 102: heart only a shadow, so to speak, o
Page 103 and 104: sure, but in the Chaldee language,
Page 105 and 106: sermo” ‘you redeem time knowing
Page 107 and 108: importantly, he speaks by means of
Page 109 and 110: 4. “Oure Tyme among ous”: Gower
Page 111 and 112: amorem et amantum condiciones funda
Page 113 and 114: in hearing moral fables in English
Page 115 and 116: Further, this image was a common ty
Page 117 and 118: word “tractatum” figuratively a
Page 119 and 120: eginning with its head before ever
Page 121 and 122: At first glance, this difference of
Page 123 and 124: the world’ through the figuration
Page 125 and 126: the verse literally ties reality to
Page 127 and 128: The English is painfully clear: the
Page 129 and 130: different. Therefore, if there is s
Page 131 and 132: palace.’ 202 Unlike the first of
Page 133 and 134: noght be fable,” arguing that if
Page 135 and 136: Du Nabugod ce poet om lire, Qui se
Page 137: From this perspective, the “Tale
Page 141 and 142: manhiede,/That thou ne be noght lic
Page 143 and 144: kneeling simply because he is an ox
Page 145 and 146: Portuguese claims—alongside Jerom
Page 147 and 148: one which eats grass. Further, it m
Page 149 and 150: CHAPTER III CASTILE: STORIES WITHOU
Page 151 and 152: In this chapter, I will analyze thi
Page 153 and 154: history,’ emphasized the sense pe
Page 155 and 156: their readers without waiting to be
Page 157 and 158: 2. Experiencing Truth: Managing the
Page 159 and 160: could.’ It must record both an ac
Page 161 and 162: Pero López de Ayala, pero non ley
Page 163 and 164: fifteenth centuries. Although most
Page 165 and 166: State. 253 The first change was the
Page 167 and 168: ecclesiastical and political techno
Page 169 and 170: the world and to the rule of his ho
Page 171 and 172: into the Peninsula prompted Castili
Page 173 and 174: to the mendicant orders like the Fr
Page 175 and 176: This suggests that, in the portrait
Page 177 and 178: government with another but in chan
Page 179 and 180: desirous and fulfillers of their ow
Page 181 and 182: It would be wrong, however, to gene
Page 183 and 184: into their own hands. Thus in 1391,
Page 185 and 186: But this is precisely my point: how
Page 187 and 188: memorable deeds.’ 300 Guzmán rea
Page 189 and 190:
efforts that, in fact, that Guzmán
Page 191 and 192:
7. Past Truth: Experiencing Time in
Page 193 and 194:
explains how Pedro should rule his
Page 195 and 196:
continue his alliance with the Musl
Page 197 and 198:
condemned by the moral precepts adv
Page 199 and 200:
wolf are one. And if the shepherd a
Page 201 and 202:
details of his text, but this exemp
Page 203 and 204:
To do these two things, Ayala’s r
Page 205 and 206:
The letter which Benaharin writes a
Page 207 and 208:
surrounding Pedro’s fall on the h
Page 209 and 210:
Montiel. Instead, the Chancellor de
Page 211 and 212:
worthy history and stylized fabulou
Page 213 and 214:
CHAPTER IV ENGLAND: TRANSLATIONS WI
Page 215 and 216:
not affect the “standing” of me
Page 217 and 218:
other means. 333 Instead, we must r
Page 219 and 220:
eflections at face value, a critic
Page 221 and 222:
efore 1385. Second, the contents of
Page 223 and 224:
of the “Cornish” grammarians re
Page 225 and 226:
exchanging “word vor word” but
Page 227 and 228:
II (“þe seconde kyng Richard aft
Page 229 and 230:
authority in fifteenth-century Engl
Page 231 and 232:
‘advice’ and would justify Trev
Page 233 and 234:
immutable and eternal things. Indee
Page 235 and 236:
purpose from the generalized logica
Page 237 and 238:
advice is. In short, citation makes
Page 239 and 240:
is maintained although knowing the
Page 241 and 242:
translation as Somerset implies. 38
Page 243 and 244:
English does not have legitimacy as
Page 245 and 246:
In this frame, the terms “dyamete
Page 247 and 248:
his daily surveying practices and w
Page 249 and 250:
terms allude to an idea foreign to
Page 251 and 252:
difficult to transliterate and then
Page 253 and 254:
suggests that he requested Trevisa
Page 255 and 256:
could give its owner the ability to
Page 257 and 258:
Coriolanus. The scribal use of “T
Page 259 and 260:
Trevisa’s translations were not d
Page 261 and 262:
speche vor to lurne. So men of ser
Page 263 and 264:
Dominus’s arguments repeat Paul
Page 265 and 266:
Prophecy and English, then, affect
Page 267 and 268:
is that the word of God has a parti
Page 269 and 270:
concept—his language is true simp
Page 271 and 272:
Justin’s Epitome of the Philippic
Page 273 and 274:
outside “natural” attributes, o
Page 275 and 276:
confused, and from there, the Lord
Page 277 and 278:
etween meaning and representation,
Page 279 and 280:
narratives) parallels similar conce
Page 281 and 282:
Writing allows Voice to seem univer
Page 283 and 284:
Belch, Stanislaus. Paulus Vladimiri
Page 285 and 286:
Dagenais, John. The Ethics of Readi
Page 287 and 288:
Fowler, David. The Life and Times o
Page 289 and 290:
Kinkade, Berte. The English Transla
Page 291 and 292:
---. Popes, Lawyers, and Infidels.
Page 293 and 294:
Russell, Peter E. “El Descubrimie
Page 295 and 296:
Waters Bennett, Josephine. “Brita
show all

WRITING AUTHORITY IN LATE MEDIEVAL ... - Cornell University

You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles

Delete template?

Save as template?