Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat: a Mirror of Humanist Women Writers in Italy’s Quattrocento

On various instances the Virgin Mary is depicted in Annunciation paintings in the action of reading. This aspect is the main reason why Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat presents such an interesting composition because the Virgin is writing instead of reading. Moreover, in other paintings about Mary and the Magnificat, she is proclaiming it, not writing it. Botticelli created this tondo at a time in northern Italy when writing was at its highest point of respectability and importance. The humanists were turning back to ancient texts and coming up with other essays and documents on philosophy, morality and literature. Women also took part of this action, though in different ways as men. The Madonna del Magnificat suggests the importance of the women humanist writers as the Virgin Mary is writing a text surrounded by male angels and the Christ child. The contents and shape of the painting also reinforce the message. Thus, Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat presents a rich array of symbols as its content not only shows the Virgin Mary in the action of writing, but also reflects the existence of the women humanist writers in northern Italy, an idea reinforced by the shape of the painting, a tondo, which is perceived as a mirror-like form.

The painting is a tondo, or round painting, of 118 cm. of diameter. It presents the Virgin Mary sitting in a golden throne in a three-quarter pose. She has the Christ child sitting in her lap as she is writes in a book. Five male angels surround her, and two of them are crowning her the Queen of Heaven. The back landscape shows a countryside view and a zigzagging river. Ronald Lightbown admits that there is no information on who was the patron of the tondo, but that it was “typical of Florentine devotion to the city’s patron and protector that he should have had Zacharias’s song celebrating the birth of his son, the Baptist, inscribed as if written by the Virgin on the left page of the book.”[1] This song is the Benedictus (Luke 1.68-79), which Zacharias’s sang as a thanksgiving song for the birth of his son. On the right page of the book, Mary is writing the Magnificat (Luke 1.46-55), which is the song of praise and thanks to God that she sings during her visit to her kinswoman Elizabeth.

On a first and naïve glance, the painting reflects three points to the spectators. First, it is a somewhat realistic representation of happy motherhood, as the Virgin sits Christ child in her lap and holds him with her left hand. This pose is common to other Botticelli’s Madonnas, such as the Madonna del Libro and the Madonna of the Eucharist. Second, it is a depiction of the Coronation of the Virgin, the Lord’s proclamation of her divinity and purity. Complexity arises when the spectator begins to analyze the subtext of the painting. The crux of the issue lies in the fact that Mary is writing and in the way the rest of the male characters interacts with her. L.D. and Helen Ettlinger point out that painters like Botticelli and others “manage to convey a feeling of human warmth […] but they nevertheless give a deeper religious significance to them,”[2] thus, the Virgins actions, the other characters, the text she is writing, the landscape, and the shape of the painting call for more complex symbolic meanings.

The Virgin Mary is presented with her traditional symbols. There is a lily engraved in the throne where she sits. Also, she wears a light blue and dark blue cloak, a red dress, a dark blue wrap where the Christ child sits, and a blue, pink and golden scarf. Her features are very fine and her hair is blond, almost a Botticelli trademark for his Madonnas. She sits the Christ child on her left lap. With his left hand he holds a pomegranate, “a symbol of immortality often represented in this context.”[3] His right hand lies on the Virgin’s right wrist. His thumb touches her wrist and his middle finger touches the manuscript. As Mary is gazing downward to the text, the Christ child gazes upward to heaven. The Virgin and baby Jesus are surrounded by five male wingless angels. Lightbown denotes that to balance the rather big size of the child, Botticelli made the three angels who are closer to the book, boys, and young males the two who are crowning the Virgin so the relation of height to the floor would still be believable.[4] Apparently there is a hierarchy between the five angels because only the three youngest have a halo, and of those three, the one who is bending forward to look at the text has a bigger halo. There is no explanation for the lack of halos in the texts, or even a mention of it. One possible explanation could be that the crowning characters were portraits of the patron’s sons, which is why they do not have halos as they are nor really angels. Another explanation could be that there is no sufficient space in the tondo so Botticelli could not paint the halo on the crowning angels because their heads were not fully complete.

Moving on to the back landscape, it shows a zigzagging river and some green hills and trees. Botticelli used similar landscapes in other paintings of the Virgin, such as the Chigi Madonna or the Virgin of the Eucharist, the Cestello Annunciation, the Virgin Adoring the Child and the Madonna del Padiglione. The iconography is the same, a river and green hills with a few trees. The river becomes the most important aspect of the back landscape because the Virgin Mary’s various epithets are related to water, such as “the safe harbor” and “the star of the sea.” There is no mentioning of the back landscape in the texts on Botticelli, so the most probable guess for the reappearance of this landscape in other paintings related to the Virgin, is that the tranquil river and country scene serve as an epithet for the Virgin.

The shape of the painting becomes, also, an epithet for the Virgin Mary. William S. A. Dale points out that “a conscious reference to the visual effect of the convex mirror may well explain the twisted pose of the Christ Child, the crowding in of the attendant angels, and the dark concentric bands which close in the upper circumference of the panel.”[5] The use of convex mirrors for paintings was well developed during the Renaissance by Italian and Flemish artists like Donatello, Botticelli and Jan van Eyck. Another attribute for the Virgin Mary is “speculum sine macula” or the spotless mirror. Jan van Eyck used this resource in the Arnolfini Portrait since it “also relate[s] to the biblical concept of spousal”[6] and in the Ghent Altarpiece, the Dresden Altarpiece, and the Madonna of Cannon van der Paele because he inscribed in the moldings verses taken from the seventh chapter of the Book of Wisdom:

She is more beautiful than the sun and above all the order of the stars: being compared with the light, she is found before it (v. 29). For she is the brightness of the everlasting light, and the spotless mirror of the majesty of God (v. 26).[7]

Dale also points out the influence of northern European painters on Italian artists in the fifteenth century. Thus, it is probable that Donatello and Botticelli saw one of van Eyck’s paintings, or other Flemish artist, and wanted to portray this epithet of Mary in their own paintings or sculptures.

On technical terms, the best proof that Botticelli created this round painting to resemble a convex mirror is, as Dale pointed out, the concentric bands at the top of the painting that act as a roof for Mary. Dale explains in his article how this was accomplished, and how artists studied convex mirrors and the different shapes objects reflected on them from various places. For this specific case, Dale presents in his article the example of the Madonna del Perdono relief in the Museo dell’ Opera del Duomo in Siena. Later, he references Moritz Hauptmann as he “saw the sculptured tondo as the main inspiration for the celebrated Madonnas of Botticelli in the second half of the fifteenth century.”[8] Also, technically speaking, the choice of a mirror or a mirror-like form like the tondo lures the viewers “into the world of impression and reflection [and] confronts us with the marvels and ambiguities of vision.”[9] In this way, the shape of the painting, as it resembles a mirror, serves as a mirror to reflect the Virgin’s purity and divinity. In this case, the round shape of the painting reinforces Mary’s epithet as the “spotless mirror.”

Continuing with the idea of the mirror and the Virgin being a speculum sine macula or spotless mirror, Millard Meiss states that “the Virgin was regarded as a window through which the spirit of God passed to earth. From these metaphors there was developed, in the ninth century of earlier, the image of the sunlight and the glass.”[10] Thus, the spread of glass windows in churches depicting, most commonly, the Annunciation. Meiss also quotes what Christ told Saint Bridget after her vision of the Nativity:

I have assumed the flesh without sin and lust, entering the womb of the Virgin just as the sun passes through a precious stone. For as the sun, penetrating a glass window, does not damage it, the virginity of the Virgin is not spoiled by my assumption of human form.[11]

These words reinforce the idea of Mary’s purity and how she either reflects or let pass through the light of God.

With the concept of the tondo acting as a mirror, Botticelli reflects the situation of women humanist writers in the quattrocento Italy. According to Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr. “the learned woman appeared, in fact, at the same time as the men who espoused ‘the new learning.’”[12] Thus, after the late 1300s women humanist writers emerged but faced many perils. Among the women King and Rabil mention are: Maddalena Scrovegni (1356-1429), Battista da Montefeltro Malatesta (1383-1450), Isotta Nogarola (1418-1466), Ginevra Nogarola Sforza di Bentivogli (1417-1461/8), Cecilia Gonzaga (1425-11451), Cassandra Fedele (1465-1558) and Laura Cereta (1469-1499) to name a few. These women all shared a passion for learning that was encouraged at a very young age by their fathers and that was facilitated by their wealth, since most came from aristocratic families. King and Rabil point out that the problem with these women humanists was that:

They were recognized by their families, by male humanists, and by their cities as prodigies. Those women, however, who aspired to continue a humanist career into their adult years were not greeted with the encouragement or praise they had received as prodigies, but icily and with hostility. There was simply no place for the learned woman in the social environment for Renaissance Italy.[13]

Thus, as soon as these women entered the marrying age, what was once praised and encouraged was now seen with bad eyes. After encountering such an unwelcome appraisal of their work, most of these women accepted what society dictated and got married or took the religious vows. Of those who married, only Laura Cereta continued her humanist studies after her marriage; the others stopped them. The option of entering a convent seemed appealing to these women because there they could continue their studies. Unluckily, there remain no documents from them after they entered a convent.

The reason of this denial of their praise as writers comes from society’s double standard about women. Joan Kelly expresses how noble ladies “appear to be the equivalent[s] of the courtier”[14] because they were expected to know of literature, music, painting, and to dance and be festive. Kelly says that “culture is an accomplishment for noblewoman and man alike, used to charm other as much as to develop the self. But for the woman, charm had become the primary occupation and aim,”[15] thus, what society wanted from women was not to be exclusively learned but pretty. After the first demonstration of virtuosity in the letters society would praise the women writers but afterwards it would have tried to dissuade them from the goal of being a true humanist.

This is where Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat reflects what was happening to women writers in the quattrocento Italy. Susan Schibanoff’s main thesis on her essay “Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat: Constructing the Woman Writer in Early Humanist Italy” is that “even as Botticelli’s painting acknowledges, indeed celebrates, the existence of the woman writer, it attempts to persuade the viewer that she is an ‘impossible’ figure.”[16] First, the writer in the painting is the Virgin Mary, the ultimate expression of purity and chastity, and the most impossible figure to become close to. Second, and most important, is the way Botticelli painted the interaction of the characters. While Mary holds the Christ child on her lap, she writes with her right hand. She has written the Magnificat and the Benedictus. The Christ child rests his hand on her arm. One finger touches the manuscript and another finger touches her wrist. With such gesture, the Christ child guides the Virgin on her writing. Then, Mary gazes down to the text while the Christ child gazes to heaven as to receive divine inspiration. Also, she is surrounded by male figures only. Third, the Virgin writes the Benedictus, which is a previous male literary accomplishment, not her own creation like the Magnificat which she previously wrote but for which she had received inspiration from God.

Schibanoff counterpoises Botticelli’s other male writers with the Madonna del Magnificat because the latter is clearly subdued to male domination. Botticelli’s male writers are solitary and whose source of inspiration comes from a divine figure as the writer looks up to heaven. Also, Botticelli gives them free hand to write whatever they want without an aid or someone touching or guiding them. As seen before, the opposite happens in the Madonna del Magnificat because she is surrounded by males, one guides her writing, and she is writing something that is not her own. Hence, the point of the painting is that women can be writers but they are “miraculous” and not completely original because they need some male guidance for the creation of a text. As Schibanoff points it out, this tondo “is a canvas that reflects the conflicts and tensions of early humanist culture as it experienced the emergence of a new phenomenon, not the woman writer per se but her construction as ordinary,”[17] so women writers were still the prodigy that could never be more than that because a patriarchal society would not give them space to further their development.

In conclusion, Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat is more than a beautiful tondo of the Virgin Mary. The content and shape give out more than epithets for the Virgin Mary. Taken the painting from its historical context, it is a rich canvas that tells of the situation of the humanist women writers in Italy. Though at first society appraised and encouraged the humanist women writers, this same society created a rhetoric of impossibility in which these women were seen as prodigies, not real writers. The shape of the painting and its subject matter reinforces this point because it serves as a mirror which reflects the “impossibility” of a woman writer by having the Virgin Mary as the ultimate writer. Then again, Mary is controlled by a male figure, another sign of “impossibility” of creativity thought for women. Above these points, the painting presents an interesting scene, since the Virgin is most frequently depicted reading rather than writing.

Bibliography

Dale, William S.A. “Donatello’s Chellini Madonna.” Apollo, March 1995, 3.

Kelly, Joan, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Feminism & Renaissance Studies, edited by Lorna Hutson. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999.

King, Margaret L. and Albert Rabil Jr. Her Immaculate Hand. Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983.

L.D. and Helen Ettlinger. Botticelli. New York: Oxford UP, 1977.

Lightbown, Ronald. Botticelli. Vol. 1. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978.

Meiss, Millard. “Light as Form and Symbol in some Fifteenth-Century Paintings” in ArtBulletin, 27, 1945, 175.

Purtle, Carol. The Marian Paintings of Jan van Eyck. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982.

Seidel, Linda. Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993.

Schibanoff, Susan. “Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat: Costructing the Woman Writer in Early Humanist Italy” in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, March 1994, 190.

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[1] Ronald Lightbown, Botticelli vol. 1 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 55.

[2] L.D. and Helen Ettlinger. Botticelli (New York: Oxford UP, 1977), 52.

[3] L.D. and Helen Ettlinger, 52.

[4] Lightbown, 55.

[5] William S.A. Dale, Donatello’s Chellini Madonna.” Apollo (March 1995), 8.

[6] Carol Purtle, The Marian Paintings of Jan van Eyck (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1982), 124.

[7] Dale, 5.

[8] Dale, 8.

[9] Linda Seidel, Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1993), 143.

[10] Millard Meiss, Light as Form and Symbol in some Fifteenth-Century Paintings” in Art Bulletin, 27, (1945), 177.

[11] Meiss, 177.

[12] Margaret L. King and Albert Rabil, Jr., Her Immaculate Hand (Binghamton: Medieval & Renaissance Texts and Studies, 1983), 11.

[13] King and Rabil, 25.

[14] Joan Kelly, “Did Women Have a Renaissance?” in Feminism & Renaissance

Studies, edited by Lorna Hutson (Oxford: Oxford UP, 1999), 33.

[15] Kelly, 33.

[16] Susan Schibanoff, “Botticelli’s Madonna del Magnificat: Costructing the Woman Writer

in Early Humanist Italy” in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, March 1994, 190.

[17] Shibanoff, 203.

Note: This essay was written in 2004, for Dr. McColl's class on Italian Renaissance Art (Washington College). I'm posting this to continue with the issue of women in literature and, in this case, women writers. After this class and this paper, everytime I go to a museum or look at paintings of the Virgin Mary, I look for mirrors in them.

Solitude

Jean-Luc se lavó la cara y se miró en el espejo quebrado que tenia frente al lavatorio. Tenía la tez amarilla, la barba crecida y los ojos inyectados de sangre. Sin querer darle más importancia a su apariencia, se rascó la cabeza y salió del baño hacia el pasillo del colegio que el grupo de Médicos sin Fronteras había convertido en un hospital improvisado después del terremoto.

Al salir del baño, evadió algunos escombros que todavía estaban en el piso y entró a la cafetería para servirse un café. El café de Haití no era muy bueno pero ya estaba acostumbrado a no beber buen café desde que dejo Bélgica hacia tres meses. Después se dirigió a lo que había sido la cancha de basquetbol del colegio, ahora lleno de enfermos, doctores y enfermeras. Saludó con un ademán a Mathilde, cirujana jefe del grupo, y siguió hasta donde se encontraban los enfermos de cólera.

Al principio del brote, Jean-Luc había sido asignado a esta zona ya que todavía no contaba con una especialidad médica, por lo que no era necesitado en el área de cirugía y partos. Jean-Luc era parlanchín, jugaba al fútbol con los niños y le gustaba oír los chismes de las cocineras. Pero desde que empezaron a llegar los enfermos del cólera, Jean-Luc había cambiado poco a poco, se veía más flaco, callado y decía que estaba muy ocupado cuando algún chiquillo lo invitaba a jugar.

Todo comenzó cuando murió el primer bebé que llegó al hospital improvisado. Lo había traído uno de sus hermanos, un niño de unos 9 años, porque su abuela estaba ocupada con el resto de la familia, y sus padres habían muerto en el terremoto. Jean-Luc, en ese momento, se encontraba cerca de la puerta del colegio-hospital y sintió que alguien le jalaba de la camisa. Miró hacia abajo y vio a un niño con un bebé en brazos y unas moscas volando a su alrededor.

Jean-Luc tomó al bebé y lo llevó pronto a revisar. No duró mucho en reconocer que el pobre tenía cólera. El hermanito mayor se quedó junto a la cuna, callado. Cerca de la medianoche, en una de sus rondas, encontró al niño dormido junto a la cuna donde el bebé yacía muerto. Jean-Luc envolvió al bebé con la sábana y despertó al niño. “Je sui desolé, c’est mort.” El niño miró el bultito de la sábana y no dijo nada. Jean-Luc se llevó el cuerpo al crematorio y cuando regresó, el niño se había ido.

Esa noche no pudo conciliar el sueño. Su catre se convirtió en un lugar donde se acostaba algunas horas pero no donde descansaba. Cada vez llegaban más enfermos de cólera y había más niños solos en las cunas porque el adulto que los había traído debía seguir cuidando a la tienda de campaña que se había convertido en casa. Jean-Luc pensaba en lo detestable que era la soledad, no solo dentro del hospital, pero en todas las personas que quedaron huérfanas, viudas o que perdieron a sus hijos con el terremoto. Y ahora el cólera llegaba a terminar de destruir al pueblo de Haití.

El último caso en entrar al hospital era el de Michelle, una muchachita de apenas 19 años, con 7 meses de embarazo. Su novio, Antoine, la había traído con el alba, en un carretillo, porque ella estaba tan débil que con costos se mantenía sentada. En su francés criollo, Antoine les rogaba a los doctores que la ayudaran, que no la podía perder ni a ella ni a su hijo. Este era su primer bebé ya que se habían propuesto tener una familia pronto, para sobrellevar las pérdidas de sus familiares y vecinos.

Jean-Luc los miraba de lejos con resignación. Desde hacía semanas su insomnio se había convertido en algo habitual. Su cansancio iba enmascarado de trabajo. En las mañanas iba de un lado a otro, atendiendo pacientes, recibiendo enfermos nuevos, llevándole comida a sus compañeros. En las noches caminaba silencioso entre las camas, poniendo en orden los mosquiteros y revisando que todos los sueros estuvieran bien colocados. No podía dormir porque seguía pensando en el primer bebé y en su hermanito que tuvo que regresar donde su abuela para darle la noticia con apenas 9 años. Ahora, la idea de que Antoine perdiera a su novia y a su hijo hacia que Jean-Luc se alejara de su catre. Prefería quedarse cerca del pabellón de enfermos, al aire libre. No había mucho ruido en el hospital.

Nota: Este cuento fue escrito para el concurso de cuento corto de 89decibeles. El tema era "insomnio." Cuando estaba en el colegio yo escribía mucho, ahora solo lo hago para este concurso. Al final de cuentas, me gusta más el análisis. Lo escribí en el trabajo, un día lento. No esperen mucho, por favor.

Libretto

Para esta época navideña, les ofrezco diarios hechos a mano y libretas de apuntes, marca Libretto, confeccionadas por mi.

Las libretas de tapa suave cuestan ¢2.500 y las de tapa dura cuestan ¢3.000. Ambas cuentan con una protección de plástico.

Tengo una gran variedad de papeles para las portadas y para el interior utilizo papel Bond y Hammerhil en colores como blanco, crema, caqui y verde.

Si lleva 5 libretas, la sexta es gratis!


Los diarios están hechos con un vinil semejante al cuero, en color negro o café oscuro, con un elástico como cierre. Las tapas están cosidas a máquina. Los cuadernillos están cosidos a mano con la costura del lomo expuesta. Por el momento estos diarios se venden contra pedido.



















También, les ofrezco libretas para pegar en la refrigeradora (con imán), cuadernos de dibujo, y otros tipos de empaste artesanales (fotos pronto).

Deje un comentario para pedidos, o por medio de la pagina de Facebook de Alta Lectura.

The Wife of Bath

Alisoun, the Woman behind the Wife of Bath:

When Fiction is as Complex as Reality

Arthur Lindley in his 1992 article “Vanysshed was this Daunce, He Nyste Where”: Alisoun’s Absence in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale states that she is a character constructed by a male author, and based on what other men have said, so she is absent in The Canterbury Tales. He proposes that enclosing the Wife of Bath into one category, such as feminist, misogynist, battered wife, etc., is the “fallacy of the single key” (2). Understanding that she is such a complex character, he points out the varied number of “keys.” But for Lindley these keys eventually lead to the fact that her character is not a real woman, and is not based on real women’s words. For him, she is non existent outside her own Prologue and Tale. I oppose this idea. Chaucer created a vivid interpretation of a woman in the Wife of Bath, and she is present outside her own Prologue and Tale.

The Wife of Bath’s complexity as a character is rooted in her independence and strength as a woman. Married five times, she knows how to deal with her husbands. It seems that she has made a career out of marrying. She is aware that as a woman her life is supposed to evolve around men, specifically her husband. Taught by her “dame” (line 576), Alisoun knows how to be the master of the house and of the marriage. For many, she is a proto-feminist, a woman who knows that her place is not below her husband’s place in a male ruled society during the Middle Ages. She scolds her husbands for not treating her well, demands a type of payment for having sex, and looks for “maistrie and sovereynetee.” But as her feminism may surface in her prologue, there are still parts of her speech and narrative that seem misogynist, or contradict her previous words. The best example of this is the ending of her Tale, where after gaining sovereignty in her own decisions and in the relationship, the old woman turns into a beautiful and young maid who “obeyed hym [the knight] in every thing / That myghte doon hym pleasance or likyng” (lines 1255-1256). Thus, Alisoun is complex. She is not either black or white, as any person is a mixture of shades of grey.

Her age is also a sign of her complexity. At the time of the pilgrimage to Canterbury, she is apparently over forty years of age. She is an experienced woman, who, as said before, knows how to handle a relationship in her favor. Most of her Prologue is a confession on her experience as a wife. She is telling her secret as if she is passing on her legacy. The Summoner is very interested to learn from her, not just because of what she knows about women, but also because she is a good user of words and situations. But as she gets older, her mind starts digressing. The Wife of Bath remembers young Alisoun “ful of ragerye, / Stibourn and strong, and joly as a pye” (lines 455-456) and then sighs for her old self. Age, for her, has become her enemy because it has “biraft my beautee and my pith” (line 475). Also, her narrative continuously goes back and forth, and she looses thread of her line of thought, especially when she talks about Jankyn. This point is evident in lines 585 and 586 when she realizes she lost the idea of her prologue and says “But now, sire, lat me se what I shal seyn. / A ha! By God, I have my tale ageyn.” The length of her prologue, which was also remarked by the Friar, is a sign that she does not want to stop, that she has so much to say, and that she could go on for even more.

Though the Wife of Bath seems like a head-strong woman who would not take no for an answer, and who is tougher than men, she is also the embodiment of charm, loveliness and gentleness. She is a wife by choice, a nurturer. The old woman in her tale mentions the words “gentillesse” and “gentil” at least twenty times when she is addressing the knight on their wedding night. The knight most certainly has not behaved with “gentillesse” with her and the first maid who he raped. But the old woman is kind enough to tell him what women really want. She wants to marry the knight even though he does not want to marry her and publicly humiliates her in front of the Queen. Nobility and goodness of the soul come from good actions, and it is not devoted solely to the rich. The Wife of Bath, speaking through the old woman’s voice in her tale, is making a point for her benefit. Just as Jankyn believed the stories about bad women in his book, many believed them so too. Alisoun proves her husband and the knight how women are also kind and good. Also, she experiences real love for the fist time with Jankyn, when they wandered on the fields with “trewely […] swich dalliance” (line 565). Of all her husbands, she loved Jankyn the best, for she married him not because of money but because she fancied him; he won her love. On the other hand, if her power of love is determined by her words, her power of hate is determined by her narrative. Her first three husbands she loved them well in the sense that they provided for her and she was in charge of the house and her life. Her fourth husband, she disliked him because he gave her the same fight she gave to him. She could not be the master of the house with her fourth husband and her feelings for him are strongly marked.

Probably a good way to point out Alisoun’s existence in the tales is the fact that she is a victim of domestic violence. The person she loves the most attacks her physically and mentally. Jankyn beats her so hard that she says she can feel the pain in her ribs until her dying day, and then he talks to her gently, or “gloss,” so she would forgive him and have sex with him. She acknowledges his violence when she says “for that he / Was of his love daungerous to me” (lines 513-514) because at the age of forty, a twenty year old man beats her “on every bon” (line 511). But what she hated the most from this relationship was his mental harassment. It is well known how Jankyn uses his book of “wicked wives” to torment Alisoun. Every night Jankyn would read out loud from his book and laugh and comment at the stories. How can any woman endure this mental violence? Alisoun married him for love, and she appears to be faithful and loving to him, and she even gives him all her properties. Jankyn repays her with sermons that do not apply to her. She has been the example of “gentillesse” with him, and he is behaving as the knight in her tale behaved with the maid at the beginning of the tale. She says “Who wolde wene, or who wolde suppose, / The wo that in myn herte was, and pyne?” (lines 786-787). Not standing any more abuse, she tears three pages from his book. Jankyn reacts, apparently as he had reacted before for other reasons, and hits her in the head. Alisoun falls to the ground, probably a little dizzied by the punch, and plans what she will say to him. She is an experienced woman, and even though it hurts her that her loved husband hits her, she sees a way to stop the abuse. She accuses him of wanting to murder her for her lands, which he already posses, and slaps him. From now on, Jankyn will “kneel” for her and she remains the master of her house and sovereignty.

Apart from finding Alisoun in her own complexity as a character, she is an omnipresent participant of other characters’ tales. The Miller tells a tale about a carpenter and his wife Alisoun. Having the same name could be a coincidence, but the Miller’s Alisoun and the Wife of Bath are similar. Both Alisouns marry an older man which they do not necessarily love. They prefer a young, handsome clerk, that is, Nicholas or Jankyn. Also, they both find in sex “revel and […] melodye” (line 3652). Both Alisouns are women who enjoy sex and transpire sexual powers. The Miller takes a long time describing her physical appearance and attire, especially parts of her anatomy that point out to her genitals. The Wife of Bath is described as being gap-toothed, a sign of lust, and she admits she like having sex. Just as the Miller’s Alisoun has an affaire with Nicholas, the Wife of Bath was seeing Jankyn before her fourth husband died. It is not known if the Miller spoke with the Wife of Bath before telling his tale, but it could be a plausible option.

Another point worth mentioning is that the Serjeant at the Law or the Man of Law’s Tale precedes the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale. His story is about Custance, which seems taken from The Legend of Good Women. The Man of Law presents two sides of women. Custance is on one side as the good and passive wife who does not fight back her destiny. The Swodanesse and Donegild are situated on the other side as the evil and active women who murder and lie. The Man of Law’s Tale is an “either-or” type of story, where women are either good or bad. As a reaction, the Wife of Bath’s Tale is about real women who are not “either-or.” In her Prologue there are lust, love, hate, violence, and other emotions. The Wife of Bath acts but is not evil. She looks for her benefit in a time when her rights as a woman, and therefore as an individual, were practically non existent. Her Prologue is a response to the Man of Law’s Tale because she is saying “I am not like Custance but I am still a good wife, a real one.” The Wife of Bath demonstrates her presence by responding to another character’s tale.

The Clerk’s Tale has a small but important detail that was brought up by the Wife of Bath in her Prologue. A reading of the Clerk’s Tale presents a marquis, Walter, who wants to find out if his wife, Griselde, is true to him. Walter’s actions are similar to a phrase mentioned by the Wife of Bath in her Prologue when she says that people try horses, pots, basins, and clothes before they buy them, “But folk of wyves maken noon assay, / Til they be wedded” (lines 290-291). Walter is testing Griselde like he would have tried a new coat or a new horse, even though he already knew she was a good wife. The Wife of Bath’s influence as a sort of inspiration for Clerk’s Tale is strong. Finally, the Clerk addresses the Wife of Bath after he finishes his tale in a song that calls women not to behave entirely like Griselde, but to be more like the Wife. He appears to be flirting with the Wife, but apparently, he misunderstands the Wife’s message of “gentillesse” since the Wife was also a nice, gentil woman.

Returning to Arthur Lindley and his essay, he says “Alisoun is a lustrus naturae […] a woman born of man, conspicuously without mother or daughters, but with many fathers” (4) as one of his main points trying to dismiss the Wife of Bath’s existence. I tried to prove this point wrong by the previous analysis of her existence within her Prologue and inside other character’s tales. He states that Alisoun is “what men produce when they think about women” (4), but as I mentioned before, many ideas of women convey either goodness or evil. Women either are maids, virgins and almost saints, or are traitors and murderess. I think Chaucer conveyed in the Wife of Bath a vast amount of complexities, not entirely devoted to women, but also to men. Also, Lindley points out that since she is talking about previous texts written by men, she is presenting a table of contents instead of a speech. But copying what other authors said was valid for Chaucer’s time. If Lindley states that the Wife does not exist because she is using other people’s words, is saying that the rest of the characters do not exist as well, and that Chaucer is a mere scrivener. Finally, Lindley says “the character, having found her authors and found them not to her liking, tries to destroy them [by ripping the pages from Jankyn’s book]” (5). This statement contradicts his point of her non existence because he has just said that she acts by her own will. Chaucer made her react to Jankyn’s reading, which is understandable for any reader who is disturbed by the contents of Jankyn’s book. She is not feminist or misogynist; she is just human.

Lindley presents another point trying to eliminate Alisoun from the material world of fiction by saying that using humanism to defend the Wife would lead to three fallacies: “confusing her point with Chaucer’s; confusing her with womankind; and confusing her with a real person” (8). Point granted. But she is none of the above. She is a fictional character, a depiction of a woman in a given time and place. If people still read her Prologue and Tale since the 1400s it is because she has many important and interesting things to say. Lindley even implies that she is a fake because she travels alone and no one else in the company knows her, unlike the Guildsmen, who travel together, or the Miller, the Reeve and the Summoner, who know each other (8). But this point would also pertain the Clerk or the narrator. She is known as the Wife of Bath. Later, the readers find out her name. as I mentioned before she is a woman, not womankind. If you take away the name from where she comes from, she is just a wife, a widow, a woman. Lindley presents the Wife of Bath as a secretive woman trying to hide her “pryvetee” from the other pilgrims by speaking but not revealing, as “her life […] is a closed book, part of the point being, of course, that male authority cannot know the privetee of female experience” (10). Lindley goes back to the fact that she was “created” by men, but it is also valid to say that any fictitious character or real person is a partially open book; no one is a fully open book. People decide what to show and what to hide.

The Wife of Bath is Alisoun. She has a name. She is a fictitious character, but her complexity is so genuine, she resembles real women. Created by a man, Chaucer, she has become an emblem for women. Many call her feminist. Others think she is still governed by the patriarchal society. Others find in her a battered wife. Arthur Lindley proposes she is absent, non existent. On the contrary, her complexity points out her existence. She presents a little of everything. Her mind, her actions, her life and her words are valid in The Canterbury Tales and in the real world. Her presence is so powerful, she influences other characters in the Tales and in reality, and she is probably the most studied pilgrim in the Tales.

Works Cited

Chaucer, Geoffrey. The Canterbury Tales. Ed. Larry D. Benson. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2000.

Lindley, Arthur. “‘Vanysshed was this Daunce, He Nyste Where’: Alisoun’s Absence in the Wife of Bath’s Prologue and Tale.” ELH 59.1 (Spring, 1992): 1-21

Nota: Este ensayo fue escrito en 2003 para una clase sobre The Canterbury Tales con el profesor Lamond, en Washington College.

Lady Victims by Cat and Girl

Madame Bovary

After thirty or so pages of Madame Bovary, by Gustave Flaubert, I was unimpressed by the story. I must admit that the narrative was solid and punctual, but the descriptions were taking over the facts: Monsieur Bovary and his young life as a country doctor. Where in France was this famed lady? Then, finally and unexpectedly, almost creeping at the end of a chapter, I was amazed and hooked by the sheer sincerity and ripping emotion of Madame Bovary:

“But she could hardly persuade herself that the quietness of her present life was the happiness of her dreams.”

In that final sentence I understood Emma Bovary in essence. Who wouldn’t want more in life? Albeit her means, she tried to be honest to herself and pursued her idea of happiness. Are we to judge this?

Perhaps, and more interesting for me, is the fact that the novel opens and closes with references to Charles Bovary, in the manner of a school mate re-telling his story. A man talking about another man’s wife. Though this narrator expresses Emma feelings, I was compelled to feel sorry for her and dislike her at the same time. What if she had told her story herself?

Nota: Disculpas si el cambio de idioma los apabulla. Es de costumbre mía escribir en inglés por cuestión de estudios y comodidad. Esperen posts Espanglish de vez en cuando.

Madame de Pompadour

En Munich, en la Alte Pinakothek, me tope con esta dama. Se trata del retrato de Madame de Pompadour de Francois Boucher. La audioguía me explicó el cuadro y me asombré al conocer un poco sobre la vida de esta famosa dama. Cortesana del rey Louis XV de Francia, fue más que una amante. El audio hablaba de su influencia política, de su correspondencia con pensadores de la época, y hasta de su afinidad por la música. Lo que más me llamó la atención de la pintura fue que una de sus manos sostenía un libro. Por qué Mme. de Pompadour decidió que su retrato fuera de esta forma? La referencia a la lectura, por más pequeña que fuera, me atrajo poderosamente.

Intención

Se comienza con una página en blanco. Se tiene el resto del cuaderno por delante… ¿O será que se tiene el resto de la vida por delante? En todo caso, esto es Alta Lectura, mi proyecto después de mi gran proyecto de vida, la maestría, la tesis. ¿Y ahora qué? Pues esta página ya no está tan vacía. Pienso seguir llenándola con reseñas y análisis de novelas, con ideas sueltas sobre literatura, y con alguno que otro ensayo que escribí en la universidad y siento que merece ser leído.

“Alta lectura” me refiere a dos hechos fundamentales en el ser literario: la confección creativa por parte del escritor y el acto íntimo de leer por parte del lector. Ya sea tecleada, dictada o escrita en papel, toda obra literaria es “hecha a mano,” al estilo de las más finas prendas de moda. Por otro lado, al igual que un vestido en un escaparate deja de ser un pedazo de tela al ser usado, la obra literaria deja de ser un pedazo de papel en un estante al ser leído.

Esta es mi intención. Espero que crezca y llegue lejos. Pura vida.