Dear All,
I come in response to Jon Quitslund's invocation. I've been trying to
understand this discussion and the subject matter and to sort out an answer
to part of it. I don't see that the question of whether demons/daimons have
bodies matters. Either way, they can do what the sprite and his dream do to
Red Cross. If the sprites are the demons envisioned by Xtn theology
obviously they can do what the sprite and his dream do to Red Cross; they
can do anything short of controlling his will. Since somebody asked,
however, Do demons have bodies? Not in Xtn theology. Aquinas says that
(like the angels they once were) they are separata [from matter]. But in
Neoplatonism including Ficino, despite occasional equations of them with
guardian or planetary angels, daemons or daimons do have bodies--usually
aery or aetherial; to have them is part of their mediatorial function. See
Walker's Spiritual & Demonic Magic pp. 47 and ff. As Walker explains, in
Ficino, these good or neutral daemons have souls that can work directly on
the human soul. This would seem to fit Archimago's sprite's behavior, and
the fact that in Spenser sprites can also be good ("a goodly creature whom
he deemed in mind/ To be or sprite or angel" FQ II.x.66?)indicates that
they are from Neoplatonism not Christiantiy. The context is not similar.
Ficino brings daimons up in the course of accounting defensively for the
effectiveness of his astrological, musical, and sometimes imagistic
therapies, not in a context like Archimago's. But Ficino admits that bad
daimons might intercept these beneficent communications and insinuate
themselves into a person and that sounds like what Archimago's daemon does.
Don't know if this helps. Carol Kaske
At 07:13 AM 3/15/2003 +0000, you wrote:
>All ---
>
>Genevieve Guenther has already responded well to this from Anne Prescott,
>but I
>think more might be said.
>
>What is the basis for saying that demons don't have bodies? Along with
>angels,
>I believe, they were thought to be clothed not with fleshy matter, but with
>aetherial bodies. Think of Donne's 'Air and Angels.' D. P. Walker years ago
>did extensive work on this subject, in tandem with his study of the effects of
>music on the soul, and even on the body's health. Perhaps Carol Kaske can
>clear up some of the confusion here.
>
>Anne's distinction between 'Ficino's daimons' and 'real demons' may be
>anachronistic, although I grant that the Bible and Ficino carried different
>kinds of authority in Spenser's day and age. What Spenser 'believed,' and
>what
>he found not necessarily true but potentially useful, are matters to be
>pondered interminably; I tried to address the possibilities in 'Spenser's
>Supreme Fiction.
>
>Would someone (or several) better qualified than I care to address the status
>of demons and the like in Tasso's poetry?
>
>Here's to further travel in the garden of forking paths!
>
>Jon Quitslund (Geo. Washington U.)
> > A scientific explanation of how demons affect the psyche might seem to be
> > extraneous (if they exist they don't need to work simply naturally) if we
> > define "scientific" as more or less like modern science. But in my work on
> > David in the Renaissance I keep running across a real fascination with the
> > medical (and hence scientific, sort of) implications of demonic possession.
> > The problem, I gather, was whether demons, who don't have bodies, can
> respond
> > to music and how. I guess what I'm trying to say is that before science and
> > superstition went their more or less separate ways there was what one could
> > call a "science" of demonology: there were rules for demons and they
> couldnt'
> > do just anything they liked. Hence (pseudo)scientific theories about demons
> > and witches, for example. I wish I knew if Spenser literally believed in
> > demons--not Ficino's daimons but real demons. They are there in the
> Bible, so
> > maybe he did. Anne Prescott.
> >
> > >===== Original Message From Sidney-Spenser Discussion List
> > <[log in to unmask]> =====
> > >All --
> > >
> > >I'm still pondering many points in the lively discussion (I guess wet
> dreams
> > >really get us where we live), wondering if I have anything to
> contribute. I
> > do
> > >have an immediate response to the idea that demons, as they appear in FQ,
> > >are 'supernatural': for Spenser, I think not, given the traditions of
> thought
> > >and definitions of 'nature' on which he drew. 'Preternatural,' I suppose,
> > and
> > >mind-boggling, but one of Spenser's aims as a poet, in my view, was to
> expand
> > >and enliven his readers' the epiphenomenal within the phenomenal
> world. His
> > >poem features demons (or daimons) from above and from below, all to be
> > >understood as manifestations of the 'spirit' side of Nature. Think of
> Nature
> > >in the Cantos: a boundary figure, representing the nature of Nature and
> > >associating it with divinity. Think of the Graces on Mt. Acidale:
> suspected
> > by
> > >clueless Calidore of being demons, and so they are in a sense: not
> > >ontologically separate from the sprites that Archimago calls up, in his
> > >misappropriation of Venerean energies.
> > >> Certainly, anyone postulating the existence of demons could also
> > >> postulate their influence upon the human mind. A scientific explanation
> > for
> > >> how, exactly, a demon might affect changes in a human's psyche seems
> > >> extraneous...especially for a 16th century writer. Demonic
> influence, by
> > >> definition, is supernatural...preternatural.
> > >>
> > >> MRS
> >
> > anne prescott
> > english, barnard college
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