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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