Well, but the struggle in 10 (Gardner) responds first to the evasions
performed in the preceding sonnets, the efforts and failures to break
down the wall of self, so he pleads desperately for a one-shot
ravishment here and now. As Dr Apricot says, it's more than false
modesty, it's because he wants his will to be overcome. But the
resonance comes from the sequence-plot. In this context, whether or
not it's rape, homosexual rape, metaphoric rape etc., doesn't seem
very interesting or germane. For one thing, he's asking for it.
On Nov 21, 2007, at 7:16 AM, anne prescott wrote:
> Well, same-sex rape, anyway. If ravishment is the same as rape--not
> crystal clear to me, although the words are related even if not
> identical. "Homosexual" is a debated term for the early modern
> period, of course. In any case I'm not sure that the rules governing
> sexual harassment apply to divinities. Turkeys are probably safe,
> tomorrow, but I'd be careful about letting a swan near me (although
> divine swans probably prefer younger females to this grandmother).
> Seriously, though, what Donne wants seems not the same thing as your
> ordinary rape, and of course what he wants is his will to be
> overcome, not just his modesty, which means in turn that consent is
> not logically possible. He wants not just prevenient grace, so to
> speak, but overcoming grace. No? Anne P.
> On Nov 21, 2007, at 5:47 AM, [log in to unmask] wrote:
>
>> I suppose that 'Batter My Heart, three-person'd God' as a
>> homosexual rape
>> fantasy is a preferable reading to that which conjures up images of
>> battered cod and deep-fried Mars bars. Doesn't rape have to be
>> non-consensual but this is more like a plea for the overcoming of
>> false
>> modesty.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Richard R
>>
>>
>>> Hannibal,
>>>
>>> Thank you for this explanation. I'm afraid that I betray my lack of
>>> knowledge of scholarship each time I post a comment to this list. I
>>> would not have guessed that the readings you describe for either
>>> Teresa
>>> or Donne would exist. But that's surely because I generally shun
>>> critical writing (I'd read more of it if I could, but I have too
>>> little
>>> time left and too many original texts I still want to study).
>>>
>>> Your last statement:
>>>
>>>> I think my broad point is that we need to take greater pains to
>>>> understand early modern religious experience in its own terms.
>>>
>>> is so telling. To truly understand religion, or art, or even science
>>> from late Medieval times within that period's own frame of
>>> reference --
>>> rather than through projection our own age's common viewpoint,
>>> with all
>>> its laughable errors (future generations will readily identify
>>> these,
>>> though we can't easily see them ourselves) -- would appear to be
>>> almost
>>> impossible.
>>>
>>> For example, the possibility of a representation such as
>>> "Petrarchan"
>>> appears not to have been conceivable to humans until centuries after
>>> Petrarch's own time -- if Owen Barfield's study of the past is to be
>>> believed. In his "History in English Words" he says that the
>>> identification of a world view with a particular human being was not
>>> something that was ever conceived until the Renaissance; or, there
>>> is
>>> no record of such a conception prior to that time.
>>>
>>> I mean, it wasn't conceivable then that the world could "validly" be
>>> seen in a "Petrachan" manner or in "Aquinas's way", etc. You
>>> couldn't
>>> just select a perferred point of view and move on, as we do today.
>>> No,
>>> in those times, there was only ONE world, and it existed outside of
>>> humans, "out there" in the perceivable phenomena. And most of those
>>> phenomena themselves were actually objective living organisms, or
>>> else
>>> representations of creatures, gods, nymphs, who normally chose to
>>> remain invisible to humans, wrapping themselves within, or hiding
>>> behind, the veil of the perceivable phenomena. Try "seeing" the
>>> world
>>> that way today. It's difficult!
>>>
>>> Hence, to appreciate what Petrarch, or Dante, or Teresa were
>>> experiencing and thinking as they wrote their works is indeed almost
>>> impossible for a modern person. How do we wipe away from our eyes,
>>> our
>>> own vision, the mechanical universe (which didn't exist in Medieval
>>> times) and see and feel the sun as a living being, image of God,
>>> every
>>> day when we walk outside? How can we read their writings within the
>>> reference frame of the reality they themselves lived?
>>>
>>> It's quite difficult -- if not impossible.
>>>
>>> Just one example of our difficulty: invocation of the muses. To us,
>>> this looks like artifice; perhaps we even think it "cute". I highly
>>> doubt Medieval and earlier writers looked at it that way. To them,
>>> it
>>> was a prayer to the actual, literal source of the words that would
>>> (they hoped) be transmitted to them from the gods, which they would
>>> then record. They conceived themselves as "scribes". Hence, Dante:
>>>
>>> When Love inspires me with delight,
>>> Or pain, or longing, I take careful note,
>>> And as he dictates in my soul, I write.
>>>
>>> [Purgatorio, Canto 24]
>>>
>>> I don't think he was lying to us, or saying this with tongue-in-
>>> cheek.
>>> This is how he felt what we would call "the artistic process"
>>> happened,
>>> how he felt his work was formed, deposited within him. His job was
>>> not
>>> to create (only Love and the gods can create realities out of
>>> nothing),
>>> but rather to sift and sort and select and, ultimately, record/
>>> write.
>>>
>>> Well.. I'm again surely showing my lack of scholarship, since I have
>>> read almost no criticism of Dante, either! These are merely my own
>>> opinions.
>>>
>>> I do thank you very much, Hannibal, for your very interesting
>>> initial
>>> comment and especially for taking the time to provide further
>>> explanation.
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> Kevin
>>>
>>> ----------------------------------------------------
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, 19 Nov 2007 09:37:55 -0500
>>> HANNIBAL HAMLIN <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Kevin,
>>>>
>>>> I didn't express myself very well, I'm afraid. I didn't mean
>>>> that I
>>>> don't take her seriously (I do), but that many, especially American
>>>> academics who assume a particular secular worldview, tend to read
>>>> her
>>>> religious experience in non-religious terms (sexual, psychological,
>>>> political). The same thing has often happened with Donne, another
>>>> writer who blurs boundaries between the sexual and spiritual/
>>>> secular
>>>> and sacred (so that "Batter My Heart," for instance, becomes a
>>>> homosexual rape fantasy).
>>>>
>>>> I think my broad point is that we need to take greater pains to
>>>> understand early modern religious experience in its own terms.
>>>>
>>>> Hannibal
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
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