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SIDNEY-SPENSER  November 2005

SIDNEY-SPENSER November 2005

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Subject:

Re: Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?

From:

"James C. Nohrnberg" <[log in to unmask]>

Reply-To:

Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>

Date:

Mon, 28 Nov 2005 15:02:46 -0500

Content-Type:

text/plain

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Parts/Attachments

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I guess that much turns on where we place the "there."  "There, in that 
place, do they calle ungratefulness( a) virtue?"  So I take the line NOT to 
mean: "Up there in the skies, do they falsely denominate and denounce as 
ungratefulness (i.e., the ungraciousness of the mistress towards the lover) 
what is, down here, called a virtue?"  I think the line rather means: "Up 
there, do they call that a (severe but apparent) virtue (and appraise it as 
such)--that which down here we'd call, frankly and accurately speaking, 
plain ungratefulness?"  So I think the other possibility, that up there they 
slander the virtue of chastity as being a vice--that of heartless lack of 
fellow feeling and a failure to appreciate and reward the devotion of the 
lover--is not really a very strong one, even if, initially, we are meant to 
be confused.  In passing:  Ungratefulness was taken as a truly serious 
defect, a threat to the social order (as ungratefulness to parents in King 
Lear, or to God in the Father's first words in Par.Lost III).  Thus Sidney 
later in the sequence, warning his narrower audience:   "Ungrateful who is 
called, the worst of evils is spoken" (A&S, 5th Song, line 42, following 
from ll. 40f., "But of they soul, so fraught with such ungratefulness / As 
where thou soon mightst help, most faith doth most oppress.").   Citations: 
 "Is not the same vice of unthankfulness that soweth dissentious & quarrerls 
between the children and the father, between brethre, kinsfolk & friends, 
and all for wnat of acknowledging one towards another , that bond of nature 
wherewith we ought to be tied, and that secondary supply of good turns which 
knit us inseparably, & make us daily beholding unto them, if we consider 
exactly the natre of our estate, which cannot stand without the succor and 
aid of many, how great soever we be  But what?  We see by experience, that 
which one of the Ancients said, that all human things grow to old, and come 
to the end of their time, except Ingratitude."  -- Pierre de la Primaudaye. 
 "But the worst of all is he that for good repays evil, and this land is 
full of such also; yea they who have done them most good, they will meet 
them with an evil turn.   All these are ungrateful men, and when thou has 
called a man an ungrateful man, the thou hast called him all the evil in the 
world, for such a one is unworthy to live." -- R. Rollock.  "Consider, that 
the corruption of man's nature is not so much declared in any thing, as in 
ingratitude, whereby a man is made worse, than dyvers brute beasts." -- Sir 
Thomas Elyot.   Of course, re the reversals inherent in the line's grammar, 
the moon tends to be the site of a mirror world, where things can also get 
reversed.   On Ariosto's moon are found the wits or brains or minds of those 
who have lost them in love.  For there is found the valley of lost things, 
"everything that is lost on earth," which includes "The tears and sighs of 
lovers, the useless time time lost in gaming, ... the empty plans which know 
no rest, the vain desires ... in such numbers that they clutter almost the 
whole place.  ... Love affairs pursued to little purpose had the shape of 
gilded bonds, jewel-studded shackles. ... Some lose their wits in loving..." 
(OF 34.73ff).   The poem opens with the saddened appearance of the moon, who 
may have itself suffered the melancholy of rejected or unreciprocated love, 
and be distressed to have experienced that "constant love is deemed THERE 
but want of wit."  I.e., the lover is crazy, the beloved is cold and 
self-focused, and is ungracious to her devoted suitor, in the name of being 
virtuous.   -- Jim N.

On Mon, 28 Nov 2005 14:01:05 -0500
  "David L. Miller" <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> I don't think it avoids the question at all, but don't have time amid my 
>grading to pursue this in the way it deserves.  All I can muster briefly 
>are two remarks:
> 
> 1.  To see the line as reversible is to take it, much as you (Derek) 
>already do, as the crux on which competing readings of the poem turn.  This 
>is not a bad thing.
> 
> 2.  Answering questions is only one possible way of responding to them.
> 
> DM
> 
> 
>>>> [log in to unmask] 11/28/2005 1:55:22 PM >>>
> I am pleased to see someone ask this question, since I wrestle with it
> regularly with my undergraduates.  The sense of the poem implies that the
> line should be read as "Do they call ungratefulness virtue there?" since 
>the
> rest of the poem suggests that the speaker's beloved is being unfair to 
>him.
> It is very difficult, however, to make that reading work with the syntax 
>of
> the line.  If the syntax is to be trusted, the final line is a critique of
> the speaker's own criticism--HE's the one calling virtue ungratefulness.
>    Since starting to write this, I have read David Miller's post, and I
> suppose the line can to be seen as "deliberately reversible," but I don't
> know that that answers any of the questions that come up in my classes. 
> It
> seems simply to avoid the question.
> 
> Derek Alwes
> 
>> From: David Wilson-Okamura <[log in to unmask]>
>> Organization: East Carolina University
>> Reply-To: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List <[log in to unmask]>
>> Date: Mon, 28 Nov 2005 13:21:40 -0500
>> To: [log in to unmask] 
>> Subject: Do they call virtue there ungratefulness?
>> 
>> How gloss ye this line, Sidneians? Is it bawdy and bitter? Or innocent
>> and just obscure?
>> 
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Dr. David Wilson-Okamura    http://virgil.org          [log in to unmask] 
>> English Department          Virgil reception, discussion, documents, &c
>> East Carolina University    Sparsa et neglecta coegi. -- Claude Fauchet
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> 

[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121

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