Exactly my thought -- on grace, rather than turkeys and swans.  The key to this poem seems to be the debate about whether divine grace is or is not irresistable.  Also relevant, of course, is the tradition of love poems featuring metaphors of conquest or assault (there's a French song I aways think of, "Donnes l'assualt a la fortresse," set by Dufay).

Hannibal


Hannibal Hamlin
Associate Professor of English
The Ohio State University
Book Review Editor and Associate Editor, Reformation

Mailing Address (2007-2009):

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----- Original Message -----
From: anne prescott <[log in to unmask]>
Date: Wednesday, November 21, 2007 10:16 am
Subject: Re: Petrarchism and Christianity

> 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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