PS The idea that Dionysus and/or his cult (and its spread)
might be the proponent/s of civilization could be deemed
as old as the Athenian drama, as one would then argue in
reference to, say, Aristophanes, given a kind of European
(and decidedly unSpenserian) offshoot in Rabelais, where
the prodigious birth of Pantagruel is a kind of symbol of
the re-naissance of learning (as a main feature of the
education-oriented ideology of Renaissance humanism--see
the letter of Gargantua to his offspring advising of his
studies in Paris), the learning so much in evidence in the
labors of the Fr. Renaissance author. (I'm afraid I'm
mainly relying on memory; I read all of Rabelais, in
Jacques LeClerk's trans., Mod. Library, over Thanksgiving
weekend in Nov. 1958, while I watched the first snowfall I
ever saw: in Bexley Hall, the Divinity School, in Gambier
Ohio.) -- Jim N.
On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 20:31:26 -0500
Susanne Wofford <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Dear Scott, Andrew, Katherine, Jim, harry, Anne and
>all,
> This is some of the most interesting reading I have done
>for a while! Thanks!! I am working on Bacchus in another
>context and clearly need to augment the classics section.
>Thanks for all if these great references, including to of
>isis and Osiris which I am teaching next semester. When
>I get there, I'll have to figure out how to cite this
>conversation!
> Yours,
> Susanne
>
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> On Nov 13, 2011, at 5:33 PM, "James C. Nohrnberg"
><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
>> I would suppose that the presence of Bacchus in
>>Spenser's Book V is the result of a kind of syncretism,
>>depending on the idea that Bacchus was or meant the sun
>>and, furthermore, was another name for Osiris (after
>>Herodotus, Hist. II.42). A small chunk of Osiris lore
>>therefore ends up in Comes'/Conti's extended article
>>about Bacchus (Myth. V.13). The gates of Bacchus in the
>>East correspond to those of Hercules in the West, and
>>these make both figures conquerers or empire-builders.
>> Conquest, for better or worse, is associated with
>>Justice in Book V, because the conquerer is identified as
>>a bringer of civilization (and agricultural arts) and a
>>beneficiary of humankind. The solar & Herculean course
>>of justice through a zodiac of episodes provides one
>>possible key to the legend & career of Artegall, this
>>paradigm starting from the Aquarian canto (FQ IV.xi)
>>following the one in which we last hear of Scudamour
>>(IV.x) and extending to at least the Libra canto in which
>>Mercilla renders justice to Duessa (V.ix-x). In Lucian’s
>>True History (I.7) the designated limits of Dionysus’
>>east and Hercules’ west curiously met in the same place.
>> Hercules’ and Dionysus' footprint coincide, in that
>>Lucian’s traveler and mock-historian found it at ancient
>>journeying’s limits.
>>
>>
>> On Sun, 13 Nov 2011 15:59:22 -0500
>> Scott Lucas <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>>> Dear list members,
>>> I just finished teaching Book 5 of the *Faerie Queene* a
>>>little while
>>> ago, and I have had a question lingering with me ever
>>>since we began that
>>> book that I hope someone can answer. At the opening of
>>>canto 1, Spenser
>>> recounts how vice was combatted in ancient times by
>>>"some of the vertuous
>>> race" who heroically opposed unrighteousness. The very
>>>first of these
>>> virtuous figures, according to Spenser, was the god
>>>Bacchus, who, coming to
>>> the eastern world, "wrong repressed, and establisht
>>>right,/ Which lawlesse
>>> men had formerly fordonne./ There Iustice first her
>>>princely rule begonne"
>>> (V.i.1-2).
>>> Bacchus seems to me a very strange figure to laud as a
>>>champion of "right,"
>>> lawfulness, and justice, since I tend to think of him as
>>>a god of frenzy,
>>> chaos, and release from moral restraint. Spenser's
>>>treatment of the wine
>>> god here seems even stranger when one notes that Spenser
>>>apparently
>>> associates Bacchus with sin rather than righteousness in
>>>Book 1, when he
>>> has Gluttony in the House of Pride's parade of sins
>>>"right fitly" dressed
>>> in "greene vine leaues," suggesting either Bacchus'
>>>wine-grape leaves or
>>> his ivy (I had thought the former, but A.C. Hamilton in
>>>his edition glosses
>>> I.iv.22, line 1, as a reference to Bacchus' sacred ivy).
>>> Hamilton, in his edition of *FQ*, suggests that Spenser
>>>got the idea of
>>> Bacchus bringing order and justice to the east from a
>>>Renaissance
>>> mythographer such as Comes/Conti. Does anyone know what
>>>Comes' logic
>>> behind presenting Bacchus as a figure of justice and a
>>>defender of virtue
>>> might have been, and whether there are any classical
>>>precedents for this
>>> view? In Ovid's *Metamorphoses*, Bacchus certainly
>>>takes care of
>>> belligerent types such as his would-be kidnappers and
>>>Pentheus, but these
>>> seem actions done against those who defy him personally
>>>and not deeds done
>>> for the sake of the establishment of justice, as Spenser
>>>suggests.
>>> Thanks,
>>> Scott
>>> Scott C. Lucas
>>> Professor of English
>>> The Citadel, the Military College of South Carolina
>>> Charleston, SC 29409
>>> (843) 953-5133
>>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>> [log in to unmask]
>> James Nohrnberg
>> Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
>> Univ. of Virginia
>> P.O Box 400121
>> Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
|