Month: August 2020

If one were to discuss their own humble nature, does that defeat the very intent of humility? Can skirting the line of self-deprecation and confidence lead to unintended, negative consequences? In brief, Argalus in the Sir Phillip Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia is left to contemplate that very question. The fate of the characters clearly laid in Sidney’s mind, however, the development of Argalus as a character may have been markedly different because of an unwillingness to see his true worth to Parthenia.

From a Biblical sense, the answer is clear as demonstrated in verses such as Luke 14:11 – “For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.” The Bible rewards humility in the face of the Lord as Man is waging a perpetual war against original sin to seek redemption in the eyes of God. To boil it down to a bumper-sticker motif – “I am second”. If someone is willing to see God as the image of perfection and Jesus Christ as the purest example of the human form, they will be lifted. St. Gregory of Sinai posits that true humility comes through action rather than words. “…true humility does not say humble words, nor does it assume humble looks, it does force one either to think humbly of oneself, or to abuse oneself in self-belittlement.” (Philokalia, 62) St. Gregory examines the positive traits of a humble demeanor, in giving oneself fully to God’s words but meanwhile forcing oneself to wallow in self-pity and possess an inward view of contempt – a direct contradiction to not allowing oneself to be lost in self-belittlement. For St. Gregory to see humility as an admission that man has sunk below his nature would suggest that there could be a worse act in the eyes of God that original sin. Perhaps therein lies the negative consequence of humility. If one believes themselves to be in worse standing in God’s eyes than Adam and Eye, there is a continual struggle to repent and little space for confidence to grow.

Argalus confronts this buzz-saw in his pursuit of Parthenia in Sidney’s The Countess of Penbroke’s Arcadia, with a singular focus on loyalty to his hopeful paramour leading to at best, a deadly duel, and at worst, despair, rage and general weariness of his quest (92). Argalus plays the archetypal chivalrous and subservient knight well but that trait leads to him nearly failing altogether. Argalus does not view himself as worthy of another after the presumed death of Parthenia, only breaking his humble nature when, in a miraculous scene, Parthenia appears before him and convinces him to marry.

How to Win an Argument – Arrangement

Classical English Rhetoric – Using Rhetorical Questions

The Book of Genesis begins with the line “In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth.” In doing so, in the Biblical tradition, a moral code of sorts was also established in that faith in God would be rewarded while transgressions would be punished. Following Biblical teachings, Hermengild is murdered in the Law of Man’s Tale but is rewarded by her murderer’s death because of the unwavering faith of Custance.

Chaucer explores the inherent good present in devotion throughout the Man of Law’s Tale by forcing Custance into a series of tribulations from exile at sea to being the victim of a shipwreck off of the Northumberland coast. In her waylaid forced travels, Custance could have easily denounced her faith but quickly devotes herself to Christianity immediately following her rescue – “She kneleth doun and thanketh Goddes sonde; But what she was, she wolde no man seye, For foul ne fair, thogh that she sholde deye.” (185, lines 523-525). A modern reader may balk at the notion of unwavering faith in the face of near-certain injury and death given the seeming shift away from Christianity in recent years among millennials but given the central location of religion in the minds of Chaucer’s initial audience, it is fitting that Custance would pledge her faith, regardless of the outcome. In doing so, Custance recognizes the efforts of the Northumbrian constable, as akin to a literal God-send, placing her fate in the hands of Christ in the immediate aftermath of her shipwreck. Custance’s ordeal speaks to the very meaning of faith. Left to her own diminished devices and banished to foreign seas, she had no discernable choice but to leave her fate in divine hands.

But from where do this sense of faith – in Custance and in other religious believers – emerge? It may seem rudimentary but in the simplest terms, for every birth, there is a death. If we consider religion to be a journey of the soul, the Biblical moral code strengthens a believer’s sense of faith, attempting to reach Heaven rather than Hell. In Medieval Philosophy, Bruce Foltz posits that sin defiles the soul (122) and in the case of Custance, it could be thought that her immediate desire to pray following a traumatic experience of a shipwreck was an absolution of sin, or at least an attempt at absolution. Custance views her banishment to sea and subsequent shipwreck as an instance of wavering faith and immediately seeks to regain her spiritual center.

*In writing this post, I used, or at least attempted to use, the “Asking Questions and Answering Them” approach from Farnsworth’s Classical English Rhetoric as well “Discovering the Sources of Proof” from May through textual citations to support my claims.

Through a tale of valor and forbidden love, Chaucer creates a dual prison system for Arcite and Palamon to overcome. On the surface is the physical imprisonment of the two knights following an unsuccessful battle with Creon, the responsibility for which Arcita deflects, “But I must lie in gaol, because Saturn, and Juno too, both envious and mad, Have spilled out well-nigh all the blood we had…” (47) While the Knight continues to tell of the chains and exile that the two will endure, a glimpse into the mental prison of the two warriors is established by a question of worse fate. By weaving an element of love into a sibling rivalry, Chaucer posits that the physical building and exile the two knights is the lesser of two evils in comparison to their inescapable mental torment. Chaucer drives the point home by directly asking readers which of the two is left in deeper anguish, a free man unable to see his heart fulfilled or an imprisoned man able to briefly see his heart content daily. Plato touches on the subject briefly in The Republic, in explaining the relation between the soul and the sun, one the center of human existence, the other the center of the universe. “…When it focuses on something that truth and being illuminates, it intelligizes, knows, and apparently possesses intelligence.” (Medieval Philosophy, 25). In the Knight’s Tale, through immediate affection, Emily becomes intricately linked to the souls of Arcite and Palamon, influencing their every move in a quest to realize love. While the two knights are keenly aware of the punishment that pursuing Emily could cause – given the closing sequence in which Arcite relinquishes his interest with his dying breath – both are willing to fight to the death if the situation arises. The sense of mental imprisonment leads Arcite and Palamon to submit to a destitute life rather than live free.

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