Tim Major
Collette, Carolyn. “Seeing
and Believing in the
Collette uses a
psychological and historical approach to analyze the importance of sight and
perception in the Franklin’s Tale
with the intention of proving that Chaucer was making a statement about
perception versus reality. She first
tries to demonstrate the presence of a sight motif throughout the story.
She then applies Bacon’s, Archbishop Pecham’s, Trevisa’s, and
others’ contemporary theories of psychology, optics, and magic to what Chaucer
wrote and implied in the Franklin’s Tale. She
concludes that Chaucer’s goal was ambiguity about the nature of perception.
Collette’s argument for a
sight motif seems rather weak. While
the perception-versus-reality differentiation definitely is important in the
tale, Collette takes it a bit far applying it to Dorigen’s friends and
everything Dorigen sees. Just
because Dorigen relies on sight for her main perception of the world (just like
almost every human does) doesn’t mean that Chaucer was making a statement
about the nature of sight. Also, she
uses many other medieval and early Renaissance sources that are both difficult
to understand because of the old syntax and vocabulary and because some have
symbols that aren’t even used in English anymore (like Þ).
However, Collette makes several interesting points about psychology and
the magician being a rather down-to-earth but highly skilled tradesman.
This article should be useful in a paper about views on magic for the
evidence that Chaucer seemed rather unimpressed with magic and held it almost
the same way we do today: as merely illusory.
Greene, Thomas M. “Magic
and Festivity at the Renaissance Cour.”t (The 1987 Josephine Waters Bennett
Lecture) Renaissance Quarterly 40.4
(1987): 636-659.
This article is about the
role of magic in different Renaissance courts.
Greene argues that many rulers (Henri, Charles V, The Great Khan, Pharaoh
from Exodus) of all time periods use
magic in their courts to enhance their aura of royal power.
Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn’t.
Some rulers who didn’t need to pretend to have magic to be powerful –
such as Elizabeth I and Henry VIII of
Greene uses a historical
approach to analyze magic in Renaissance courts.
This article will be useful as a way for me to incorporate views on magic
in places outside The Canterbury Tales and Celestina.
This article would really only be useful to someone who wanted an
overview of magic in Renaissance courts, as it doesn’t include in depth
analysis of any particular work or any particular country.
Greene supports his arguments with primary sources, which he seems to
have examined fairly closely. He
doesn’t really consider alternate reasons for the magic in the court, such as
perhaps impressing other courts or even that the royalty themselves believed
that they had magic power. This
isn’t really a big problem, because his reasoning seems to make good sense.
Lionarons, Joyce Tally.
“Magic, Machines, and Deception: Technology in the
Lionarons’ main thesis is
that in several of the Canterbury Tales
magic and technology are difficult to distinguish if not the same thing.
She supports well the statement that magic/technology is viewed as
anything that is based on esoteric knowledge, and is therefore dangerous to the
common person as far as his susceptibility to deception.
She gives evidence that the “magical” objects are based in large part
on real technology that was just not understood, often from distant lands, such
as
Lionarons supports her
theses well. She analyzes several of
the Tales and her article flows in a
logical manner. She uses a formalist
approach, analyzing Chaucer without outside references to concurrent works or
Chaucer’s life. I agree with
Lionarons’ take on Chaucer’s depiction of magic and the deception that goes
with it. This will be a very useful
article for my paper about Renaissance views of magic.
It would also be useful to someone studying morality, deception,
perception, or Chaucer in general.
Sánchez, Elizabeth.
“Magic in La Celestina.” Hispanic Review 46. 4 (1987): 481-494.
Sánchez examines how Fernando de Rojas portrays magic in Celestina.
She argues that he presents it as a
real power, coming from the Devil, and that Rojas uses it allegorically, making
a statement about the lack of morality in his new Renaissance world.
She counters arguments about Celestina
simply mirroring classical works, about the magic being only to fulfill what the
audience expects, and about where Celestina’s powers come from.
She holds that Rojas intended Celestina’s magic to be taken seriously,
even though it was unnecessary, and intended for us to take this not as irony
about the characters being fooled, but as a demonstration of the Devil getting
the best of Celestina. She argues
that Rojas condemns the characters’ immoral lives by their deaths, as every
one of them had turned away from religion.
Sánchez uses a formalist
approach. She argues her points
logically and understandably. One
drawback is that the quotes are in Spanish, but they are few and they are parts
that are easy to find in the English version.
This article will be useful for my paper about views on magic, because Sánchez
has rather unique views on Rojas’s portrayal of it.
There are also some rather weak points in it that I might argue in my
paper, such as when she extrapolates how Rojas felt or believed from what he
wrote. This article would also be
useful for a character study of Celestina, or Celestina
in general.
Valbuena, Olga Lucía.
“Sorceresses, Love, Magic, and the Inquisition of Linguistic Sorcery in Celestina.”
PMLA: Publications of the Modern Language Association of
Valbuena mainly discusses
Celestina from the stance that she is not so much a witch as a skillful
rhetorician and is perceived as no more of a threat for being a witch than she
is for being a bawd. She makes the
interesting point that Celestina might not have been persecuted by the
Inquisition as might have been expected because the Inquisition was more
concerned with Jews – perhaps a statement by a converso about the
Inquisition’s focus on Jews? She
discusses Rojas’s use of Biblical symbols and the common blame of women for
bringing sin into the world. Valbuena
also considers the conflict of magic versus the church and some concurrent
justifications and condemnations of the magic through the church.
She also closely examines love sickness and Celestina’s ability to read
into and exacerbate Melibea’s. She
concludes with a statement about heresy and its basis being not in purposely
misstating the church’s tenets, but in creating an image that blurs the lines
of what the church says and what its rules are.
My biggest criticism of this
article is that it is very long, covers innumerable topics, and uses
unnecessarily large words and convoluted sentences. Valbuena does support her
several arguments well, using a historical approach in comparing it to several
other simultaneous works and its window into the Inquisition. However, I can’t
narrow the paper down to a thesis, or really even a single theme.
Having waded through this article, I believe there are several points
that would be useful for almost any paper concerning Celestina,
however, I would not recommend this article to a peer because it is so dense
that frankly his or her time would be better spent finding and using a clearer
article, more focused on one thesis.