Meyers Reading Extra Credit

Shapiro reading take away.
James Mansfield
HR: Text
While reading Shakespeare’s Henry the Fifth, many readers may feel like the true message of the play is evading them. As soon as they are presented with one theme, Shakespeare presents a completely contradictory narrative. With the addition of the supplementary reading from James Shaperio, It becomes much more clear what Shakespeare’s intentions were with writing his play. Henry the Fifth is so multifaceted, there is no true central theme or moral takeaway, but rather numerous themes and issues presented together.
James Shaperio begins his chapter by tracking Shakespeare’s movements in the weeks prior to the creation of Henry the fifth, and incredibly tracks him down to Richmond in England, likely listening to Lancelot Andrews preach on ash Wednesday. Andrews was one of the most famous preachers and orators of his time and often related his sermons to important happenings in the political world. Shapiro argues that Shakespeare would have been heavily influenced by these sermons, specifically a conflict in Ireland, which was not only the focus of the sermon being preached, but the talk of almost all of England at the time.
The Irish campaign according to shapiro was a catastrophe and he quotes the duke of Essex who was the man in charge of the English forces at the time. “Essex feared that the Irish climate would consume “Our armies and if they live yet famine and nakedness makes them loose both heart and strength”(JS-2). The cause of such turmoil was not simply the fact the Irish Campaign was going so poorly, but rather, a fear that the monarchy had set Essex troops up for failure. This in turn could potentially result in a Military coup as Essex could just as easily turn around and march on London with his large and loyal army.
This general theme is transcended in Henry the Fifth where in a couple of instances Henry has to be reassured that his cause is just and ordained by god. Exactly what Andrews was preaching to Elizabeth. Additionally the theme of an army on their last ropes, winning the day and having a happy ending was Shakespeare attempt to reassure his fellow countrymen that the conflict in Ireland would end on favorable terms.

Sexuality in the Middle Ages

Posted on September 11, 2019 by mansfieldjm22

Sexuality in the Middle ages

James Mansfield

HR: Works Cited_____________________________

A reoccurring and central theme in the Canterbury tales, is that of women’s rolls in society. This appears to be a general , overarching topic and the work emphasizes women’s sexuality specifically. Both the “Millers Tale” as well as the “Wife of Bath Tale” have sexual crimes or misconduct as central plot themes. In such a conservative Christian society, it was jarring for me to see such open sexuality in a work from the 14^th Century. Sex was quite the taboo to discuss even just 60 years ago, let alone 600. To have such blatant sexuality in a work from middle ages was quite mind boggling. This inspired me to research what sexuality truly was like in Chaucer’s time and how open people were in such a seemingly conservative Christian society. How were instances of adultery, rape, and pre-marital sex handled at the time and more importantly how often were they discussed in period literature.

To begin understanding sex in the middle ages, first it is paramount to understand the societal hierarchy’s of the time. In feudal Europe, society was broken up into numerous castes. (9) Peasants took the place of the lowest caste, merchants and tradesmen were somewhere in the middle, then followed by knights, then nobles, and finally royalty.(10)(21) Additionally men had far more societal power than women. These societal distinctions played a roll in every aspect of daily interaction, including sex.

In all of these interactions the church played a pivotal administrative roll.(32) The catholic church enacted a type of law called cannon law, where people were incriminated based off of the popes biblical interpretations. Sex was one of the many aspects of life which was controlled by the church(33). If one was having sex outside of marriage there were two legal classifications under cannon law: adultery and fornication.(33) The former referring to having sex while married with someone who isn’t your spouse, and the later, having premarital sex in general.

Over time the rigidity of cannon law fluctuated, but generally adultery was worse than fornication. Adultery, not only was breaking the vows of marriage, but was also opening up the possibility of a wife bearing an heir to her husband which wasn’t really his. (62) Women almost always faced worse repercussions then men for adultery because of this. In-fact, men guilty of adultery were often not punished at all, or if found guilty forced to pay a nominal fine to the church, where as women could face punishments as severe as death. Fornication very rarely garnered a punishment as severe as adultery. No “legal” marital vows were being broken, and if a child was conceived, the sinning lovers often were forced into marriage by the church. Surprisingly both were rather common the later more so than the former in medieval society.

Marriage and relationships amongst commoners is extraordinarily different than that of nobility. Commoners, speaking broadly, had far more marital liberty than that of a noble. (62-63) One of the few liberty’s a peasant possessed was a general freedom in choosing a spouse, there was no land to be gained, so marriage as nobles had far more familial pressure surrounding marriage.(63) Marriage for the upper class and royalty was almost always for either political or economic purposes. Likewise adultery was more accepted in the higher echelons of society than the lower. Naturally the rich were able to get away with more, and exploited this.

As far as literature, concerning such themes, they were relatively common place. The church condemned most sexually themed works, unless the blatantly condemned sexual promiscuity. It is sensible that people have always been fascinated with sex and taboo material. Sex was just a prominent in medieval culture as it is today.

Sources:

Daily life in Chaucers England by Jeffrey, L. Forgeng and Will Mclean

Background knowledge

8/30/19 Wife of Bath Character Summary

Posted on September 3, 2019 by mansfieldjm22

Canterbury Tales Character Bio: Wife of Bath James Mansfield

HR: “The Canterbury tales by Geoffrey Chaucer”

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The Wife of bath is described as extremely elegant and well dressed. She seeks to be the center of attention wherever she goes. This is indicated by the descriptions of her dress and a sentence where she is described as always expecting first service at “almsgiving” or communion. If she is denied this, than the charity as a whole, to her, is worthless. Furthermore she is well traveled and accustomed to expensive, long pilgrimages or trips. Most likely she is not concerned about any religious significance behind these trips, but rather the status symbol which comes from being well traveled, something extraordinarily expensive and rare in the middle ages. She puts her status and ego above that of religion. The author describes this character flaw with a very deep disdain.

She is described as gap toothed which might indicate a lack of formal intelligence, but this reference went over my head. I would like to know what Chaucer means by this, maybe it should be taken for (no pun intended) face value and I am overanalyzing. Furthermore I would like to know what his reference to her being deaf is. Is she literally without hearing, or is it a more spiritual deafness to the word of god?