For the assignment this past week, the task was to read and find a passage from Sidney’s The Countess of Pembroke’s Arcadia, and compare it with Chapters 21-22 of Medieval Philosophy. In reading one of Sidney’s masterpieces, I came across a passage in the beginning that is worthy of analysis: “Reason in vain (now you haue lost my hart)…To this strange death I vainely yeeld my life” (Sidney 105). This passage brings about the theme of unrequited love. Unrequited love is undoubtedly a popular theme in Medieval literature and this novella is no exception. It is also the love that causes the most jealousy and problems for the people invested in it. In this case, Mopsa is in unrequited love with Dorus but she is not driven to quite such lengths because of it. The essence of unrequited love leads to yet another theme in this passage, jealousy. Jealousy can be seen further in this section, when Sidney writes, “O Mopsa, Mopsa, if my hart hath not heard of the greatness of your estate?…Pamela graciously harkened, and I told my tale in this sport.” (Sidney 111-113). Essentially, there is a great deal of jealousy in the novella, not just in this section, and it always seems to lead to something threatening. For example, Gynecia is extremely jealous of Zelmane and Philochlea after they seem to develop a close friendship. Additionally, Pamela has also suffered some jealousy when Dorus’ wooing of Mopsa becomes a little bit too convincing, especially after Pamela reveals her love for Doras. Jealousy is both an emotion that is controlling the people feeling it and the catalyst for the tragic events that unfold in the novel. In analyzing these two passages, one is compelled to create an argument on how the use of passion and emotion comes into conflict with God’s will. “When the soul pursues this blessed activity, it deifies the body also; which, being no longer driven by corporeal and material passions—although those who lack experience think that it is always so driven—returns to itself and rejects all contact with evil things. Indeed, it inspires its own sanctification and inalienable divinization, as the miracle-working relics of the saints clearly demonstrate.” This passage is clearly from Medieval History, in which it writes about how the soul and the mind are two different entities that together pursue a similar cause: love. Unrequited love, as seen in Arcadia, is failure of the mind to appreciate truth above reason. Because of this, one is left to act unholy and ungodly and express emotions in ways that do not correlate with Christian values. Later on in Medieval Philosophy, he writes, “These things escape and transcend the intellect of one who seeks knowledge merely in a theoretical way, and not knowledge of them by practice and the experience that comes through it. Such a man impiously lays hands on the sacred and wickedly rends apart the holy, for he does not approach these things with that faith which alone can attain to the truth that lies above reason.” It is extremely fascinating to understand and dither on how the textbook essentially connects spiritual Christianity and the concepts of love and emotion, but also reason and logic to Sidney’s masterpiece. It makes one think of the competing literary appeals to logos and pathos, and how the mind is representative of the logic and what seems right in a relationship and the truth of the matter versus the pathos which is the emotional and passion one feels for feelings of love and jealousy.
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