book of good love day one

This text begins with the fable of the Greeks and Romans. Although this seems to be a comedy there is a serious message here. I interpret this fable as a kind of rivalry between the Greeks and Roman.Throughout the text it seemed that the Romans were trying to adopt some of the cultural aspects that the Greeks follow such as laws and the same sort of power that they had during this time. the text portrayed tension between the two cultures. this is especially seen when they are signing to each other. The main theme of the code of love was presented in Love to the Archpriest, specifically upon the woman he paints here. When Archpriest states that such a woman does not exist and yet he will continue to compose poetry I feel he's choosing to believe something that might not exist in the real world.He is painting the picture of what a perfect woman should be like because he wants fall in love with a a perfect woman. This only perpetuates the idea that the perfect woman exists, which is absolutely not true. no one is perfect or ever will be perfect.  in addition if the woman is not interested in him she wont give him the time of day like when he sends the message to her, If she does not want to be part of the love that he is showing  she just wont reply to the message that he sent her. 

Songs of Holy Mary

Song #16
The knight chose to love Mary above all other women. One important theme is that love is crazy. In this song desire is compared to the "devils work". Once the knight falls in love, he pursues this love like a madman. Also, when the knight visits the abbot, the abbot wants to “rid him of his passion” because he is sure that it will lead to evil. this song emphasizes how powerful love is and its potential to influence the way people act. The idea of choosing to love something that does not exist in the natural world over the an actual person is also an important concept in this story. The knight chooses Mary because he thinks she embodies perfection. I think that Mary is supposed to represent the perfect kind of love that mortals can never attain. The religious implication in this text is that love can only be satisfied through God or religion because it is the truest kind of love. this is important because during this time the people of spain were going through religious transformation and were told that Christianity is the right religion as opposed to Judaism,


Song #5
The plot of this song is how the empress over came many struggles with the help of the Holy Mary. The main theme is the vindictive way people acted during this time when they thought someone did something decitful. They acted by only what they heard from each other and didn't act after getting proof. the empress was upset because her loved emperor had to leave to Jerusalem show his loyalty to god. now to make matters even worse the emperor's brother admitted to the empress that he loved her. He has betrayed his brother, this shows the theme of vengefully  driven people. The Holy Mary aids the empress in her time of need, in the ocean, during her beatings. The Holy Mary saved the empress from hunger and gave her the strength. The people join together to excommunicate and kill the people they belive to have betrayed someone or stolen. The empress was continulosuly hurt by people who had loved her. 

Troubadours, Trobairitz

The poems in the Troubadors and Trobairitz have some similarities and some differences. in the Countess of dia the theme seems to be men are evil. this is interesting seeing as the author of this poem is a woman. Another reason why this is so interesting is because a lot of the other things we read had an opposite theme of women are evil and deceitful. in this poem she ensues that her love has cheated on her with another woman. She also goes on to say that her "heart is not the straying kind". she emphasizes that she is faithful and trustworthy. I think she is saying that women are trustworthy contrary to what people think. the fact that she says this multiple times emphasizes this idea. this poem is not very romantic seems to be more of a vengeful type of poem. which is very different than the Jaufre rudel poem. this poem is very romantic. the theme of this poem seems to be lust, undying love and possibly distance makes the heart grow fonder. the author of this poem is saying that the distance is killing him inside but he rather weep for the one he loves than not love at all. All the pain and suffering is worth the love he feel for this woman who is so far away. He also says he only has love for this one woman and no on else. This is a contrast to the other poem because the author of the Countess of dia says men are not faithful, but this author is saying otherwise. at the end of this poem he says "I must love and not be love". this suggests that the woman is not returning the same feeling. This lends to the theme of love hurts and you can not pick who you love. The tone of these two poems are very different. while the themes are somewhat similar.  

Arabic Poetry

The poem "The Dove's Necklace" themes definitely relate to love. the poems were very descriptive and used a lot of  evidence to support the theme of love. When the poem opened it first started talking about how when you love someone you will believe them even when they are lying, you testify on his behalf for all that may be unjust, and supporting whatever arguement he may adopt. When I read this and I agreed to a certain extent  especially thinking of specific examples happen in real life, I think what the author is getting at is that love can make u do crazy things. this poem definitely has a theme of doing anything for the ones you love. I think the Poem also has a theme of love is blind. we love someone so much we are blind to the faults and mistakes of the one we love unconditionally. our culture makes people think that they are expected to do all of these things when they are in love. when people are married they are perceived doing all they can to protect and please there partner which may look bad for them. The poem has a long paragraph in it about how people change to become what there lover is looking for. Examples of this from the readings include, when the scowler relaxed her frown, the sloucher smartened up and the stinker transformed himself into a elegant dandy. These examples demonstrate how people change the way they act and who they are to become who their lover wants them to be. Love can make people do crazy things and change for the better or for the worse. I think the readings demonstrate how love makes people crazy and can bring out the best in someone. 

islamic art

throughout art history art from different cultures influences each other. I think that this is because artists are always looking for inspiration, new ways to make something and are always trying to learn more about their craft. it is more likely that the cultures get inspiration for their art from neighboring countries and cultures. It seems to me that the islamic art features a lot of jewelry, vases and things are hand painted. also during this time the different cultures were just discovering the craft of artistry, so improving it and looking at how other cultures make something is only part of the evolvement of art during this time. the art in the islamic culture seems very simplistic, there are not many sculptures and there is a lot of painting and primary colors involved. I can see where this culture would get inspiration from other ones. What specific cultures and counties influenced the islamic art?

The myth of Arachne and Tereseus have simliar themes running throughout the story. In both stories arachne and Tereseus are dismissing the gods and acting how ever they want with no regards as to what is right. They both dont pay any attention to warnings that they get from the gods. for example the depiction of the screeching owl that lives above Tereseus's house. This could foreshadow the fact that the gods turn tereseus, Philomena and Procne into birds. in the case of Arachne her warning was the old woman telling her to be humble and ask the gods for forgiveness. Arachne did not take this advice and continued to deny Athena as her teacher. Arachne was determined to be known as maybe being self taught, especially since she was just mortal peasant. The passage says "You could see she was taught by Pallas. Yet she denied it, and took offense at the idea of having such a teacher". clearly Arachne was being arrogant and not humble at all. this angered Athena, so she punished Arachne by turning her into a spider. this was all because she decided to take all of the credit and give none to the gods. Arachne just did want she wanted weaving and not giving credit to the apparent true master of the craft without any regard to how Athena would feel about it. In all these myths, the gods have the last say and decide the punishments and do whatever they want in the end. in both of these stories the gods turn the main characters into animals as punishment because they did not like how they were acting.

in the story of Tereus, Tereus took that to the extreme. He didn’t care what anyone thought, he only thought about what he wanted, and what he wanted was Philomena, that was all he thought about after meeting her. the passage says, “…he burnt with his own vice and his nation’s”. This puts the blame not only on Tereus but on the whole country too, the story is saying that this lust Tereus has is a characteristic of all the men from Thrace. Either way, that puts the blame squarely on the mortal humans, with no care or concern for how they should actually be acting and respecting the gods. Tereus was so sure in his opinion and beliefs and that was all that mattered. Both Arachne and Tereus were more focused on their own talents and desires and not how that could affect other things such as their own wife or how the Gods would feel.

metamorphosis book 1-3

within the story of echo and narcissus echo is only able to repeat the last word of every sentence because jupiter sentenced her to do that. she then saw narcissus in the forrest and immediately fell in love. she stealthily followed his steps. she then hopes that he speaks so she can "form her own words". when he does speak all Echo can do is repeat everything he says. he tells her to come out. she finally came out and embraced narcissus and he rejects her. Narcissus stumbles upon a spring to which he is attracted to the reflection of his own form. he sees his own figure and thinks it to be an actual person. Narcissus could not love Echo because he fell in love with his own reflection. he only had love for himself. and because he was so vain it leads to his death. Every time Narcissus tries to touch "him" he puts his hand in the water and disturbs the image. this might be suggesting the idea of human desire. due tot he fact that people say in order to love someone else you must love yourself first. so maybe narcissus had to love himself before he ever loved echo. This clearly didnt end up happening because this was Narcissus demise as he died and was turned into a flower.