Attached to this post is my final draft of assignment 3: mcl_assnmt3_FD
This is also likely the last post of this blog, for anyone not in this class who is reading this. It has been a good semester!
Assignment 3: Rough Draft
Attached here is my rough draft for assignment 3.
Assignment 3: Analysis
After the read more break is my analysis for the assignment 3 paper dealing with The Iliad, Beowulf, Prokopios, Ibn Shaddad, Dhuoda, Abelard, and Heloise.
Assignment 2: Final Draft
Assignment 2: Rough Draft
Attached below is my rough draft for Assignment 2:
Assignment 2: Analysis
This post will provide an analysis for Dhuoda’s Handbook for William and the Letters of Abelard and Heloise. This analysis will include a thesis statement, sub arguments, and evidence for those sub-arguments.
Thesis: Heloise, William, Abelard, and Heloise all face the crisis of falling out of favor with the established order. Because of Bernard’s disobedience to Charles the Bald, William is taken as a hostage to Charles’ court and because of their love, Abelard and Heloise are forced to leave their previous lives. Each respond to their crises by writing letters that advise taking comfort in words in religious texts and examples outside of them. Differences in the characters of Dhuoda and Abelard are revealed in the ways that they seek to comfort the recipients of their letters.
Sub-argument 1: The offer comfort using similar sources and lines of thought. (Proving that they are both doing similar things)
Evidence:
From Abelard: Page 42: “Take comfort from what the Lord told his followers about the followers of the Devil: ‘As they persecuted me they will persecute you. If the world hates you, it hated me first, as you know well.'” … “Let us then take heart from these proofs and examples and bear our wrongs the more cheerfully the more we know they are undeserved” …. we “must take comfort at least from the knowledge that God’s supreme goodness allows nothing to be done outside his plan.” The focus on these quotes is on taking comfort from ‘examples and proofs.’
From Dhuoda: A: “Blessed are the poor in spirit” (73). (similar to the first quote from Abelard above: idea about the persecuted being blessed). B: To provide comfort, Dhuoda explains to William that there are five letters in the word Deus, which correspond to the five senses of the body (10). This is using social constructs to illuminate meaning and is similar to Abelard’s extrabiblical examples and proofs. C: The purpose of man: “man be fashioned out of the mud of the earth to replenish the numbers of His angels” (37). This is not a biblical belief. This is using extrabiblical interpretation to provide comfort.
Sub Argument 2: The Characters of Dhuoda and Abelard are revealed through their advice on prayer
Evidence:From Dhuoda: Dhuoda spends the entirety of book 8 directing William on how to pray and who to pray for. She urges him to “despair of no one” (85) and asks him to pray for his father, the king that is causing them pain, the poor, for the dead, travelers, and many others. While she ultimate goal is William’s salvation, it comes off as a lesson in empathy. She is trying get him to think of others as if he were in their situation and to have compassion for them. It is also important to note that Dhuoda only refers to herself once and it is as one “who is about to die” (87).
From Abelard: Abelard also speaks at length about the power of prayer. He asks her to “consider then the great power of prayer, if we pray as we are bidden, seeing that the prophet won by prayer what he was forbidden to pray for, and turned God from his declared intention” (57). On page 60, he provides a literal prayer structure for her to follow. It is clearer that Dhuoda’s because he has more knowledge on the subject than Dhuoda did. Instead, Dhuoda would ask William to consult and learn from books on the subject. But Abelard spends the time telling Heloise how specifically to pray for him. He says “at present you are over-anxious about the danger to my body, but then your chief concern must be for the salvation of my soul, and you must show the dead man how much you love the living by the special support of prayers chosen for him” (62). Where Dhuoda is concerned about how William would pray for others, Abelard is concerned about how Heloise will pray for him.
Sub Argument 3: The General Presentation of the Advice
Evidence:
From Dhuoda: Dhuoda seems to offer her advice to William without being asked. The whole book is focused on him and his salvation. She only references herself as a negative contrast: “Indeed, knowing my human frailty, I never seek to chastise myself, whereas I am wretched, dust and ashes” … “If the patriarchs and prophets and the other saints, from the first-made man up until now, have been unable to understand entirely the accounts of holy mysteries, how much less should I be able to” (7)? In class, we discussed whether these self insults might be a form of protection . Regardless, they are a definite contrast to Abelard’s presentation.
A secondary motivation to the protection of William is her book. Dhuoda sees her book of advice as something permanent that might be shared with his friends: she suggests that he might “offer this little book for persusal” to the noble youth (7).
From Abelard: A major difference between the advice of Dhuoda and that of Aberlard is that Heloise gets to respond to Abelard. In this publication, Heloise actually prompts Abelard to write to her and she specifically asks for some comfort. ex. “We beseech you to write as often as you see fit”(48), “whatever you write about will bring us no small relief in the mere proof that you have us in mind” (48), “letters from absent friends are welcome indeed” (48) (in this case, she provides an example of what such a letter may look like). She also knows what he is likely to write: “You wrote your friend a long letter of consolation, prompted no doubt by his misfortunes, but really telling of your own. The detailed account you gave of these may have been intended for his comfort, but it also increased our own feeling of desolation” (48-49). She talks about wanting to share the pain of his troubles, but really, she wants comfort: “Why, after our entry into religion, which was your decision alone, have I been so neglected by you that I have neither a word from you when you are her to give me strength nor the consolation of a letter in absence?” (53). She is worried that it was “desire, not affection” that bound him to her (53). She begs him “to write [her] some word of comfort, so that in this way [she] might find increased strength and readiness to serve God” (54). These statements from Heloise serve as Abelard’s prompt to write his letter.
Overall, Dhuoda’s book seems a better response to the last quote than Abelard’s letter. He writes that he didn’t send any letters because of his “confidence in her good sense” (56). He talks a little about her convent, a lot about the power of prayer, instructions about what to do with his body, but almost nothing about her. When not talking about biblical example, he speaks mostly of himself, as seen in the prayer point above. He doesn’t even elaborate on his real struggles like she asked him to. Everything about the letter feels distant.
Conclusion: Although they may be saying similar things, the presentation and substance of the advice offered by Abelard and Dhuoda to Heloise and William reveals their deeper motivations and concerns. Dhuoda is concerned about William’s safety first and the future of her book second where Abelard is motivated by his own well-being first and the well-being of Heloise second.
Notes for 3/12: Abelard and Heloise
The attached pdf below contains my notes for my skims of The Letters of Abelard and Heloise:
And the pdf below contains my notes for the last part of the Eighth letter in The Letters of Abelard and Heloise
Notes for 3/12: Dhuoda
The attached pdfs below contain my notes for my skims and close reads of The Handbook for William by Dhuoda
Assignment 1: Final Draft
Persuasive Religious References in the Writings of Ibn Shaddād and Prokopios
In the 12th and 6th centuries respectively, authors Ibn Shaddād and Prokopios encountered massive changes in societal norms, the nature of which led both to react with persuasive texts that relied on religious references to support their arguments. Ibn Shaddād, writing about the Sultan Saladin fighting in the Crusades, and Prokopios, writing about the Roman Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, both use religion as a source of comfortable common ground with their audience to make their arguments more persuasive. However, they do not both use religion in the same way. Where Ibn Shaddād mostly uses religion as a reference point, Prokopios takes advantage of contemporary religious beliefs to attribute more crimes to Justinian.
Ibn Shaddād wrote The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin immediately after Saladin’s death. At that time, the Sultan had just made peace with the Franks. Through his life, cities had been demolished, taken, and recaptured. Ibn Shaddād’s goal with his book is to persuade his audience that Saladin was a great sultan and kept Islam from peril. In his references to religion, he establishes a common ground with his audience.
Ibn Shaddād wastes no time making an appeal to the comfortable traditions of his Muslim audience. To establish how well Saladin practiced the Islamic faith, Ibn Shaddād starts his book by showing how Saladin followed the Five Pillars of Islam (Shaddād 18). This is the second thing that the reader learns about Saladin in this book, the first being his birth. Even the two pillars that Saladin does not quite fulfill, the Ramadan Fast and the Pilgrimage (Shaddād 19), are explained and excused thoroughly. Opening the book this way stresses the importance of religious tradition to Ibn Shaddād and, to a Muslim audience, makes Saladin instantly more admirable. As a result, this opening successfully furthers Ibn Shaddād’s goal of selling Saladin to his audience.
Ibn Shaddād continues this trend by referring to religion throughout the text. Whenever a significant individual is introduced, he adds a parenthetical comment like “(God be pleased with him).” When referring to the King of the Frankish army, Ibn Shaddād makes the parenthetical comment “(God curse him)” (Shaddād 94). These constant references throughout the book make it clear to Muslim audiences that Ibn Shaddād’s priorities are linked with theirs and makes his arguments more palatable to them.
Meanwhile, Prokopios wrote The Secret History to show Romans everything that was wrong with the rule of Justinian and Theodora. His thesis is essentially that Justinian “kept introducing into public life things… previously forbidden by law while abolishing firm and established customs all at once” (Prokopios 50). This quote establishes Prokopios as a conservative who did not like the customs that Justinian was breaking. Alongside Justinian’s legal changes, events like the Nika Riots and the plague constituted major crises for Prokopios. As a result, he wrote The Secret History to try to persuade the Roman populace of his problems with Justinian.
One way Prokopios attacks Justinaian and Theodora is by showing how far they deviate from religion based moral traditions. For example, when describing Theodora’s past as a prostitute he says that “there was no inviolable place that [Theodora] could ever hesitate to desecrate, as she thought nothing of violating all sacred things. Along with the common people, the priests of the Christians were likewise too afraid of her and so they stood aside and let her do whatever she pleased” (Prokopios 17). When describing Theodora’s time as a prostitute, he says “God would show no mercy upon the man who specified the name of [her] trade” (Prokopios 43). These quotes show how Prokopios uses religious references to imply just how deviant Theodora must have been, leaving the specifics to the imagination of his audience and furthering his goal of making his audience dislike Theodora and.Justinian by association. While it is much nastier here, Prokopios is using religion the same way the Ibn Shaddād does.
Prokopios goes a step further than Ibn Shaddād by accusing Justinian of being connected to demonic forces. There is a section in The Secret History titled “The Demonic Nature of Justinian and Theodora” (Prokopios 58-68). He highlights the number of deaths during their reign, testimony of Justinian’s mother about his birth, Justinian’s ascetic lifestyle, and an instance in which a monk called Justinian “the Lord of Death” as evidence for his claim that Justinian is not human. Here, Prokopios is using religious tradition as a means to dehumanize Justinian. He is deliberately trying to make his audience as uncomfortable as possible with the rule of Justinian by describing him as a demon. While Ibn Shaddād might refer to Saladin’s relationship with Allah, he would never claim that Saladin was divine or a prophet.
Using his established demonic description of Justinian, Prokopios ends part two of The Secret History with a section titled “The Destruction of the World by the Demon Justinian.” He attributes the Nile subsiding at the wrong time, a flood in Tarsos, earthquakes, and the plague to Justinian’s “occult power and demonic nature” (Prokopios 85). Here Prokopios is using the populace’s beliefs in religious customs and traditions to accuse Justinian of crimes he could not have possibly committed so that Romans would have more reasons to dislike Justinian. It is unlikely that even Prokopios truly buys into this argument. Had Prokopios truly believed that Justinian was responsible for such huge disasters, he would have made Justinian’s control of the natural world the focal point of The Secret History. Instead, the argument is relegated to the end of the text.
Both Ibn Shaddād and Prokopios faced major crises that caused them to write political commentaries with heavy amounts of religious references. Both authors are case studies in using common ground with one’s audience to make arguments more credible. While we do not know how the average Roman responded to Prokopios’ writing, his more active usage of religion makes his arguments less credible from a modern perspective. Meanwhile, Ibn Shaddād’s references lend his writing style greater cultural credibility.
Works Cited
Ibn Shaddād, Bahāʼ Al-Dīn Yūsuf Ibn Rāfiʻ. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin. Trans. D. S. Richards. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Print.
Prokopios. The Secret History: With Related Texts. Ed. Anthony Kaldellis. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2010. Print.
Assigntment 1: Rough Draft
Persuasive Religious References in the Writings of Ibn Shaddād and Prokopios
In the 12th and 6th centuries respectively, authors Ibn Shaddād and Prokopios encountered massive changes in societal norms, the nature of which led both of them to react with a tendency to rely on religious references within their writings. Ibn Shaddād, writing about the Sultan Saladin fighting in the Crusades, and Prokopios, writing about the Roman Emperor Justinian and his wife Theodora, both use religion as a source of comfortable common ground with their audience to make their arguments more persuasive. However, they do not both use religion in the same way. Where Ibn Shaddād mostly uses religion as a reference point, Prokopios takes advantage of contemporary religious beliefs to attribute more crimes to Justinian.
Ibn Shaddād wrote The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin immediately after Saladin’s death. At that point, the Sultan had just made peace with the Franks. Through his life, cities had been demolished, taken, and recaptured. Ibn Shaddād’s goal with his book is to persuade his audience that Saladin was a great sultan and kept Islam from peril. In his references to religion, he establishes a common ground with his audience.
Ibn Shaddād’s book immediately establishes how well Saladin practiced the Islamic faith with an account of how Saladin follows the Five Pillars of Islam (Shaddād 18). This is the second thing that the reader learns about Saladin in this book, the first being his birth. This stresses the importance of religious tradition to Saladin and Ibn Shaddād and, to a Muslim audience, makes Saladin instantly more admirable. Even the two pillars that Saladin does not quite fulfil, the Ramadan Fast and the Pilgrimage (Shaddād 19), are explained and excused thoroughly. Opening his book in this way introduces a set of priorities appeals to the comfortable traditions of his audience.
Ibn Shaddād continues this trend by referring to religion throughout the text. Whenever a significant individual is introduced, Ibn Shaddād adds a parenthetical comment like “(God be pleased with him).” When referring to the King of the Frankish army, Ibn Shaddād makes the parenthetical comment “(God curse him)” (Shaddād 94). Ibn Shaddād does not waver from this writing style throughout the book.
Meanwhile, Prokopios wrote The Secret History to show Romans everything that was wrong with the rule of Justinian and Theodora. His thesis statement is essentially that Justinian “kept introducing into public life things… previously forbidden by law while abolishing firm and established customs all at once” (Prokopios 50). During Justinian’s time as emperor, the Romans faced events like the Nika Riots and the plague. Alongside Justinian’s legal changes, these events constituted a major series of crises for Prokopios that made him try to persuade the Roman populace of the problems he saw with its leadership.
One way Prokopios does this is by showing how far they deviate from religion based moral traditions. For example, in describing Theodora’s past as a prostitute he says that “there was no inviolable place that [Theodora] could ever hesitate to desecrate, as she thought nothing of violating all sacred things. Along with the common people, the priests of the Christians were likewise too afraid of her and so they stood aside and let her do whatever she pleased” (Prokopios 17). When describing Theodora’s time as a prostitute, he says “God would show no mercy upon the man who specified the name of [her] trade” (Prokopios 43). Prokopios uses this religious reference to imply just how deviant Theodora must have been, leaving the specifics to the imagination of the audience. While it is much nastier here, Prokopios is using religion the same way the Ibn Shaddād does.
Prokopios goes a step further than Ibn Shaddād by accusing Justinian of being connected to demonic forces. There is a section in The Secret History titled “The Demonic Nature of Justinian and Theodora” (Prokopios 58-68). He highlights the number of deaths during their reign, testimony of Justinian’s mother about his birth, Justinian’s ascetic lifestyle, and an instance in which a monk called Justinian “the Lord of Death” as evidence for his claim that Justinian is not human. Here, Prokopios is using religious tradition as a means to dehumanize Justinian. He is deliberately trying to make his audience as uncomfortable as possible with the rule of Justinian by describing him as a demon. While Ibn Shaddād might refer to Saladin’s relationship with Allah, he would never claim that Saladin was divine nor was a prophet.
Using his established demonic description of Justinian, Prokopios ends part two of The Secret History with a section titled “The Destruction of the World by the Demon Justinian.” He attributes the Nile subsiding at the wrong time, a flood in Tarsos, earthquakes, and the plague to Justinian’s “occult power and demonic nature” (Prokopios 85). Here Prokopios is using the populace’s beliefs in religious customs and traditions to accuse Justinian of crimes he could not have possibly committed. It seems unlikely that Prokopios legitimately believes that Justinian was responsible for such natural disasters as, if he really believed that, it would be the focus of the entire book instead of being relegated to the end.
Both Ibn Shaddād and Prokopios faced major crises that caused them to write political commentaries with heavy amounts of religious references. Both authors are case studies in using common ground with one’s audience to make arguments more credible. While we do not know how the average Roman responded to Prokopios’ writing, his more active usage of religion makes his arguments less credible from a modern perspective. Meanwhile, Ibn Shaddād’s references lend his writing style greater cultural credibility.
Works Cited
Ibn Shaddād, Bahāʼ Al-Dīn Yūsuf Ibn Rāfiʻ. The Rare and Excellent History of Saladin. Trans. D. S. Richards. Aldershot, England: Ashgate, 2002. Print.
Prokopios. The Secret History: With Related Texts. Ed. Anthony Kaldellis. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub., 2010. Print.
ScoNotesHon211 