June 7, 2011

Today in class, we talked about canto’s 54 and 55.

54: This poem is about the actual act of becoming a pope. It changes you, and it is challenging. He questions whether he will be able to avoid becoming something less valuable and whether he will be able to avoid changing. In the last stanza, he describes a yoke or something weighing heavily on him. He was concerned that Celestan was naive to deal with the relatives of the papacy. The papacy itself had become very destructive. Jacopone does not see that the papacy will provide a way out , and it is not about the pope.

55: Section one- He is isolated but controlled while he is in prison. He compares himself to a lion, falcon, and a horse. He says,
“They’ve awarded me a new type of prebend-

My hood taken away, a life term before me, chained like a lion.”

“I am fettered like a falcon,

And my chains clank as I move about-”

“ So I get up every now and then

And take mincing steps like a hobbled horse,

Stamping my feet on the wooden boards.”

In each of these three comparisons, he is making it obvious that he can get up and move around his cell, but he can only do a certain amount. The environment he is in is just very isolated and he is being controlled by outside forces. They project how he is feeling.

Section two- This section talks about poverty. He says that at the end of the day, poverty was the guiding force. Those who actively hate the world can be freed from it. Ideas of restraint and imprisonment and poverty can allow you to be free.

“How few are they, O Poverty,

Who take you and love you as a spouse!

They abandon you for a bishopric

Without a second tonight.”

Section three- He returns to the roman court. He is constantly depicting himself as locked. At the end of the day, Bonifice can only do so much. He can not make him a new person. “I am the only enemy that stands between me and salvation.” This is a stoic principe. He knows who he is and he wins because he did not let them change him. Also, he is so lighthearted and sarcastic after all of the angst that he went through.

June 5, 2011

Before I get start to talk about one of the poems, I am going to reestablish the background that we learned.

Nicholas III document:

The question arises of whether or not strict poverty is required or is only for those who want to be the most faithful. He says that it is required. They give up the right to own property or personal things. They are under usus pauper, which is the restricted use of goods or things. They take a vow to live like a poor person, and he also introduces a concept of necessity.

Jacopone da Todi:

He studied in Bologna, which was where you went to study law. He worked for a while as a nataio (lawyer/accountant). He married nd it was a very short marriage because she died. He spent the next ten years as a bizzoconoe. Then he joined the franciscans as a tertiary in 1278. He asked Celestan for support and created Celestans who lived as hermits and were a separate order (1294). Celestan died in 1297 and Bonifice said it was a fake order, and stopped it and reversed the Celestan’s view on poverty. Bonifice had a run in with cardinals and got in a family dispute with Colonna’s and they ended up signing a document called the longhezza manifesto in 1297 and it said Bonifice wasn't actually the pope. Jacopone was in prison in 1298, and he wrote some of his really cranky poems while in prison and was released in 1303 when Bonifice died.

Poem 30:

This poem is a praise poem. He initially seems to be talking in a general way about religious people as corrupt, but then it ends by talking about the people in his own order (Franciscans). He identifies with St. Francis, Jesus, and John the Baptist. One stanza that stood out to me was the last one.

“We were a mighty host, encamped on the heights,

But the waters of the flood have risen and covered us,

And taken from us the power to pray;

Which alone could keep us afloat and heal our wounds”

Jacopone seems to be focused on the people of his own order at the end. He talks about “we” as a mighty host. He also gives the reader imagery from the Bible, or scripture. When he says “heal our wounds,” I think of Jesus as he went around and helped and healed people.