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.