809-44 Flashcards
About
-scholar say that happiness lies and sensuous pleasure and January is determined to surround himself with a nice things appropriate to his social position
-He makes a wild garden so beautiful that the legendary Gardens hardly compare and the gods themselves choose to play there
-He keeps the gate locked and the key himself so that he and Megan can go there to make love in the summertime
“Live ful deliciously”
-January is presented as an epicurean
-He follows the teachings of Epicurious the ancient Roman scholar whose philosophy was popularly interpreted as suggesting that pleasure should be the main goal in life
-Johns sensuous indulgences are fitting for his station however in a period in which sanctuary laws carefully down for example which ranks society were committed to wear fabrics and furs
-which were designed to prevent new Mercantile wealth presuming to take on the ceremonial garments the aristocrasticy reserved for themselves
“He made a garden’
The garden reminds the attentive reader of the early references to Adam and Eve
-Although the other gardens with which it’s compared here at all in classical mythology or secular romance
-The garden is a parody of Eden from the outset
-As Adam and Eve became self-consciously sexual beings only after they were expelled from Eden
- January’s garden Is device as a place in which he and making a variety to their sex life.
“ priapus” “smal wiket/ smale cliket “
-The sexual imagery abounds as priapus the pagan God of gardens is also the God of phallus
-Keys and keyholes are also commonly metaphor for sex as will become more explicitly evident later
“In somer season”
-given the astrological imagery also associated with January and May it is clear that January is in danger
-Summertime is mays season and the outdoor world is her spirit of influence where is January? Spirit of influence is indoors
-his natural habitat is indoors E.G January takes a number of which wines as aphrodisiac before he his new wife retired to bed
-He loses control when the action moves to the garden
-May conversely is passive indoors and by night after the marriage she did she spend four days in bed and those four days are astrologically described
“ romance of the rose” “ could not of it the beauty”
-by alluding to the Romans of the rose, the text draws on rich cultural tapestry
-These references not only has the garden magnificent but also serve a commentary on the limits of literature and myth and capturing real beauty
-The assertion that even these figures could not capture its beauty to their life emphasise the gardens transcendent quality
