Monticelso Flashcards
Monticelso and Francisco arguing with Bracciano re: Vittoria
LINK to PL - Satan to Eve: ‘awful brow’ - sycophantic Satan
Here - compliment - ‘awful throne’ - but veiled insult that B has succumbed to a woman = emasculates him
Difference between appearance and reality of Catholic Church - reflects concerns that CofE is too reminiscent of Catholicism w its ceremony, decoration etc.
‘neglect your awful throne for the soft down of an insatiate bed’
Monticelso and Francisco arguing with Bracciano re: Vittoria
Irony - Monticelso is sinful also w his black book but doesn’t repent
LINK to PL - ‘sleep bred of unkindly fumes, and conscious dreams’ - Adam and Eve regret transgressing God’s hierarchy after they awake after their sinfulness BUT sin in PL is the reality whereas it is the dream in WD
Realisation of wrongdoings is when you feel how sinful your actions really were (by the ‘adder’s tail’)
‘when you awake from this lascivious dream, repentance will then follow, like the sting plac’d in the adder’s tail’
Monticelso w Francisco and Bracciano when Giovani comes in
Hypocrisy - ppl look up to M as a cardinal and then pope to provide example on how to act (morally) but acts immorally - M then tells B he should be an example for G to follow
Presents sense of hopelessness for future generation
‘whom should he rather strive to imitate than his own father’
Monticelso w Francisco and Bracciano when Giovanni comes in
Irony - rhyming couplet - normally used to express moral messages but M is giving a lesson to B should leave behind some semblance of a reputation for G lest fortune brings G to the bottom of the wheel (so G can appear virtuous - appearance v reality)
‘leave him a stock of virtue that may last, should fortune rend his sail and split his mast’
Monticelso and Francisco discussing Vittoria’s arraignment
F+M have arranged to have important ambassadors present to destroy V’s reputation completely and present her as polarised - ‘black’ - but this assumes she is not ‘the white devil’ when she portrays herself as good (‘white’) - M+F trying to paint her as ‘black’ on the outside too bc a woman cannot have such power over men
‘black lust’
Monticelso at Vittoria’s arraignment
Hypocrisy - person of religious authority - cardinal - is using God’s name in vain - also apostrophising (by addressing omnipotent God) - detaches himself from God to enable his immorality and sexist injustice
‘O for God’s sake’
Monticelso explaining the meaning of a whore to Vittoria
Patronising - tries to deflate her image of being knowledgable and threat she poses to patriarchy - uses as excuse to contrast lawyer’s inadequacy and reaffirm patriarchy
M is not preaching on goodness and how to get to heaven but criticising darkness
Duality of description - oxymoronic nature presents the polarisation of women and how they will be demonised no matter what they do (e.g. Isab still lies when protecting B and Corn still kicks Zanche)
‘shipwrecks in the calmest weather’
‘sweetmeats which rot the eater’
Monticelso going on to criticise Vittoria further
Criticises V that she is not mourning Cam’s death - how women are judged on appearance so have no choice but to be ‘politic’ and ‘cunning’ as M (+ others like Flam) call her but criticised when she is cunning
‘is this a mourning habit?’
‘O you are cunning’
Monticello’s snide comment to Vittoria when Bracciano leaves
B was never her champion - his intervention to protect his honour and not V’s presents vice of men when they are always portrayed to be virtuous
Link to V appropriating chara of Perseus - she is her own champion but patriarchy cannot allow female independence
‘your champion’s gone’
Monticelso talking with Francisco after Vittoria’s trial in secret re: revenge against Bracciano
Wedding imagery - ‘loose’ suggests women become sinful/promiscuous after marriage as they become sexual beings
LINK to PL - ‘innocence, that as a veil had shadow’d them from knowing ill, was gone’ - women bf marriage are in pre-lapsarian state but become hooked on sex
‘come, come, my lord, untie your folded thoughts and let them dangle loose as a bride’s hair’
Monticelso talking with Francisco after Vittoria’s trial in secret re: revenge against Bracciano
Spectacle of Monti entering in red cardinal robes w black book - colours of sinfulness (red - lust, violence; black - death, decay, corruption) - foregrounds the artifice
Ceremonial feel - as if Monti has a bible - corruption of religion
‘enter Monticelso, presents Francisco with a book’
Monticelso talking with Francisco after Vittoria’s trial in secret re: revenge against Bracciano
Marble symbolism - marble endures and presents Renaissance grandeur whilst everyone else is subject to decaying nature of time = marble symbolises morality and Monti asks Fran this as an insult perhaps
Also cold and unfeeling - suggestions that humans are intrinsically meant to be evil - to feel revenge and anger
‘what, are you turned all marble?’
Monticelso going on to further criticise Vittoria
names V as the ‘white devil’, as she appears brave and virtuous to the ambassadors perhaps but underneath she is sinful - legally virtuous but morally sinful = presents duality expected of ‘the white devil’
‘were there a second paradise to lose, this devil would betray it’
Monticelso condemning Ludovico’s will for revenge against Isabella’s killer, Bracciano
Monticelso alludes to V’s dream about the yew tree - V uses it to ‘teach him in a dream’, but Monti uses it to dissuade Lodo from sinfulness of revenge - thus it follows that Lodo does not believe his words to mean what they do on the surface - yew tree is also symbolic of illusion
Link to ‘he that unjustly caus’d it first proceed, shall find it in his grave, and in his seed’ (Fran) - the children bourne from you shall carry on your sins and be sinful themselves = destruction - juxtaposition between life and death
‘Or, like the melancholic yew tree, dost think to root thyself in dead men’s graves, and yet to prosper?’
