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TESTAMENT OF CRESSEID Flashcards

1
Q

Who’s translation made it popular?

A

Seamus Heaney, published 2009

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2
Q

Benson open questions in poem

A
  1. the role of the gods
  2. the justice of Cresseid’s guilt and punishment
  3. extent of her moral growth before her death’
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3
Q

How does Henryson famously challenge Chaucer’s authority?

A

He claims to be inspired by ‘ane uther quair’ (another volume), and challenges Chaucer’s authority; ‘who knows if all that Chaucer wrote was true?’

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4
Q

Chaucer’s Criseyde simply disappears from the text…

A

Henryson’s poem imagines her life after betraying Troilus

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5
Q

What does Benson argue?

A

That it’s a pivotal text for the shift from medieval to Renaissance literature

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6
Q

Henryson’s poem gives greater…

A

Prominence to the gods

Prominence to Cresseid’s moral agency

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7
Q

How was Cresseid defined almost exclusively by her relationship with men / by the men around her?

A

She was the lover of Troilus and then Diomede. After becoming promiscuous she eventually returns to her father.

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8
Q

Which gods does Cresseid blame specifically?

A

Venus and Cupid

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9
Q

The gods are introduced as both…

A

Mythological (gods)

Astrological (planets)

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10
Q

Saturne description

A

‘Out of his nois the meldrop fast can rin, / With lipis bla and cheikis leine and thin’

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11
Q

Who is ‘lady Cynthia’

A

Diana - the moon - ‘swiftest in hir spheir; / Of colour blak, buskit with hornis twa’

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12
Q

Crescent moon quote

A

‘darkling and in double-horned regalia’

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13
Q

Graphic description when Cynthia condemns Cresseid to leprosy

A

‘Your eyes so bright and Crystal I make bloodshot, / Your voice so clear, unpleasing, grating, hoarse. / Your healthy skin I blacken, blotch and spot. / With livid lumps I cover your fair face. / Go where you will, all men will flee the place.’

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14
Q

What was leprosy understood to be a sign of in the Middle Ages

A

A venereal, sexually transmitted disease understood as a sign of God’s wrath at sexual sin. Fitting punishment for someone who has been sexually unfaithful.

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15
Q

Cullen 1985 interpretation

A

Punishment provides opportunity for moral growth and development;

she learns to appreciate Troilus so excuses her faithlessness in life by faithfulness in death

Wholly dependent on the man

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16
Q

Felicity Riddy 1999 interpretation

A

Sees Cresseid as a figure of degradation and horror

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17
Q

Riddy quote

A

‘Cresseid the leper is [a] figure of degradation and horror who is […] positioned at the ambivalent coming-together of luxuria and vanitas, which are constantly intertwined and mistaken for one another in the poem’

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18
Q

Luxuria

A

Lust - one of the seven deadly sins; sexual excess and extravagance

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19
Q

Vanitas

A

Vanity - one of the deadly sins

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20
Q

Is the poem a tragedy…

A

Or an exemplum?

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21
Q

Cresseid moment of realisation and moral growth after Troilus throws her a bag of gold

A

‘Nane but my self as now I will accuse’

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22
Q

Who argues Cresseid earns sympathy and respect?

A

Benson

‘Henryson goes beyond compassion to respect, he shows his heroine moving from self-pity to responsibility’

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23
Q

Who argues she is degraded as an object of contempt?

A

Quinn, Riddy

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24
Q

What does Riddy argue about Cresseid’s fate

A

It’s not about defining herrrr, but rather serves to define the value of men, such as Troilus

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25
Kristeva
Sin, disease and death are culturally associated with the female. Abjection - females as embodying things that men want to exclude from themselves.
26
Riddy draws on Kristeva...
To suggest that Cresseid is a figure of degradation and abjection: ‘abject odious’ - she is cast out of society and is odious to that society
27
Riddy long quote Kristeva
‘The Testament Of Cresseid engages, in a way that is quite beyond the reach of Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde, with filth and pollution, with what Julia Kristeva, in Powers of Horror, calls the abject [...] Kristeva argues that the process of abjection - of loathing and repulsion - is the means whereby the subject, or ‘I’, is brought into being’
28
In what way is there a reference towards self-realisation & moral improvement in Cresseid?
Her legal personhood and textual identity - can be read as a legal testament. Cresseid writes her will perhaps reclaiming her legal standing.
29
Matthews on Leprosy
Leprosy leads to ritual exclusion from society and loss of legal personhood; a leper would’ve been excluded and cast out of society, but would importantly lose their legal standing as a citizen before the law
30
Who does Matthews cite?
Peter Richards history of leprosy - lepers ritual exclusion from society; dead to the world
31
Boffey QUOTE on Cresseid's final scene
The testamentary portion of the poem is, strictly, its final section, in which Cresseid utters a last confession and proceeds to make a written testament…. Cresseid nonetheless implicitly and ironically bequeaths her own story, as a warning exemplum, to the “fair ladyis”.
32
What does Boffey's account show?
how she becomes an exemplum; her life continues as a sort of moral lesson; at the end we are faced with a stark vision of what is left behind; we are left with words.
33
What is Troilus' epitaph engraved on her tombstone
"Lo, fair ladies, Cresseid of Troy the toun ... Under this stane, lait lipper, lyis deid' 608-610
34
What three texts are there ?
Her will Troilus' epitaph the poem itself
35
Stark grim epitaph reminds us the poem is addressed to female readers.....
three references to 'worthy wemen' throughout the text
36
'Worthy wemen' quote
'Now, worthie wemen, in this ballet schort, / Maid for your worschip and instructioun'
37
Texts to compare to (portrays the bodily punishment of a n unruly woman by supernatural forces)
Bisclavret and Sir Launfal
38
Henryson affixes to Chaucer's narrative a 'textual limb'
'textual prosthetic' seeks to effectively conclude Criseyde's narrative
39
Thynne
printed tale as 'sixth book' to Chaucer's poem - underscores text's status as textual prosthetic; literally grafted onto Chaucer's corpus
40
I side with Felicity Riddy in contending that...
Cresseid's bodily punishment highlights the instability of a unified, masculine self and its need to constantly exclude the feminine in order to produce the illusion of cohesiveness
41
Who is the narrator?
suffers torments of unrequited love due to his old age, bemoans cold of Scotland and turns to Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde to chase away chill before tale of Cresseid.
42
Medieval medicine characterised male bodies as...
hot and dry female bodies: cold and wet
43
Kristeva's notion of the abject, a term that Cresseid uses to describe herself when she notes she is...
'clene excludit, as abject odious'
44
define abjection
the process by which the self asserts itself in opposition to the Other
45
Riddy problem within masculinity
'the problem that the poem is wrestling with is not a problem within femininity but a problem within masculinity: its own uncleanness, which is coded as feminine and rejected as polluting'
46
Scholars which focus on the effects of the disease on Cresseid's body
1. Wynne-Davies 2. Aronstein 3. Riddy
47
begging from house to house quote
'This sall thow go begging fra hous to hous / With cop and clapper lyke one lazarous'
48
Saturn and Cynthia decide to strike Cresseid
'with seiknes incurabill'
49
References to leprosy in Leviticus
locate disease as sign of ritual uncleanness and stipulate separation from religious community (13:44-6 and 14)
50
traditional 'uniform' of the medieval leper
'ane mantill and ane bawer hat, / With cop and clapper'
51
Brody on leprosy
'Cresseid's leprosy is a particularly suitable punishment for her promiscuity. Not only does it ravish her beauty, but what is more, because leprosy was commonly understood to be a venereal disease, a consequence of lust, it makes her past sinfulness apparent to her and all who see her'
52
Wynne-Davies quote
'the destruction of her flesh appears to offer the possibility of redemption to others of her sex'
53
Crsseid beseeches the 'ladyis of Troy and Greece' to
'ane mirror mak' of her and realise that their 'roising reid to rotting sall retour'
54
In Troilus' conjuring up his lover's face at the sight of the leper's (Riddy)
'loathing of and desire for the feminine can be seen to collapse into one another'
55
Jana Mathews
Cresseid's writing of her will is an act of speech that defies authoritative discourse, allowing her a 'counter-space'
56
Cresseid's will
1. leaves her body to the 'wormis and taids' 2. her clothing to the lepers 3. a ruby ring to Troilus 4. her spirit to Diana
57
Moral Fable quote (574)
'Nane but myself as now I will accuse'
58
Narrator laments her ill-fortune (78-80)
'O fair Creisseid ... how was thow fortunait / To change in filth all thy feminite'
59
Dichotomous refrain?
"O fals Cresseid and tre knyckt Troylus"
60
Allusion to Cresseid's prostitution
'And sum men sayis into the court commun'
61
The dream vision
'this doolie dream'
62
What marks the start of Cresseid's complaint?
the different stanza form, the 9-line Anelida complaint found also in Chaucer's work. The signifies a formal shift into complaint mode.
63
Cresseid makes her self a visible testament
'Heir I beteiche my corps and carioun...'

English (21 decks)

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