Literature as Recreation in the Later Middle Ages by GLENDING OLSON

Author:GLENDING OLSON
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2019-02-23T00:00:00+00:00

4

Some Literature for Solace

The ideas that moderate joy promotes well-being and that time out for entertainment is a necessary part of human life are independent of literature. They become a part of medieval literary thought only insofar as theory relies on them to explain the function of certain works or fictions appeal to them for purposes of justification. Though we have already seen a few such instances, such as the understanding of theatrica as ministering to bodily weakness and the assignment of De nugis curialium to the category of recreation, we have yet to survey the more substantial evidence of literary material invoking the ideas. This chapter supplies that evidence by considering some later medieval works and genres that allude, for one purpose or another, to hygienic or recreational principles.

I begin with some literary theorizing by Boccaccio and Petrarch, both of whom in their Latin writings make substantial claims for literature’s capacity to profit, usually relying on allegorical approaches. But they impute other powers to literature as well. In 1338 Petrarch wrote a letter to a good friend describing his solitary life at Vaucluse. Acquaintances, he says, avoid the place because of its austerity; he has only his dog and his servants, and some of the latter are leaving. But he can also take joy in his “secret friends”:

They come to me from every century

And every land, illustrious in speech,

In mind, and in the arts of war and peace....

Now these, now those I question, and they answer

Abundantly. Sometimes they sing for me;

Some tell me of the mysteries of nature;

Some give me counsel for my life and death;

Some tell of high emprise, bringing to mind

Ages long past; some with their jesting words

Dispel my sadness, and I smile again;

Some teach me to endure, to have no longing,

To know myself. Masters are they of peace,

Of war, of tillage, and of eloquence,

And travel o’er the sea. When I am bowed

With sorrow, they restore me; when I meet

With Fortune’s favor, they restrain my pride,

Reminding me that the days of life are fleeting.1

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