Ottoman Empire

One topic in which greatly interested me about the reading is how overall the Ottoman Empire was run.  To me, it sounds as if this empire was more of like a giant family and everyone cared for one another and looked out for eachother.  Everything was set up and organized prior to there ever being any issues or dilemmas towards the empire.  There was a great system for economy, government, politics, education, families, military, religion and life overall.  I would feel very confident in living if I was apart of the Ottoman Empire.  The Sultan shows a great ideal of leadership towards his people.  Because of this people respected him and looked up to him.  Another topic which interested me from this reading is that Christians, Jews, and Muslims all came together.  Although they all had different beliefs, they respected that and it allowed them to learn more about eachothers different cultures.  This to me shows a great deal of trust and togetherness for this empire.  It takes a lot for a group of such diverse people to come together as one and work as a unified system.  The Ottoman Empire showed through this reading how intelligent they were and how this allowed them to be such a strong dynasty.  I didn't know anything about the Ottoman Empire prior to this reading and I think thats a shame because I think everyone should know about how great this dynasty really was.

book of good love day 2

2. How I interpret the battle between carnal and lent is the battle between the religious want and need and the sexual want and needs.  This is just typical human nature, that is what I think its getting at in the reading.  Overall lent wins of course, but there will still always be lust and need for sexual desire.  

Book of good love

3. What is the portrayal of Love (Don Amor) in this text (as opposed to or in conjunction with what we saw in the poetry we have studied)? Why do you think this is the case? (If you want, do a "close reading" of one of the fables presented in the "tirade against love" to help in your answer.)

4. Focus on the "code of love" presented by Love to the Archpriest - specifically upon the woman he verbally paints here. What do you make of the fact that the Archpriest states that such a woman does not exist and yet he will continue to compose poetry? (Or, how might desire, the image, and poetic language / expression be connected?)

5. Why do you think there is such an emphasis upon fables in the text? What does a fable do? How does one have to read a fable? How might the use of fables comment upon the text as a whole (how much they get right to what the author is trying to do here)? Choose one or more fables to illustrate your point.

Dante

A topic in which interested me in the reading of the inferno is the topic or death and harming people and who deserves to die and the kinds of people who should be harmed and for what reasonings.

The Decameron 2

There have been many overlapping themes throughout all of the read so far this semester.  The ones I find in most readings are religion, love, power, and the role of the male and female and how they are portrayed.  Overall, I feel as though love and the role of the different sexes are the two most common.  Though the themes of love and different roles change with each reading, both of these themes can be found within the Decameron.  In one of the stories, both the roles of the usual male and female are reversed.  The male in love gets all the blame and in reality he is the one who's innocent.  He is also the one who wants to love and be loved by the woman, and the woman for once isn't playing this role.  Also in another story, a strange type of love is shown.  In this story the woman loves her husband so much that she allows him to torture her, murder their children, and he then pretends to abandon her.  Even after all this has happened, she still is truthful to him and loves him just the same.  I believe that this is a backwards sort of "love" and that none of those actions show or prove that either one loves the other.  I guess its true when people say love works in strange ways.


 

Decameron

I felt as though religion was a big theme found throughout the stories read in the decameron.  Christianity and Judaism are the two main religions.  In the first story, Ser Cepparello lies to a friar the day he dies and tricks him and many others into thinking about believing he was a good and holy man that had almost no confessions before his death.  When in reality he had plenty of sins and had never confessed in his whole life when he also lied and told him that he confesses once a week.  Because of this, he ends up becoming a Saint soon after his death.  This shows how gullible and welcoming the Christianity religion is.  In the second story, the Jew, Abraham is converted to Christianity religion after his friend Giannotto convinces him that it is a waste to follow judaism religion because he is such a well-mannered man.  Once Abraham sees how the clergy live in Rome, he decides that this is the religion he'd like to be apart of even though he doesn't like them and thinks god should condemn them all.  Yet he still gets baptized and changes over his religion to Christianity. 

Travel Literature

Overall, I think Margery Kempe is a strong and powerful women.  Not only did she embark on an adventure of movement from England to Jerusalem, but she did this alone.  She also learns a lot and gets a great experience from this journey in which she embarks on.  Being all alone on the journey and traveling for such a long period of time is an experience in itself.  The fact that she had a religious visions made her experience even more stronger.  This journey being such a long one shows a lot about how dedicated and determined she was to making it there.