Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Power of the Stars
When we were talking about the power of the stars today, we mentioned that monarchs and etc. can more easily overcome fortune. I was thinking that maybe this is why heroes in many stories can sometimes overcome fate (for example, death). This is maybe because they are further up in the "hierarchy" and therefore able to resist and even change their fortune..?
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6 comments:
I think that's a really interesting thought! Although I don't really have much to say about that, I think the idea of powerful stars is very intriguing. Perhaps Dante is alluding to the the "power of stars" by ending each of his books with the word "stars." Also it's almost as if the stars' word is truth. For example, Romeo and Juliet were "star-crossed lovers" and so they could never be together no matter what because the stars said so.
it definitely is interesting that the monarchs overcame their misfortune because they were further in the hierarchy. I like your idea, Shaina, that Date was alluding to the power of the stars. Stars seem to be very repetitious throughout literature.
I definitly think this is a very possible tought, because the sun is the highest "or king of the planets." The sun is a star and is compared to god, so it would make sense that the closer someone is to god on the chain the more power they would have
I see why they thought so much of the stars. Back then, the sky was probably full of them, but today there are hardly any. I imagine it was a very powerful and strange sight
Well Parker, it's not that there aren't many stars, but we can't see them from the city. As cities and towns have grown, it has been harder and harder to see nature as they did decades ago. The Romeo & Juliet point that Shaina made is superb. They were "star-crossed lovers" and it makes so much sense now that this could forbid their love. It is so very interesting.
It's interesting that monarchs were revered so much that they were even considered to have power to change their own fate. I feel like the ideal king was supposed to put his country's well being above his own, to maintain order, and rule fairly etc. It's funny to me they were viewed as divinely ordained when European kings, back in the day, got up to some crazy stuff. They married their cousins, killed their family members, fought wars among themselves, and sometimes tried to eradicate groups they felt either hurt their power or were against them (Jews, Jesuits, Calvinists, Catholics, peasants...) Elizabeth I I think fits this sort of model of a ruler, but very few other rulers come to mind around this time period. I think this era came right before (50-100ish years) the tipping point of the monarchs power; the way the height of the Catholic Church's power came right before people began questioning the infallibility of the pope who was beginning to live like a secular king.
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