Misogyny

Misogyny implies the hatred and denunciation of women. This term is brought up in this context because Augustine blames every encounter he has with women as a reason for his downfall. He is also driven by lust to them. However, there is one woman that stands out in his redemption, his mother Monica. There is a very strong idea/suggestion of Monica acting in the way that Marry did, as she was considered to be an intercessor (spiritual helper) for Christians. There is not much in between these two extremes. It is weird though that he blames women for his downfall because he also puts a lot of his blame on himself. So, he obviously doesn’t think all women are like this. In order to stop his lust he tries to get married, but in the end he renounces it all because he cannot get close enough to God with those distractions (family life and marriage distractions). What do you all think?

Women in Islamic Society

Compared to the many other societies we have studied this year, the women in the Islamic societies seem to have the most freedom ability to do what they want and not necessarily just stay at home all day or be used solely for reproduction. In some stories, as seen in One Thousand and One Nights, the king’s wife decides to cheat on him. In other societies, women would not have dared do this, however, in this Islamic society, the queen thought she had the right to do so.  Later in the story, the woman Sharazad takes it upon herself to prevent the king from sleeping with more women and ultimately killing more women. She decides to be the hero, or rather the heroine. In other societies a woman would never think of doing such a thing. Doing heroic deeds was reserved for men. 

Ongoing theme of people not being with who they love and an emphasis on role of women in Marie de France's Lanval

Throughout Marie de France's lays, I have noticed an on going theme of people not being with who they love.  For example in Laustic, the man and woman look out of the window at each other as the Nightingale sings but never actually get to be together.  In the Lay of the Honeysuckle, although Tristan is successful in having an affair with Queen Isoude, they do not get to be together ultimately because she is already married to King Mark.  Both the woman who looks out the window in Laustic and Queen Isoude in the Lay of the Honeysuckle are already married.  For this reason, they should not be interested in another partner as this would be adultery.  However, as one reads the lays it is easy to forget about adultery and have sympathy for the people trapped in relationships in which they are not happy.  Women are not seen as deceitful in Marie de France's lays as they are in earlier works we have read.  Marie de France writes in a way that we can sympathize with them.

She also gives women considerable power in her lays that we do not see in works by different authors.  For example in the lay, Lanval, Lanval's partner seems to take control over him by first rescuing him from court where the king has accused him of a crime and then taking him off on a horse.  It is no surprise that Marie de France gives women more power in her lays as she was believed to be the first woman French writer.

The Fickle Fury in the Face of Fascination

Whew... took me about 5 minutes to come up with that one.

Anyway, as I was reading the Thousand and One Nights, or even the supplemental footnotes provided before, which talked about the plot line of the frame story, I noticed something between the characters of Shahrayar, the serial murderer of the women he marries as a king,  and Shahrazad, the daughter of Shahrayar's vizier, that may be reflective of the human condition, namely in how anger can be quelled with curiosity. Notice how, the king refrains from continuing his bloody wrath upon her because she intentionally tells stories but continually leaves cliffhangers to paralyze any incentive to kill her due to the fact that he wishes to hear the end of the story. Ultimately his curiosity prevents him from continuing his furious habit of murder, something which is plainly obvious to all of you, however, giving it some more thought, I can recall on many occasions when my mother, grandmother and great grandmother managed to quell my screams of anger as a child by either telling me a story and capturing my curiosity, or giving me something to occupy myself with, something which I found fascinating enough to stop crying and become peaceful. Maybe we could even expand this further to how preoccupation in general can quell anger or displeasure. An infant will more likely than not refrain from crying if given a pacifier, and these days, someone like me might not grow mad from boredom if I had something interesting to do. I see a similar situation in the prologue, where the king is kept preoccupied,  and as a result, his notions for and of violence and malcontent with women seemingly disappears.

I guess people never do change after all. At least not in this respect.

Another Analysis of "An Empty Garlic"

I agree with the analysis we went through in class of the poem "An Empty Garlic", but I had another idea regarding its meaning that occurred to me. Maybe the poem is talking about promiscuity and how men should avoid women with those characteristics. Rumi writes that the tasteless fig turns out to be as empty as dry-rotten garlic. To me, this screams infertility. If a women is as empty as dry-rotten garlic, then she cannot have children and it is past her time to reproduce. One of the beliefs I gathered from Islam was that humans should not indulge in sex. Therefore, if this old, crone of a woman cannot have children anymore, then she should not be promiscuous with many men because that is not a good goal to have and a decent path to follow. On the other hand, the man this poem is referring to should not allow himself to fall victim to a woman like the poem is describing. So, I believe this poem talks to both sexes regarding sexual promiscuity.

How?

"The Thousand and One Nights" became one of the most well known stories in the Arab world, which sort of bothers me given the fact that is was looked down upon by the Koran. The Koran looked down upon fiction considering it "lies" and therefore "The Thousand and One Nights" never really came to be considered as a classical Arabian literature, and was even banned by Arab governments due to the fact that it was considered "immoral". So given all this, how did "The Thousand and One Nights" become so well renowned among the Arabian population? One would intuitively figure that the work ceased circulation early on.

A Thousand and One Nights

I do not know about you guys but I really enjoyed reading the stories from A Thousand and One Nights. Some of the stories, like The Merchant and the Ox and the Merchant and the Demon, remind me of stories I read when I was little. I particularly remember reading a lot of Aesop's Fables, many of which are the same stories as A Thousand and One Nights. They all have some moral value they want to portray and emphasize. For instance, in The Merchant and the Ox, it is to not be lazy and to do your job (the donkey convinces the ox to not do his job, and they donkey is then punished by doing to ox's job). I guess all of those stories just gave me a nice memory of my childhood and the stories our parents told us and that we would read whose moral stories affected how we turned out as we are today.