Memento Amori: Transformations of the Imagery and Associations of the God Eros in English Renaissance Poetry

• Thesis title in Czech: Memento Amori: Proměny ikonografie a významových asociací postavy Eróta v anglické renesanční poezii
• Thesis title in English: Memento Amori: Transformations of the Imagery and Associations of the God Eros in English Renaissance Poetry
• Key words: Eros|Thanatos|Antika|Renesance|Sonet|Poezie|Láska|Smrt
• English key words: Eros|Thanatos|Antiquity|Renaissance|Sonnet|Poetry|Love|Death
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2020/2021
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Helena Znojemská, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 01.03.2021
• Date of assignment: 01.03.2021
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 22.06.2021
• Date and time of defence: 07.09.2021 11:00
• Date of electronic submission: 17.08.2021
• Date of proceeded defence: 07.09.2021
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: PhDr. Zdeněk Beran, Ph.D.

Guidelines

The Renaissance period saw a revival of the Greek and Roman pagan deities while Christianity was still at large: when worship of pagan idols was strictly forbidden as worship of devils or false gods. The monography The Revival of the Olympian Gods in Renaissance Art by Freedman Luba already deals with how these deities survive in this hostile environment. Her focus, however, was primarily on the visual arts and a limited number of the Olympian gods. This paper would thus like to continue the discussion on this topic, first, by investigating the god of love Eros, whose status is not as prestigious as of the main Olympians, but whose influence over the lives of mortals has been of equal if not of greater merit; and, second, by examining Renaissance literature, though still with some reference to visual art as well: namely Renaissance poetry in England. The aim is to analyse the motif of Eros/Cupid/Amor in English poetry of the time to trace the ways the imagery and conceptual associations of Eros change and transform once uprooted from their spatial and temporal environment of Greco-Roman antiquity, where he is linked to death (Thanatos) and to social chaos caused by sexual desire; and then replanted in the somewhat hostile conditions of Christian monotheism, with its rigid sexual mores and opposition to pagan conceptions of death and afterlife. The hypothesis is that for Eros to survive with all his associations in the Christian framework, the link of Eros with Thanatos is weaker and the social chaos he causes is seen in a more negative light: literal death is associated more with Time (Saturnus), while Eros retains a link only to figurative death, which, however, renders the sexual confusion he causes more ultimate/fatal. Establishing the cultural/historical context of the god in the introduction, by combining insight from the sculptures and vases from the period also with papers from the collection Erôs in Ancient Greece, we will examine, first, how was this tradition preserved for the Renaissance readers in the works of Hesiod and Ovid. Second, we will consider the template for Renaissance adoption of the god, looking particularly at the poetry of Francesco Petrarch and Guido Cavalcanti and at some Renaissance paintings, taken for example from Otto van Veen’s Amorum Emblemata. Finally, we will delve into the individual treatments and developments of the Eros motif in English poetry: examining the works of Edmund Spenser, Philip Sydney, Thomas Wyatt, Michael Drayton, Samuel Daniel, Shakespeare and Lady Mary Wroth

References

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