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Full-Text Articles in Philosophy
Causality In La Mort Le Roi Artu: Free Will, Accident, And Moral Failure, David S. King
Causality In La Mort Le Roi Artu: Free Will, Accident, And Moral Failure, David S. King
Quidditas
The thirteenth-century French La Mort le Roi Artu indicates forthrightly how the Arthurian world comes to an end, but the text leaves less clear what motivates the disaster. Many critics attribute the cause to an external force, God or the goddess Fortune, that obliges Arthur and others to pursue their own destruction. A few offer greater insight into the nature of causality in the romance. They see the characters as exercising some degree of free will or even complete liberty. But these critics err in alienating the notion of free choice from moral concerns. In their reading, the heroes suffer …
Architectural Chastity Belts: The Window Motif As Instrument Of Discipline In Italian Fifteenth-Century Conduct Manuals And Art, Jennifer Megan Orendorf
Architectural Chastity Belts: The Window Motif As Instrument Of Discipline In Italian Fifteenth-Century Conduct Manuals And Art, Jennifer Megan Orendorf
Quidditas
Offering advice on a range of topics from the quotidian to the extraordinary, from superstition to scientific, fifteenth-century conduct manuals appealed to readers of all Italian social classes. This essay focuses specifically on manuals which prescribe behaviors for women, and investigates the reception of these precepts and the extent to which these notions informed and transformed women’s lives. Specifically, I examine one piece of advice which recurs throughout instructional literature during this time: the prescribed notion that women should remain far removed from their household windows for the sake of their honor, reputation and chastity. Widely read manuals, such as …
Moral Lessons For Women Readers Of Jean Lemaire De Belges's Les Illustrations De Gaule Et Singularitez De Troye, Judy Kem
Quidditas
Jean Lemaire de Belges (1473-1525), poet and historiographer of the French and Burgundian courts of the early Renaissance, wrote his epic history of Troy, Les Illustrations de Gaule et singularitez de Troye (1511-1513), at the request of his patron, Margaret of Austria, to offer an "occupation voluptueuse, et non pas inutile" [sensual yet useful occupation] to the ladies of France (1:11). Lemaire dedicated each of the three books of his epic to a different noblewoman. Mercury, who narrates the prologues of all three volumes, identifies each noblewoman with one of the three goddesses of the Judgment of Paris: Margaret of …