THE 'SWEET NEW STYLE':
ESSAYS ON BRUNETTO LATINO, DANTE ALIGHIERI
AND GEOFFREY CHAUCER
JULIA BOLTON HOLLOWAY
Table of Contents
Prologue: The 'Sweet New Style'
Brunetto
Latino
and Dante
Alighieri
I Bankers
and Their Books: Italian Manuscripts in French Exile
II Brown
Ink,
Red Blood: Brunetto Latino and the Sicilian Vespers
III The
Vita
Nuova's Pilgrimage Paradigms
IV
Stealing
Hercules' Club: Inferno XXV's Metamorphoses
Geoffrey
Chaucer
V Black and
Red Letter Chaucer
VI Fact
and Fiction: Women in Love
VII
Convents,
Courts and Colleges
VIII The
Tomb of the Duchess Alice
Terence, Dante, Boccaccio and
Chaucer
IX God's Plenty: Terence in Dante,
Boccaccio, Chaucer and
Shakespeare
Newest
Epilogue:
Attica
State
Prison,
Boethius
the
Exile,
Dante
the Pilgrim
Prologue: The 'Sweet New Style'
{The "Sweet New Style" propounded in Florence by Brunetto Latino's students, Guido Cavalcanti and Dante Alighieri, was essentially the Gothic style, a style that revolted against their teacher's beloved Romanizing and Romanesque manner. It was a style that had its origins in the French Crusaders' co-option of the delicacy of the Saracen world they encountered and momentarily conquered. It was associated as well with the importation of forbidden learning from the Arab world, of Aristotle and of his Muslim commentators, Avicenna and Averroes, likewise co-opted by Thomas Aquinas, an Italian teaching theology in Paris. Sugar in both the Muslim world and the Christian was an economy built on slave labour, inviting one's own 'instant gratification' out of the misery of the 'Other'.
Dante, when he wrote the Commedia fashioned his Virgilian Inferno appropriately in his Master's Romanesque manner, though tempering it with Gothicizing Aquinas's Aristotle, while his Paradiso is most Gothic, like a great Rose Window. But Dante makes sure there is equality between men and women within that Rose, rejecting Brunetto's Aristotelian disparagment of women. Similarly Chaucer played games with the two styles and with Aristotelian learning, but at Oxford, rather than at Paris. The "Sweet New Style" partly flowers in Italy from French seeds, sown by the ploughing barons of the Roman de la Rose. Those seeds next germinate in England from Chaucer's contamination with first France, then Italy, with the Roman de la Rose and with Boccaccio.
Much of the Gothic style, in particular with the 'Sweet New Style' in Italian poetry, as in the Vita Nuova, is its game and play of love. There also had been a radical shift in style. The 'courting' game enslaves, not liberates. We had noted in an earlier book, Equally in God's Image: Women in the Middle Ages, that women in the Romanesque period had been learned, forthright and powerful, while in the Gothic they had become coy, simpering and uneducated. We traced that shift to the introduction to Christian Europe of the Greco-Arabic university which excluded women from its lecture halls. Therefore some of these essays will discuss the "Sweet New Style" of the Gothic and its implications concerning the new illiteracy of women.
Some of the material concerning Brunetto Latino has been published in Twice-Told Tales: Brunetto Latino and Dante Alighieri (New York: Peter Lang, 1993). "Convents, Courts and Colleges" was originally published in Equally in God's Image: Women in the Middle Ages, edited by Julia Bolton Holloway, Joan Bechtold and Constance S. Wright. My knowledge concerning Ewelme I owe to my friend Diana Leap, the photographer of the Plates of the Tomb of the Duchess. The Attica State Prison lecture on Dante was given on the tenth anniversary of the Attica Uprising. As a whole this collection of essays becomes, as it were, an e-book.
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Calais/
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Rucco di/ Cambrai/ Cambridge/ Capellanus, Andreas/ Cardenal, Peire/
Carmody,
Francis J./ St. Catherine of Siena/ Casella/ Catilina/ Cavalcanti,
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Cavalcanti, Francesco Guerci/ Cavalcanti, Guido, Giovanna/ Caxton/ St.
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Duchess,Book
of the Leoun, Canterbury Tales: Canon Canon's Yeoman Clerk
Friar
Host Jankyn Knight Miller Monk Merchant Nuns' Priest Pardoner Parson
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Miller's
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Tale Almachius Cecilia Maximus Tiburce Valerian Shipman's Tale Tale of
Sir Thopas; Consolation of Philosophy,Legend of Good Women, Troilus
and
Criseyde, Chaucer, Philippa/ Chaucer, Thomas & Matilda/
Charles
of Anjou/ Beatrice of Provence/ Chrétien de Troyes/ Christendom/
Christine de Pizan: Treasure of the City of Ladies/ Christina
of
Markyate/ Cicero, Tullius/ Rhetoric Somnium, Scipionis/ Cleaver,
Eldridge: Soul on Ice; Clement, Pope/ Coleridge, Samuel/
Cologne/
Columbia/ Compagni, Dino/ Compostela/ Conrad, Joseph:
Heart of Darkness/
Conradin of Sicily/ Constantinople/ Contessa de Dia/ Cook, William/
Corbiac,
Peire de/ Corti, Maria/ Cortona/ Cornell/ Cose, Aymeri/ Cotswalds/
Coucy,
Enguerrand de/ Croxton Play of Sacrament/ Curtius, Ernst/
D
Damian,
Peter/
Daniel, Arnaut/
Darius/ David, King/ Debenedetti/ decima, tithe/ Defoe,
Daniel:
Moll
Flanders/ Deguileville, Guillaume de: Pélèrinages/
Demaray,
John/
Desert
Fathers/
Detto d'amore/ Dickinson, Emily/
Diogenes Laertes/ Donati, Cianfa/ Donati, Corso/ Donne, John: "Riding
Westward"/
Dosteivsky, Fyodor: Brothers Karamazov, Grand Inquisitor/
Dugento/
Dunkirk/
E
Eadburga/
Easter
Sunday/
Easter Monday/ Eco, Umberto: Name of the Rose/ Edward III, King
& Philippa, Queen/ Edward IV, King/ Egburga/ Egeria/ Egypt/
Egyptian
Thebaid/ St. Eligius/ Eliot, T. S./ Elizabeth I, Queen/ Ellis, F. S./
England/
Erasmus: Praise of Folly/ Escorial/ Euripides: Iphigenia,
Agamemnon,
Iphigenia/
Eusebius/
Ewelme
F
Fahrenheit
451/ Faits
des Romains/ Fanon, Franz/ Fauvel, Roman de/ Ferrara/
Fetellus/
Fiesole/ Filippo, Rustico/ Fiore/ Fiori dei filosafi/ Flaubert,
Gustave: Emma Bovary/ Fleming, John V./ Florence: Baptistry, Consulte,
Palazzo
Vecchio,
Primo
Popolo,
Priorate,
Santa
Maria
Novella, Via
Veritatis,
Torre della Castagna/ Folquet de Marseilha/ Foucault, Michel/ Four
Daughters
of God/ France/ St. Francis/ Franciscans/ Frederick, Emperor/ Freud,
Sigmund/
Froissart, Jean/ Fucci, Vanni/ Furnivall, Frederick: Ballad Society,
Browning
Society, Chaucer Society, Early English Text Society, New Shakespeare
Society,
Philological Society, Wyclif Society/
G
/Galicia/
Galigai,
Puccio
Sciancato
de'/ Galilei, Galileo/ Gandhi, Mahatma/ Gandhi, Indira/ Gascoigne,
Thomas/
gematria/
Genesee, Abbey of, Geneseo/ Geneva/ Ghibellines/ Glossa Ordinaria/
Gloucester,
Duke
of,
Thomas
Woodstock/
Gombrich,
E.
H./ Gohlman,
William
E./ Good Friday/ Gower, John/ Greeks/ Gregorian chant/ Gregory, Pope/
Guelfs/
H
/Hainault/
Hainault,
Elizabeth
of/ Halle, Adam de la/ Hawthorne, Nathaniel: Scarlet Letter,
Hester
Prynne/ Helena, Empress/ Helena, Queen/ Henry of Spain/ Henry II, King/
Henry IV, King/ Henry IV, King, Margaret of Anjou/ Henry VIII, King/
Hercules/
Hereford, Bishop of/ Herzman, Ronald/ Hildegard of Bingen/ Homer:
Odyssey/
Honoré, Maitre Horace/ Horne, Hengist/ Hrotswitha/ Hunt, Leigh
I
/Iona/
Ireland/
Isidore of
Seville:
Etymologiarum/
Islam/
Israel/ Italy
J
/Jacoff,
Rachel/
James, King of
Scotland: Kings Quair/ Jameson, Fredric/ Jefferson, Thomas/
Jericho/
Jerome: Adversus Jovinianum/
Jerusalem:
Temple/ St Joan of Arc/ John XXIII, Pope/ John of Gaunt, Duke of
Lancaster,
Earl of Richmond, Duchess Blanche, Duchess Constance of Castile,
Duchess
Catherine Swynford/ Jordan/ Jordan, Count/ Josephus/ Joyce, James: Portrait
of
Artist,
Ulysses, Molly Bloom/ Joyce, Stephen/ Judaism/ Julian of
Norwich: Showing of Love/ Julius Caesar/ Jung, Carl/ Juvenal/
K
/Karlsruhe/
Keats,
John: "La
Belle
Dame", "Ode to Nightingale"/ Krakòv/ Krieger, Murray
L
/Landor,
Walter
Savage/ Langland,
William: Piers Plowman, Holichirche, Lady Mede/ Latino,
Accardo/
Latino, Bonaccursi/ Latino, Brunetto: Favolello, Li livres dou
tresor,
Rettorica, Sommetta, Tesoretto, Tesoro/ Latino, Cardinal/ Lawrence,
D. H./ Le Grand d'Aussy, Charles/ Lent/Carnival/ libraria script/
Lindisfarne
Gospels/ Lilybaeum/ Lincoln/ Lioba/ Livy/ London: Bell Inn, Globe
Theatre,
Tabard Inn/ de Lorris, Guillaume: Roman de la Rose/ Louis, King, Saint/
Margaret, Queen/ Lucan: Pharsalia, Cornelia, Aulus, Medusa, Nasidius,
Perseus,
Pompey, Sabellus/ Lucca: San Frediano/ St. Lucy/ Lyon/
M
/MacPherson,
James
Rose/ Madrid/
Makowski, Elizabeth/ Malory, Sir Thomas/ Manfred, King of Sicily/
Marcella/
Maremma/ Marie de France: Lais/ Margery Kempe/ Marseilles/
Martin,
Pope/ Marx, Karl/ Matthieu le Juif/ Mazzei, Lapo/ Mena, Juan de:
Laberinto/
Messina/ Meun, Jean de: Roman de la Rose, Constreyned
Abstinence,
Idleness, La Vielle/ Meyer, Paul/ Milan/ Milnes, Monckton/ Milret,
Bishop/
Milton, John: Areopagitica, Paradise Lost/ Modena/ Moniez
d'Arras/
Montaigne, Michel de/ Montaperti, Battle of: Libro di Montaperti/
Montfort, Guy de/ Montfort, Simon de/ Montpellier/ More, Thomas: Dialogue
of
Comfort,
Utopia/ Morris, William: "Chaucer Asleep", Kelmscott
Chaucer/ Munich/ Murray, Elizabeth/ Murray, James A. H.: Oxford
English Dictionary/
N
/Naples/
Narcissus
& Echo/
Navaho/ Nehru, Jawarlal/ Nero/ Newman, John Henry: Apologia/
St.
Nicholas/ Nicholas, Pope/ Normans/
O
/Octavian,
Emperor/
Officium
Peregrinorum/ Opilio & Gaudentius/ Orvieto/ Oshere/ Ovid: Fasti,
Heroides,
Metamorphoses, Andromeda, Arethusa, Cadmus/
P
/Perseus/
Proserpine/
Tisiphone/
Owain/ Oxford: Ashmolean, Oseney Abbey/ Padua/ Paleogus, Michael,
Emperor/
Palermo/ Palladium of Virgin Athena/ Panofsky, Erwin/ Paraclete Abbey/
Paris: St. Denis, Lendit/ Parks, Rosa/ St. Patrick's Purgatory/
Paula and Eustochium/ Pavia/ Pearl/ Perusgio, Filippo, Bishop/
Peter,
King of Aragon/ Peter, King of Spain/ Peter the Venerable/ Petrarch/
Laura
de Sade/ Pharoah/ Philo Judaeus/ Pierpont Morgan/ Piranesi, Gian
Battista/
Pisa/ Pistoia/ Plantagenet, Elizabeth/ Plato: Dialogues/
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Andrea
da/ Procida, Giovanni da/ Prospero's Books/ Pseudo-Beda/
Ptolemy:
Almagest/
Pushkin, Alexander: Mozart and Salieri, Tales of Belkin/
Q
de
Quincey, Thomas
R
/Ralegh,
Sir
Walter/ Ravenna/
Raymond
Berangar, Count/ Reconquista/ Rennes/ Reynolds, Barbara/ Richard II,
King/
Anne, Queen/ Richard III, King/ Richard of Cornwall/ Ripa, Cesare/
Rouen/
Robertson, D. W./ Robinson, F. N./ Rome: Appian Way, Ara Coeli,
Lateran,
Regina Coeli Prison, Vatican/ Romeo /Roncesvalles /Rossetti, Dante
Gabriel/
Rousseau, Jean Jacques/ Russian Formalists/ Rudulf, Emperor/
/Rufinus
97 Ruggieri, Archbishop of Pisa/
S
/Saladin
/Salisbury,
Earl and
Countess
/Sallust /Santillana, Marques de /Scala, Cavalcante della /Senator of
Rome
/Seneca, Lucilius /Seville /Shakespeare, William: Hamlet, Lear,
Cordelia, Merchant of Venice Portia, Shylock, Othello,
Richard
II, Tempest, Prospero and Miranda, Winter's Tale, Perdita
/Shaw,
Bernard: St Joan /Sheen /Sicily /Sicilian Vespers /Siena
/Sinai
/St. Catherine's Monastery /Singleton, Charles /Skeat, W. W. /Smalley,
Beryl /Socrates, Xanthippe, Diotima /Sophocles: Theban Trilogy
Antigone
Creon /Sordels, Sordello /Southern, Sir Richard /Spain /Speght, Thomas
/Spenser, Sir Edmund: Faerie Queene /Spigliati, Thomas
/Spigliati-Mozzi
/Spine, Manecto /Spinelli /Statius: Thebaid Caphaneus
/Stephany,
William /Stock, Brian /Strasbourg /Stratford atte Bowe /Suetonius
/Suffolk,
Duke of, William de la Pole/ Duke of Suffolk, John /Sweden /
T
/Tagliacozzo,
Battle
of
/Talfourd,
Charles /Tavant /Tennyson, Lord Alfred /Terence: Comedies
/Tesauro
di Vallombrosa /Thais /Thebes /Theodoric, Emperor /Thoreau, Henry
David:
Civil
Disobedience /Thynne, William /Titus and Vespasian /Tolstoy, Leo: Anna
Karenina, Kingdom of God is Within You /Torthat /Trajan /Tres
Riches
Heures /Treviso /Tristan /Troy /Tuchman, Barbara:
Distant
Mirror /Tunisian Crusade /Turin /Turner, Victor /Tuscany
U
/Udine
/St.
Urban/ Usk, Thomas:
Testament
of Love Margaret /
V
/Vadstena
/Valenciennes
/Vallombrosa
/Vatican
II /Vatican Archives /Vatican Library /Venice /Ventadorn,
Bernart
de /Verdi, Giuseppe /Verona /Veronica /Vidal, Peire /Vigne, Pier delle:
Epistolaria
/Villani, Giovanni: History of Florence/ Virgil:
Aeneid,
Aeneas Cacus Dido Geryon Hercules Laocoon Sinon Tenedos Ulysses &
Diomed
Eclogues,
Georgics /Viterbo /Volterra /Voragine, Jacobus de: Golden Legend
/
W
Walsingham
/Weil,
Simone
/Westminster
Abbey /Whitby, Council of /Wireker, Nigel: Speculum Stultorum/
Woolf,
Virginia/ Wordsworth, William/ Wyclif, John/ Wynfrith, see Boniface/
Wynken
de Worde: Orcherd of Syon
Go to:
Brunetto
Latino
and Dante
Alighieri
I Bankers
and Their Books: Italian Manuscripts in French Exile
II Brown
Ink,
Red Blood: Brunetto Latino and the Sicilian Vespers
III The
Vita
Nuova's Pilgrimage Paradigms
IV
Stealing
Hercules' Club: Inferno XXV's Metamorphoses
Geoffrey
Chaucer
V Black and
Red Letter Chaucer
VI Fact
and Fiction: Women in Love
VII
Convents,
Courts and Colleges
VIII The
Tomb of the Duchess Alice
Terence, Dante, Boccaccio and
Chaucer
IX God's Plenty: Terence in Dante,
Boccaccio, Chaucer and
Shakespeare
Newest
Epilogue:
Attica
State
Prison,
Boethius
the
Exile,
Dante
the Pilgrim
This is the Introduction from the Book, Sweet New Style: Brunetto Latino, Dante Alighieri and Geoffrey Chaucer, created, 1993; 'Sweet New Style' e-book Website created, Pentecost 2003-10
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