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< Previous Page | Next Page > Chapter 1a: Reason and SensualityThe poet wastes little time establishing the setting and genre of his poem before he introduces the reader to the question around which The Assembly of Gods is organized. The first stanza reads:
The pondering of this question causes the narrator to fall into a deep sleep and brings on his dream. The question is immediately obscured by the narrative and is not openly raised again until the end of the dream, but the accord of reason and sensuality is the element that unifies the various sections of the poem and it is the key to the poem’s use of allegory. The conflict between reason and sensuality is a common theme in the literature and philosophy of the Middle Ages. Medieval readers knew these characters and understood the nature of their conflict. That is just as well, because The Assembly of Gods gives no direct explanation of the characters or their discord. In the morality plays and the literature with which The Assembly of Gods is contemporary, the characters of Reason and Sensuality are generally announced and explained, and their attributes and roles explicitly stated. But here, although their dissonance and its resolution are the main theme of the poem, the characters appear, act and then disappear, quite literally, without introduction and with only limited explanation. As a result, it may be of some use to look at the way that Reason, Sensuality and their conflict are characterized in other literature of the time before considering how they are presented in The Assembly of Gods. The discord between reason and sensuality is associated with the medieval idea that the individual is a microcosm, or a world in miniature. Elements and forces at work in the world correspond with elements and forces at work in the body. This idea of correspondences between the world and the individual may have originated in ancient sources,*see Bloomfield, Seven (23-24) but, nourished by the medieval love of allegory and the scholastic interest in subdivision, the concept of the microcosm blossomed into a complex system designed to explain the inner and outer workings of human beings. The exact nature of the divisions and correspondences varied in many areas, and the divisions and correspondences for theologians were often more complex than those that appear in the arts. But, the idea of a division between the sensitive and the rational within the human soul was an important part of the medieval concept of the microcosm.*Examples of the different views include Augustine, for whom sensuality was a part of reason. In De Trinitate Augustine describes two parts of reason and compares the two parts to Adam and Eve. As D. W. Robertson explains, “Adam represents the higher part of reason whose function is sapientia, or wisdom, and Eve represents the lower part of the reason whose function is scientia, or knowledge of things seen.” Robertson goes on to say that for Peter Lombard “since the lower part of the reason is closely allied to the senses, it may with justice be called ‘sensuality’” (74-75). For later thinkers Reason and Sensuality are separate parts of the soul. For example, C. S. Lewis quotes Trevisa who wrote of “thre manere soulis . . . vegitabilis that geveth lif and no feeling, sensibilis that giveth lif and feling and nat resoun, and racionalis that geveth lif, feling and resoun.” All created things have the first part of the soul, animals have the first and second parts and humans have all three (Discarded 153). The rational part of the soul is the part which was given to Adam by God himself in the creation. It is that portion which was created in God’s image and separates us from animals and other created things. As Augustine says, “A great thing is man, made in the image and likeness of God, not in that he is encased in a mortal body, but in that he excels the beasts in the dignity of a rational soul” (18). In some medieval systems, the rational soul is further divided,*For example, Lewis refers to Boethius who made a distinction between intelligentia and ratio within the rational soul (Discarded 156-57). but in most literary sources reason represents the rational soul. For example, in the morality play Wisdom, which was written around the turn of the sixteenth century Anima asks Wisdom, “In a soule what thynges be,/ By whiche he hath his knowyng?” Widom explains that there are “Tweyn parties,” one of which,
Reason, as it is used to represent the rational soul, is not just the ability to apply principles of logic or deduction correctly, it is that portion of the soul which has the ability to understand God and choose the godly, to strive for the divine. In the poetry of the time reason is invariably responsible for encouraging the individual to act in accordance with virtue. As Anima, or the soul, in Piers Plowman identifies herself to Will she says, “when ich deme domes - and do as truethe teacheth/ Thanne is Racio my riʒt nae - Resoun an Englisshe”Langland B, XV ll. 27-28). In Lydgate’s translation of Reason and Sensuality, Nature instructs the dreamer that there are two roads he can travel. One, to the East, is “celestiall” and “dyvyne.” Of it she says,
In the late fifteenth century morality drama Nature, Reason talks about Man:
This concept of Reason as the element of the soul that is responsible for helping the individual to understand higher truths, make moral judgements and strive for the divine appears regularly and consistently in the allegorical poems and plays that are contemporary with The Assembly of Gods. Literature of the time also mentions sensuality, or the Sensitive Soul, regularly, but the characterization of Sensuality is less consistent. At their roots, the different representations of Sensuality have much in common, but the details can change significantly from one work to the next. The most basic element of Sensuality is the ability to receive information from the senses. Lewis describes the Sensitive Soul as having,
In Reason and Sensuality Nature explains that God has given man two virtues,
In Piers Plowman Anima’s description goes a little farther. She says, “whan I fele that folke telleth - my firste name is Sensus,/ And that is wytte and wisdome - the welle of alle craftes” (Langland B, XV ll. 29-30). Here Sensuality includes some ability to process sensation, but not necessarily to make judgements or propose action. The faculty of sensation and even some basic sense of understanding is something that most authors include, either explicitly or implicitly, in their depictions of Sensuality, but as with Reason, the characters who represent sensuality are rarely morally neutral. The fact that sensuality is the part of the soul that is concerned with the physical world, coupled with the medieval distrust of temporal things, lead to a depiction of Sensuality as an unreliable character who encourages the individual to seek the pleasures of the world and the flesh. If sensuality is left unchecked it will lead to sin and distort the image of God in the soul. As Wisdom explains to Anima, Sensuality,
After Nature describes “the vertu sensytif” in terms of perception in Reason and Sensuality (as quoted earlier), she encourages the dreamer to be ruled by Reason, warning that,
Sensuality then is generally not just the ability to perceive things in the world, but it desires worldly things, among which are bodily delight and worldly vanity, and encourages people to seek those things rather than spiritual or virtuous things. This attraction to and advocacy of temporal pleasures leads to the conflict with reason because, in the words of Nature, “reson vnto vertu ay accordeth.” When the physical world and the flesh conflict with the spiritual, as they generally did during the Middle Ages, reason and sensuality champion different causes. In addition, because the sensitive part of the soul sides with the natural world, it can be used by the vices, or by the World, the Flesh and the Devil, a fiendish trinity often set in opposition to God (the holy trinity) and his agents. And yet, both reason and sensuality are described as virtues “graunted vnto man” by God as ways to gain knowledge. As Nature explains,
For Langland, Lydgate and other medieval poets, sensuality is not a vice, but its attraction to the fallen world often makes it appear as one and causes it to work with God’s adversaries to the detriment of those who follow its counsel rather than reason’s. The parson in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales explains the appropriate roles for reason and sensuality when he says,
The problems that arise when “reason has lost ‘the lordshipe that it should have over sensualitee’” (Robertson 493 quoting from Chaucer’s Troilus and Criseyde ) are a main theme in the literature and drama of the Middle Ages. In Thomas Chandler’s Liber Apologeticus De Omni Statu Humanae Nature (c. 1460) God gives man “freewill and two companions, Reason, as his guide, and Sensuality, as a beast of Burden, with a warning not to taste of Sensuality’s forbidden fruits,” but before the first act is over he has disregarded the counsel and is left to mourn, “Whither is my fled beauty, the image of God, shining in the face of every man?” (Davenport 93). This pattern appears in most of the morality plays and in many works of literature, including The Assembly of Gods. In some later allegorical works, the character Sensuality is even more closely allied with the vices*Morton W. Bloomfield describes Dame Sensuality in Stephen Hawes’ Example of Virtue from 1504 as, “a lady riding a goat ‘in fresshe arraye right yonge of aege and lusty of intent,’ who is obviously willing to have intimate relations” (Seven 239). This depiction of Dame Sensuality is reminiscent of the whore of Babylon from the book of Revelation and the portrayal and function of Dame Sensuality in the poem are similar to that of Pride, as described in the following chapter of Hawes’ poem. Sensuality is represented tempting Rex Humanitas toward sexual sin in David Lyndsay’s Satyre of the Thrie Estaites from 1540 (see Mackenzie 87-94). or with the World, the Flesh and the Devil.*In the early sixteenth century morality drama Mary Magdalene Sensuality is a messenger for the World (see Davenport 121). In others, certain aspects of the sensitive soul are selected for emphasis and these usually focus on specific temptations.*e.g. The role of Sensual Appetite in Interlude of the Four Elements (printed in 1519) and of Sensual Suggestion in The Conflict of Conscience (a late sixteenth century morality play by Nathaniell Woodes) (Mackenzie 137-48). Characterizations of Sensuality differ in the degree to which he or she is connected to the vices and in how vehemently he or she fights against Reason, but, in each, Sensuality is differentiated from the vices in that it is consistently regarded as gift a from God which is necessary and even positive if it is kept under the control of Reason. < Previous Page | Next Page > | ContentsChapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3: Literary, Visual and Dramatic Allegories Chapter 4: Death and the accord of Reason and Sensuality Appendix 1 Appendix 2: Critical response to The Assembly of Gods |
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