cathedrals Paris & Amiens (porches):

Both cathedrals are dedicated to the Virgin.  Paris Notre dame (built 1160 finished 1260),-west façade central portal tympanum illustrates the Last Judgment, with figures of sinners being led off to hell, and good Christians taken to heaven; the right portal sculpture shows the coronation of the Virgin Mary, the left portal the lives of saints important to Parisians, Saint Anne (mother of the Virgin).  Amiens cathedral (1220-1266) west façade central portal tympanum shows Christ in Majesty presiding over the Day of Judgement while being supported by an array of saints.

 

Tuscan school (Arezzo and Siena): * see EndNote<A>

The founder of the Tuscan School of courtly poetry was Guittone d’Arezzo, (1230-94, in Arezzo, Tuscany).  He became the centre of an admiring circle when interest in the Sicilian lyric (strongly influenced by the courtly love lyric of Provence) was developing in Tuscany.  He experimented with elaborate and difficult forms of love poetry in a language that mingled local dialectisms, Latinisms, and Provençalisms.  However he eventually entered religious orders and gave up love poetry.  His later work includes sonnets and moral lyrics. He is also known as the creator of the lauda or laude, a sacred ballad, in the vernacular.

 

Guido da Siena: * see EndNote<B>

(flourished 13th century, Siena, Italy, one of the first Italian painters to break with the conventions of Byzantine painting (rigid compositional balance & frontality).  He introduced more spontaneous gestures and scenes of human tenderness to 13th-century Italian painting, helping to make possible the later acceptance in Italy of emotive Gothic painting.

 

Raphael (Madonna):

While the Renaissance broke new ground in its historical painting, portraits & mythologies, religious subjects remained a strong favourite.  And within this subject area, the Madonna remained dominant in the iconography of the Renaissance.  Some of the most eminent 16th-century Italian painters painted the popular Madonna, including Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci & Michelangelo.  They developed the 15th century Marian images by Fra Angelico, Fra Filippo Lippi, Mantegna and Piero della Francesca in particular.  The subject was equally popular in Early Netherlandish painting and that of the rest of Northern Europe.

 

Ophelia:

female character in Shakespeare's Hamlet; young & lovely noblewoman of Denmark, potential lover of Hamlet.  She is torn between her father & brother (who believe Hamlet will use her strictly for sexual gratification) and her own heart (she believes Hamlet loves her). With no mother to guide her, she has no way of deciphering the contradictory expectations of rejection & love.

 

Gretchen:

female character Faust parts 1 and 2; simple, innocent, and pious maiden who develops into a figure of tragic stature; pure and innocent, but a willing victim of Faust's seduction due to loneliness, inexperience, resentment of her mother's strictness & an idealistic.  Her crimes are the result of her innocence, although this does not negate her own responsibility.  She has an innate religious sense, allowing her to accept her punishment (end of Part 1), it explains her intuitive aversion to Mephisto. She is admitted to Heaven at the end of Part 1 as she was never motivated by evil intentions but acted according to her natural instincts.  At the end of Part 1 her insight that Faust's plan for escape would be morally unbearable leads to her refusal to leave the prison.  This prevents Faust from becoming absolutely dependent on Mephisto's power, thereby making his ultimate salvation possible.  At the end of Part 2 her sacrifice is rewarded by the joy of guiding Faust to the highest level of Paradise and, with the aid of his Love, herself rising to the highest sphere.

 

Faust II (conclusion & the early Gothic Mary):

act V, final scene-Faust has died, his soul is lifted up by a host of angels, a chorus of holy men sing the praises of Heaven; an angelic choirs sings joined by babes & 3 famous penitent women who prepare the way for the entrance of Gretchen, now a penitent.  A learned Church Doctor chants the praises of the Blessed Virgin, the Queen of Heaven.  Gretchen appears as Una Poenitentium (a penitent woman), purged of sin & progressing to ultimate Salvation. Her entrance to Paradise is dependent on the aid of Love (represented by Faust).  She welcomes him into Heaven because the highest and purest fulfilment of both of them can only be achieved together.  All the inhabitants of Heaven seem joined in a single harmonious adoration of the central glory represented by the Virgin, who now calls upon Gretchen and Faust to rise to the higher sphere.  The Doctor prostrates himself in adoration of the Virgin and her salvation.

 

hetrerre:

a high-class prostitute; a highly cultured courtesan or concubine, especially in ancient Greece.

 

three female bodies (Parthenon, East Pediment): * see EndNote<C>

the north end, a group of 3 women, attributed  to several artists, including Agoracritos, their work is very high quality, mainly in the play of drapery; 1 of the women is approaching the other 2, one of whom is carelessly lying on her neighbour; the 3 have not been identified.  However, the pattern of the chiton slipping subtly revealing the shoulder is seen on 2 of the women, a sensual gesture which could be attributed to Aphrodite

 

Raphael (Sistine Madonna): * see EndNote<C>

aka Madonna di San Sisto, oil painting; commissioned in 1512 by Pope Julius II for the church of San Sisto, Piacenza.

 

Helen (of the "iliad,"):

aka Helen of Troy, Helen of Sparta; Greek mythology, daughter of Zeus and Leda, said to have been the most beautiful woman in the world; married to King Menelaus of Sparta, abducted by Prince Paris of Troy after the goddess Aphrodite promised her to him in the Judgement of Paris; led to the Trojan War when the Achaeans set out to reclaim her.

 

Kriemhild & Siegfried:

Spengler is referencing The Nibelungenlied (The Song of the Nibelungs) an epic poem from around 1200 written in Middle High German; its poet from the region of Passau.  Based on an oral tradition with roots in historic events & individuals of the 5th & 6th centuries.  It spread throughout almost all of Germanic-speaking Europe.  It finds echoes in the Scandinavian heroic lays of the Poetic Edda and in the Völsunga saga.  In part 1 Siegfried travels to Worms to win the Burgundian princess Kriemhild from her brother King Gunther.  Gunther agrees if Siegfried helps Gunther acquire the warrior-queen Brünhild.  Siegfried does this and marries Kriemhild.  Unfortuantly Brünhild and Kriemhild become rivals.  This results in Siegfried's murder by the Burgundian vassal Hagen, Gunther being complicit.  In part 2, the widow Kriemhild is married to Etzel, king of the Huns.  Seeking revenge she later invites her brother and his court to visit Etzel's kingdom intending to kill Hagen. Her revenge results in the death of all the Burgundians as well as the destruction of Etzel's kingdom & her own death.

 

Antigone (as Amazon):

daughter & the sister of Oedipus (as he married his own mother); Oedipus is dead & his sons Polyneices & Eteocles kill each other in a brutal power struggle.  Antigone & Ismene (her sister) are the last of the family.  The new ruler of Thebes, Creon, has declared that Eteocles will be honoured with burial as a defender of Thebes: Polyneices' body is left to the vultures and dogs.  This edict drives Antigone to defy the state as she believes both brothers deserves the same treatment.   Critics have claimed Antigone as a seminal feminist, determined to do what is right even in defiance of patriarchal law.  On its first performance, Antigone captured the public imagination as her deeds expanded the possibilities of human action, reconceived the role of women in society & outlined a new type of character, one who sets her individual conscience and belief in divine principle above & against the power of the state.

 

Clytemnestra (as Amazon):

wife of Agamemnon, king of Sparta.  After Helen was kidnapped, her husband, Menelaus, asked his brother Agamemnon for help.  Greek forces gathered at Aulis.  However, consistently weak winds prevented the fleet from sailing.  The priest Calchas said the winds would be favourable if Agamemnon sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia to the goddess Artemis.  Agamemnon persuaded Clytemnestra to send Iphigenia to him, telling her he was going to marry her to Achilles.  When Iphigenia arrived at Aulis, she was sacrificed, the winds turned, and the troops set sail for Troy.  during the 10 years of war Clytemnestra begins an affair with Aegisthus, her husband's cousin.  The 2 began plotting Agamemnon's demise.  For his part Aegisthus saw his father Thyestes betrayed by Agamemnon's father Atreus.  Aegisthus was conceived specifically to take revenge on the family of Atreus.  Agamemnon, having arrived at his palace with his concubine, Cassandra, is greeted by his wife & enters the palace for a banquet.  Clytemnestra waited until he was in the bath, then entangled him in a cloth net and stabbed him to death.

 

Aeschylus (his Clytemnestra):

In his play Agamemnon (part of his Oresteia trilogy), Clytemnestra’s motives for murdering Agamemnon are complex.  In part she is an agent for the curse on Agamemnon’s family, the House of Atreus; in part she acts owing to her adulterous love for Aegisthus and in part she avenges the death of her daughter Iphigenia.  She also witnessed the murder of Tantalus her first husband by Agamemnon, his murder of their child & her subsequent rape and forced marriage to him. 

 

Medea:

In a number of mythological stories, she is a women possessed of magical powers, which she uses to murder those who cross her.  In Euripides' play Medea she is a woman scorned, rejected by her husband Jason, seeking revenge which involves the murder of her children.  Euripides character reflects strong male/female dichotomy.  She does not fit the pattern of a “normal woman” according to Athenian philosophy.  She has great intelligence and skill (masculine traits); she uses that cunning in order to manipulate men (a negative female trait).  Paradoxically she uses poison to murder some of her victims (feminine) but kills her children in cold blood (masculine).

 

Cnidian Aphrodite: * see EndNote<D>

Greek sculpture of Aphrodite by Praxiteles, 4th century BC; the first life-sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history; she is nude, reaching for a bath towel while covering her pubis, but leaving her breasts exposed.  The statue is famed for its beauty, and is designed to be appreciated from every angle. Prior to this Greek sculpture had been dominated by heroic male nudes.  The original did not survive but many Roman copies exist.  Famous copies are the Venus de' Medici and the Capitoline Venus.

 

Praxiteles (criticism of his nude goddess):

The first female nude, the Cnidian Aphrodite was not universally admired, at least initially.  Praxiteles carved 2 statues: one fully clothed, one naked.  The city of Kos was horrified at the depiction of Aphrodite nude so they took the clothed statue.  They felt the nude version was indecent and reflected poorly on their city.  The city of Knidos purchased the nude.  Evidence from aggregations suggests that the Knidian sculpture was meant to evoke male excitement upon viewing the statue (which was said to have been encouraged by the temple staff).