| Popis: |
Lady Mary Wroth’s The Countess of Montgomery’s Urania (1621) represents curiosity in various forms. First, the characters manifest a curiosity which appears as a desire for knowledge that can never be fully satisfied. Curiosities also appear in the form of elaborate monuments which Wroth takes pains to describe. It is actually the characters’ curiosity which leads them to discover the monumental curiosities they so admire. Curiosity seems to be valued in the romance via these edifices which display architectural sophistication and a definite taste for artistry. However, these monuments are soon revealed to be enchantments in which the characters are trapped against their will and must suffer hallucinations and other psychological tortures. The protagonists’ imprisonment and torments can be seen as a form of punishment, as if their curiosity had to be chastised or even expiated through the violent melancholy they feel once inside. Melancholy thus manifests a moral condemnation of curiosity, which is associated with vanity in the Christian tradition. The characters wonder at beautiful architectural curiosities which work as temptations likely to lead them towards sin, through the nefarious ambition and « lust for the eyes » denounced by Augustine in his Confessions. The characters, however, always manage to free themselves from the enchantments. Is curiosity ultimately rehabilitated in the romance ? On the one hand, Urania adopts the moralist vision of curiosity which derives from medieval philosophy, but on the other hand, it also reveals a certain fascination with curiosity in the aesthetic sense, which anticipates the gradual rehabilitation of the notion in the second half of the seventeenth century. |
