Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-gb8f7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-24T05:07:48.244Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Animals Are from Venus, Human Beings from Mars: Averroës's Aristotle and the Rationality of Emotion in Guido Cavalcanti's “Donna me prega”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Gregory B. Stone
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay provides a revisionary interpretation of one of the most important treatments of emotion (and its relation to reason) in the early period of modern European vernacular literature, Guido Cavalcanti's “Donna me prega” (“A Lady Asks Me”). According to the prevailing interpretation, the poem denigrates love as an animal power, a subhuman force that destroys our properly human rationality. Reading the poem's treatment of love in the light of Averroës's views, especially as presented in his Long Commentary on Aristotle's De anima, reveals that Cavalcanti celebrates love as paradigmatic of human reason, part and parcel of one's leading a rational and therefore human life. Love, the operation of a rational power that is mortal (not immortal) and natural (not supernatural), is for human beings the “perfect good,” the full extent of our flourishing and the best for which we can hope.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 130 , Issue 5: Special Topic: Emotions , October 2015 , pp. 1269 - 1284
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2015

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Anichini, Federica. Voices of the Body: Liminal Grammar in Guido Cavalcanti's Rime. Munich: Meidenbauer, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Ardizzone, Maria Luisa. Guido Cavalcanti: The Other Middle Ages. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2002. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Aristotle. The Complete Works of Aristotle. Ed. Barnes, Jonathan. 2 vols. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1984. Print.Google Scholar
Averroës. Long Commentary on the De anima of Aristotle. Trans. Taylor, Richard C. New Haven: Yale UP, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Averroës Middle Commentary on Aristotle's De anima. Trans. Alfred L. Ivry. Provo: Brigham Young UP, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Barolini, Teodolinda. Dante and the Origins of Italian Literary Culture. New York: Fordham UP, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Black, Deborah. “Memory, Individuals, and the Past in Averroes's Psychology.” Medieval Philosophy and Theology 5.2 (1996): 161–87. Print.Google Scholar
Blumenthal, H. J. Aristotle and Neoplatonism in Late Antiquity: Interpretations of the De anima. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1996. Print.Google Scholar
Cavalcanti, Guido. Rime. Ed. Rea, Roberto and Inglese, Giorgio. Rome: Carocci, 2011. Print.Google Scholar
Cicero. On the Commonwealth and On the Laws. Ed. Zetzel, James E. G. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Corti, Maria. “La felicità mentale.” Scritti su Cavalcanti e Dante. Torino: Einaudi, 2003. 9–41. Print.Google Scholar
Deigh, J. “Concepts of Emotions in Modern Philosophy and Psychology.” The Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Emotion. Ed. Goldie, Peter. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2010. 17–40. Print.Google Scholar
Di Martino, Carla. Ratio Particularis: Doctrines des sens internes d'Avicenne à Thomas d'Aquin. Paris: Vrin, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Favati, Guido. Inchiesta sul dolce stil nuovo. Florence: Le Monnier, 1975. Print.Google Scholar
Fenzi, Enrico. La canzone d'amore di Guido Cavalcanti e i suoi antichi commenti. Genoa: Melangolo, 1999. Print.Google Scholar
Fortenbaugh, W. W. Aristotle on Emotion. 1975. 2nd ed. London: Duckworth, 2002. Print.Google Scholar
Inglese, Giorgio. “Dubbi d'amore.” Alle origini dell'Io lirico: Cavalcanti o dell'interiorità. Ed. Antonelli, Roberto. Rome: U degli studi La Sapienza, 2001. 141–54. Print.Google Scholar
Inglese, Giorgio L'intelletto e l'amore: Studi sulla letteratura italiana del Due e Trecento. Milan: Nuova Italia, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Knuuttila, Simo. Emotions in Ancient and Medieval Philosophy. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2004. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kristeller, Paul Oskar. “A Philosophical Treatise from Bologna Dedicated to Guido Cavalcanti: Magister Jacobus de Pistorio and his ‘Questio de felicitate.‘” Medioevo e Rinascimento 1 (1955): 425–63. Print.Google Scholar
Lombardo, Nicolas E. The Logic of Desire: Aquinas on Emotion. Washington: Catholic U of Amer. P, 2011. Print.Google Scholar
Lorenz, Hendrik. The Brute Within: Appetitive Desire in Plato and Aristotle. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2006. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Macrobius. Commentary on the Dream of Scipio. Trans. William Harris Stahl. 1952. New York: Columbia UP, 1990. Print.Google Scholar
Malato, Enrico. Dante e Guido Cavalcanti: Il dissidio per la Vita Nuova e il “disdegno” di Guido. Rome: Salerno, 2004. Print.Google Scholar
Miner, Robert. Thomas Aquinas on the Passions. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2009. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Miyake, Akiko. Ezra Pound and the Mysteries of Love: A Plan for the Cantos. Durham: Duke UP, 1991. Print.Google Scholar
Mohammed, Ovey N. Averroes' Doctrine of Immortality: A Matter of Controversy. Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier UP, 1984. Print.Google Scholar
Nardi, Bruno. “L'Averroismo del primo amico di Dante.” Dante e la cultura medievale. Bari: Laterza, 1949. 93–129. Print.Google Scholar
Natali, Carlo. The Wisdom of Aristotle. Trans. Parks, Gerald. Albany: State U of New York P, 2001. Print.Google Scholar
Perler, Dominik. “Why Is the Sheep Afraid of the Wolf? Medieval Debates on Animal Passions.” Emotion and Cognitive Life in Medieval and Early Modern Philosophy. Ed. Pickavé, Martin and Shapiro, Lisa. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2012. 32–52. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sasso, Gennaro. Dante, Guido e Francesca. Rome: Viella, 2008. Print.Google Scholar
Savona, Eugenio. Per un commento a “Donna me prega” di Guido Cavalcanti. Rome: dell'Ateneo, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Smith, A. D. “Character and Intellect in Aristotle's Ethics.” Phronesis 41.1 (1996): 56–74. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sorabji, Richard. “Rationality.” Rationality in Greek Thought. Ed. Frede, Michael and Striker, Gisela. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996. 311–34. Print.Google Scholar
Tanturli, Giuliano. “Guido Cavalcanti contro Dante.” Le tradizioni del testo: Studi di letteratura italiana offerti a Domenico De Robertis. Ed. Gavazzeni, Franco and Gorni, Guglielmo. Milan: Ricciardi, 1993. 3–13. Print.Google Scholar
Taylor, Richard C. “Cogitatio, Cogitativus and Cogitare: Remarks on the Cogitative Power in Averroes.” L'élaboration du vocabulaire philosophique au moyen âge. Ed. Hamesse, Jacqueline and Steel, Carlos. Turnhout: Brepols, 2000. 111–46. Print.Google Scholar