Senex amans

Last updated

A senex amans (from Latin: "aged lover", "amorous old man") is a stock character of classical Greek and Roman comedy, medieval literature (e.g., fabliau) and drama. It is an old jealous man married to a young woman and thus often an object of mockery. He is variously ugly, impotent, puritanical, and foolish to be cuckolded by a young and handsome man. Often the term senex amans is applied to the very motif involving the three.

The classic example of a senex amans is Januarie (January) in the "Merchant's Tale" (part of the Canterbury Tales ). [1] He is 60 years old (which given the life expectancy was a very advanced age) and he marries a young girl (under 18) named May, who later cuckolds him by entering into a secret relationship with January's squire, Damyan (Damian).

The senex amans is not always a one-dimensional figure presented for derision. The morality within the tale itself is somewhat ambiguous, with the corrosive irony directed at January coupled with a more generalised sympathy and understanding.

See also

Related Research Articles

<i>On the Consolation of Philosophy</i> Philosophical work by Boethius

On the Consolation of Philosophy, often titled as The Consolation of Philosophy or simply as the Consolation, is a philosophical work by the Roman statesman Boethius written while he was imprisoned by the Ostrogothic king, Theodoric, in 523. Often described as the last great Western work of the Classical Period, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy heavily influenced the philosophy of late antiquity, as well as Medieval and early Renaissance Christianity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">King Arthur</span> Legendary British leader of the late 5th and early 6th centuries

King Arthur was a legendary Celtic Briton who, according to medieval histories and romances, was leader of the Celtic Britons in battles against Saxon invaders of Britain in the late 5th and early 6th centuries. Details of Arthur's story are mainly composed of Welsh mythology, English folklore and literary invention, and most historians of the period do not think that he was a historical figure. Arthur is first recorded in source sources which date to 300 years after he is supposed to have lived, the Annales Cambriae and the Historia Brittonum. His name also occurs in early poetic sources such as Y Gododdin.

Valinor or the Blessed Realms is a fictional location in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the home of the immortal Valar on the continent of Aman, far to the west of Middle-earth; he used the name Aman mainly to mean Valinor. It included Eldamar, the land of the Elves, who as immortals were permitted to live in Valinor.

<i>Bishōnen</i> Japanese term for an attractive young man

Bishōnen is a Japanese term literally meaning "beautiful youth (boy)" and describes an aesthetic that can be found in disparate areas in East Asia: a young man of androgynous beauty. This word originated from the Tang dynasty poem Eight Immortals of the Wine Cup by Du Fu. It has always shown the strongest manifestation in Japanese pop culture, gaining in popularity due to the androgynous glam rock bands of the 1970s, but it has roots in ancient Japanese literature, the androsocial and androerotic ideals of the medieval Chinese imperial court and intellectuals, and Indian aesthetic concepts carried over from Hinduism, imported with Buddhism to China. Today, bishōnen are very popular among girls and women in Japan. Reasons for this social phenomenon may include the unique male and female social relationships found within the genre. Some have theorized that bishōnen provide a non-traditional outlet for gender relations. Moreover, it breaks down stereotypes surrounding feminine male characters. These are often depicted with very strong martial arts abilities, sports talent, high intelligence, dandy fashion, or comedic flair, traits that are usually assigned to the hero/protagonist.

The Merchants Tale One of Geoffrey Chaucers Canterbury Tales

"The Merchant's Tale" is one of Geoffrey Chaucer's Canterbury Tales. In it Chaucer subtly mocks antifeminist literature like that of Theophrastus ("Theofraste"). The tale also shows the influence of Boccaccio, Deschamps' Le Miroir de Mariage, Roman de la Rose by Guillaume de Lorris, Andreas Capellanus, Statius, and Cato. The tale is found in Persia in the Bahar Danush, in which the husband climbs a date tree instead of a pear tree. It could have arrived in Europe through the One Thousand and One Nights, or perhaps the version in book VI of the Masnavi by Rumi. Though several of the tales are sexually explicit by modern standards, this one is especially so. Larry Benson remarks:

The central episode of the Merchant's Tale is like a fabliau, though of a very unusual sort: It is cast in the high style, and some of the scenes are among Chaucer's most elaborate displays of rhetorical art.

<i>Heptaméron</i>

The Heptaméron is a collection of 72 short stories written in French by Marguerite de Navarre (1492–1549), published posthumously in 1558. It has the form of a frame narrative and was inspired by The Decameron of Giovanni Boccaccio. It was originally intended to contain one hundred stories covering ten days like The Decameron, but at Marguerite’s death it was completed only as far as the second story of the eighth day. Many of the stories deal with love, lust, infidelity, and other romantic and sexual matters. One was based on the life of Marguerite de La Rocque, a French noblewoman who was punished by being abandoned with her lover on an island off Quebec. In 1973, the French director Claude Pierson (1930-1997) made an adaptation of this work, entitled Ah ! Si mon moine voulait… with Alice Arno in the cast.

A fabliau is a comic, often anonymous tale written by jongleurs in northeast France between c. 1150 and 1400. They are generally characterized by sexual and scatological obscenity, and by a set of contrary attitudes—contrary to the church and to the nobility. Several of them were reworked by Giovanni Boccaccio for the Decameron and by Geoffrey Chaucer for his Canterbury Tales. Some 150 French fabliaux are extant, the number depending on how narrowly fabliau is defined. According to R. Howard Bloch, fabliaux are the first expression of literary realism in Europe.

Wise old man Jungian and literary archetype

The wise old man is an archetype as described by Carl Jung, as well as a classic literary figure, and may be seen as a stock character. The wise old man can be a profound philosopher distinguished for wisdom and sound judgment.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">History of Arda</span> History of J. R. R. Tolkiens Middle-earth

In J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium, the history of Arda, also called the history of Middle-earth, began when the Ainur entered Arda, following the creation events in the Ainulindalë and long ages of labour throughout Eä, the fictional universe. Time from that point was measured using Valian Years, though the subsequent history of Arda was divided into three time periods using different years, known as the Years of the Lamps, the Years of the Trees and the Years of the Sun. A separate, overlapping chronology divides the history into 'Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar'. The first such Age began with the Awakening of the Elves during the Years of the Trees and continued for the first six centuries of the Years of the Sun. All the subsequent Ages took place during the Years of the Sun. Most Middle-earth stories take place in the first three Ages of the Children of Ilúvatar.

Legendary saga

A legendary saga or fornaldarsaga is a Norse saga that, unlike the Icelanders' sagas, takes place before the settlement of Iceland. There are some exceptions, such as Yngvars saga víðförla, which takes place in the 11th century. The sagas were probably all written in Iceland, from about the middle of the 13th century to about 1400, although it is possible that some may be of a later date, such as Hrólfs saga kraka.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chivalric romance</span> Type of prose and verse narrative

As a literary genre, the chivalric romance is a type of prose and verse narrative that was popular in the noble courts of High Medieval and Early Modern Europe. They were fantastic stories about marvel-filled adventures, often of a chivalric knight-errant portrayed as having heroic qualities, who goes on a quest. It developed further from the epics as time went on; in particular, "the emphasis on love and courtly manners distinguishes it from the chanson de geste and other kinds of epic, in which masculine military heroism predominates."

<i>The Canterbury Tales</i> (film) 1972 Italian film

The Canterbury Tales is a 1972 Italian film directed by Pier Paolo Pasolini based on the medieval narrative poem by Geoffrey Chaucer. The second film in Pasolini's "Trilogy of Life", preceded by The Decameron and followed by Arabian Nights, it won the Golden Bear at the 22nd Berlin International Film Festival.

Loathly lady Archetypal woman who transforms from ugly to beautiful

The loathly lady, is a tale type commonly used in medieval literature, most famously in Geoffrey Chaucer's The Wife of Bath's Tale. The motif is that of a woman who appears unattractive but undergoes a transformation upon being approached by a man in spite of her unattractiveness, becoming extremely desirable. It is then revealed that her ugliness was the result of a curse which was broken by the hero's action.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amazing-Man (Centaur Publications)</span> Comics character

Amazing-Man is a fictional, American comic book superhero whose adventures were published by Centaur Publications during the 1930s to 1940s in the Golden Age of Comic Books. Historians credit his creation variously to writer-artist Bill Everett or to Everett together with Centaur art director Lloyd Jacquet. Amazing-Man first appeared in Amazing-Man Comics #5.

"The Ass", "The Donkey", or "The Little Donkey" is a German fairy tale collected by Brothers Grimm compiled in the Grimm's Fairy Tales.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Cuckold</span> Husband of an adulterous wife

A cuckold is the husband of an adulterous wife; the wife of an adulterous husband is a cuckquean. In biology, a cuckold is a male who unwittingly invests parental effort in juveniles who are not genetically his offspring. A husband who is aware of and tolerates his wife's infidelity is sometimes called a wittol or wittold.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Middle-earth</span> Continent in Tolkiens legendarium

Middle-earth is the fictional setting of much of the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy. The term is equivalent to the Miðgarðr of Norse mythology and Middangeard in Old English works, including Beowulf. Middle-earth is the human-inhabited world, that is, the central continent of the Earth, in Tolkien's imagined mythological past. Tolkien's most widely read works, The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, are set entirely in Middle-earth. "Middle-earth" has also become a short-hand term for Tolkien's legendarium, his large body of fantasy writings, and for the entirety of his fictional world.

The Valar are characters in J. R. R. Tolkien's legendarium. They are "angelic powers" or "gods" subordinate to the one God. The Ainulindalë describes how those of the Ainur who chose to enter the World (Arda) to complete its material development after its form was determined by the Music of the Ainur are called the Valar, or "the Powers of the World". The Valaquenta indicates that the Elves generally reserved the term "Valar" for the mightiest of these, calling the others the Maiar. The Valar are mentioned briefly in The Lord of the Rings, but were developed earlier in material published posthumously in The Silmarillion and The History of Middle-earth.

<i>The Silmarillion</i> Collection of J. R. R. Tolkiens mythopoeic works

The Silmarillion is a collection of myths and stories in varying styles by the English writer J. R. R. Tolkien. It was edited and published posthumously by his son Christopher Tolkien in 1977, assisted by the fantasy author Guy Gavriel Kay. It tells of Eä, a fictional universe that includes the Blessed Realm of Valinor, the once-great region of Beleriand, the sunken island of Númenor, and the continent of Middle-earth, where Tolkien's most popular works—The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings—are set. After the success of The Hobbit, Tolkien's publisher Stanley Unwin requested a sequel, and Tolkien offered a draft of the writings that would later become The Silmarillion. Unwin rejected this proposal, calling the draft obscure and "too Celtic", so Tolkien began working on a new story that eventually became The Lord of the Rings.

Senex is a Latin word literally meaning a man of old age. It may specifically refer to:

References

  1. Jill Whitelock (1 January 2005). The seven sages of Rome (midland version). Oxford University Press. p. 103. ISBN   978-0-19-722327-7.