Latin from Scripture
I'm currently curious as to the significance of the Latin quotes in Piers Plowman. At face value, they add to the passage, providing a relevant quote from the Bible that is applicable to the situation at hand and the questions that are to be answered.
This might be a stretch, but assuming the author of Piers Plowman wanted to get some sort of point across, whether it be a superior way of life or a criticism of the Church, would the quotes provide some sort of authority? Playing on the side of logos, not many people knew how to read, let alone read Latin. So within the circle of those who were literate, through the quotes, the author also demonstrates their knowledge of the Bible.
The constant use of Et Cetera is also intriguing. I am unsure whether this is just a consequence of the A version, but are the quotes supposed to be longer? If not, is it encouraging the reader to read the Bible alongside the Piers Plowman text? Or is it just simply a "..." to indicate that the sentence does not stop there?
Also something I've been meaning to explore more is who uses quotes from the Bible. I've been doing some light browsing through previous chapters and I'm not sure if the Narrator himself uses any quotes from the Bible, but rather, only the characters such as Holy Church, Conscience, etc. (no pun intended) do. This might just be a result of me missing something or over-reading, but I wonder if it holds any significance.
This might be a stretch, but assuming the author of Piers Plowman wanted to get some sort of point across, whether it be a superior way of life or a criticism of the Church, would the quotes provide some sort of authority? Playing on the side of logos, not many people knew how to read, let alone read Latin. So within the circle of those who were literate, through the quotes, the author also demonstrates their knowledge of the Bible.
The constant use of Et Cetera is also intriguing. I am unsure whether this is just a consequence of the A version, but are the quotes supposed to be longer? If not, is it encouraging the reader to read the Bible alongside the Piers Plowman text? Or is it just simply a "..." to indicate that the sentence does not stop there?
Also something I've been meaning to explore more is who uses quotes from the Bible. I've been doing some light browsing through previous chapters and I'm not sure if the Narrator himself uses any quotes from the Bible, but rather, only the characters such as Holy Church, Conscience, etc. (no pun intended) do. This might just be a result of me missing something or over-reading, but I wonder if it holds any significance.
Yeah I agree with your point that Piers use Latin in the purpose of making his argument powerful during debates since only literate people can read Latin. And I think those allegorical characters also use Latin frequently because they want to demonstrate their authority on certain matters.
ReplyDeleteI think the Latin bible quotes acts as a summary of the point, or at least evidence to it. For instance, in passus eleven, Scripture and the narrator debate, with the narrator pointing to the bible to say that those who are baptized go to heaven. Sometimes the Latin is used to punctuate the point, as one of the characters ramps up to a point that they explain using the bible. None of these quotes stand on their own; they're all attached at the end of the paragraph to provide some form of logos or ethos to arguments of the characters.
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