Blanquerna
Blanquerna is a novel written around 1283 by Raymond Lull. It chronicles the life of its eponymous hero. It is the first major work of literature written in Catalan, and perhaps the first European novel.[1]
Structure
The novel is divided into five parts.[2] Lull's Llibre d'Amic e d'Amat (Book of the Friend and Beloved) is often included as a semiautonomous section within Blanquerna.[3]
Plot
Blanquerna’s parents are named Evast and Aloma. Before becoming married, Evast, a nobleman, had wanted to follow the religious life but at the same time wished to experience matrimony. Evast becomes a merchant after his marriage to Aloma, and gives his son Blanquerna an education based on religious and philosophical pursuits.
In the second part, Blanquerna faces the same choice his father did –should he follow a life of celibacy or one of matrimony? Blanquerna wants to become a hermit. His mother Aloma is saddened by the fact that her son wishes to be a hermit; she tries to have her son marry a beautiful girl named Cana. Blanquerna persuades Cana to become a nun. The girl does so and later becomes an abbess.[4]
Blanquerna also faces sexual temptation in the form of a maiden named Natana. This second part includes a description of the seven sins.
In parts three through five, we see that Blanquerna has followed through on his plan and has chosen a religious life, becomes a monk (though he desires to become a hermit instead), and quickly becomes an abbot. He is subsequently elected pope.
The road to becoming pope is not easy; Blanquerna is constantly faced with tough decisions and temptations. Blanquerna is not perfect; "[he] is made credible precisely because he is prone to make mistakes and to experience temptation, and in the end this gives him an authority which other authorities are obliged to recognize."[5] And Blanquerna's quest takes him through a wide-ranging series of places and amongst various social strata –from forests and wildernesses to a dense Roman, urban landscape of thieves and prostitutes, from interactions with young maidens to interactions with popes and emperors.[6]
In addition, Blanquerna listens to the advice of a jongleur –a "wise fool" named Ramon. Blanquerna reforms the Church completely as pope -with Ramon’s help- and finally becomes a hermit, as he always wished. As a hermit, he composes a book of meditations to help his fellow hermits defeat temptation –this is the Llibre d'Amic e d'Amat, which consists of 365 love poems.[7] This text "purports to offer the protagonist’s mystical confessions, based on personal experience and examples of 'Sufi preachers,' as a guide to contemplation within the apostolic utopia of a reform of contemporary Christendom."[8]
References
- ^ Robert M Place, Buddha Tarot (Llewellyn Worldwide: 2004), 56.
- ^ Robert M Place, Buddha Tarot (Llewellyn Worldwide: 2004), 56.
- ^ Josiah Blackmore; Gregory S. Hutcheson, Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Duke University Press: 1999), 170.
- ^ Ramon Lull; E. Allison Peers (translator), Book of the Lover and the Beloved (Kessinger, 2003), 16.
- ^ Arthur Terry, A Companion to Catalan Literature (Boydell & Brewer, 2003), 14.
- ^ Arthur Terry, A Companion to Catalan Literature (Boydell & Brewer, 2003), 14.
- ^ Robert M Place, Buddha Tarot (Llewellyn Worldwide: 2004), 56.
- ^ Josiah Blackmore; Gregory S. Hutcheson, Queer Iberia: Sexualities, Cultures, and Crossings from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance (Duke University Press: 1999), 170.