Abstract
We have, so far, concentrated our observations on various manifestations of bad or evil. But, as we have seen, the artist, at times, in describing them, also endowed their possessor with other human qualities and, even manipulated them in such a way as to bestow on the “flawed hero” a sense of grandeur, if nothing else. But what about the “flawless hero,” such as Aeneas or Rodrigo de Bivar, known as the Cid? And they, too, have been made to look grand — invariably because of the times in which such works were written or composed. But are they less likable to us for being flawless? To put it slightly differently: we can see them as models of inspiration — nowadays we talk of iconic figures — but could it be that we see nothing of ourselves in them? And how different in the end is their fate compared to that of the “evil” character endowed with heroic features? Briefly let us look at two such personages, a mixture of reality and artistically created legend.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
The literary dispute about the treatment accorded to Dido is reflected in music. This in Berlioz’s opera Les Troyens Aeneas receives a better treatment than he received at Purcell’s hand, though, it should be noted, not for the depth of his emotions towards Dido but for his sense of duty, typically stirred by the appearance of the shadows of Priamus, Hector, and Cassandra.
A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942; 1961), p. 38.
Odysseus does not go for understatement but is quick to proclaim, even exaggerate, his fame. Thus when he introduces himself to King Alcinous he says of himself: “I am Odysseus (...) known to the world / for every kind of craft-my fame has reached the skies;” Odyssey, IX. 21–2. Only once in his peregrinations does he conceal his fame and change his name to Nobody, and that is when he wishes to trick Polyphemus. But even here, after he has escaped, he cannot resist the temptation of revealing to the Cyclop the identity of the person who blinded him: IX. 560-2-a mistake which allows the blinded Polyphemus to enlist his father’s help — Poseidon — and make the hero’s homeward journey even more difficult.
A Preface to Paradise Lost (1942; 1961), p. 39.
Guillén de Castro’s Las Mocedades del Cid, in time (1618) the closest predecessor to Corneille’s play, thus includes scenes such as the Cid’s encounter with a leper (who turns out to be none other than Saint Lazarus) and who is trapped in a swamp and is saved by the Cid, unconcerned by coming into physical contact with him. The intention to stress the Christian theme of charity and to connect it with chivalry is thus obvious.
Le Cid Pierre Corneille, Edited with an Introduction, Notes and Variants by Peter Nurse (1978; 1988), p. 10.
Jean Chapelain (1595–1674), a cultured and linguistically talented French poet and confidant of Cardinal de Richelieu, who was used by him (and his successor Cardinal Mazarin) as a kind of arbiter homanorum literarum. It was in this capacity that he was appointed to head the committee of enquiry charged with the task of evaluating Corneille’s work.
Quoted by O. Nadal, Le Sentiment de l’amour dans l’oeuvre de Pierre Corneille (1948), p. 108 (“Man created to revere God, to obey the laws, to serve his country and to aid his fellow human being, as well as to draw the benefits from important seeds planted in his soul, swallowed the poison of love as a result of magic and lost his original appearance, becoming not just something different to what he was but also the opposite.”).
“The Heyday of the “Superfluous Man” in Russia,” Slavonic and East European Review, vol. XXXI, no. 76, December, 1952, 93 ff.
Professor Seeley’s description of the early 19th century Russian aesthete / dandy could still be found in the Oxford environment that I knew. See “The Heyday of the “Superfluous Man” in Russia,” Slavonic and East European Review, vol. XXXI, no. 76, December 1952, 93, esp. 98 ff.
A Hero of Our Time, published in 1840, a year before the author’s untimely death in a duel.
Seeley, op. cit. pp. 105 ff.
Op. cit. p. 108.
Reproduced as an introduction to the Penguin Classics edition of Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons (1975), p. 21.
From What is to be Done (published in 1863).
Which I take from Professor Katerina Clark’s The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual (3rd ed. 2000).
Katerina Clark, The Soviet Novel. History as Ritual (3rd ed. 2000), pp. 47 ff.
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2007 Springer-Verlag/Wien
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
(2007). The “Flawless” Hero. In: Good and Evil in Art and Law. Springer, Vienna. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-49919-1_6
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-211-49919-1_6
Publisher Name: Springer, Vienna
Print ISBN: 978-3-211-49918-4
Online ISBN: 978-3-211-49919-1