Textuality » 3A Interacting
Now I am going to compare The Monaca di Monza and The Prioress.
The monaca di Monza was written by Alessando Manzoni
From the description you can understand her social status. She is a nun and she occupates a high position in the hierarchy of the clergy.
Manzoni gives us information about her physical appearance and the way she moves:"mosse repentine, irregolari".
After that he tells about her clothes: she is elegant and she takes care of her appearance. In addition he provides the reader with an important sentence :"dalla benda usciva sur una tempia una ciocchettina di neri capelli" a relevant aspect of the nun, she doesn't respect the rules of the order she belongs to.
Manzoni creates a lot of suspense arround his character. As the matter of fact he underlines her strange behaviour. He wants to criticize the Monaca di Monza and all the clergy because it was dominate by corruption
The prioress was written by Geoffrey Chaucer.
The prioress is introduced with reference to her social status. She belongs to the church and she held a high position in the hierarchy of the clergy, the reader understand this because she travels toghether with an other nun who behaves like a servant.
The first piece of information given is about the prioress’ smile.
This is rather unusal to describe a nun.
In addition the prioress does everything in her power to draw people’s attention.
Besides she seems more intrested in table manners than in church services and she likes more animals than human being.
The intelligent reader understand the poet used the noun “breast” to hint at woman body, to create an effect of ambiguity.
The ide ais confirmed at line 21 where the poet says:” she possesed the greatest charm” and with “So pleasent”, “So warm ” convey the idea of physical pleasure.
Only in the end of the characterization the poet refers to the physical appaerances of the nun who is very beautiful.
The intelligent reader understands that the poet focuses his attention on elements that are more the once you looking in a lover than the typical features of a religious characters.
The poet used a lot of categories of characterization to describe the nun.
For example he used:
Social status, behaviour, language, action and etc.
The two nuns that we have analysed live in different periods but they are very similar.
As the two poets underline the Monaca di Monza and the Prioress doesn't behave like common nuns. It seems that they are in a wrong place. The reader can understand this reading what they do: the Prioress pretend to be refine and the Monaca di Monza is always angry. It means that both of them are unhappy.
At that time rich families sent their daughters to convents but probably they didn't want that kind of life.
At the end people did not believe in her religious faith.