Spike’s reading list

Well, also, I’m playing on several things. Spike, who in Restless is positioned as a future Watcher, frequently speaks Buffy’s shadow desires, has killed Slayers, who in the Romantic tradition so closely parallels sex and death, who, who, who…  Look, I’m tying up about a million dozen ideas about the ever analyzable Spike.

Also, as my housemate put it, he’s using his Williamness to woo Buffy. 

1st book
I’ve often thought about Spike in context with the Art of Courtly Love (actually, I’m not the only one. I recently read an essay on the subject. However since I digress slightly from their point, I’ll go on.)

So, at the end of Season 5 and to a certain extent in early Season 6, Spike’s argument that Buffy should love him/let him love her is based on the idea that he can change because of love. Love will make him a better, if not redeemed, person. 

For the first half of the season, I saw quite a few posts on message boards referring to Spike as Brad. The real Spike is off being evil with Drucilla. His twin, Brad, is hanging out with Buffy pretending to be Spike. I guess some people don’t like the idea that people can grow up and get socialized.

2nd book
However, mid season, Spike switches gears, i.e. he throws the book away. (Note: the block of cement is holding the book for him, so who knows if he’ll get it back). He starts wooing Buffy based not on her goodness (your love will make me good too), but on how she’s dark inside (like Spike). Course the joke here is that he’s only read the cover of the book. 1) Buffy isn’t only dark inside. 2) He makes the same mistake as Francesca in Inf Canto V (yes back to Dante). She made her romantic choices without finishing the book. 3)Liasons Dangereuses doesn’t end well. The result of corrupting the good characters is death and importantly social ostracism (and a funny case of syphilis). 

3rd book
The third book, is Ovid’s Ars Amatoria, the guide to picking up chicks in Ancient Rome. The third book of the Ars is about how to fall out of love. Here I’m trying to echo Spike’s frequently expressed wish that he was not in love with Buffy. He struggles against whatever he is becoming. It also means, that Spike knows perfectly well who Virgil is.

If he knows who Virgil is, then he knows who Dante is. And keep in mind, Spike is reading three books within 1 story (How, very Trinitarian). A story in which Dante, one of the most crucial proponents of love’s redemptive power, is a character. Does this make me a redemptionista. Or perhaps I side with Virgil, I have no idea where they’re going. What exactly do they mean by soul?
 

The Art of Courtly Love

The Lady isn’t impressed and she blows him off. His rank is too low to reflect well on her.
 

Courtly Love Tradition

Here I fall into a fairly popular and beguiling theory (see if you can see the Spike in this picture).

So, you’ve got all these noble families producing kids like there’s no tomorrow, because 1) kids die. You need spares. 2) hello, middle ages, no birth control.

However, if you’re a second or third or whatever son, there probably isn’t any land for you to inherit. So, you become a knight or a priest. So, there you are a young man, highly trained in warfare. You probably roam around supporting yourself by fighting in tourneys or robbing people, looking for some position with a lord. Course, you’re nobility, so can't just get a job. You can’t get married, unless you have land or you kidnap someone.  Heiresses are reserved for alliances. Also, if you’re not married, no matter how old you are, you’re considered a young bachelor and your opinion on things doesn’t mean didley. 

Again, armed and trained young men, who have a slim chance of jobs, wives, children, respect, etc. 

Hmmm…then we have the courtly love tradition. A young man is expected to find a beautiful and worthy Lady and do great deeds in her name, incidentally working for her husband fighting in local disputes.

The more suitors that a Lord’s wife has, the greater his prestige, “Look what a babe is my wife.”  Also, the larger his labor pool.

The more suitors a Lady has, well it certainly improves her prestige, “Look at how many good and noble knights strive their best for love of me.” This also serves to elevate women into an inspirational role. They, like the Virgin Mary, whose cult was on the rise at about this time, are seen to inspire men to become better than they were.

The knight now has a place in society. He isn’t some wandering schlub without a home. He’s so and so’s knight. Through loving her, he can claim to gain better manners, social respectability, and not incidentally a job. Also, if his fame becomes truly great (in the tourney, in battle, etc.), perhaps he can get land, a wife. Well, if worked for William the Marshall.

And I want to emphasize, Courtly Love has nothing to do with redemption. It’s all about better tables manners and having a place in the world.

Now the Italian Love tradition as imagined by one Dante Aligheri, that’s a different story.
 

Caritas

Whatever. For me the entire Commedia boils down to this: God is Primal Love. Everyone has love within them. Sin results from misdirected, selfish love. Caritas is about getting your love act together. 

Dante and other Italian poets of the period took the troubadour tradition one step further. Now the stakes aren’t socialization, it’s the lover’s soul. 

Through loving someone, a man learns what it is to love and from there it's just a step towards learning to love God. The woman is the moon that reflects the light of the sun, God. 

Virgil the Fanboy

I imagine Virgil and his fellow philosophers and poets sitting around Limbo every Monday and Tuesday night watching Buffy and Angel on TV and then chewing every single aspect to death. It’s not like they can get lives. They’re all dead. 

Being the staunch fellow that he is, Virgil isn’t up on the Spoilers, thus he doesn’t make any prophetic statements. Now if it had been Ovid...