Multiple Models for a Single Object -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 01:16:18 01/23/08 Wed
Author: HWAET!
Subject: Multiple Models for a Single Object

Reading the Paolo and Francesca episode leads me to think that it is possible for an imitator to have multiple models for a single desired object. My premise in reading this is that while Paolo and Francesca desire each other and desire to be loved, their greatest desire is for the ability to love someone vehemently. I derive this from Francesca's answer to Dante when he asks, "by what and how did Love grant you to know the dubious desires?" She replies, "If you have such great desire to know the first root of our love....we read of Lancelot, how love constrained him...." She identifies Lancelot as their model; as an imitator, Francesca must desire what she thinks her model desires; she cannot think Lancelot desires Paolo, but she does think that Lancelot was overwhelmed by the desire to love (another translation says he "was mastered by love"). Therefore, the object most desired by Paolo and Francesca is the ability to love vehemently.

Another model for Paolo and Francesca's desire is Francesca�s idealized and personified notion of �Love.� Francesca's several accusations of "Love" reveal that she blames Love for her and Paolo's fall. It was "Love" that "seized this one [Paolo] for the fair form that was taken" from her. Then "Love seized [her] so strongly with delight," for "Love...absolves no loved one from loving." She concludes, "Love brought us to death." Francesca shows that she and Paolo have a mixed relationship with Love. They wish to imitate it (for their objective is to love vehemently), yet they claim to have been defeated by it, as if they were in competition with it. Like most models, Francesca�s notion of Love is vulnerable to Girard�s definition of hatred, a combination of admiration and contempt.

It is possible that a third model for Paolo and Francesca's desire to love vehemently is one another. The lovers' punishment is to spend eternity 'loving' the other to the point of torment. Again, this quality of inciting both admiration and loathing is characteristic of mediators, but it alone does not prove mediation. There is a good case for it, though: suppose Paolo, desiring the ability to love vehemently, notices Francesca loving him vehemently. This makes him both happy and slightly jealous, because she is more capable of acting out his desire than he is. She, of course, thinks the same about him, and jealousy escalates until it outweighs happiness, to the point that desire is hatred and hell...but still exactly what they desire.

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