Death is often referenced throughout the novel, being
attained through many different means. Early on in the work Jacopo’s despair
centers around his self-inflicted exile from his home of Venice due to the
Treaty of Campoformio in which Napoleon gave the Venetian Republic to Austria.
Jacopo looks for many remedies in which to cope with the exile not only for
himself but also his neighbors that he left behind. “There were many races once
who, rather than obey the Romans, the world’s brigands, gave to the flames
their homes, their wives, their children, and themselves, burying their sacred
independence among the glorious ruins and ashes of their homeland,” (Foscolo
11). Jacopo’s desire to do the same with his community reflects Foscolo’s permittance
of suicide in avoidance of suffering under an oppressive regime. Yet, later on
in the novel, Foscolo refers to individual suicide as “cowardly,” (Foscolo 77),
due to the selfishness it contains. But it has to be asked where the discrepancy
lies between the two acts and why Foscolo views one as acceptable, even heroic
and the other selfish and cowardly. It is possible the difference lays in the
instance that personal suicide doesn’t rid of the burdens that inflicted the
pain onto the victim as it only brings them upon the loved ones they leave
behind. But the suicide of an entire race has a similar effect. The men are the
ones who decide for their families their fate, and are applying their burdens
onto their family to justify their shared death. Foscolo fails to recognize the
similarities that both types of suicides share.
Foscolo likens love to nature throughout the novel. Jacopo
finds himself free of his despair when in the presence of nature and/or Teresa.
“After that kiss I feel divine… and it seems that the whole of Nature is mine,”
(Foscolo 58). Foscolo goes as far to combine Teresa and Nature as one. Nature
is Jacopo’s in the aftermath of Teresa expressing her love for him. But as
Teresa’s guilt weighs her down in the aftermath of the kiss, Nature loses its
lust and beauty. Before the kiss, Nature, which in winter is in a “dead sleep,”
(Foscolo 62), held onto its beauty through Teresa’s radiance. Yet, in the peak
of spring’s blossom when Jacopo has found his love for Teresa forbidden, the
pleasure Nature had once brought him is gone and he goes on longing for death.
The happiness Jacopo found in his love for Teresa was simultaneous with his
recognition of the beauty of nature, even in its dimmest days of winter. To
Jacopo Teresa is the goddess of nature.
Nature’s beauty is most radiant in her presence and in the time in which
her love is still obtainable in Jacopo’s imagination. His love for Teresa is in
turn immortal, leaving him longing for the day of his death after their mutual
love is forbidden because he lived for her love and recognizes that his love
for her will last beyond his last breath. A man is most aware and appreciative
of his surroundings when he is draped in the pleasures of love.
I agree that Jacobo contradicts himself in his arguments of suicide. He talks of the heroism of suicide when referring to him doing it, but when talking about others committing suicide, he says it is cowardly. He puts his emotions on a pedestal and does not believe that others experience what he has had to go through in his lifetime, so he thinks of his own suicide as a heroic act. He believes his emotions towards Teresa are beyond what anyone else could feel. He does not think that others feel the way he does, so suicide done by anyone but himself is cowardly.
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