Originally used to indicate a shield or coat of arms, the term 'coat of arms' transformed its meaning through the description of virtues or positive attributes, usually of a woman, in poetry of the late sixteenth century. “Blason” can denote a noun, meaning the actual list of virtues, or a verb, meaning the process of praising, adorning, describing, or boasting. Through poetry, the word transfigures its meaning depending on its relevance to the subject and intended use. A blazon is often performed in relation to the female form in erotic admiration. However, through texts such as William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, his Sonnet 130, and Sir Philip Sidney's Astrophel and Star, the convention that the blazon is fuzzy and nuanced in relation to its interpreter and its recipient, creating the argument that perhaps the coat of arms is more than just a poetic tradition. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay Before we can determine what exactly a coat of arms does, it would be poignant to consider what a traditional coat of arms would entail. Literary and cultural studies scholar Nancy Vickers looks at the original sonnetist, Francesco Petrarca, through a hypercritical lens of the performance of his blazons. Petrarch's Laura, often portrayed, absent, but passionately loved, is the object of his sonnets, admired and emblazoned within Petrarch's verses. Vickers states that Petrarch always described his beloved as "a part of a woman's parts", as "a collection of extremely beautiful dissociated objects". This brings up the question of the need for the coat of arms and the discovery of why and how it came into being. While the traditional coat of arms embellishes and celebrates with admiration and awe, it almost literally dismembers a woman by reducing her to mere parts or “objects.” The purpose of this is almost entirely obscure: why separate every part of a woman to celebrate her? Why is it a part and not a whole? This could be a divide and conquer technique, through which the viewer divides what he sees into parts that are easily mappable and easily understood both through the gaze and through the verses, and in doing so masters each of the fragmented territories. The blazon may be more innocently a distribution of attention and reverence across the entire body rather than focusing on a single (commonly sexual) part, leading the blazon to become a style more celebratory of beauty rather than an achievement of man. However, the coat of arms exists. in different forms between poetry and drama. When Petrarch's coat of arms was first consolidated, the lover became an absent character, unattainable and often ignorant or unaware of love. The poetic blazon is lyrical, imaginary and it is entirely up to the reader to illustrate it with the mind's eye. Edmund Spenser's Amoretti are a typical example of poetic blazon: "If sapphire, behold, her eyes are mere sapphires; If rubies, behold, her hips are healthy rubies; If pearls, her teeth are pearls, though round; If ivory his forehead is of ivory; if he is of gold, his curls are more beautiful in contact with the ground; if he is of silver, his beautiful hands are silver..." inventory of the attributes of his love, dragging her into an amalgam of precious jewels, reminiscent of Vicker's criticism of Petrarch. Laura's coat of arms. Spenser also compares it to a rose: Sweet is the rose, but it grows on a briar. Sweet is the juniper, but sharp is its branch..." Spenser here recognizes the danger of its beauty and compares it to a beautiful but protected thing, a thorny rose, recognizing its unattainability and natureunrequited for his love. In Astrophel and Stella, a sonnet sequence, the author Sir Philip Sidney recognizes the Petrarchan pattern and rhyme scheme along with the traditional atmosphere of admiration and longing of Sidney's ninth sonnet by including the adagio of Petrarchan's typical love poetry Sidney Stella's coat of arms, however, does not go beyond her face, an anomaly since the coat of arms is commonly erotic. There is his golden “covering” (hair), alabaster “forehead” (forehead), his “door” (lips), “lock” (teeth), and “porticos” (cheek). Although this is a typical, if miniature, style of blazon, there is a certain unconventionality in the tone that Sidney takes. Stella's mouth only "sometimes" grants grace, and her eyes are dark, reminiscent of a "touch" - a shiny black stone, an image that complicates the typical emblazoned theory of admiration. This compliment-non-compliment style calls to mind Shakespeare's Sonnet 130. , commonly called “antiblasone”. From "my mistress's eyes are nothing like the sun" to "my mistress, when she walks, treads the ground" (as opposed to in the heavens with goddesses), Shakespeare uses negatives to strangely insult the focus of his sonnet . But both Sidney and Shakespeare still use the blazon, not to insult, but to define their beloved as more realistic than any other woman "belied by false comparisons." Sidney and Shakespeare decide that earthly beauty, of a "heavenly host" and a woman who "treads the earth" rather than a goddess in the sky, is equally inspiring. Sidney concludes that nothing, as far as Stella's eyes can see, is more beautiful than her, while Shakespeare swears that her love is "as rare" as anyone who lies to their beloved or compares them falsely. Even if he compares his love to unfavorable things, there is no doubt that his love is still strong and passionate. In the poetic tradition, readers are forced to imagine a woman with golden hair and blue eyes. The visual aspect of the poem is necessary to validate the beauty of the loved one. However, in the drama, the absence of the beloved is impossible, since the actors are presented in physical bodies for the performances of the coats of arms. There is a difference in the actual manifestation of the coat of arms; while Petrarch writes for his unrequited lover, the actors speak to their lovers or about their lovers in front of an audience of spectators. The immediacy of physical presence introduces a third: those to whom the beloved shows himself. The form of the blazon idealizes a figure that an audience member need not imagine, and the physical existence presents a direct interaction between the beloved and the lover. While in poetry the reader is the intermediary, the audience directly witnesses the embellishment of one character by another in the drama. However, the theater calmly approached the issue of the coat of arms and manipulated it in many ways. Olivia from Shakespeare's Twelfth Night appropriates the coat of arms in a freewheeling complication of gender roles and mastery versus submission. However, while the traditional blazon is addressed to or for a certain person, Olivia blazons herself with a strategy of mockery. "I will give several lists of my beauty. It will be inventoried and every particle and utensil labeled according to my will: as, object, two lips, indifferent red; object, two gray eyes, with eyelids; object, a neck, a chin and so away." Olivia sorts her facial features into an “inventory,” taking ownership of her features while simultaneously labeling them in a marketing manner. The reference to his will could have a double, or triple meaning: will as in his free will; will as in the legal document written before death; or will from the subtitle of the play LaTwelfth Night: or whatever you want. She recognizes sovereignty in this moment, which unbeknownst to her is a short-lived segment of bodily autonomy, as her own body will be put on display in the next act. Olivia satirizes the meaning of valor based on its attributes, in a sense mocking the coat of arms itself, but then employs the same pattern when speaking of Cesario. "Your tongue, your face, your limbs, your actions and your spirit give you the blazon five times." In addition to the irony of Viola disguising herself as a fake Cesario, transforming the recipient of the coat of arms into an immobile female, Olivia refers to the original meaning of the word. The blazon he refers to, juxtaposed with a dramatic blazon, is the shield mentioned in the Oxford English Dictionary definition. Olivia not only lists Cesario's physical attributes, but refers to the meaning of the physical attributes. His appearance is a blazon, a trumpet, of his status and his birth. The use of the coat of arms as a signifier of one's place in society recognizes the coat of arms present on the original coats of arms, indicating a person's family and heritage. This moment between Cesario and Olivia also brings a certain sense of clarity, in the sense that the gender questions that have been asked and explored throughout the show are suspended. There is little confusion, or perhaps little attention, about who belongs to which gender affiliation. Olivia is simply admiring a person, performing a blazon on “him,” creating an exchange between the beholder and the seen in an appreciation of beauty. Isn't this exactly the purpose of the coat of arms? Furthermore, Cesario embodies the idea of ​​the remote, absent lover, as Cesario is not actually a real person. Viola's disguise, Cesario is imaginary, making Viola a vehicle through which Olivia expresses a love that is surely unrequited simply due to the fact that Cesario does not exist. In the second act, Maria introduces the audience to a different interpretation of the coat of arms: one used to her advantage over the unaware and vulnerable Malvolio. "I will let fall in his way some dark love epistles, in which from the color of his beard, the shape of his leg, the manner of his gait, the expression of his eyes, his forehead and complexion, he will find himself very sensitive personified". In this passage, Maria outlines Malvolio's exact desire to be admired by Olivia, and performs an involuntary blazon of his attributes after having just called him something entirely different: "The devil is a puritan or anything but a pleasure of the time ". ; an affectionate donkey who speaks without a book and pronounces it in broad terms; the best convinced of himself, as full as he thinks, of excellences, that it is his reason for faith that all who look at him love him". In a strange juxtaposition between Malvolio's defects and his values, Maria mocks and at the same time at the same time celebrates the blazon, regardless of his intentions. Because Malvolio's fantasy of Olivia's love is so great, it is easy for Maria to manipulate him and he becomes vulnerable to the ploy of the fake blazon. The letter, perfected by Olivia's seal, begins with "to the unknown beloved", recalling the clandestine feelings the lover has for his beloved, as Petrarch for his unknown beloved, Laura Olivia is a Petrarchan lover in many ways, although she the reconfiguration and reapplication of the blazon complicates the traditional relationship between the lover and the beloved. The female characters of Twelfth Night perform the blazons on male characters: Cesario sincerely and Malvolio jokingly. This raises the question of power. Who has the upper hand, the lover or the beloved? To return to the theory of divide and conquer, the person carrying out the coat of arms separates his lover into easily understandable parts. The coat of arms,.