Maddy Kirkwood

June 14th, 2022

ENLS 1st Reading Memo

Novel and Spirituality 

Hello! My name is Maddy Kirkwood. I am a senior and I major in Psychology and East Asian Studies with a concentration in Chinese. I am American by birth but have lived in America the least out of all the countries I’ve lived in. I grew up in Beijing, China, and had the most wonderful childhood there. I speak fluent Mandarin, hence my East Asian Studies major. I moved to America with my family at age 11 and lived in Northeastern Pennsylvania. A few years after that, at age 14, I moved alone to the UK to attend a co-educational boarding school called Marlborough College, in Wiltshire, England. Following boarding school, I was accepted to Bucknell and fell in love with this school and this town. 

One plan of mine for my future is to utilize both of my degrees to become a pediatric occupational therapist because I believe that children with developmental and physical disabilities are underrepresented, undervalued, and often misunderstood and I plan to change that. Besides these facts about myself and my plans for our world, I am highly interested in all things spiritual, and I love to read, so naturally, my interest drew me to your course. I’m thrilled to be back at Bucknell in in-person classes that I am passionate about, and I look forward to all that I will learn in this intriguing course. 

Apply the four themes of the tradition of the novel as a form of literature to sections 1 and 2 of our first novel, Rhodanthe and Dosikles. 

There is no question that Rhodanthe and Dosikles fits into the four themes of a traditional novel. Firstly, it uses an imaginary overlay landscape to tell the story of these two lovers, their unprecedented meeting, their kidnapping, and the subsequent events thereafter. From the introductory video, we have learned that this novel is set in an imaginary past of Constantinople, at a time before Christ. However, the characters and their story are known to be imaginary, therefore it falls in line with an overlay landscape trope. Secondly, Rhodanthe and Dosikles also includes transfigurative virtue, which is the second theme traditionally used in novels. From what we know since reading the first two sections of this novel, I would argue that Dosikles idolizes Rhodanthe and thinks her to be otherworldly and perhaps a goddess, “The girl’s beauty was something extraordinary, an august figure, a replica of a divine image, wrought in the form of Artemis” (p. 21). Dosikles believes her to have a quality of character that cannot be from this world, and he falls deeply in love with her physical self as soon as he lays eyes on her, therefore, upholding the second theme.

Rhodanthe and Dosikles also addresses marriage and it is a crucial part of the storyline and storytelling, which fits in well with the third theme of a traditional novel, the cosmic symbolism of marriage. We learn that these two characters are escaping their home because their parents do not approve of their marriage. Yet they feel so tightly bound to one another that nothing will stop their union. They wish to be tied to each other in the eyes of God and their feelings are so strong that they sacrifice their lives as they know them and choose each other instead. Therefore, this fictional tale lends itself to the third novel theme regarding marriage as a focus for understanding one’s life.

Lastly, the fourth theme, the idea of relational identity, can be applied to this novel too. When being introduced to the main characters, we see that they are almost immediately tied to another character upon introducing themselves. Dosikles does so when addressing himself and Rhodanthe in the first section of the novel. Additionally, when we are first introduced to Kratandros, another prisoner, he talks of his passionate love for Chrysochroe and tells their sad story, almost immediately. These characters seem to be deeply woven together even upon the first introduction of them, therefore, upholding the fourth theme of a novel, relational identity.