
In canonical works of Western literary tradition, poetic genius and madness are
concepts that have consistently come up across time, no matter if in works of
criticism or fiction. Genius and madness are seen as forces outside the poet’s
control and that lead to the production of great poetry. Using Aristotle and
Friedrich Schiller’s comments on madness, simplicity, and genius as a frame of
reference, this essay examines Miguel de Cervantes’s _Don Quixote_ and Bohumil
Hrabal’s _Too Loud a Solitude_ to uncover the role of the madman not as the
author, but as the protagonist. Cervantes and Hrabal portray their main
characters as mad through their thoughts, actions, and other characters’
reactions. As geniuses by virtue of their madness, the protagonists of the two
works ultimately invite the reader to momentarily become mad with them as a
transformative experience.

_Don Quixote_ follows the narrative of a man named Alonso Quixano who reads so
many chivalric novels that he believes himself to be a knight-errant. He
convinces his neighbor, Sancho Panza, to become his squire and embark on his
adventures to revive chivalry together. Though other characters, and even the
narrator, view him as a madman, they occasionally humor his delusions,
participating in his fantastical quests and sometimes getting caught up in his
idealistic view of the world. The novel is written in the third-person
perspective, and the narrator often uses a mocking tone to satirize Don
Quixote’s actions.

_Too Loud a Solitude_ is a Czechoslovakian novel self-published outside of the
country during a period of heavy censorship following the Prague Spring. It is
written in the first-person perspective, and the narrator’s voice belongs to the
protagonist, Haňtá. Stylistically, it is composed of many run-on sentences with
beautiful prose to reflect the narrator’s philosophical musings and experiences.
It explores the underground side of censorship and the impact literature can
have on one’s life.

Like Don Quixote, Haňtá can also be classified as a madman, but his
peculiarities are more subtle than those of the former. Haňtá is a wastepaper
compactor who has been working in his underground cellar for thirty-five years.
He likes to save rare books, bringing some home and using others to create works
of art that only he knows about. He carefully lays an open book in the center of
each compacted bale of paper as his signature, then frames the bale with printed
reproductions of European art. Though his cellar piles up with wastepaper that
he cannot process efficiently enough, he still prioritizes creating these bales
over all else. He says, “I’m the only one on earth who knows which bale has
Goethe, which Schiller, which Hölderlin, which Nietzsche. In a sense, I am both
artist and audience”, and calls each book he buries in his bales “a precious
relic” (Hrabal 6). He detests showering, drinks all day, and does not adhere to
conventional ideas of public decorum. His boss begs him multiple times to “come
to [his] senses” and eventually resorts to calling him a “nitwit” before
replacing him with men from the Socialist Labor movement (46, 72). Since he had
been saving money to buy his hydraulic press and continue his life’s work after
retirement, his termination means he loses his life’s purpose and everything he
has. Defeated, he imitates Seneca and Socrates and chooses his own fall,
compacting himself to death in his press and holding a book opened to a page
saying, “Every beloved object is the center of a garden of paradise” (97). From
the way he carries himself, is both artist and audience, must come to his
senses, and ends his life, he, too, can be considered a madman.

Though the two protagonists share the characteristic of madness, their
manifestations of it differ greatly. While their narratives depict them as
madmen, madness is never explicitly defined, yet is evident to the reader
nonetheless. Aristotle’s ideas in _Poetics_ can create a framework for analyzing
their thoughts and actions. He states that poetry stems from either natural
ability or madness, which he defines as when someone is “beside himself”
(Aristotle 79). To be beside oneself means to be overwhelmed by emotion to the
point where one cannot make sound judgment. It is not clear, then, whether
Aristotle’s “madman” refers to a temporary emotional state or a more lasting
psychological affliction. Earlier in the work, he writes, “poetry is something
more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history; for poetry
speaks more of universals, history of particulars” (69). Thus, as an extension
of being beside oneself, the madman is so immersed in this state that his
perception of the world is altered—the madman applies poetry’s universals too
diligently to the particulars of his reality. Rather than producing poetry out
of madness, Don Quixote and Haňtá are mad because they are too immersed in their
poetic worlds. In this sense, Don Quixote’s madness stems from his inability to
distinguish universals and particulars in his delusional chivalric worldview,
and Haňtá’s madness stems from his deep immersion in banned philosophical
thought to the point where he neglects the particulars of his professional life.

Both characters are beside themselves because of the literature they consume.
Don Quixote “became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from
sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what
with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits”
(Cervantes vol.1, ch. 1). His absorption in and obsession with his books causes
him to lose himself, as indicated by his identity change from the regular
civilian Alonso Quixano to knight-errant Don Quixote. Similarly, though with a
different tone, Haňtá describes reading as so:

> . . . when I start reading I’m somewhere completely different, I’m in the
> text, it’s amazing, I have to admit I’ve been dreaming, dreaming in a land of
> great beauty, I’ve been in the very heart of truth . . . Lost in my dreams, I
> somehow cross at the traffic signals, never bumping into street lamps or
> people, yet moving onward, exuding fumes of beer and grime, yet smiling,
> because my briefcase is full of books and that very night I expect them to
> tell me things about myself I don’t know. (Hrabal 7)

By being in the text, he also loses himself in dreams and does not care about
others’ perception of him as he exudes “fumes of beer and grime”. His boss plays
the same role as _Don Quixote_’s narrator and calls him a “nitwit” for being so
hopelessly absorbed in his books and artistic paper bales (72). Ultimately, for
the two madmen, reading is a complete renunciation of the self.

Using the characters’ madness as a mask, both Hrabal and Cervantes comment on
readership and censorship. In “The Author’s Preface” of _Don Quixote_, Cervantes
references the saying, “Under my cloak I kill the king.” This saying can be a
metaphor for the subversive potential of a fictional work. And, while not stated
directly in his work, it is well-known that Hrabal self-published his novel
outside of Czechoslovakia during a period of strict censorship, which is also a
major theme in his narrative. Due to these contexts, the authors demonstrate
their intent to leverage their stories for social and political commentary.

In Cervantes’s work, those around Don Quixote blame his madness on his chivalric
novels and burn many of them. His niece says it is better to “fling [Don
Quixote’s chivalric novels] out of the window into the court and make a pile of
them and set fire to them”. However, the curate and the barber agree that they
should keep some books, calling one of them the “best of all the books”, thus
acknowledging some of the literature’s merit (vol. 1, ch. 5). Since some books
are good and did not cause those who read them to go mad, this raises the
question of whether it is the responsibility of the reader or the author that a
book is read “correctly”. Cervantes’s ironic tone throughout the novel hints
that Don Quixote is the bad reader and that the books are not at fault,
especially given that other characters give sensible interpretations of
chivalric novels in chapter 32 of volume one. Nevertheless, the other characters
try to exert control over Don Quixote through censorship, but it does not work,
and Don Quixote continues to live according to his own whims as a madman.

Compared to _Don Quixote_, _Too Loud a Solitude_ deals more extensively with
censorship, as it forms the main undertone of the novel. All the books Haňtá
deals with among other wastepaper are books banned by the Czech government. The
public has no access to them, so he has the privilege of accessing forbidden
knowledge through his lowly occupation. Regarding censorship, he says:

> How much more beautiful it must have been in the days when the only place a
> thought could make its mark was the human brain and anybody wanting to squelch
> ideas had to compact human heads, but even that wouldn’t have helped, because
> real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we
> take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has
> anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt
> points up and out of itself. (Hrabal 2)

In other words, thoughts and ideas are independent from the people who think
them or the books which contain them, and thus censorship is of no use. Thoughts
are timeless and travel through people and books as a medium. Later in the
novel, Haňtá also refers to thoughts as “live, living, life-giving”, indicating
that they are organic, independent, and necessary for human living (26). Though
the government censors philosophy, poetry, and other literature, the thoughts
contained in them continue to propagate through mankind as steadily and
inevitably as the sun shines on earth. Haňtá is a rebel and follows his own
principles to be both artist and audience for the silent voices of these banned
books. Due to his private rebellion against censorship, he carries himself
unconventionally and reflects the image of a madman. In this way, both Don
Quixote and Haňtá demonstrate the madman’s loyalty to his belief system’s
anchor, which is, in this case, literature. This loyalty transcends the bounds
of power, oppression, and societal pressure.

While madness has a negative connotation, the two protagonists’ actions can also
be interpreted as simple or naïve. In his essay “On Simple and Sentimental
Poetry”, Friedrich Schiller frames a simple person as someone who rejects
affectation, and deception in favor of nature and truth (Schiller 183–184).
“Simplicity in the mode of thinking cannot then ever be the act of a depraved
man; this quality only belongs to children, and to men who are children in
heart,” he writes, indicating that simplicity is an attribute of a virtuous and
childlike person (185). Schiller raises the example of Pope Adrian VI as an
example of a man toeing the line between “foolishly simple” and “nobly simple”,
for he censures the evil deeds of the papacy and later is accused of betraying
the church due to his unfiltered moral views (185). The simple man lives by his
truth without considering how outsiders perceive him. Don Quixote and Haňtá’s
poetic madness, then, aligns with this simplicity, which runs contrary to
societal conventions—abandoning the particulars of an artificial reality for the
truth of the universal. Their loyalty to literature in the face of oppression
and outside disapproval highlights their simultaneously noble and foolish
simplicity.

Don Quixote and Haňtá are both at the same time foolishly and nobly simple for
living by their own naïve principles, untouched by the corrupting artifice of
society. When Don Quixote approaches a landlord to request that he dub him a
knight, the landlord has “some suspicion of his guest’s want of wits” and
decides to humor him “to make sport for the night” (Cervantes vol. 1, ch. 3).
Here, Don Quixote’s foolish simplicity shines through. Those around him are
aware of his insanity, yet he continues with his delusions, unaware. At the same
time, he can be nobly simple, too.  Upon encountering criminals being
transported to become galley slaves, he decides that it is unjust that “these
people are going where they are taking them by force, and not of their own
will”. Despite hearing about their crimes, he still sets them free, and they end
up beating and robbing him and Sancho. Even the criminals were “thoroughly
convinced that Don Quixote was not quite right in his head”, but Don Quixote
still obstinately follows his own, albeit naïve, principle of justice and
freedom, making him both foolishly and nobly simple (vol. 1, ch. 22).

Haňtá is more self-aware than Don Quixote, but embodies both types of
simplicity, too. In the narration, he says, “I felt how vile I was and how fed
up with me he was, because he kept calling me a name no one had ever called me
before—nitwit, nitwit, nitwit,” indicating his awareness of the effect he has on
others (Hrabal 72). Yet, as he helps his kneeling boss up after he begs Haňtá to
come to his senses, he says, “I felt him shake all over, so I asked him to
forgive me, without knowing what for, but that was my lot, asking forgiveness, I
even asked forgiveness of myself for being what I was, what it was my nature to
be” (46–47). Though he knows how much he exasperates his boss, he does not know
why, for he is only foolishly living by his own principles. It is his nature to
be so, and by asking forgiveness for this, he demonstrates that he cannot change
this aspect of his character. His noble simplicity shines through in his close
ties with nature. He is affectionate toward the mice in his cellar despite
others’ negative perception of them. He describes them as “playful as kittens”,
saying that “they’re always in a good mood and even look forward to their bath”
when he hoses down the wastepaper to clean it (15, 16). Sometimes, they sneak
into his clothing, and when they jump out at the bar he frequents, “the
waitresses go wild, climb on chairs, stick their fingers in their ears, and
scream bloody murder.” Despite the reaction, he “just smile[s] and wave[s] a wet
good-bye,” thinking of nothing but his next bale (16). His complete disregard
for others’ perception of himself showcases his foolish yet nobly loving
simplicity.

The two characters’ madness can, through the lens of simplicity, be considered a
manifestation of genius. Schiller states, “True genius is of necessity simple,
or it is not genius” (186). Since the characters’ madness is linked to
simplicity, their simple madness can be seen as indicators of their genius. As
stated earlier, Aristotle says poetry is either a product of natural ability or
madness. Thus, poetry is also a product of genius. However, these literary
theories were created in the context of poets and their works. While Don
Quixote, with his dramatic imitations of chivalric prose, and Haňtá, who
embodies both artist and audience, can be loosely classified as poets, they are
also the subjects of literary works. As stated previously, they are mad because
of their deep immersion in their poetic worlds. What happens, then, if it is not
the author who is genius, but the subject of the poem himself?

The genius of the two characters lies in their ability to, as readers
themselves, make their readers mad along with them. The two works’ focus on
readers makes them a metaliterary commentary on the act of reading. If, for the
two protagonists, reading is renunciation of the self, then the reader of these
works also becomes mad for the time they engage with the work and is momentarily
in touch with the characters’ simplicity. Through the vicarious experience of
someone living out their fantasy delusions, we can learn to appreciate the value
of literature beyond academic analysis and the magic it can bring. Literature
comes with the possibility for immersion, escape from harsh realities, and
life-giving thoughts. Literature is an enabler of freedom, but at the same time,
a leverage for oppression through censorship. _Don Quixote_ and _Too Loud a
Solitude_ work to bring a snapshot of madness to the reader’s life through the
simply mad genius of their protagonists.

## Works Cited

- Aristotle, et al. Classical Literary Criticism. Translated by Penelope Murray
  and T. S. Dorsch, Penguin Books, 2004.
- Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel De. Don Quixote. Edited by David Widger. Translated
  by John Ormsby, Project Gutenberg, 1997.
- Hrabal, Bohumil. Too Loud a Solitude. Translated by Michael Henry Heim,
  HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.
- Schiller, Friedrich. “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry.” Aesthetical and
  Philosophical Essays, Anodos Books, 2017, pp. 180–195.
- Photo by
  [Ethan Hu](https://unsplash.com/@ethanhjy?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash)
  on
  [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/brown-concrete-building-near-green-trees-during-daytime-0lHeyFUTGWc?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash)


This essay examines Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote and Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude to uncover the role of the madman not as the author, but as the protagonist.

Simply Mad Genius: The Impact of the Mad Reader on Readers


Milan Kundera’s novel _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ explores themes of
love, existentialism, and power dynamics through the stories of four characters:
Tereza, Tomas, Sabina, and Franz. Throughout the narrative, Kundera repeats
motifs of childlikeness and kitsch, especially when talking about love. His
ideas surrounding these topics seem similar to poet Friedrich Schiller’s
perspective in his essay “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry”. Using Schiller’s
essay as a frame of reference, I will examine how Kundera describes love in the
relationships between both people and animals to identify the relationship
between love, simplicity, and kitsch. In _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_,
Kundera designs the dynamics between characters to explore the nuances of power,
relationships, and love. By doing so, he ultimately demonstrates love as
inevitable in the face of simplicity-revealing vulnerability.

In “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry”, Schiller first unpacks why we are
captivated by nature, then categorizes poets as either simple or sentimental. He
argues that our reverence for nature is not due to the aesthetic pleasure it
brings, but rather the moral pleasure stemming from nature being “the image of
our highest perfection in the ideal world”. He goes on to state, “The very
feature that constitutes their character is precisely what is lacking in ours to
make it complete” (181). However, this interest in nature is only possible in a
“moral soul” which is capable of ideas. It is the ideas that objects close to us
evoke “which, causing us to look closer into ourselves, show us more clearly
what in us departs from nature” (182). Children are a prime example of this
phenomenon, as their purity and closeness with nature leave us in awe of "the
contrast between their natural character and what is artificial in us" (183). He
calls this state of nature _simple_ (as opposed to _art_, or artifice). As such,
the simple poet is nature, while the sentimental poet seeks nature (194). Though
Schiller’s essay addresses simplicity and artifice in terms of poets (and, more
broadly, people), morals, and emotions, his philosophical arguments can also be
applied to love as well.

Already viewing his 1795 society as an “artificial age”, Schiller presents a
pessimistic view of the world in his essay (194). He states, “As soon as nature
gradually vanishes from human life—that is, in proportion as it ceases to be
experienced as a subject (active and passive)—we see it dawn and increase in the
poetical world in the guise of an idea and as an object” (191). Schiller’s
“poetical world” refers to poetry’s legacy and its space in society, but we can
narrow this scope to an individual’s poetical world, too, or, as Kundera puts
it, their “poetic memory”. In _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_, Kundera
postulates that “The brain appears to possess a special area which we might call
_poetic memory_ and which records everything that charms or touches us, that
makes our lives beautiful,” just as nature charms and touches us through its
sublimity (208). He then says, “Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say,
love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic
memory” (209). Love enters one’s poetic memory as nature enters poetry as an
idea and object. From this perspective, love and nature share the same qualities
of simplicity that make them worthy of being held dear in a poetic world,
whether societal or personal.

Schiller clearly delineates the scope of “nature” early in his essay, stating
that the “love and respectful emotion” brought on by it is “often elicited when
nature is considered in her plants, in her mineral kingdom, in rural districts;
also in the case of human nature, in the case of children, and in the manner of
country people and of the primitive races” (180). In other words, the nature he
talks about is that which is free from the corrupting influence of his
artificial society. However, since Kundera’s work is a novel exploring different
characters’ perspectives and experiences, the definition of love is not as
clear-cut, especially since it does not adhere to societal conventions. To
uncover Kundera’s implicit perspective, I will first present a synthesis of some
characters’ explicit mentions of love. Then I will dive into Tereza’s
relationships to highlight the nuances of love and its connection to simplicity
and sentimentality.

The narrative in _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ begins with the origin
story for Tomas and Tereza’s relationship. Though Tomas is a libertine and
initially views Tereza as no more than a fling, she comes down with the flu when
visiting him and is stuck weak and feverish in his bed. Kundera, as the
narrator, says of his situation, “What could it have been if not love declaring
itself to him?” (7). He thinks of her as a child sent to him in a bulrush basket
and feels an “inexplicable love” toward Tereza because “she seemed a child to
him” (6). She ends up staying over at Tomas’s place, something he never does
with his mistresses, and Kundera observes that “Love does not make itself felt
in the desire for copulation (a desire that extends to an infinite number of
women) but in the desire for shared sleep (a desire limited to one woman)” (15).
Tereza is weak with her illness, and sleep is a state of defenselessness. When
facing this situation, Tomas cannot help but feel what he thinks could be love.
Since it declares itself to him, the feeling does not arise of his own volition.
Love, then, is inevitable in the face of vulnerability.

Though not explicitly stated, Kundera consistently repeats this sentiment of
vulnerability being necessary for love. Vulnerability is necessary mutually, for
the person falling in love, and for a person to be loved. In Franz and Sabina’s
relationship, Franz says “love means renouncing strength” (112). Though they had
differing definitions for all aspects of their life, Kundera speculates that,
had they more time or different circumstances, “Gradually, timorously, their
vocabularies would have come together, like bashful lovers, and the music of one
would have begun to intersect with the music of the other” (124). They could
have fallen in love and understood each other if they had renounced the strength
of their egos and let down their defenses to allow their music to intersect, if
they had been vulnerable with one another.

When having a casual affair with a stranger, Tereza “tried to withstand the
strong desire to burst out crying in his presence. She knew that her failure to
withstand it would have ruinous consequences. She would fall in love with him”
(157). This moment underscores the idea that vulnerability is a powerful and
involuntary trigger for love. Tereza's instinctive reaction to cry in front of
the stranger highlights her innate desire to express authentic emotions despite
the potential consequences. By doing so, Kundera suggests that love can arise
from moments of intense emotional exposure. Thus, being fully vulnerable in
front of another is enough to cause the sparks of love.

Finally, later in her life, Tereza dreams that Tomas becomes a rabbit,
symbolizing his lack of strength as he ages. At this point, he has moved to the
countryside for her and lost everything he had in the city, including the erotic
friendships he so loves. When Tereza apologizes for taking advantage of him by
leveraging her weakness, he says, “Haven’t you noticed I’ve been happy here,
Tereza?” The two dance together on a dance floor in a hotel bar, content in
their old age and relationship (313). Tereza is always jealous and anxious about
Tomas’s erotic affairs with other women, and thus cannot be fully comfortable in
his presence no matter how much she loves him. And it is questionable how much
she really does, as “she was _obliged_ to behave lovingly because she needed
him” (289). However, once the power dynamics between them break down, Tereza can
finally love Tomas with no reservations because of his vulnerability. Her wish
from their conflict in Switzerland finally comes true: he becomes an old man,
weak before her. His essence is completely now completely bare. Since
vulnerability is weakness, defenselessness, and transparency, it reveals one’s
unembellished, essential nature. Simplicity (the simple poet, or lover, _is_
nature), then, even if only before one person, is necessary for love, and real
love is necessarily simple.

Tereza, the child in the bulrush basket, is the perfect embodiment of a simple
lover’s dynamic evolution. Throughout the novel, she first falls from
simplicity, then becomes sentimental, and finally returns to simplicity before
her death. Her melancholic sentimentality in her complex situation mirrors
Schiller’s pessimism toward the survival of simplicity in a society of artifice.
In his essay, he writes,

> The poets of this order,—the genuinely simple poets, are scarcely any longer
> in their place in this artificial age. Accordingly they are scarcely possible
> in it, or at least they are only possible on the condition of traversing their
> age, like scared persons, at a running pace, and of being preserved by a happy
> star from the influence of their age, which would mutilate their genius. (194)

There is no place for simplicity in modernity. That which is simple quickly gets
corrupted by its surroundings. For Schiller’s simple poet, the surrounding is an
artificial society. For Tereza, it is her incompatibility with Tomas despite
their mutually proclaimed love.

Tereza begins as a symbol of simplicity but quickly loses this trait as her
relationship with Tomas progresses. Tomas initially attracts Tereza because,
when he “called out to her in a kind voice”, she “felt her soul rushing up to
the surface through her blood vessels and pores to show itself to him” (48). Due
to her traumatic experience with her mother’s exhibitionism and crudeness, she
longs for someone who would see her soul to differentiate her body from other
bodies (58). Yet, to Tomas, all bodies are the same, and he is “genuinely
incapable of abandoning his erotic friendships” (21). This destroys Tereza and
dissolves her hopes. She screams during intercourse with him, where “What was
screaming in fact was the naïve idealism of her love trying to banish all
contradictions, banish the duality of body and soul, banish perhaps even time”
(54). There is a rift in their perspectives: Tereza wants her soul to shine
through her body, while Tomas views body and soul as separate. He loves Tereza’s
soul, but Tereza wants to be loved in totality. Her love’s naïve, or simple,
idealism screams out its final breath (other English versions of Schiller’s
essay translate “simple” as “naïve”). The contradictions she experiences are the
overturning force knocking her from her flying vessel of naïve hope and into a
state of a perpetual fall.

As Schiller observes, “Simplicity in our mode of thinking brings with it of
necessity simplicity in our mode of expression, simplicity in terms as well as
movement; and it is in this that grace especially consists” (187). Yet, after
discovering Tomas’s unfaithfulness, Tereza’s “gestures grew abrupt and
unsteady”, implying that her movements had been smooth and graceful before,
further highlighting her initially simple nature outside of Tomas’s perception.
After becoming entangled with Tomas, “There was no way out” for her (21). This
admission and acceptance of the tragic situation is a good representation of her
melancholy, which colors the tone of her sentimentality.

After becoming disillusioned with her and Tomas’s relationship, Tereza becomes
sentimental and, instead of _being_ nature, _seeks_ nature instead through her
relationship with Karenin, her and Tomas’s dog. Karenin, as an animal, is simple
and pure, and Kundera explicitly portrays him as so when he wakes up every
morning with “a naïve and simple amazement” at existence (132). She loves
Karenin wholly and unconditionally. “True human goodness, in all its purity and
freedom, can come to the fore only when its recipient has no power,” Kundra
writes, again highlighting the necessity of simplicity-revealing vulnerability
in love (289). Karenin becomes Tereza’s anchor to replace her lost simplicity
and wonder. Tereza seeks nature by loving him.

If Tereza represents evolving simplicity, then Tomas represents the subject
experiencing her simplicity in his poetical world. As Schiller mentions, nature
can only exist as an object in a poetical world, and no longer as an active or
passive subject, as it vanishes in society. Tomas is by no means simple. He is
described as a strong and independent libertine, and his character does not
experience Tereza’s initial level of simplicity as a subject. He is instead
pessimistic and cynical, concluding “that the love story of his life exemplified
not ‘_Es muss sein!_’ (It must be so), but rather ‘_Es könnte auch anders sein_’
(It could just as well be otherwise)” (35). His character and perspective make
his love for Tereza sentimental, as he is aware of how his decadent behavior
contrasts with Tereza’s naïve goodness yet is unable to change despite knowing
how much it hurts her (21). Her simplicity highlights his own impurity, and he
loves her for it. However, as Tereza loses her childlikeness, his sentimental
love no longer has a basis, and thus Tereza dreams that he sends her to die — in
her fallen state, she is no longer lovable to him (146–151).

As described earlier, Tereza is able to love Tomas after he becomes weak, and
they live a simple, rural life on a collective farm. Miraculously, years after
Tereza’s fall and loss of child-like charm, Tomas finally embodies the same
simplicity-revealing vulnerability that Karenin represents by becoming a rabbit
in Tereza’s mind. Thus, her character comes full circle, and she returns to
simplicity, if only briefly, before she and Tomas die in a car accident driving
home. This moment becomes the eternity of love that they had been seeking their
whole lives with each other, as both simple lovers’ natures finally align.

Tereza and Tomas’s relationship, as well as Kundera’s observations as the
narrator, reveal that real love corresponds to Schiller’s simplicity of nature.
Then, Schiller’s artifice corresponds to Kundera’s descriptions of kitsch in the
novel. When introducing the term, Kundera defines it as so:

> ’Kitsch’ is a German word born in the middle of the sentimental nineteenth
> century, and from German it entered all Western languages. Repeated use,
> however, has obliterated its original metaphysical meaning: kitsch is the
> absolute denial of shit, in both the literal and the figurative senses of the
> word; kitsch excludes everything from its purview which is essentially
> unacceptable in human experience. (248)

In other words, kitsch distills the human experience into something artificially
palatable by deeming natural bodily functions as crude and unacceptable — it is
the epitome of artifice.

However, this conception of kitsch introduces tension into the theory that real
love is simple. Kundra states that “The identity of kitsch comes not from a
political strategy but from images, metaphors, and vocabulary” (261). So, is
love also kitsch, then, given Tomas falls in love with Tereza because of a
metaphor? And if it is kitsch, or artificial, how can it also be simple? To
reconcile such a contradiction, I propose that the experiences surrounding love
can be separated from the experience of love itself. Experiences adjacent to
love can be kitsch, but the essence of love is simple — the feeling itself is
simple. The kitsch of a metaphor is transformed into nature the moment it enters
the poetic memory, much like how “In the sunset of dissolution, everything is
illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine” (Kundera 4). Once an
event or thought passes, it gains a new nostalgic identity. The metaphor is no
longer experienced as a subject, but as an object for the sentimental lover, or
Tomas.

While Schiller views artifice as negative in his essay, Kundera maintains a
neutral stance on kitsch. He condemns it using Sabina’s character but admits
that “none of us is superman enough to escape kitsch completely. No matter how
we scorn it, kitsch is an integral part of the human condition” (256). Though
kitsch is a corrupting force, it is also a necessary element of being human.
Tomas and Tereza fall into kitsch with their mutually repellent sentimentality,
Tomas’s metaphor, and Tereza’s abandonment of herself when she sleeps with the
anonymous engineer (154). However, once all the kitsch elements are removed in
their simple, rural life, the revealed essence of their love is ultimately
simple. Love in _The Unbearable Lightness of Being_ begins with kitsch but
transcends it in the end.

By following the growing pains of a simple love between Tereza and Tomas in _The
Unbearable Lightness of Being_, Kundera demonstrates that love is inevitable in
the face of simplicity-revealing vulnerability. Love is like nature because the
lover enters as an object in one’s poetic memory, much like how nature enters as
a sentimental object in the poetic world. This notion is especially prominent in
the novel, as Kundera frames vulnerability and weakness as necessary for love,
for it reveals one’s nature. Though moments of Tereza and Tomas’s relationship
can be viewed as kitsch and artificial, the essence of their love remains
simple. They finally end their lives with a healthy love as they both love in
alignment with the other – they become weak together, and thus, happy.

## Works Cited

- Kundera, Milan. The Unbearable Lightness of Being. Translated by Michael Henry
  Heim, Harper & Row, Publishers, Inc., 1984.
- Schiller, Friedrich. “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry.” Aesthetical and
  Philosophical Essays, Anodos Books, 2017, pp. 180–195.
- Photo by
  [Evie S.](https://unsplash.com/@evieshaffer?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash)
  on
  [Unsplash](https://unsplash.com/photos/closeup-photo-of-white-leaves-Sw7f58YJbc0?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash)


In The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Kundera designs the dynamics between characters to demonstrate love as inevitable in the face of simplicity-revealing vulnerability.

The Necessity of Simplicity-Revealing Vulnerability in Love


[Use it here](https://www.bellalee.com/kindle-highlight-formatter)

---

## the tool

I'm a hardcore [Obsidian](https://obsidian.md/) user and have been using the
[Kindle sync plugin](https://github.com/hadynz/obsidian-kindle-plugin) to import
my highlights since August. However, my 12-year-old, first-generation Kindle
started crashing my whole computer whenever I accessed its files, so I had to
find other ways to import them. The plugin supports importing from your online
Kindle library, but I get my ebooks from external sources, so, unfortunately,
this method doesn't work for me. I like the way the plugin formats the
highlights, so I made this tool to help me do that quickly using notebooks
exported from the app instead of manually finding and replacing every time.
Before I made this, I had been using the
[highlighted app](https://highlighted.app/) for its OCR (I highly recommend it,
it's great for digitizing excerpts from print books, for personal use only, of
course).

This is just a silly little thing I made on a whim to make my life and
note-taking process easier, but if it can help someone else too, that would be
super neat!

Although a [Kindle formatter](https://kindle-formatter.com/) already exists, I
found its customization features somewhat challenging to navigate. I decided to
build my own since it would double as good
[coding practice](https://github.com/bellaslee/personal-website-2023/blob/main/src/pages/kindle-highlight-formatter.js).
While writing this, I realized that it allows the user to upload a file, so I
might try to integrate that in the future. But for now, what I made works super
well for me!

## a bit on my note-taking process

![Demo of note system](/img/posts/kindle-highlight-formatter/1.gif)

No matter if I'm reading an ebook or print book, I always take notes in a
[Field Notes](https://fieldnotesbrand.com/) notebook. I have multiple lying
around my house and in my bag so I'm never caught without a place to jot down my
ideas. I started this habit when I was reading _The Count of Monte Cristo_ since
I didn't want to ruin the 1946 library copy with sticky notes (I really thought
it was going to disintegrate in my hands at one point). Now, I have a shoebox
full of finished notebooks that are my pride and joy.

After reading the book, I digitize my notes and thoughts. I've been trying to
process my thoughts on by writing mini
[essays](https://www.bellalee.com/blog/tags/essay) so I don't forget what I read
(at the time of writing this post, I haven't refined any enough to a point where
I'd be satisfied with others seeing them; this is a new habit). By doing so, I
hope to move from an attitude of mindless consumption that's encouraged by
social media today to a thoughtful, lifelong learner approach. Through writing,
I slow down my thoughts and distill them into something clear, memorable, and
applicable to my life.

In my writing process, I import Kindle highlights (or highlights from physical
books) into the bottom of my document. I usually split my notes into four
sections: notes, thoughts, questions, and highlights. After reading, I compose a
short summarizing essay that addresses my questions using evidence from my notes
and highlights, then wrap up with broader implications and connections from my
thoughts section.

Anyways, this gives some context for my rationale behind making this tool. I
just started reading
_[The Eternal Drama: The Inner Meaning of Greek Mythology](https://www.goodreads.com/en/book/show/589743)_
by [Edward F. Edinger](https://www.jungstudycenter.org/Edward-F-Edinger) and
wasn't in the mood to force restart my computer trying to extract files from my
Kindle ٩(｡•́‿•̀｡)۶


A self-indulgent tool I use to import my Kindle highlights into Obsidian.

Kindle Highlight to MD Formatter — Web Development

A post-human dystopia where a dutiful but curious automaton discovers the last remnants of humanity on Earth. A personal favorite work of mine.

The Record of Us All


“Midway upon the journey of our life / I found myself in a dark wilderness, /
for I had wandered from the straight and true” (Alighieri 1.1–3). What did the
great poet Dante mean by this enigmatic passage? For the modern audience,
footnotes, appendices, and glossaries help guide our reading. Though Dante did
not tell us what he meant himself, we can thank medieval manuscript commentators
for laying the foundation for the rich interpretations we study today. Dante’s
_Divine Comedy_ is an epic poem composed in the Italian vernacular in the early
14th century. In it, Dante traverses Hell and Purgatory with the help of his
guide, the Roman poet Virgil, and Paradise with his muse, Beatrice. As a
widely-circulated medieval classic, the analysis found in its margins can serve
as a gateway to understanding the broader tradition of literary commentary. This
paper explores medieval reading culture, the materiality of medieval
manuscripts, the purpose of glosses, their impact, and how they take shape
today.

The verses of the Divine Comedy’s first canticle, _Inferno_, provide insight
into popular medieval reading culture. In Canto Five, Dante and Virgil meet the
characters Francesca and Paolo in the second circle of Hell reserved for the
lustful. When Dante requests to hear the story of their perdition, Francesca
explains that she and Paolo “were reading for delight” when they succumbed to
their desire for one another (Alighieri 5.128). This short passage highlights
the reading culture of Dante’s time — by the 14th century, people had already
begun to read for pleasure beyond religion and record-keeping. But reading was
not as simple as merely understanding the words on the page, as Francesca and
Paolo had done. In a letter to his patron, Cangrande della Scala, Dante shares
that there were four methods of interpreting literature in Medieval traditions —
literal, metaphorical, moral, and allegorical. He composed his work in line with
these interpretative layers, and the glosses of medieval commentators allow us
to better understand the depths of his arguments in the context of his time,
especially as literature’s reach was broadening (Arduini, 2023).

Despite the existence of intensive manuscript commentary on the _Divine Comedy_,
there are no surviving manuscripts in Dante’s hand — scholars believe that he
dictated his work to scribes. Manuscript books were individually commissioned
and expensive, as parchment was made from untanned animal hides and manual
copying took extensive amounts of time. The oldest surviving manuscript of the
_Comedy_ dates between 1333 and 1345 and includes glosses written by Dante’s
son, Jacopo Alighieri (see Figure 1). These commentaries in the margins of the
manuscript provide interpretive guidance into Dante’s poetic intricacies.
Through his annotations, Jacopo shares his interpretation of his father's work
with the world, contributing to the ongoing dialogue surrounding Dante's
_Commedia_ and providing valuable political, cultural, and historical context
(Arduini, 2023).

![Manuscript for the Divine Comedy](/img/posts/more-than-a-piece-of-paper/image1.png)

Figure 1. Page from an original _Divine Comedy_ manuscript. From “Dante's Divine
Comedy and the Complutensian Polyglot Bible (1514)” by Francis T. Conserette,
_The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Memorial Library_, 22 March 2017,
https://sites.scranton.edu/library/2017/03/22/dantes-divine-comedy-and-the-complutensian-polyglot-bible-1514/.

To better understand the significance of glosses and how they shaped the
literary landscape, we must travel back in time to examine the evolution of
medieval literary culture and commentary on the Bible. To reach the form of
books we are familiar with today, civilizations iterated from clay tablets and
papyrus rolls to codices. Medieval glosses were mostly found in parchment
codices, as it was the only material readily available in Europe at the time
(Kilgour). Following the codex’s inception, the majority of people working with
written text were members of the clergy, and around a third of early codices
found before 400 A.D. were Biblical texts (Kilgour 54). The new format
facilitated information retrieval and allowed them to supplement religious
discourse with written sources. Reading and writing were initially a religious
and scholarly undertaking in Europe due to the scarce resources they demanded.
But as literacy became widespread and silent reading became popular, the domain
of readership also began to expand to privileged lay people. For example,
through the _pecia_ system, stationers rented books to students to make their
own copies, rendering books more available (Taylor).

Members of the clergy initially developed glosses to annotate the Bible.
Glosses, which began as brief notes consisting of a few words, evolved into full
commentaries over time (Cengage). As they developed, the layout of books also
changed to accommodate their robustness. Scribes wrote glosses in the margins
surrounding the main two-column text (Taylor). Their expansion dictated the
amount of main text present on the page, often aligning with marks like our
modern paragraph symbol (¶) for easy identification (Copeland). The visual
hierarchy of glosses was established through font and size variations, crucial
for managing the density of information on the pages. At times, they even
overflowed onto the following pages, leading to the development of tie-marks to
indicate “where the gloss stopped on one page and where it continued on the
next.” Cristian Ispir, a medieval and Latin scholar, compares glosses and
tie-marks to modern internet hypertexts and hyperlinks. They enabled readers to
access a wealth of information without leaving the page and also served as handy
location indicators (Ispir). By the time the most notable example, the _Glossa
ordinaria_, or the “standard gloss”, for the Bible was developed, scribes had
perfected the layout system for glosses in the margins of books (Copeland). Due
to its robustness, authority, and popularity, some even say that ​​“The Gloss,
in some sense, had become the Bible” (Taylor).

Clerical habits gradually expanded to “ever broadening circles of lay people”,
but their purpose remained the same — to educate (Taylor). Glosses enabled books
to become knowledgeable teachers, fully explaining their content to their most
faithful pupil, the reader. Professional readers existed to thoroughly
understand texts and transmit their knowledge to future readers through
annotations, cross-references, and catalogs. Interlinear glosses served to
clarify grammar and syntax, while prose commentary helped clarify allegorical
meanings, historical contexts, and allusions. There were two main types of prose
glosses: those written directly on the manuscript along with the author’s
original text and freestanding lemmatic commentary that used “the word or group
of words from the original text that is quoted to refer back to the passage
under consideration” (Copeland). Manuscript glosses resemble footnotes in
today’s printed books, while freestanding lemmatic commentary more closely
resembles book review and critique articles. However, they often bled into one
another. Some scribes or commentators would copy freestanding commentary into
the margins of their manuscripts, while others compiled margin commentary into
freestanding works. Explicitly, these glosses tell us about widely accepted
interpretations of literature, while implicitly, they tell a story about the
culture, reception, and experience of texts. Glosses added depth to literary
interpretations that would not be possible without the knowledge of the
commentators and uncovered a diverse network of contemporary influences,
inspirations, and connections.

Yet, the tradition of adding commentary to manuscripts sometimes leads to
interpolation issues where annotations or additions are mistaken as part of the
original work. For example, Servius, a well-known commentator of Virgil’s
_Aeneid_, cites an awkward and repetitive episode about Helen of Troy as a
separate text. Yet the Helen Episode appears in late-medieval manuscripts of the
work, indicating some confusion in the transcription process. In another
instance, Zanobi da Strada inserts a “dirty supplement” to Apuleius’ novel,
_Metamorphoses_, involving a mature woman and a donkey (Rota). Because
transcription is not standardized, people edited and “corrected” texts based on
their own opinions, knowledge, and cross-examinations (or, in some cases, their
idiosyncratic senses of humor). While these errors do not change the meaning of
the texts, they highlight the fluidity of manuscripts, the written tradition,
and the challenges for modern scholars studying them.

Remnants of manuscript commentary prevail today. Many books we read, including
Dante’s _Inferno_, include a robust table of contents, appendices, footnotes,
margins, editor’s notes, prefaces, introductions, and so on. These parts
originate from medieval traditions that initially allowed the clergy to easily
reference religious texts and sources. Introductions and prefaces model
freestanding lemmatic commentary, while footnotes parallel the glosses in the
margins of manuscripts. As media forms expand, so does the landscape of
annotation. Multimedia platforms offer new avenues for interactive engagement
with texts, where hyperlinks, embedded videos, and interactive graphics serve as
modern equivalents of medieval glosses. Furthermore, the democratization of
education has led to a proliferation of creative forms of annotation — online
forums, social media platforms, and digital annotation tools enabling readers
from diverse backgrounds to discuss their insights and interpretations. And, as
print books have become cheap and accessible, who could forget the good old
practice of writing in the margins of a favorite (non-library) book? This
democratization has not only expanded access to knowledge, but has also enriched
the discourse surrounding texts, fostering a collaborative and dynamic approach
to literary analysis that echoes and amplifies the spirit of medieval commentary
traditions.

The examination of medieval manuscript culture and the tradition of glosses
reveals not only the materiality of literary works, but also the layers of
interpretation that have shaped our understanding of texts like the _Divine
Comedy_. Glosses and commentary give us a glimpse of medieval reading practices,
intellectual landscape, and educational methods, highlighting the fluid nature
of human ideas peeking through the static impression of written language. The
authors may be dead, but their ideas live through their words. The tradition of
annotated books and marginalia marks the ongoing conversation between the
author, scholars, readers, and the world.

## Works Cited

- Alighieri, Dante. _Inferno_. Edited by Anthony Esolen, translated by Anthony
  Esolen, Random House Publishing Group, 2002.
- Arduini, Beatrice. “Dante's Divine Comedy.” Lectures, _ITAL 262_, Fall 2023,
  University of Washington.
- Cengage. “Glosses, Biblical.” _Encyclopedia.com_,
  https://www.encyclopedia.com/religion/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/glosses-biblical.
  Accessed 10 February 2024.
- Conserette, Francis T. “Dante's Divine Comedy and the Complutensian Polyglot
  Bible (1514).” _The Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Memorial Library_, 22 March
  2017,
  https://sites.scranton.edu/library/2017/03/22/dantes-divine-comedy-and-the-complutensian-polyglot-bible-1514/.
  Accessed 10 February 2024.
- Copeland, Rita. "Gloss and Commentary." Edited by Ralph Hexter and David
  Townsend, The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, Oxford Handbooks,
  2012, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195394016.013.0009. Accessed 10
  Feb. 2024.
- Ispir, Cristian. “Glossed Bibles, Hypertexts and Hyperlinks.” _Medieval
  Manuscripts Blog_, 29 January 2018,
  https://blogs.bl.uk/digitisedmanuscripts/2018/01/glossed-bibles-hypertexts-and-hyperlinks.html.
  Accessed 10 February 2024.
- Janes, Joseph. “The Record of Us All.” Lecture, _INFO 357_, 7 February 2024,
  University of Washington.
- Kilgour, Frederick G. The Evolution of the Book. Oxford University
  Press, 1998.
- Rota, Gabriele. “Classics in Slices: Scattered Thoughts on
  Interpolation-Criticism.” _Antigone_, 25 June 2022,
  https://antigonejournal.com/2022/06/interpolation-criticism-latin/. Accessed
  10 February 2024.
- Taylor, Andrew. "Readers and Manuscripts." Edited by Ralph Hexter and David
  Townsend, The Oxford Handbook of Medieval Latin Literature, Oxford Handbooks,
  2012, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195394016.013.0008. Accessed 10
  Feb. 2024.

## Attributions

- Photo by
  [Krisztina Papp](https://unsplash.com/@almapapi?utm_content=creditCopyText&utm_medium=referral&utm_source=unsplash)
  on Unsplash


This paper explores medieval reading culture, the materiality of medieval manuscripts, the purpose of glosses, their impact, and how they take shape today.

Blog

Simply Mad Genius: The Impact of the Mad Reader on Readers

The Necessity of Simplicity-Revealing Vulnerability in Love

Kindle Highlight to MD Formatter — Web Development

The Record of Us All

Medieval Commentary and the Interactivity of Text