Week 2 Thomas
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I would like to discuss Addison’s Allegory of Public Credit and the opposing words “decay” and “revive” used to describe the varying state of the virgin of the Great Hall.
Described as beautiful, a valetudinarian, and timorous, the woman reacts to any bad news or phantoms by decaying from her health to take the form of a skeleton. Here, Addison shows how fragile the woman/credit is and how she/it can go from splendor to ruin quickly and easily. This contrasts with the way I normally think of decay, as a slow process of losing strength and viability. Such a state implies that the woman is weakened to the point of death, putting public credit in danger of collapse.
Instead of remaining withered, Addison describes the woman’s immediate revival back to full health upon arrival of the specters. Here he shows how the woman/credit may be weakened by conflict, but can return to her/its former self within a short time when given the right conditions. It is interesting that this revival brings about her exact state of health as is was before, whereas revival can imply a chronic weakness following the recovery. This hope for a reliable public credit is what brings about such joy as Addison sees her come back to life in the presence of the specters.
These words “decay” and “revive” are interesting in this text because they oppose one another, emphasizing the fragile state of public credit. While the woman can be in a very healthy state at one point, the next she could be very near death, and she jumps between these quickly. While credit can decay quickly, it is very important that she is able to revive quickly from even the worst antagonists.
Do you think these statements about recovery could apply to the economy/ the money system in general? I think this posts raises some questions about the stability of attaching value to paper.
An interesting choice of words, and I appreciate that you’re picking up on the oddity of the virgin’s decay occurring so quickly — and her revival taking place equally quickly. I also appreciate that you’re clearly defining your perspective: what credit needs to be able to do, in order to be effective. But that raises a question: why portray credit as virginal, when virginity is something that cannot be revived and recovered?
rlp25: I would like to think of credit as a form of trust. Once trust is lost, it takes some time to recover, if at all, depending on the severity of the action which caused the distrust (lies, promises of unrealistic goals, overcommitment, late payments, etc.). I think that while credit (trust) can be destroyed quickly, I am not so sure it can be gained back with the same speed, unless the person/institution (the “Great Hall” or the Bank of England) is very reputable with a long history of being trustworthy.
paigecm: I am not so sure why Addison portrays public credit as a virgin except that maybe he holds the Bank of England in very high regard, as in he doesn’t believe that it makes mistakes and strives to be pure without taking advantage of the system (like our government today which purposely uses deficit spending knowing it can’t possibly be paid back). In other words, virginity is usually kept as the result of a person purposely remaining pure, but he or she is still likely to be overcome at times by the hardships of life that weren’t self inflicted (phantoms, letters). Public Credit does not lose her virginity every time she hears bad news or sees the phantoms.