“The Dance of the Economy”- Averi
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The “virgin” is the center of attention of Joseph Addison’s “Allegory of Public Credit.” Addison makes sure to carefully depict her health and her surroundings as time passes, for she is the symbol of publick credit. The denotation of the word is unhelpful while the connotation enhances the conflict and resolution in the text. The first goal is to directly represent the qualities of delicacy and timidity that is related to damsels in distress or the classical graceful virgin. This leads into the idea of being easily affected by her surroundings. Purity is another theme that is associated with the term and value. Purity greatly increases the value of our most cherished items such as gold and diamonds. In addition, purity gives her the right to sit on the throne because she is uncorrupted by others.
The virgin observes the “dances” of a variety of phantoms. Addison uses “dance” to describe the behavior of the incoming spectres and apparitions. This is fitting word based the distraction rather than direct contact with the virgin. Dance becomes a term to replace the flow of the economy. The intentions were to show the interaction between the phantoms or different beliefs that could hurt or help the health of publick credit; increasing the complexity of the conflict.
“Virgin” and “dance” refer to the main idea and conflict, which helps the reader understand the action. In this particular text, the action is directly related to the variance of value through the resolution of the virgin’s health. Credit, money, labor and more are all correlated through the rises and falls, or dance, of the economy. The dance can refer to different combinations or patterns that affect the success of public credit. This idea is in contrast to Defoe’s “on Credit,” where personal credit is not virginal. The use of these terms helps the reader understand large effectors on the economy they come into contact with daily.
Why do you think purity is so important to us? Are you saying that what people cherish have to be pure because that seems like it is only limited to certain objects or locations. For example food, what we may consider to be not pure may in some areas be perfectly fine.
Nice title, Averi, and a good choice of words. But you have the start of an interesting analysis, meaning that some things remain unexplored. I’m intrigued that you wrote about “virgin” and “dance” because dancing, traditionally, is an important aspect of courtship — so it makes sense that the virgin would be dancing. But “virgin” is also a term that describes a woman only prior to her first sexual experience — so what are Addison and Defoe implying when they use the metaphor of virginity to describe credit? Is credit only good before she’s been used? (to put it in a very misogynistic way?) This post has good revision potential, if you choose it for the blog portfolio.
davidl09: Purity is so important to us because of the rarity.This can lead to the value of time/labor placed into purifying many objects so they are useful.
paigecm: I like how the idea of dance correlates with courtship. Without marriage, sexual intercourse is looked down upon, and women is usually deemed slutty or dirty. This could imply without good financial backing, the use of credit can ruin your reputation (of being reliable).
If he wanted to use a person or an object that is pure (lack of immorality, innocent), perhaps he could have used a newborn. Do you think that Addison’s message about the economy would be different if he didn’t use the term, Virgin?
I can see how the newborn can be exchanged here. I think the deciding change is more people want the attention of a virgin.
peer review:
I think there is more you can talk about with the word virgin and dance. You can also define virgin for the people reading so that it is more clear to why the word is so important. There are a lot of different meanings to the words you chose, so maybe specifying a meaning would be good as well.
Peer Review:
I think you could also add that Addison may have used the term virgin to describe public credit because of misogynistic ideas. I think you can further your idea about “dance.” Though already mentioned, dance is like courtship. In terms of Addison’s text, spectres and apparitions are “courting” the virgin. Good spectres and apparitions will not deteriorate her wellbeing but the bad ones will. This illustrates a real-life situation where if the woman chooses the wrong suitor, she will suffer. Overall, it’s a well-written blog post