Chastity in Temperance’s Images

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

More references may be added to the article, the biblical and classical sources are not sufficiently addressed. For example, the motif of the castle and closed door/key has its origins in the Song of Songs, chapt. 8. The motif of the bridle has an ancestor in Plato's Banquet. 

You did not explain clearly how the motif of the torch, originally a symbol for lust/erotic love (Prudentius) came to be used as a symbol for the Temperance/goldy love. 

Moreover, this iconographic analysis should be embedded into a broader discussion: is it particularly relevant for some cultural changes that occurred during the Middle Ages, or was it sensible to/a symptom of - theological  debates/trends of the time?

Author Response

More references may be added to the article, the biblical and classical sources are not sufficiently addressed. For example, the motif of the castle and closed door/key has its origins in the Song of Songs, chapt. 8. The motif of the bridle has an ancestor in Plato's Banquet. 

Thank you for your review and suggestions to improve my research. I have included these references and more sources.

You did not explain clearly how the motif of the torch, originally a symbol for lust/erotic love (Prudentius) came to be used as a symbol for the Temperance/goldy love. 

I added more explanation about this question in page 4.

Moreover, this iconographic analysis should be embedded into a broader discussion: is it particularly relevant for some cultural changes that occurred during the Middle Ages, or was it sensible to/a symptom of - theological debates/trends of the time?

It was a symptom of theological debates/trends during the Middle Ages. There were more new iconographic types of Temperance during the 14th and 15th centuries, approaching different qualities, not only Chastity. Anyway, this essay is from an iconographical, not an iconological approach. I added more explanation about this in the introduction.

Finally, thank you for your time and all the suggestions to improve my article, they are very useful.

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

I want to thank the author for letting me read this, as the subject is an interesting one. Please take my comments says constructive criticism and hopefully they can assist you in making your ideas clear in this essay. The style present here is incredibly opposite of humanities essays, as this one is numbered as if it's in a scientific journal and the same goes for the citations within parentheses within paragraphs. It's distracting and takes away from its part of art and history and literature and cultural studies. The first thing the author needs to do is explain what the author means by visuality. It's an antiquated term and unclear. While the references are indeed impressive, there are so many stuffed in to so many paragraphs that the actual focus becomes lost. Short sentences and clear ideas are more powerful than trying to show that you have researched and referenced as many things as you can and made connections. The examples and illustrations are nice and support the author’s idea. It is puzzling why the author doesn't point to classical sources of art as predecessors and molders of these forms, particularly ancient gods and goddesses from the Greek and Roman world that were almost always Christianized in some way. That conclusion is dull and repetitive. The idea is not to raise more questions or summarize what you've already said, which you do not need to do because supposedly you already proved it; the idea is to leave your reader with an explanation of what you hope they got out of this study and why you think the study is valuable, not necessarily in such direct terms. Overall the author did a very good job trying to trace the history of an image, and obviously enjoys research. The article just seems too fast and separated and covering too many things. I would just focus on one thing and try to clearly state the history of that. Hope this helps! Good luck.

Author Response

I want to thank the author for letting me read this, as the subject is an interesting one. Please take my comments says constructive criticism and hopefully they can assist you in making your ideas clear in this essay. The style present here is incredibly opposite of humanities essays, as this one is numbered as if it's in a scientific journal and the same goes for the citations within parentheses within paragraphs. It's distracting and takes away from its part of art and history and literature and cultural studies.

Thank you for your review and suggestions to improve my research.

I divided the article into several paragraphs to organize the content. I published many times with this kind of organization, which makes it easier to find the content for the reader. Concerning citations within parentheses, I used them to avoid too many footnotes. 

The first thing the author needs to do is explain what the author means by visuality. It's an antiquated term and unclear.

I use the term visuality because refers to all visual manifestations of a topic, not only depictions. I don’t use the term “iconography” because is a disciplinary approach, it doesn’t refer to images’ content. See. García Mahíques, Rafael. Iconografía e Iconología. Madrid: Encuentro, 2009. Anyway, I added more explanation about this term.

While the references are indeed impressive, there are so many stuffed into so many paragraphs that the actual focus becomes lost. Short sentences and clear ideas are more powerful than trying to show that you have researched and referenced as many things as you can and made connections.

I am sorry but I added more references because the other reviewer required them. These references are sources necessary to understand and interpret images from an iconographical approach.

The examples and illustrations are nice and support the author’s idea. It is puzzling why the author doesn't point to classical sources of art as predecessors and molders of these forms, particularly ancient gods and goddesses from the Greek and Roman world that were almost always Christianized in some way.

Most classical sources about this topic are written ones, not visual ones. There are some Greek and Roman Gods directly related to the other Cardinal Virtues but not to Temperance. I know about Sobrietas, but there are not so many images, and I didn’t find a visual connection. Diana represents virtue, but the depictions of Diana are not like Chastity or Temperance’s depictions.  Fire appears in the Vestal’s depictions, but its meaning differs.

That conclusion is dull and repetitive. The idea is not to raise more questions or summarize what you've already said, which you do not need to do because supposedly you already proved it; the idea is to leave your reader with an explanation of what you hope they got out of this study and why you think the study is valuable, not necessarily in such direct terms. Overall the author did a very good job trying to trace the history of an image, and obviously enjoys research. The article just seems too fast and separated and covering too many things. I would just focus on one thing and try to clearly state the history of that. Hope this helps! Good luck.

I modified the conclusions and added more explanations according to your suggestions.

In addition, this article was previously reviewed by two English native speakers, and it has been reviewed again by another two English native speakers. If there is any problem with English, could you indicate which sentences I should improve?

Finally, thank you for your time and all the suggestions to improve my article, they are very useful.

 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf