ThePsychomachia (Battle of Spirits orSoul War) is aLatin poem byPrudentius (348 CE - after 405 CE). Its precise date of composition is unknown. In roughly a thousand lines, thepoet describes the conflict ofvices andvirtues as a battle in the style ofVirgil'sAeneid.Christianfaith is attacked by and defeatspaganidolatry to be cheered by a thousand Christianmartyrs.
The poem was extremely popular, and survives in many medieval manuscripts, 20 of them illustrated.[1] The work is often considered among the most influentialmedieval allegory, the first in a long tradition including theRomance of the Rose,Everyman, andPiers Plowman. The poem may be the subject of wall paintings in the churches atClaverley,Shropshire, and atPyrford,Surrey, both in England. In the early twelfth century it was a common theme for sculptural programmes on façades of churches in western France, such asAulnay, Charente-Maritime.[2]
The word may be used more generally for the common theme of the "battle between good and evil", for example in sculpture. The duality depicts the different moral realms humans battle within themselves: all are participating in the war of the soul, because Vice and Virtue both live within them, while their decisions and actions determine the outcome of the conflict.
A manuscript discovered in 1931 records a speech by the second-centuryacademic skeptic philosopherFavorinus that employs psychomachia, suggesting the technique predates Prudentius.[3]
The plot consists of the personified virtues ofHope,Sobriety,Chastity,Humility, etc. fighting the personified vices ofPride,Wrath,Paganism,Avarice, etc. Thepersonifications are women because in Latin, words for abstract concepts have feminine grammatical gender; an uninformed reader of the work might take the story literally as a tale of many angry women fighting one another, because Prudentius provides no context or explanation of the allegory.[4]
In a similar manner, various vices fight corresponding virtues and are always defeated. Biblical figures that exemplify these virtues also appear (e.g.Job as an example of patience).
Despite the fact that seven virtues defeat seven vices, they are not the canonicalseven deadly sins, nor thethree theological andfour cardinal virtues.
Theatre historian, Jonas Barish uses the term psychomachia to describe anti-theatrical conflict during the nineteenth century.[7]
Kirsty Allison used Psychomachia as the title for her cult novel, set in the 1990s (Wrecking Ball Press, 2020). The first edition also publishes a translation, and a modernised edit was later published in LoveLove magazine.
| Four cardinal virtues |
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| Three theological virtues |
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| Seven lively virtues versus Seven deadly sins | ||
| Related concepts | ||
