By Tucker Rogersand Kyle Adams

The Wheel’s Purpose

The wheel turns at random to determine the subject’s fate in life.

In literature the wheel was depicted as having a direct connection to man’s estate.

The wheel puts man’s affairs in good or bad conditions, depending on the ending position of the wheel.

FORTUNA The Goddess of Fate and Fortune. A personification of luck. Described or pictured as blind, blindfolded,

or veiled. Came to represent the changeability of life. She was worshipped by the Romans under

various titles, who hoped she would bring them good luck over bad luck.

FORTUNA (continued) Fortuna was often depicted with a

cornucopia in one hand and ship’s rudder in the other.

The cornucopia symbolized that which all good things flow from and her ability to bestow prosperity.

The ship’s rudder was there to show that she was the one who controlled how lives and fates are steered.

Four Figures of the Wheel The most common representation of the

wheel in art has four figures around the rim of the wheel.

On the top of the wheel is a crowned youth, at the right is a figure falling with his crown dropping from his head, at the bottom is a figure prostrate, to the left is a man climbing extending his hands toward the youth at the top.

Four Figures (continued) The four figures are inscribed,

respectively: Regno (I reign) Regnavi (I have reigned) Sum Sine Regno (I have no kingdom) Regnabo (I will reign) This “formula of four” gives the topics

and titles to a series of poems about the four and Fortuna.

The Wheel in Literature The earliest use of the wheel in

medieval literature was in Cicero’s In Pisonem: “The house of your colleagues rang with song and cymbals while he himself danced naked at a feast, wherein…he felt no fear of the Wheel of Fortune.”

Literature (continued) References to the Wheel of Fortune are

in common in Shakespeare's works. In Hamlet the “slings and arrows of

outrageous fortune” are mentioned, as well as to “break all the spokes and fellies from her wheel”.

The wheel also appears in Henry V, Macbeth, and King Lear.

Literature (continued) A good example of the process of the

wheel is in Macbeth. Macbeth starts off as a Thane halfway

up the wheel, then works his way to the top to become king, only to fall down to the bottom with his and his wife’s death.

Literature (continued) Geoffrey Chaucer used the idea of a

tragic Wheel of Fortune in the Monk’s Tale in The Canterbury Tales:

The monk mentions the wheel turning and bringing men from great happiness to great sorrow.

The Development of the Wheel in Literature Society’s vision of the wheel progressed

from its initial appearance to the twelfth century as:

Classical literature connects the wheel intimately with the turns of human affairs.

Boethius puts man himself on the wheel and suggests that Fortuna herself turns it.

(Boethius is an early philosopher.)

The Wheel in the Middle Ages By the Middle Ages the wheel was a

common theme in literature. Mankind was often depicted as revolving

on the wheel itself, turned by the will of Fortuna.

Though classically Fortune's Wheel could be favorable and also have its disadvantages, medieval writers preferred the tragic aspect, dwelling on downfall of the mighty - serving to remind people of the temporality of earthly things.