Finished!

Yayy!!! We're all done :) :). Congratulations to everyone...

Hey, would people mind if I posted things up here while I'm studying for my Masters? Just to keep it going!!


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A4 Revision Class, Monday at 11, Week 1

Hullo.... You folks going to this lecture tomorrow in Room 10? It's being given by Dr. Gronlie... I think I will go :). Can get you handouts if it'll help!

xxx

A5

What are your topics for A5? Mine are standardisation and lexicon for the essays... and the Biblical passages for the commentary :).

A word of advice from Ayoush the Unready

Hullo.

I was learning some Chaucer quotes today, taking them directly from my essay... Then I realised that there were quite a few spelling mistakes in the quotations-- like 'dawsed' for 'daswed' and Microsoft Word helpfully correcting 'writen' to 'written'. So now I'm just learning quotes directly from the text, or at least checking over the quotations I'd written in my essays.

I'm sure you are both much more careful than me, but just in case-- check your quotes! :)

so, what's with Gower?

Like Chaucer in Canterbury Tales, Gower too uses a frame narrative within which he has many tales, he has a naive first person narrator and a third person figure of authority. But he doesn't have different voices telling his tales from different sources- the tales are all told by Genius and they are mostly Ovidian. While Chaucer plays around with authority and meaning, all the time trying to break hierarchies and moulds, trying to prove that there is no single 'truth' or meaning, but that there are multiple dimensions to every point of view (thus each tale tries to 'quite' the previous one), Gower is eager to establish authority even seeing himself as one, perhaps because he needs to. he is extremely concerned about his political situation, and his poem is closely related to it. He is concerned with issues of kingship and uses the universal theme of love to talk about the need for a balance between excess and deficiency (ie. virtue). Gower has a perfectly structured poem to show the possiblity of harmony in the world. Compare this with the attitude of the Pearl-poet who shows that humans cannot find this harmony, but it is only found in heaven. Gower needs to show that harmony is possible in the secular real world, and interestingly he does not resort to spiritual or religious imagery to prove his case, but instead turns to the pagan classics. One point of comparison between Chaucer and Gower is that the latter allows his tales to be read only through a particular moral, whereas Chaucer's tales open up many layers of meaning. Gower tries to place everything within context; Chaucer argues that the contexts are limitless. but Gower is not all that direct about his frame and context. He has all these 'digressions' on kingship, which suggests to me that their is a greater implicit frame which includes the Prologue. So there are two frameworks, overlapping:
1. Gower + his treatise on kingship
2. Amans, Genius, vices
Gower becomes Amans, Amans becomes Gower.
He uses the lover (individual) to talk about the king (public figure) because they are two aspects of the same person. Man is both social and individual (Dhira Mahoney) thus the kingship and lover aspects are related, and the two frames overlap.

topics for A3?

So what's everyone doing for Chaucer and Gower? I'm a bit clueless about that too. The questions for A3(a) seem mostly thematic and general, and I haven't looked at A3(b) yet. So, for paper (a) I'm thinking...
1. instability of authority and meaning
2. structure or something- maybe "genre"

How are you two planning this paper?

I'm in love with Kevin Whately. It's a bit distracting.

A2 is beginning to seriously concern me, ladies. Particularly last year's question paper, which had 'answer on any text for any question' at the top, and then a list of very vague questions. I was thinking of writing on the Gawain romances/Middle English romances in general/the Pearl poet/Dunbar, but I don't seem able to see these questions as useful for - well, anything, really! Does anyone else think the questions very odd compared to those on, say, A1? Please, please reassure me in some way, here! Gah.

I think I'm just going to go back to watching Morse, now. Every time Kevin Whately does anything at all, I want to fling myself down flights of stairs BECAUSE HE IS SO ADORABLE. And it is four a.m. and I am sick sick sick of worrying about A2.

edited to add: All right - what would you answer from this paper, if you were sitting it tomorrow? http://missun29.offices.ox.ac.uk/papers/2007/trinity/2402.pdf

Revision Classes

Hey guys,

Just wanted to let you know I've e-mailed Dr. Holton with the topics I'd find most useful for revision classes-- I thought I'd let you know what I said:

"If possible, I'd find a language class and textual criticism class (for A4 & A5) very useful, as these papers are the two I'm least confident with. A class on historical context for the Old English and Middle English literature papers would also be very handy. I think though, what I'd find most useful is if you'd be kind enough to look over exam essays I did for any of the papers. I don't know if this corresponds with what Janette and Neelini would find most useful, or with what you have planned; I hope it's all okay."

I hope Lali and Janette, you're both alright with this? I'm judging for both of you, a language class is completely unnecessary, and also it seems you'd both like an A2 class... I guess Dr. Holton will work out a balance or something? :)


Love,
xxxxx

Old English Saints' Lives

Right: I've been perusing past papers, and Old English saints' lives have come up every year in some guise or other. The questions tend to revolve around how they are particular to OE literature, how they relate to their Latin sources, their use of context and the heroic code. Thus, a post on the subject.

Old English Saints’ Lives – In what framework do they operate? Do they remove all peculiarities of each saint? Discuss their heroic context.

- Elene and Juliana are both poems based in the late Roman period, and come from Latin sources. However, both are in the style of the secular heroic ballad, and both differ in a number of details, as well as in literary respects, from their sources. We see in both the language and preoccupations of Germanic literature, to the extent that Elene begins with the typically heroic ‘Hwaet!’ and casts her, as heroine, in the guise of the war-hero, ‘guthcwen’. Juliana, likewise, is a very physically active heroine, fighting a holy battle against demons – and suffering because of ‘haethens’ here, just as the heroes of Maldon faced the Viking ‘haethens’.
- Elene and Juliana represent ‘a literature more personal and more human in our terms than the Roman literature from which the stories are drawn’ (Olsen). The Latin Helena represented, to an extent, the figure of the church, Ecclesia, via allegory; Elene is herself solely, and the poem is the story of her battle. Throughout, Cynewulf emphasises the personal actions of his heroines: Elene is ‘bald’, a ‘segecwen’. Juliana’s preservation of her virginity is likewise an active and not a passive choice.
- The nature and extent of Elene’s power is stunning. Her physical power lies in her armies: ‘Sio cwen bebead ofer eorlmaegen aras rysan ricene to rade’ (‘The queen commanded her warriors to arise, prepare to move quicly, set forth once again.’) She does not take action personally, but she is seeking knowledge, and does not need to – Nelson has pointed out that her status allows her to demand, rather than request, answers to her questions; thus she can achieve her aim by words only. She issues threats to Judas, promising severe physical consequences - ‘Þe synt tu gearu/swa lif swa deað swa þe leofre bið/to geceosanne’ – but in the end is able to bend him to her will by threat alone.
- At certain points – ie, where Elene is depicted sailing over the sea with her armies – Cynewulf seems almost to have forgotten that he is writing about a woman, so absolutely has he cast her in the mould of the Germanic hero. This potency of her speech, however, is absolutely in accord with the Germanic tendency by which ‘women normally use speech rather than action to achieve their purposes, but they resort to action when speech fails’ (Olsen). In Elene (and not in the Latin narrative) occurs the following comment: ‘haefde Ciriacus/eall gefylled swa him seo aeðele bebead/wifes willan.’(‘Cyriacus had completely done what the noble woman bade him do, the will of the woman.’) As Olsen points out, ‘By adding this passage to his source, Cynewulf emphasises that his Elene is the person who controls the situation.’ After Elene has found the True Cross, she is able to order her ‘forthsnotterne’ to help her in her self-appointed task of finding the ‘naeglum’ that crucified Christ. This task is from her own ‘frywet’, rather than at her son’s instigation, demonstrating that she has a degree of autonomy, despite the fact that her previous power, although very real, had all derived from the position of her son.
- To an extent, then, Elene, as envoy, is retainer to Constantine: she has the power of an ‘appendage’ (Fraser) more because she is a delegate than because she is a woman, doing what ‘weorada helm…beboden haefde’ (the guardian of the people had commanded). Juliana, conversely, is delegated her power by nobody but God. She conforms to the warrior-martyr type as used in Guthlac, ‘drythnes cempa’, displaying the boldness in battle and resoluteness of mind typical of the warrior figure. Cynewulf employs much formulaic diction of the heroic school in this poem, suggesting strongly an intent to depict Juliana against such a contextual background. Cynewulf does not simply translate the words of his Latin text; he also translates the cultural setting to one which his own audience could better understand.
- Juliana is not withdrawing, but launching a spiritual attack, opposing her father, her husband to be, and the devil who comes to her in prison – again, primarily using words. It is she who is in control of her own situation, issuing the ultimatum to Helesius:

‘Naefre þu þaes swiðlic sar gegearwast
þur haestne nið heardra wita,
þaet þu mec onwende worda þissa.’

(‘Threaten as you will, no torture, no punishment, no act of violence can make me break my solemn promise.’)

- In confrontation with the devil who comes to her in prison, Juliana is fearless: ‘seo the forht ne waes.’ She is able to manipulate him through the aid of the Holy Spirit: ‘him seo halge oncwaeð þurh gaestes giefe.’ She addresses the ‘aglaeca agleaf’ in forceful imperatives: ‘Þu scealt furthor gen, feond moncynnes, sithfaet secgan, hwa thec sende to me,’ and, in fact, unlike Elene, goes so far as to physically attack the devil: ‘heo þaet deofol genom’- conforming, then, to the Germanic concept of women ‘resorting to action when speech fails’ (Olsen). According to Nelson, the Old English Juliana is stronger than her Latin counterpart in a more obvious way, forcing Helesius to martyr her, and showing her both wilful and ready for death.
- These women are not mere symbols. Cynewulf’s choice of words alone is sufficient to indicate that he intended to represent the type of heroic women his audience could understand, moulding them to Germanic convention where possible and appropriate. His deviations from the Latin sources show this: to his mind, Elene could make more impact as a warrior queen, miles christi, than as an allegory, and an emphasis on the strength of Juliana’s words would make her more appealing.
- Guthlac A and B make similar use of the miles christi idea – certainly not singular to Old English and heroic literature – but again, manipulate the topoi and diction of the heroic genre in a way that personalises the poems. Of course, in the first instance, Guthlac is an English saint, but it is still the case that his OE poet is working from a Latin source. In Guthlac A, the Germanic debt is less clear: Guthlac criticises the sword as ‘worulde waepne’, aligning it with the corruption of earthly things and with the devils who tempt him, opposing him rather to the secular military heroism of the OE battle poetry. This is similar to the image used in the Phoenix of death approaching as an armed warrior – again, negative manipulation of the heroic code. Nevertheless, in the Phoenix and Guthlac A both, the courage of the warrior is emphasised as being both commendable and necessary for passage from one phase of life to the next:

Swa sceal oretta a in his mode
Gode compian, ond his gaest beran
Oft on ondan tham the eahtan wile
Sawla gehwylcre thaer he gesaelan maeg.’

(Thus shall a warrior ever fight for God in his heart and often hold his spirit in fear of him who is eager to persecute every soul, when he may bind it.)

- Guthlac B is less emphatic regarding the necessity of distancing oneself from all earthly things. Thus, we find an emphasis on kinship, and Guthlac maintains ties in his old age with his attendant (Beccel, a retainer-like figure) and his sister, Pega. Guthlac is, like the Phoenix, ‘dryhtnes cempa’, fighting ‘hella thegna’. Guthlac B has been described as being a poem on the death of Guthlac, and certainly it presents his death in an extensive and moving way, in the manner of the ‘Hero on the Beach’ topos found in Beowulf and elsewhere. A lot of the focus of this poem is on Guthlac’s ‘ar’, or servant; but he, like the sister, is here nameless, their anonymity thrusting the focus onto Guthlac alone. The poem is incomplete, but it ends with a lament by the grieving servant that is strongly redolent of The Wanderer, the retainer of OE elegiac tradition. It reconciles an OE belief in transience and a Christian belief in heaven, to whose ‘longan gefean’ angels have just taken Guthlac.
- David F Crowne identified the death of Guthlac as a typical example of the Hero on the Beach formulaic theme. Guthlac does not die on a beach, but in ‘ilgam halge hofe’, but he has his retainer, and Alan Renoir has posited that a ‘symbolic’ beach fits the topos equally well – anything that represents an area between two worlds, a hinterland; in Guthlac we have as a symbol of this the wall against which he leans to die, separating the finite inside from the infinite outside of his hut (Olsen). From an affective point of view, incidentally, the substitution of a wall for a beach seems especially appropriate since the Old-Englishweall also means a sea-cliff, as it does in the famous Hero-on-the-Beach passage in which Beowulf describes his swimming match with Breca. (Olsen)
- When it appears in straightforward battle poetry, the Hero on the Beach image predicts sorrow, strife or death. The effective merging of the Christian and the Germanic is made evident here in the fact that, in Guthlac, death is predicted but without sorrow, at least for Guthlac, who will be achieving heavenly bliss. The servant, on the other hand, is distressed because he has failed to understand; he has trapped himself in the Germanic topos of the Hero on the Beach by not moving away from the Germanic belief in transience. He is living still in the shadow of the Fall, while Guthlac himself is, like the Phoenix, living the Redemption: the use of the Germanic traditional format thus conveys the idea that it is possible to escape the pain of one whose only belief is in transience, the sorrow of the Wanderer, by embracing, like Guthlac, a Christianity that seeks its joys in heaven, rather than in hall.

*****

A2 makes me want to cry. I felt like I knew stuff until I went and looked at the papers. What's with all the weird generic-y questions that don't seem to apply to anything?

Cotton Nero A.x. : a theory

At least thanks to Simon I know all about the language of this manuscript. Now, my theory is this:
Patience and Cleanness which are in the middle of the manuscript form one unit, they are companion pieces (as earlier critics have recognised) and are meant to be read as one whole, flanksed on either side by a dream vision and a popular/folk romance respectively. The poems are not separated in the manuscript, and some linguists believe that they were copied out from different manuscripts. I think the order of the poems in the manuscript is deliberate (and authorial) and as the individual poems show, the poet is very concerned with the aesthetics of measure, and also thematically with the imperfection of man. Thus, we have Pearl, {Cleanness+ Patience}, Gawain. This forms a trinity, while the fact that Patience and Cleanness are split shows a) incompleteness of man- the poet cannot create a perfect trinity
b) Pearl/ Cleanness form a pair: both emphasizing on purity, Patience/Gawain form another pair, and Cleanness/Patience are homiletic companions. So, in this way they form a trinity of pairs. I dunno what the significance of a "pair" is here: Christ/Mary presumably. Anything else?

Anyway, thats all I have to say about Cotton Nero A.x.

Theory

Hullo :).

Are you guys trying to work in theory to your essays too? I am reading up on theory, and trying to figure out which theorists/theoretical frameworks work best with which topic, and was just wondering if/how you guys are going about that too... :)

Love,
Ragnelle

what do you think?

The whole of the Middle Ages was, in a sense, a child: "Melancholy child, ripped from the very entrails of Christianity, born in tears, grown up in prayer and reverie and in heartrending anguish, dead without achieving anything; but it has left behind so poignant a memory that all the joys and all the grandeurs of the modern age are not enough to console us."

Jules Michelet, quoted by Jacques Le Goff in Time, Work & Culture in the Middle Ages

Women in Beowulf

Lali, I really like your idea in the previous post - I feel a bit iffy about having good, likely topics for that paper, too, so I'll certainly get round to that. In the meanwhile, I'm sorting out my 'God willing, it will be on there' questions for A1. From my perusals of old papers, it seems that it will be a very, very bad year if there isn't a) a question on OE literature vs context, and b) a question on women. As for my third topic, I'm not sure - possibly something about hagiographies/Cynewulf, because I really don't think much of my chances of writing anything comprehensible about the Phoenix vs Guthlac. I don't get the Phoenix! However, I digress. Which is, I suppose, relevant to the topic in hand.

Women in OE Literature: Are they there? Do they have a function? How do they relate to 'wisdom'?

- Beowulf, like a lot of heroic poetry, is very androcentric: however, although only Waltheow is a speaking female character, it does contain several females: Waltheow, Hygd, Freowaru, Modthryth, Hildeburh, Grendel's mother. George Jack has pointed out how meticulously structured Beowulf is, to the extent that he feels it cannot have been composed orally: within this carefully organised narrative, all these women have functions. Wealtheow, for instance, is the ideal of the queenly peace-weaver: her success contrasts Hildeburh's failure in this regard, and the prophesied failure of Freowaru. The story of Hildeburh's forced impassivity upon the deaths of her son and brother, immediately preceding the episode of Grendel's mother's revenge, pointedly colours our view of the latter character.

- So, we have a fairly complex interplay between 'good' and 'bad' female figures, often as foils to each other. To an extent, what we get from these juxtapositions is that 'action' was, indeed, commendable in man and criticised in woman. The poet does accord Grendel's mother some degree of sympathy, or at least womanhood, calling her 'ides' and 'dam'. However, she represents an inversion of the peaceweaving queen, receiving her hall-guests (selegyst) Beowulf with 'grimmum graepum' rather than treasure. Even before Beowulf encounters her, she has proven herself active, attacking Heorot and killing Aeschere. It is hard to know where she fits - the digression about the old man whose son has been hanged illustrates the difficulties of being unable to avenge one's slain kin, which the heroic code would permit. But the problem for Grendel's mother is that she is not part of the heroic code, because, as a woman, she is attempting to manipulate it as if she were a man. Her actions undermine her womanhood; she is indeed occasionally accorded a male pronoun, and Hrothgar's men are not entirely sure that she is a woman. According to Jane Chance, '‘the mystery of [Grendel’s] begetting and conception hints at a possible parody of the conception and birth of Christ’, which would make Grendel's mother not only an inversion of Wealtheow, but ultimately the antithesis of the Virgin. Indeed, the language of the fight with Beowulf may even be read in sexual terms, casting her not merely as a lustful being, but indeed as a sexual agressor to the extent of taking the masculine role and straddling Beowulf. She is a wraecend as well as a "modor, / ides aglæcwif".

- Although Grendel's mother may be the most aggressive female character, she is not the only one. We also have the aggressive Modthryth, of whose behaviour the narrator says 'ne bith swylch cwenlice/idese to efnanne, the heo aenlicu sy'. She is, perhaps, more disturbing than Grendel's mother because of her far less ambiguous human womanhood. She is vain, mean, proud and destructive, and where Grendel's mothers actions had the aim of avenging her son, Modthryth's seem absolutely arbitrary. She is a hysteric, wreaking violence on all who look upon her: ‘ac him aelbende weotode tealde handgewrithene; hrathe seoththan waes aefter mundgripe mece gethinged, thaet hit sceadenmael scyran moste, cwealmbealu cythan.’ Outside the social order, she violently refuses to be objectified, and thus typifies the Germanic anti-peaceweaver, who instead weaves destruction and war (Stephanie Hollis). Of course, marriage to a 'god cyning', Offa, silences and tames Modthryth, reminding us that, unlike Grendel's mother, she really is only a woman. But she is the perfect foil to the noble and beautiful Hygd.

- Where 'Modthryth' suggests physical strength, 'Hygd' linguistically implies 'thought' or 'deliberation'; she is described as 'wis'. Thus she does not need to speak in order to serve as a reminder than the perfect woman of Maxims II should be wise and thoughtful. She bestows treasure, rather than violence, giving gifts and playing the frithusibb, being quiet, loving, loyal and very wise. The peaceweaver idea is very common to Old English literature, and in Beowulf we have two sides of the story: Hygd and Wealtheow have both been successful peaceweaving tokens, while Hildeburh has not. When the ties of Hildeburh's literal peace-knot come undone, she is left with no function, no hall in which to perform her dispensations of gifts, advice, and the cup. At the pyre, she mourns not only her son and brother but the failure of herself as a peace-pledge and thus the loss of her only identity (Chance). She is 'laeddon to leodum', but has nowhere to go to and no function to perform in future: she has, effectively, disappeared.

- Hildeburh is not remarkable. Beowulf predicts that the same will happen to Freowaru, her marriage dissolved by tensions resulting from old wars. He believes that '‘ond [her husband’s] wiflufan/aefter cearwaelmum colran weorðað.’ What we see is basically the submission of a noblewoman as an uncertain sacrifice to the cause of peace between two tribes, in which her success is not determined as much by her wisdom and skill as by the reactions of the men in power.

- Wealtheow, conversely, is an inveterately successful peace-weaver. She maintains a degree of control through her language and wisdom, she ‘exercises a leadership that parallels and interlocks with Hrothgar’s, her postures towards the hero, of welcome and treasure-giving, on each occasion mirroring the king’s. Her perambulations around the hall…are the graphic embodiment of her role as peace-weaver…As she circulates the cup, she dispenses advice.’ (Hollis) Outside of Wessex, the queen's throne was not nominal - rather than being ceremonial, she had a joint leadership role linked to her advisorial capacity. Like her husband, a queen would dispense gifts as bonds of fealty, which she must earn by wise council, according to Maxims I: ‘him raed witan/boldagendum baem aetsomne.’ In her wisdom lies a queen's right to authority.

- Wealtheow advises the men in hall, with authority, on matters of great importance, pertaining not only to the waning king, but to the king to come. She is explicitly concerned with her sons' wellfare: because the throne is a joint one, she has some say in who will succeed to it. Hygd, likewise, freely offers Beowulf the succession to her king's throne. Wealtheow is so experienced a peaceweaver that her wisdom sometimes approaches the prophetic. She advises Hrothgar to leave the kingdom to his sons, and then, as if sensing trouble, warns her nephew Hrothulf of his obligations to these sons - which, indeed, he later denies. In her own court - which is truly half her own - she weaves, and thus understands, the extant bonds of fealty, telling Beowulf: ‘hér is aéghwylc eorl óþrum getrýwe módes milde mandrihtne hléo; þegnas syndon geþwaére þéod ealgearo, druncne dryhtguman dóð swá ic bidde.' (‘Here is each man true to the others, generous in mind, in the protection of their liege-lord; the thanes are united, the people alert; the warrior retinue cheered by drink: do as I bid.’) By her counsel, Wealtheow has amassed loyalty, as her husband has done by his deeds.

- However, although Wealtheow's words bear weight,she is not a rival lord to Hrothgar, nor is wisdom her domain solely. She cannot overturn his wishes with her own *willa*, much as it might be respected. She can incorporate her rule into his, but he remains the ultimate authority. Despite his lack of involvement in wars, Hrothgar is 'god cyning' because he is wise: his sage speech to Beowulf is considered the centre of the poem. In King Alfred's Boethius, Wisdom, contrary to the Latin original, is masculine, even where this seems problematic to the story, as when man is described as making love to Wisdom (linguistically masculine). : Ic ongyte nu Þaet Þu lufast Þone wisdom swa swiðe, and Þe lyst hine swa wel nacode ongitan and gefredan Þaet Þu noldest Þaet aenig clað betweuh wer.’ Alfred draws a contrast between love of Wisdom and love of a woman, making it important that he be literally as well as linguistically masculine. Thus, clearly Wisdom was in no way a solely feminine attribute in Old English society.

- Beowulf has feminine illustrations for basically every good and bad Anglo Saxon feminine type. All are either in some way subject to male authority, even where very wise (Wealtheow), or else or portrayed as monstrous and unnatural (Grendel's mother). Women (or at least noblewomen) are political pawns: the success or failure of a peaceweaver depends on the relevant masculine overlordship.

exam questions

Hey everyone,
I was looking through some past papers for A2 and I realised that I would have to rack my brains very very hard in order to get three essays. Unlike Ayoush, I do not have romances and spiritual women up my sleeve. So I was thinking, we could use this post to list exam questions and say briefly how we would work around the question to fit our topic. For this, you need to go to "create new post", and then you will see a tab next to it called "edit posts", and you select this one. If this is too complicated, you could just add comments to this post.
I don't feel very good about A2 :(
xx Illusionary

k, found this question in the 2005 paper for A2:
‘L. P. Hartley’s statement that “The past is a foreign country : they do things differently there” would be truer if for do we read feel.’ How different from those of our own time do you find the feelings expressed or represented in the writing of this
period?

what would one do with that? one thing i could talk about is how the middle ages thought about their own past, and how differently we think of the middle ages as our past. also, the way in which ME used OE to create a shared national identity, in the same way in which ME texts esp Arthur was used in periods afterward to create a sense of national identity. Actually, i suppose one could use this question to talk about the romances, and
a) how they perceived the A-S past
b) how they were perceived by their contemporaries
c) how they were perceived in the early modern period, the 19th century and finally 21st century

some points on ME romances

‘mimetic fallacy’: the belief that actions, people and things can and should be closely imitated in words, whether this is an imitation of ordinary life or of the cause-and-effect patterns that make up real life. Romance as an escape from the mimetic fallacy. [Derek Brewer]

‘fluidity’ of romance: importance of reader response, original culture and historical biases built into the language- the text is shaped by the circumstances, and part of it, rather than external to it.

The centre and the periphery: the action of romance is about the relation between the centre and some peripheral element. There is no single ‘centre’. The court is a conceptual centre but much of the action takes place outside it (exile, forest, other courts, etc). The knight’s quest also becomes the centre in a sense, so we have a moving centre.

Concept of reality: traditional world view was that ultimate reality lay behind the surfaces of things (so, romance would be read as an allegory of something?), while from the late 17^th century, the material world has been taken as the ultimate and only real world. Romance must necessarily be contemporary even as it has its appeal in its formulaic nature.

Stereotype: romances are built on myths, folktales and fairytales, and dreams. They have improbable events, stereotypical characters, and the reader knows innately or from pre-literary experience what the outcome of the narrative will be. Derek Brewer writes of ‘the self-sufficient, self-enclosed, or self-reflexive elements in literary structures and in language itself which at best parallel but certainly never imitate non-verbal experience’. Auerbach emphasizes on the ‘fairytale’ element in romances and describes them as worlds which have no geographical and socio-economical foundations. Derek Pearsall calls the impression of homogeneity in ME romance with its formal and literary conventions, the “grammar” of romance. He argues that this stereotyping is found in the social context which was ‘overwhelmingly popular and non-courtly’ for the lower/middle class audience of the romances, because true courtly romance was French.

Social classes: These lower classes were ‘a class of social aspirants’ who wanted to feel ‘frenchish’ and ‘courtly’ by listening to/reading romances. Auerbach writes in Mimesis that romance is ‘the world of a single class’. Now clearly this is not true of the romances we have read, in the Matter of England, but can we say this for other romances? [ayoush you’d know this]I think romance is better defined as the world of the ‘hero’. Some of the romances are like a chronology of events of the main character (eg. Horn, Havelok). Also about class, ‘Havelok’ has often been read as a poem that is seen from the point of view of the lower classes, and Havelok’s virtues and achievements are ‘never those of chivalry’ (Robert Montagu), but this is not entirely true- would Havelok still have been the hero if he was not a king’s son by birth? There is definitely an increased emphasis on social class in ME, than in OE, probably due to increased social interaction between classes. OE poetry rather seems to describe a single ‘class’, that in a warrior society, while the romances take into account the existence of worlds different to them, and classes which function differently. This is why we have women coming into the picture with bigger or more influential roles than in OE poetry which doesn’t seem to know quite how to deal with them.

Looking back at an Anglo-Saxon past: On the other hand, these early romances are a mixture of oral and literary traditions, and also a transition between old Germanic/Christian and new French courtly modes. R.A. Rouse recently studied ‘the post-conquest representation of the pre-conquest English past’ and looked at the way in which the ME romances develop a sense of Englishness based on their Anglo Saxon identity. This relates to the purpose behind the alliterative revival and the use of literature to create a nationalist identity (romance as political propaganda, or is that pushing it?). The Matter of England romances develop a sense of Englishness, and there is great concern with the presentation of the Saracens as the ‘Other’, but they are religious others, threat to Christianity and not to the secular nation (are the two that separate at this time anyway?).

How much of Germanic tradition can we see in the romances?

- The hero’s desire to prove himself eg. Beowulf, Horn- closely related to this is the concept of the ‘exiled hero’ which we see in Horn and in the Wanderer, Seafarer poems. Another point about the hero is that he is the king in romance, but usually the retainer in OE heroic poetry.

- The retainer/vassalage eg. Byrhtnoth’s followers (Maldon), Godrich and Godard (Havelok), Havelok himself as he swears fealty to Godard and then runs away to save his life- he chooses his life over his “lord”, something only Godric#1 would do. Godard’s warning to his men who want to run away, that it will shame them if they do. In Havelok, the guardians of both kingdoms swear by the ‘messebook’ to be loyal. Vassalage is a permanent bond (comparable to legal bonds) whereas the þegnas of OE poetry seem to be more voluntary. Thus Godric will be looked down upon for running away, but his lord can’t do anything much about it. In the medieval chivalric code however, once you had a bond of fealty and homage with someone, you had to stick to it. The ME period also saw a change in the status of the knight who moves from a position of servitude to one of dominance. This again reflects OE retainers like Beowulf who are the central characters and the heroes, like Gawain is the hero of GAGK while Arthur is sidelined.

- The pagan/Christian conflict eg. again the battles where we have the pagan Vikings, and the Saracen invaders in Horn, Guy of Warwick.

- The romances look back at a primitive anglo saxon past, which is coloured by post-conquest cultural ideas. Anglo Saxon poetry looks back at a Germanic past which is coloured by Christian concepts.

What’s different from the Anglo-Saxon past:

- ‘refinement of the laws of combat, courteous social intercourse, service of women’[Auerbach]. I agree with the word ‘refinement’, it is a refinement of pre-existing cultural values rather than something new that was acquired overnight from France. The heroic code becomes the knightly code, they are not two separate things. The rise of the feudal society based on kinship from 11^th-13^th century led to a new emphasis on the community and on the code of honour. The English courtly code may have overtly developed from the French chivalric code but its values and concepts arise from the Germanic heroic culture.

- Romance is less ‘realistic’ than OE poetry, with more emphasis on marvels than before- its more of an entertainment than heroic poetry, which seems more directly exemplary.

Finally, just something I thought would be useful for A1, and applied to A2 as well: Frantzen and Niles’ definition of ‘Anglo-Saxonism’: it is the process through which a self conscious national and racial identity first came into being among the English people, and how over time that identity was transformed into an ordinary myth.

Random thoughts about the unsuccessful and "unsuitable" lovers of Chaucer's 'Troilus and Criseyde'

I'm in the Bod... just some random thoughts...

Okay, well firstly, about Pandarus... How do you guys feel about him? The critic Chauncey Wood is clearly not a fan. He dedicated a whole sub-chapter to this emotional tirade against Pandarus, calling him manipulative, an example of the "Evil Counsellor", and going as far as to say that he 'sexually harasses' Criseyde (?? I totally missed that! Do you guys know what he's referring to? I wondered whether dear Chauncey maybe exaggerated things due to his pathological dislike of Pandarus--perhaps he too has an interfering uncle). But anyway, Wood says he feels Pandarus is far from the 'comic' figure other, previous critics have seen, and is, rather, a very sinister one.

In the EFL today, I almost had tears in my eyes over Pandarus, which is probably not what Wood nor the 'Pandarus as comic genius' critics would see as a normal response to him! The thing is, I find him an incredibly sad, pathetic figure (pathetic as in pathos, not 'god, he's so pathetic, man!'-- how would you clarify in an exam?!). He mocks himself as a failed lover, saying how he always 'hops' behind love... He seems to want to live through the eponymous young lovers of Chaucer's poem, and he seems to get carried away by the fantasy almost... Maybe my reading is overly-sentimental, and poorly supported--I haven't done this properly, it's just some thoughts I got... but I actually felt sad for Pandarus. There's one bit where he threatens to kill himself if Criseyde doesn't go after Troilus-- I can't remember the context/reasons exactly, and I didn't explain it well in my essay-- do you guys know which bit I'm referring to? Anyhow, this is VERY manipulative and unpleasant behaviour, but it also struck me as extremely, extremely sad & desperate... Why would he say such things, I mean it seems he's emotionally bound with the lovers' relationship in a way that doesn't seem 'normal', not as Criseyde's uncle nor as Troilus' friend.

Wood notes that, differently to Pandarus, the narrator does not love because of "unlikeliness", which looking in the Chaucer Glossary, means 'unsuitability'... I wasn't sure what that means in this context (do you guys know?), but in any case, do you feel, like some critics have suggested, that the narrator is actually in love with Criseyde? I'm beginning to lean that way, but don't have enough material / thoughts to say it properly yet!

Sorry for boring you with all this... just some random thoughts which took over my mind today.
(sorry about the modern spellings here also...)

Tunics, hazelnuts and trampling with love: The mystics, because they're all loony, like me

Okay, I am rather fond of these dears. They're all mad. I like the women mystics, Julian of Norwich and Margery Kempe, especially. Alex (who taught me for this) said that he feels there is a particular concern with 'femaleness' in this area. Christ's suffering on the cross-- terrible anguish followed by boundless joy--, Alex says has a profound link with a woman giving birth. But in any case, I can't focus purely on the 'femininity'/'femaleness' side of things (I'm barred from it!), so let's move on. 

As many critical categories, the category of "mystics" to describe the writers seen as such (I'll focus, in addition to the two women, on Richard Rolle, Walter Hilton, and the uncertain author of 'The Cloud of Unknowing')  is a purely MODERN, not mediaeval, phenomenon-- the term "mystick theology" not being used until 1639.  Mystical experience is complicated to define, I guess... and there is no one 'kind' of mystical experience. 


"What is that to me?": Mystical experience and the self

I like Marion Gascoe's way of putting things: "Mysticism [in] the precise sense of an ultimate spiritual reality experienced both within the structure of the human personality and as a transcendent power."

Jennifer Summit has argued that "The most dramatic examples of writing as a suspension, rather than assertion, of selfhood come in the work of mediaeval women visionaries." I disagreed with this-- I think the individual self is a very important vehicle in mystical experience: it always necessarily takes place within the individual self. Though those living the contemplative life were sometimes part of contemplative religious communities, mystical experience of God  is a very personal, solitary quest. (Note how anchoresses were not only severely isolated in severely enclosed spaces, but had the funeral rites said for them when they entered the anchorhold-- they become dead to the world. Julian of course was an anchoress-- she may have been so from a young age, or she may have been widowed and then entered the anchoritic life--we don't know.) True, affective mysticism (which I'll come onto later) sees 'kenosis' as an essential part of mystical experience, whereby the self is emptied, to be filled with God's love, which is all around the self (especially Julian's mystical experience). But even so, the individual person is very important to the mystical journey.

There is one incredibly beautiful moment in Julian's 'Shewings' (also called 'A Revelation of Divine Love', for which there are two, one long and one short, versions), where her vision of God, 

"shewed a little thing the quantity of an haselnot, lying in the palme of my hand as me semide, and it was as rounde as any balle. I looked therean with the eye of my understanding, and thought: 'What may this be?' And it was answered generally thus: 'It is all that is made....' ".  

Most interpretations of this textual moment lean towards an emphasis on the nut-like ball as an embodiment of the preserving force of God's love; and Barratt's findings that the hazel-nut was the basic unit of measurement in mediaeval medicine serves to re-historicise this image. However, I think there's more to it, with regards to her individual self: the position of it in her palm connects her with the small ball's wider significance-- and yet, it remains in her palm: this experience will always be through her own being. And indeed, Julian immediately proceeds to question, "But what is that to me?" 

 There is a funny incident recorded in the 'Officium' about Rolle, a very fascinating mystic. He asks his sister, who loves him very much, to come to the wood nearby, bringing her two tunics, one grey and one white. His poor unsuspecting sister does so. It's recorded that "when [Rolle] had received them he straightaway cut off the sleeves from the grey tunic and the buttons from the white, and as best he could, he fitted the sleeves into the white tunic, so that they might in some manner be suited to his purpose. Then he took off his own clothes... and put on his sister's tunic next to his skin, but the grey, with the sleeves cut out, he put over it, and put his head with the rainhood aforesaid". His sister, understandably, begins to cry out, "My brother is mad! My brother is mad!"-- whereupon, we are told, Rolle "drove her from him with threats, and fled himself at once without delay, lest he should be seized upon by his friends and acquaintances." Rolle's, umm, odd behaviour here, Elisabeth Dutton argues,  is a symbol for creating one's own, individual spirituality, away from the mainstream traditions. I agree with her :).

"Trample it down with a stirring of love": The mystics and affective piety

Affectivity is very important to the mystical experience. As we know, in 'Ancrene Wisse', Christ is presented as the anchoress' 'lover'... And as mentioned, kenosis, emptying the self to fill it with God's love, is very important in Julian's visionary experiences. I adore the image, "trample it down with a stirring of love", which is in 'The Cloud of Unknowing'... for he's actually there describing how to get rid of unwelcome thoughts, that will impede enlightenment... But you don't get rid of it by harshness-- no, you do it by love. 

But it's not all about love--pain and suffering is also important to some of the mystics; love and pain combined. Margery is, to use Valerie Lagorio's paradoxical term, a "noisy contemplative"--  travelling around the world arguing with priests, talking loudly about sex (even though she's a married woman with children), and, very significantly, ENDLESSLY bursting into tears all over the place. There is one particularly comical incident (though I don't think dear Margery intended it to be comical!) in Chapter 60 of her 'Book' where Margery bursts into loud tears, because of her sheer anguish over Jesus's death. A priest comes up to her, completely bemused at her roaring, and says (quite understandably!), "Damsel, Ihesu is ded long sithyn". Margery, however, has entered a realm beyond rationality, her capacity for human feeling deepening: "Sir, hys deth is as fresch to me as he had deyd (th)is same dey". Likewise, on entering the churchyard of Saint Stephen, Margery "cryed, sche roryd, sche wept, sche fel down to (th)e grownd, so feruently (th)e fyer of lofe brent in hir hert."  Julian, though a lot quieter and more introspective than the loud Margery, also suffers deeply when she has a strikingly vivid image of Christ on the cross-- his suffering is internalised into her own self.

What I also found intriguing is that both Julian and Margery are said to experience mystical visions after a bout of illness-- Margery's is psychological (we believe she had severe clinical depression, based on how she describes her state of mind), Julian's could be either physical or psychological-- I don't think we're entirely sure. Suffering seems important to them in terms of mystical experience. 

BUT, the Cloud-author is not keen on the idea of 'suffering' leading to superior visionary experiences. He expresses concern that the suffering individual will end up being so exhausted by their pain that she/he will be unable to truly give themselves to God. So there isn't a 'united' vision from the mystics on this front.

Not all the mystics focus purely on affective experience. Walter Hilton, in his works, 'Scale of Perfection' (an anchoress guidebook) and 'Mixed Life', expresses union of cognitive and affective knowledge of God as the ultimate goal-- not just affectivity.

"Vernacular theology": Mysticism as a radical political force?

With this focus on the self, and the affectivity of it all, it is easy to see why mystical experience could be seen as a "transhistorical and transcultural phenomenon" (Watson's terms, though he doesn't believe mystical criticism is transhistorical/transcultural). And I, umm, agree with Watson-- but not with his assertion that mystical experience is "embedded" in its times. I don't like the word "embedded", as I feel it needs to be more nuanced than this. I feel the mystics had a very complex,  fraught relationship with the world around them: never fully part of it, but never fully segregated from it. They occupied a strange, murky area that binds them to the world (and indeed, they see themselves as performing important work for the wider community, whether this community is aware of it or not). They are of course not fully 'part' of this community, however: the difference between the  contemplative and active Christian life is encapsulated in the Mary Magdalene and Martha dichotomy, used in both 'The Cloud of Unknowing' and Hilton's 'Mixed Life'. 

Mysticism can be seen as part of the "vernacular theology" trend--translating theological 'structures'  (Watson defines this as writing/images/conceptions) into the vernacular. Consequently, the relationship between mysticism and the 'mainstream' theological beliefs/systems is not an entirely comfortable one. As asseverated by Watson (I like him), 

"In their role as reporters of direct contact with the divine, they have necessarily been highly regarded, insofar as they help to validate the central mysteries of the faith. Yet they are also often seen as challenging the proper understanding of those mysteries, hence as constituting a threat to the theology and political structure of the Church."

-- particularly troubling, of course, after the 1215 Lateran Council, which attempted to unify things and bring everything under the control of the 'Universal Church'. There is certainly a 'democratizing' colour in this, Watson seeing Rolle's work as a "wholesale democratizing of the spiritual life".... But I do feel that the mystics also saw themselves as being 'superior' in certain ways, even if this wasn't a conscious thought-- it's something that only THEY could do. Rolle and Margery in particular, are very ego-centred. 

So... I love the mystics. I don't know if I've done them justice... Mystical experience is so complex that I have probably been very obtuse in a lot of places here! All input and feedback on this would be much appreciated :).

Debate Poetry: what's the point?

A popular method of discussing opposing views in the middle ages was the literary debate. This was often done through allegory and dream vision, which justified the poet talking about two different sides (he managed to maintain a diplomatic, third person point of view and remained distanced from what he wrote about, much like Chaucer’s narrator persona who pretended to be a naïve idiot). Nicholas Jacobs distinguishes between ‘conclusive debates’ and ‘inconclusive’ or ‘balanced debates’. A conclusive debate would be one like ‘The Thrush and the Nightingale’ where one side wins, and there is a ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ opposing each other in the poem. [The poem is about two birds who argue about the virtues of women, with the thrush opposing, and the nightingale defending them- the thrush draws on a number of different authorities to back up his argument while the nightingale simply responds by speaking of the virtue and charms of women. But finally, the nightingale points out that the Virgin Mary represents all women, and she is pure. This makes the thrush shut up immediately and accept defeat.] In a situation like this, the poet deliberately chooses a topic that audiences would have an opinion on, and it is a topic which has a right and wrong, whether from a Christian’s point of view, or from a woman’s point of view, so the point of the poem does not seem so much to be a debate, as to be a proof of a single authority and a universally accepted conclusion. Balanced debates on the other hand have a resolution in terms of the equal validity or invalidity of the opposed arguments or by a synthesis of the contradictory positions [Jacobs]. Jacobs further argues that this is the reason why inconclusive debates are less frequent in medieval English literature, because such debates sit uneasily with the concept of an absolute authority. At the same time, moderation was thought important in medieval thought, and ‘virtue’ was believed to be the mean of excess and defect. So, the belief was that there is no polarized right, but that the balance between two extremes is what is ideal (“virtue”). I am inclined to go with this latter view, because ME debate poetry certainly shows that a poem was thought to be conclusive even when the argument within it was left incomplete, and when the narrator or the character of the judge within the poem does not seem to favour either view. Both sides are presented equally, and the poem is still seen as conclusive. Chaucer especially plays with medieval ideas of authority and resolution, in the Parliament of Fowls and in the Canterbury Tales. The fact that he needs to have a narrator separate from himself telling the tales, or have the poet go off into a dream vision before he can tell the story of the PMF, shows that there was a ‘norm’ which was generally accepted, and one that Chaucer was tying to break. Before I go too deep into Chaucer, my point is basically that while ME poets were aware of literary traditions and the possibility of playing around with them, the fact that such traditions existed in the first place, shows that authorities and resolutions existed as ‘norms’ in medieval culture. [as opposed to the view that the debates simply represent polarities which existed simultaneously within medieval thought] – Karen Gasser: the concepts of good and bad are traditional; a neutral look at human behavior belongs to a modern world view.

Owl and the Nightingale: some points:

It is a mockery of its own form, mocking the debate poem genre. It is also a mockery of its subject matter, by satirizing its own satire, tempting its readers to spend their efforts in trying to decipher non-existent codes of seriousness. The comic distancing created by the use of animals makes the reader think that the poet doesn’t want any direct seriousness in the poem, but that there actually are allegorical/secret messages. My point: like Chaucer’s poetry, O&N plays a game with itelf and with its readers. The debate fails, the poem succeeds.

Circularity of the poem: the narrator enters the debate in the middle, it has been going on for a while, and its unclear who started it. It also ends inconclusively, and the point is that the debate is a continuous one. The poem’s start and conclusion do not coincide with those of the debate.

Narratorial intervention: the poet often uses narratorial comments for the nightingale, saying that the nightingale put up a brave front, and used her cunning to get her way out of her situation. At other times, the narrator seems to support the owl by say8ing ‘he spac boþe riзt an red’. Is this simply indirect speech, or is it the narratorial judgmental voice? Is the poet not that detached after all?

How does debate poetry of this kind relate to the beast fable, which has generalized animal characters to explain universal morals?

A boring and unproductive post

Aren't mediaeval romances great?

Today I reread King Horn, Sir Orfeo, and Amis and Amilhoun. The latter is amazingly morally dubious! I thought it interesting that there are many points of comparison between the behaviour of Rymenhild in Horn and Belisaunt in A&A, to begin with - both fall in love at first sight; both push the point upon a man who is either disinterested (Horn) or downright alarmed (Amis); both are tongue-tied by their affliction, etc. But then Rymenhild fades away into the background, but Belisaunt becomes 'good', somehow being assimilated into the male cameraderie and homosocial ranks of Amis and Amilhoun. Also, the difference between the two men's wives (er. A and A's wives, that is) is based worryingly on the fact that one thinks her husband shouldn't have deceitfully attempted to save the life of his friend in a tournament (she rejects their bond and is punished); the other accepts their overriding bond to the point where she doesn't seem particularly bothered about the fact that her husband has just murdered their two children for love of his friend! I thought that was telling. If women accept that male bonding is more important than marital ties will ever be, they're A-Okay. Otherwise: doomed. Especially if they try to assert power over their husbands.

But yes, A&A is very morally doubtful. In many, many ways. I love it. :)

Question: Well, we all know how I feel about Malory, so there's no way I'm reading that thing again - or trying to! But, can anyone tell me - what is it exactly that Arthur says about Lancelot when he's told that he and Guinevere are sleeping together? Something along the lines of 'Oh noes, I'm so much more unhappy about Lancelot, because good queens are ten a penny but there's only one Lancelot'?

Ah - never mind - found it, in the original unpunctuated version. How helpful you are, Malory!

'and therfor sayd the kynge wete yow well my herte was neuer soo heuy as it is now / and moche more I am soryer for my good knyghtes losse / than for the losse of my fayre quene / for quenes I myghte haue ynowe / but suche a felaushyp of good knyghtes shalle neuer be to gyders in no company / and now I dare say sayd kyng Arthur there was neuer crysten kynge helde suche a felaushyp to gyders / & allas that euer syr launcelot & I shold be at debate...'

Women in Anglo Saxon Literature: Are they there or aren't they?

Stronger women, not absent women: There is no single portrayal of the woman as the marginalized figure, excluded from the literature because it is concerned with describing a masculine warrior society. It is true that the Germanic code requires the active participation of men, and women are allowed a role, which is given to them by men and accepted by the women, and it is one which is largely related to the men’s actions. For example, Tacitus writes that women stood on the sidelines of battlefields encouraging their warriors and ‘restoring’ the army. They are part of the heroic code, rather than being against it- they count the wounds, they don’t clean them [Tacitus]. This is in keeping with modern critical perceptions of the Anglo Saxon woman. Christine Fell suggests that women were in a stronger position before the Norman Conquest than in the subsequent centuries, and she has a point: the courtly code forces a much more closed, fixed role for women than before. So in the Anglo Saxon world, far less from being passive, silent figures, women are given active roles in different ways, whether or not this is seen as positive. Early studies of OE lit saw the transition from pagan past to enlightened present as a smooth linear progress, the change seen in the roles of women who moved from passive pagan women with no roles to strong Christian figures (like the saints). Berit Astrom argues that this perception is distorted because it focuses only on the stories of noble women and queens, and is based on preconceived assumptions about Anglo-Saxon society, coloured by Tacitus. I agree, I think that Anglo Saxon studies have been strongly influenced by assumptions and a general sense of what one expects the society to have been like. Note, Jacob Grimm’s view, largely followed by traditional scholars, that pagan literature was “pure” while Christian influences curbed and tamed its spirit. [I think the Christianity that developed in England was shaped by the pre-existing culture, it was not an external bubble that placed itself in the middle of the country and started influencing everything. It shaped and was shaped by the culture]

Man at the centre: At the same time, I think it’s true that the centre of society remains man, and women are seen in relation to this centre, moving either towards it or away from it. Thus, we see the woman as the ‘goader’ in Waldere, where Hildeburg encourages Waldere to use the sword. Another image is that of the peace weaver [freoþuwebbe], and the Beowulf poet plays around with this notion with the story of the failed peaceweaver. Christine Alfano argues that the Beowulf poet did not see Grendel’s mother as a monster, but rather as a woman who transgresses gender boundaries (this makes her ‘monstrous’) and is an active warrior who performs the male role of vengeance, rather than the traditional role of peace weaver. Where women are given a voice, critics have often tried to pass this over or see it as negative (unless it is a woman saint). So R.C. Bambas in 1963 argued that the Wifes Lament isn’t addressed by a woman at all, because the feminine endings are only at the beginning and end of the poem, and could be scribal error (how convenient). He even says that men and women didn’t express their love in this way until the courtly tradition post-conquest! Rubbish, its only after the conquest that we see love having a fixed and therefore artificial mould- things seem a lot more free and natural before then. I know this is falling into Jacob Grimm’s trap, but I’m saying this is because of the courtly code and not because of Christianity. Other scholars have tried to see the woman as a female deity who is lamenting because her followers have turned to Christ (again, unlikely, because a monk wouldn’t be copying something like that, and there is nothing explicitly Christian or religious in the poem to suggest this.). The poem gives an active voice to the grieving woman, and this is what critics have found hard to accept- that this is just what the poem is about. The man is absent, the woman is active. [woman does, man is?]

Woman on top: the active sexual woman is seen in many of the riddles. Now in general the riddles are known for their bawdiness, but I thought it quite surprising that some of them are spoken by a man who is being fucked by a woman. [sorry ayoush] The emphasis on the woman’s body and her sexuality is not surprising, but the image of the woman as the active assaulter is. The riddle on the “onion” which also describes a penis shows the male as the victim and the woman as the one who becomes wet. The riddle goes: ‘heo on mec gripeð/ ræseð mec on reodnbe, reafað min heafod/ fegeð mec on fæsten’. Look at the use of the verbs showing the woman gripping, raising and even ‘reafað’ which means ‘to rob, plunder’ but has the sense of rape. Similarly the riddle on ‘Dough’ has the image of a girl gripping a man’s penis. I wonder why these riddles were placed in the Exeter Book- does their presence suggest that the book was not written for the monks at Exeter, but had already been written and was presented to them, or does it suggest that these images of sexually active women are negative? I think the latter is more likely: it is a man writing about his being sexually exploited by a woman, so it shows the woman in a role that she should not have. There is a contrast between the body of the woman in the Riddles, described in terms of her physicality and flesh, and the body of the Christian woman in the saint’s lives, whose virginity is emphasized- they are valourised for not having sex. In the same manuscript we thus have three different images of women: the lustful woman, the peaceweaver, the saint. While the latter two are held up as ideals, I don’t think the poet(s) directly condemn the lustful woman either. Contrasting the Christian woman and the sexual woman may suggest an opposition of the Christian and the pagan, but does this matter? Is the woman in the Riddles heathen because she is sexually active? Earlier notions of kinship communities that we see as part of the role of the peaceweaver changes in the description of the Christian woman. Juliana is like the thane who reels against his lord, but this is acceptable in her case. She is also the only female presence in the poem (the poet removes the character of her mother, present in the Latin Acts); on the other hand Judith is accompanied by her maid, forming a female community, constructing a heroism for Judith based on protection rather than aggression (Dockray Miller: 1998). Are these two women portrayed as heroic Christian women, just as Guthlac was the soldier of Christ, or is it just written in a heroic literary style, because of the absence of a separate discourse for them?

The other place where we find the woman is in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle. The Parker Chronicle has at least forty entries which mention women. Some of these are just the names of queens, such as Queen Seaxburh ruling for a year between 672-3 after the death of her husband; annal 722 mentions queen Aethelburh who demolished Taunton. The Law Codes shows that women had property rights and were not considered weak or inferior. We see this in the chronicle, where Edward deprived his mother of her treasures because she betrayed him, Ethelred’s daughter is also said to have been deprived of authority. But women are mentioned in the chronicle only when they have some male related significance- thus, in the Cynewulf and Cyneheard episode, the king was visiting his mistress when he was attacked. Women are also seen as property: in Alfred’ reign, in a battle between the English and the Danes in 893, the English captured goods, women and children (ge on feo, ge on wifum, ge eac on bearnum). Later in the same annal, the survivors kept their ships, money and women safely: ‘hira wif and hira scipu and hira feoh’. The Chronicle gives a masculine political perspective, as it is meant to be a historical record of events- different from the description of domestic roles of men/women in the riddles and in poems like Wife’s lament- here, we only have “political” women, or women present on the political scene. In one place, there is mention of a woman in spiritual role, when the body of Wihtburg (a woman) is found undecayed 55 years after her death (782).

Finally, I like A.H. Olsen’s argument that both Anglo Saxon society and modern society are influenced by the myth of male superiority over women- thus the need for women to prove themselves, so as not to be marginalized. They want to remove themselves from the position given to them, but it is a constant fight- men don’t have to fight for these rights. The male perspective is assumed to be universal, and dominates and shapes knowledge. It is incorrect to conceptualise women as negatives in a heroic, male world- I think Olsen is suggesting that just because we do it in our society, doesn’t mean that this is how it used to be- we are reading the poems in terms of our own history. But I don’t think this is entirely true. I need more time to think about this last point, maybe you two can help!

The Guthlac poems and The Phoenix: Explaining Spirituality through Oppositions

Job 29:18. Then I said, I shall die in my nest, and I shall multiply my days as the sand.

We see this image treated differently in the Guthlac poems and in the Phoenix, the former emphasizing on a journey from time to eternity, the latter showing a cyclical movement that is contained within itself, and does not belong to any time.

Guthlac A and B and the Phoenix, all Exeter Book poems, were assumed to have common authorship in traditional scholarship, and were considered part of the ‘Cynewulf school’. Modern studies reject common authorship (Norman Blake) and consider the possibility of imitation and comment on the formulaic character of OE poetry. Guthlac A and b are slightly different in their treatments of the saint’s life, Guthlac A emphasizes on its historicity, saying that men have seen this in their lifetime, so it is true, while Guthlac B, which is a close rendering of the Latin version by Felix, mentions “books” as its source (us secgað bec). There are features in the poems which make them worth comparing, especially in their depiction of spirituality. My argument is that the theme of Christian salvation and the ascension of the soul to heaven after it departs from the body is expressed through a series of oppositions, without which it cannot be explained.

Good and evil: In both poems the pure heavenly realm is set up as an ‘other’ which cannot be explained nor understood in the post-lapsarian world. The perfect good is meant to be admired at a distance and is described in terms of what it is not: þær næfre hreow cymeð/ edergong fore yrmþum (there never comes sorrow, or beggary due to affliction). In the Phoenix, the bird’s song is described in terms of negatives (it is not like the horn or harp or man’s voice). Heaven is described as a place of rejoicing and eternal reward but it is not described in the specific terms in which the earth and the devils are described. The devils are like wild beasts, but God vaguely works through images of radiant light. Man must be good in earthly terms in order to reach the unexplained heavenly good. When Guthlac talks to the devils in Guthlac A, he says ‘ne eam ic swa fealog swa ic eow fore stonde’ (I am not as destitute as I seem before you), which suggests that the connotation of destitute as the devils will understand it is also that which will be understood by man- the opposition therefore is between heaven and non-heaven (clubbing together devils and men). This shows the danger that man is in, presumably.

Use of Germanic imagery in the poems: We see this particularly in Guthlac B with emphasis on the relationship between the attendant and Guthlac, and in the use of ‘warrior’ images, and depiction of both Guthlac and the Phoenix as the ‘soldier of Christ’ (miles Christi). Interestingly, this warrior imagery has a negative connotation in Guthlac A, where he refuses to use a sword because it is ‘worulde wæpen’- this opposes him to secular military heroism that we see in the Battle poems, and also aligns the devils with it. In Phoenix, death is seen as a warrior approaching with weapons, again negative use of the heroic military code. The saint in Guthlac A is more distanced from earthly things, but in Guthlac B, earthly kinship is seen as important, and Guthlac in his old age maintains ties with his attendant (a retainer like figure, reminds me of the Wanderer) and his sister. At the same time the warrior imagery is stronger in Guthlac B, with more references to Guthlac as a warrior. Courage is emphasized for both Guthlac and the phoenix, and is important in their movement from one form of being to another.

Guthlac presents a movement from one realm to the other, the person moves from body to soul, and physically from earth to heaven, whereas the phoenix is cyclical and contained within itself. But the oppositions are set up within the same realm in both poems. In Guthlac it is explained in terms of earthly good and evil, and Phoenix is in terms of oriental=pure and postlapsarian earth. Similar imagery used in both poems of the hilly mound/ phoenix’s tree which represent places situated on earth but higher than the normal earthly ground. Ironically in Guthlac this is where the devils used to rest before he takes it away from them. Guthlac represents a postlapsarian world where temptation exists while the Phoenix belongs to a paradisal world which is evergreen and timeless, but it is still described in terms of earthly images (manmade: the jewel descriptions, and oriental: perfumes, spices, &c). Though the garden and the bird are creations of god (God’s artistry) they are described in terms of manmade artistry, because the poet does not have any other way in which to express them. This ties up with the use of earthly images of evil and vague images of spirituality. Note the medieval belief in the existence of antipodes as the other side of the world which may be prelapsarian- the “east” is paradise (Genesis 2:8), the known east is exotic and oriental, thus the descriptions of nature in terms of qualities which were absent from the somber European climate ( like the descriptions of nature in Wanderer and Seafarer).

So, we certainly have a depiction of spirituality in terms of oppositions, and this style is what ties the poems together, rather than the common subject matter. But, thinking about it, is there any other way of expressing spirituality except by opposing it to that which is already known?

[Sorry if this is incoherent in parts, I’m a bit too sleepy for spirituality atm. ]

A1: The Heroic Ideal in Context: An Alternative View

- The so-called 'heroic ideal' is a consistent feature of Old English poetry, represented through its trappings of horses, kinsmen, gift-giving, feasting, boasts, hall-joys, battle and lord-fealty. All these things - the mathums - symbolise the loyalty between lord and retainer that underlies a lot of the literature. Motifs and topoi from Germanic literature, such as the beasts of battle and the passing of the cup around the hall before a fight, recur again and again (Beowulf, Maldon, Waldere, The Wanderer - so cross-genre). Clearly, then, there's evidence for a heroic convention in the *literature* of Anglo-Saxon England.

- Okay, but. The existence of something in literature does not necessarily mean it existed in the society that produced that literature. I could write a book about public schoolboys marching out to win a war on the playing fields of Eton, but the concept would still be an archaism that never quite existed anyway. We know very little about the continuance of the Germanic tradition even in Germany at this point, let alone in England. Brandl: although it is ‘beyond all dispute that the Anglo-Saxons introduced into their new home the principles of Germanic society simply because they were the only ones they knew’, this does not ‘imply either that such principles tallied with those described by Tacitus three hundred years before or even with those which prevailed among them before they left the Continent.’ Tacitus's account of the Comitatus identifies many traits consonant with those found in the literary heroic convention, but a) it was written far too early to be relevant, and b) Tacitus had a political bias anyway, commending in the Germans those traits he found lacking in the Romans of his day. So, as Lali said, he's pretty damn unreliable in either event. The Germania articulates, yes, some of the original tropes and themes that influenced the later literature, but that society, if it ever existed as such, was long gone by the time somebody sat down to write 'Beowulf'.

- Certainly, this doesn't mean the Anglo-Saxons had forgotten these original social guidelines. In Cynewulf and Cyneheard, for example, we find ‘a textbook illustration of the themes of heroic conduct found in secular poetry’ (O’Brien O’Keefe), suggesting a continued idealisation of the heroic code. But it's all a bit *too* textbook - this piece may be in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, but it seems far too rhetorically slick to be accurate history; it conforms too perfectly to literary expectations. It emphasises the problems that arise when loyalty is claimed by both kin and king, a bit of a grey area. Ultimately, according to this story, you really should stick with the king. (NB: Beowulf, the father unable to avenge the death of his hanged son, etc). The writer is using heroic themes to make his story seem familiar, and his point more clear. This suggests that Anglo-Saxon England was still well enough acquainted with the heroic code to view it as an overriding moral guideline, particularly when they found a theoretical difficulty such as this one.

- This function of the heroic code, as something which the audience would be familiar with and which would set the story in moral context, is frequently seen. Deor depends on it - it alludes to five exemplary stories from the heroic tradition, expecting its audience to know them. It's hard to tell whether *Deor* is Christian, pagan, or neither, but the Germanic background of the Anglo-Saxons serves as a touchstone here, especially since the narrator is a 'scop' who has allegedly watched all these legends come and go. The message would mean far less to a society who did not still revere The Poet. *Widsith*, similarly, assumes knowledge of the Germanic sagas, alluding to a lot of legendary kings and heroes. We know that these stories were still written down in England because we have one of them, *Waldere*. So there was obviously still knowledge of the literary history of the Heroic Age, among all ranks of society.

- *Literary*, though, seems to be the operative word, especially when we look at the existence of the heroic ideal in Christian literature. Genesis A, bizarrely, has Abraham and the Sodomites (great name for a band? I think their first hit should be Electronic Beowulf) fighting under the banner of a lion; Moses, in Exodus, is called theoden, while Christ is 'tha geong haeleth' in our old friend The Dream of the Rood. Obviously, the fact that biblical leaders are treated as the heroes of Germanic lays does not imply that the poets thought old Israel had a society like that. It's just used as a means of expression, drawing an equation between a Christian hero and a Germanic one to clarify the part he's playing in the story and the loyalty his men owe to him. It's a means of fusing two societies. Familiar language makes the Christian message more convincing, especially when the points of similarity are highlighted - fighting the good fight, being loyal to your lord, and so on, are equally valid in heroic Christianity as in paganism.

- We see this fusion in a lot of instances. In the Cotton Gnomes, we've got a lot of rambling about dragons and the wind, lords and retainers, king, thunder, fate, wisdom, treasure...and right in the middle of it is Christ, fusing the two. The actual beliefs and gods of paganism seem to have gone; it's just that its trappings are used to dress up Christianity as something martial and interesting, approachable to the listeners/readers. The heroic convention again is a *literary* one, facilitating rather than complicating the spread of Christian tales.

- So is there any evidence that the actual lords and retainers paid any real-life attention to the heroic code? Well, Maldon claims to be a history; it's certainly talking about a fairly contemporary battle. We've got Byrhtnoth the 'godan', who challenges the Vikings, rallies his men, and is then slain. At this point, the ironically-named Godric runs away and is followed by a load of men who think he's Byrhtnoth (it riht ne waes!) Those who remain vow to avenge their lord and be killed rather than run away, as Wiglaf says in Beowulf. But Maldon's hardly a reliable historical source - the artistry of the poem is enough to tell us this all on its own; it's got heroic topoi (waelwulfas), long boasts and speeches as per the convention, which the poet couldn't exactly have written down at the time ("Hang on a minute, Byrht old lad - say that last bit again?"), and unlikely illustrative bits like the boy killing the whopping great Viking. Irving thinks it's actually a commemoration of the early by the monks of Ely, which presents him as a paradigmatic role-model.

- For one thing, B. is a perfect retainer to his own lord. He's a mathumgyfa, and then Godric flees on a stolen horse - obvious juxtaposition. Godric is subverting the expected lord-retainer relationship by stealing the gift meant to symbolise the bond, in order to abandon his lord. Conversely, we've got Offa, who ‘laeg thegenlice theodne gehende’ (lay like a thane close beside his lord) and the remaining warriors, whose loyalty emphasises the strength of heroic fellowship established by Byrhtnoth. So we've got all the bits and pieces of the heroic code, but they're all so perfect that again, what with the lack of evidence of the actual battle, we can't believe in their truth. (Especially since, if all the men *had* run away, given the emphasis the poet places on this, the Chroniclers could hardly have failed to mention it). So again, all this poem proves is the continuance of the ideal in literature. O'Brien O'Keefe: The continuance of heroic literary conventions ‘does not provide reliable evidence of contemporary culture in Anglo-Saxon England, as literature does not mirror, in any straightforward way, the society which produces it.’

- For example, did A-S England really expect every man to die with his lord? Even the Wanderer has clearly outlived his. The degree of personal loyalty expected by the time of Alfred was no longer anything like what it had been in the days of mead-halls and rings. According to Asser, Alfred only expected three months of service a year from his retainers, which is all a bit unheroic and dull. Alfred himself had a vision of ‘the kings who had power over the people in those days…and they had peace, morality and power within the country’, which he evidently felt was a Heroic Age now past. So they're still harking fondly back to a bygone age, but society itself seems to have moved on a bit.

- So! The influence of the heroic code clearly still existed, colouring literature and alleged history alike. The bonds between lord and retainer did still exist, but in a far more diluted form. The Anglo-Saxons were very attached to their ideal of the hero dying gloriously in battle, as is evident from the way they carried it forward into Christian literature. But this was all very hard to apply to real life, which is why they were so nostalgic for stories about it. 'The heroic idiom of The Battle of Maldon… suggests at once admiration, nostalgia and regret – admiration for the greatness of a secular magnate, nostalgia for the heroism of a brighter day, and regret that such heroism makes death its companion.’ (O’Brien O’Keefe) The Anglo-Saxons, Deor and Widsith would suggest, continued to learn and enjoy the legends of their Germanic ancestors, to idealise guddeath and to idolise those who died in loyalty to their lords. Yet, increasingly, these ideals were becoming literary ones alone, extant nowhere beyond the realms of fantasy as they became ever less compatible with the demands and structures of modern Christian life.

*****

(Well, I'm impressed with myself. Look at me! Working! I agree, Lali; this is quite fun! Otherwise I'd have poked Facebook all morning.)

A1: Heroic Poetry- battles and begging poems

possible questions:

'No reading of Old English literature can afford to ignore the social, political, religious an cultural contexts in which it is rooted'. Discuss how any one or more Old English texts can be enhanced by consideration of any one or more of these contexts. [2003]

‘If the social conditions described in [Old English] verse seem to resemble more closely those of Tacitus’ Germania than the complex society that England had become by the tenth century, this may be taken as a reflection of the way that the ancient traditions of verse archaize and rebuild on a heroic scale every variety of matter they touch’ (RDFULK AND CMCAIN). Examine any ONE OR TWO Old English poems with regard to the relationship between the society they describe and that of Anglo-Saxon England. [2004]

‘While we must of course seek to gain as fill knowledge as possible of the social and cultural environments in which Old English literary works came into being, we should not assume that the relationships between their contents and those environments are any more straightforward than they would be at a later date.’ Discuss, with reference to any one or two Old English works. [2005]

‘We cannot hope to understand Old English literature unless we read it in the light of the cultural and social preoccupations of its time.’ Discuss some ways in which a consideration of such preoccupations has influenced your interpretation of any ONE literary text or more. [2006]

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-what is Germanic, if anything? - influence of Tacitus’ Germania- note that he sat in Rome and described the Germanic people, so it is not exactly a reliable historical account, but it certainly shows us the perception that the Romans had of the Germanic tribes. However, Tacitus’ account dates about 1^st century, so comparing it with 10^th century records of 5^th-7^th century Anglo Saxon culture is pushing it a bit. But it is indeed noticeable that there are several echoes of Tacitus in OE poems, especially in Battle of Maldon, as critics like Donald Scragg have pointed out. This is mainly in the part where Tacitus describes warriors/battles. He writes that the leaders are admired for their valour, and they are looked on as ideals who will set an example, rather than as figures of authority. This seems to suggest the difference between the “lord” and the “hero”. The retainer is the leader in the sense that he is the hero of the battle/poem, but he is still subject to his lord, who may not be active, but has absent authority. In Maldon, when Godric runs away, a point that is emphasized in the poem because it makes the army think that their lord has run away, and they get all worked up. Godric is followed by his brothers, Godwin and Godwig who decide to choose kinship over their loyalty to their lord, and this seems to be criticized because the poet mentions that they do not care about warfare. He also writes that the chiefs fight for victory, the men for their chief. The whole notion of “comitatus” (loyalty) in Tacitus is seen throughout OE heroic poetry, and seems to be an integral part of it. For instance, Byrtnoth’s death, in Battle of Maldon, and the speeches of his men saying that they will keep fighting and will ‘lif feorleason oþþe lanзe dom’. So this aspect of the heroic code certainly seems to go back to Germanic codes of loyalty and kinship among warriors. [does anyone know about continental legends, and whether they write about heroic loyalty as well? ] The opposite point is that it may be a rather obvious coincidence. They are a warrior society, so it is naturally important to be loyal to one’s team-members. It doesn’t have to be influenced by Tacitus, nor does it have to be a specifically Germanic code. Since these texts are being copied in the late 10^th century, it may have something to do with the attempt to create some kind of national identity, by emphasizing on Anglo Saxon unity- unity that is both Anglo Saxon (or West Saxon) and Christian [again, Maldon, where heathens and Christians are opposed].

Taking the heathen/ Christian opposition further, one needs to look at how the texts are ‘christianised’ and how far it is possible for the Christian monks to write about [and read] pre-Christian poems without placing an explicit Christian perspective upon them. Granted, the three battles and Waldere are in fragments, and we do not know of any explicit Christian motive behind them, but Deor and Widsith belong to the Exeter Book, yet they are not explicitly Christianised. All the poems talk vaguely of a “god” who will protect them, and determine their fate. Byrthnoth in Maldon refers to ‘halgan’. The concept of fate is very strong, and we see it in Deor as well, where the sorrowing man is comforted in the realisation that God causes changes, and that his troubles are temporary. Once again, the way in which fate and god are described in these poems are not explicitly Christian, but may be so. A pre-Christian concept of fate was pressed onto Christianity and molded to Christian beliefs. In Waldere, fate and god are juxtaposed with man’s military honour: he will do honour for himself with good deeds, and God will look after him. The idea is one that gives importance to the individual man, and is repeated in Widsith where the poet writes that God chooses as king, the one who is ‘leofast londbuendum’[most beloved to the people].

These poems are concerned with describing an earlier world, whether historical or legendary, and are naturally concerned with archaisms. Some of the poems (Brunanburh) are annals in the Anglo Saxon Chronicle, so it is a way of colouring the past. The poems show more about the Anglo Saxon concept of an older, pre-Christian time, and an effort to emphasise its positive values [or what they ascribed to the past as positive values]. Why do they look at the pagan past? 1. national Christian identity by emphasizing on a united past. 2. reflecting on the past warrior culture to show that they are better off today, they have progressed to a Christian way of living. Should we look at these poems in terms of their ms context, or is the evidence to fragmentary to be conclusive. Maldon is the only battle poem in a manuscript with mostly lives of saints, while Brunanburh is a chronicle annal (and therefore has a claim to historical fact). But Widsith and Deor in the Exeter book are placed with a large miscellany of items, many of which are directly religious. Critics like Bradley and Zettersten see Finnsburh fragment as being secular and looking at early heroic tradition, as opposed to a later poem like Brunanburh or Maldon, but it seems to me that both reflect on the same kind of culture, both are reflections on the idea of an earlier age, only that the latter poems are more obviously Christianized and therefore rooted in their present.

[so much for now, i may add more things later.im a bit bored with heroic poetry now]

Hello!

This is exciting :). Thank you for suggesting this Janette, and for doing this blog Lali!

So how shall we start?

I've been working on Gower right now-- looking at the 'Vox Clamantis' and his minor Latin poems. I did Cynewulf this morning, on the 'Cynewulf canon' and whether or not it's suitable to treat these poems as a collective. Tonight once I'm done with Gower, I'll be working on 'Exodus' for A4-- just re-familiarising myself with the text and the notable textual/editorial points, and generally reading on its manuscript context.

Not sure if that was particularly useful!! Just thought I'd say what I'm up to...

Lots of love,
Hildeburh
xxxxxx