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?

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.

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]