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.

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

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.

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...'