Middle English Beyond Chaucer

A Last Tribute to Tolkien

2008-12-10T14:02:00.000-08:00

I found the following in the MED as I was translating for my final:

baratur (n.) Also bar(r)etour, bariter.

1. One who incites to, or engages in, contention or riot; malefactor, brawler, wrangler;
2. Fighter, warrior, champion;
3. Deceiver, cheat;
4. As surname,

Well, well, well, the Tolkien references never cease, do they? "Baratur" sounds awfully familiar, like "Barad-Dur," the Dark Tower of Sauron. Definition one here fits Sauron well, with respect to the cosmogony of Middle Earth. Definition matches the description of Sauron seen on film in the opening scenes of The Fellowship of the Ring (which I recognize is not the book, but the coincidence here elevates the quality of the film a bit, I'd say). Definitions three and four work together, as he is at least once referred to as "Sauron the Deceiver."

On an oblique course, we need to revive this word. It's still useful, I'd say, and the students over in SIS could put it to good use on some of the people the discuss.

A Question of Motive

2008-12-05T18:39:00.000-08:00

Yesterday we were talking about Arthur’s motivations for acting the way he does in Mort d’ Arthur. While the other characters are equipped with motivation, Arthur seems bizarrely passive. Why does he ignore the signs of affair? Why does he go along with the trap of Lancelot and Guinevere? Why does he immediately set upon burning Guinevere? Arthur’s actions, including that of the ensuing war, make sense from a legal perspective, so it could be speculated that he is doing everything in the name of justice. However, the text itself does not provide a reason, and does not dwell on personal internal conflicts, which makes him appear as if he were an automaton of justice.

The story that I have heard before about the fall of Camelot take on a different perspective and highlight Arthur’s emotions regarding what he should do. In the version that I knew, Arthur is still bent on complete justice, but he is given visible reasons. He ignores the signs because he puts country before himself and to make a fuss would lead to the death sentences of Lancelot and Guinevere. He goes along with the trap because any claim as big as treason should be investigated. He is set on burning Guinevere because it is required by the law. But the story I’ve known is that Arthur has always loved Guinevere, and he has been hoping that Lancelot would come rescue her, as he knows he would. When Lancelot rescues her, he has mixed feelings of happiness, jealousy, and apprehension. He is happy because his love gets to live. He is jealous because he does not have her love. He is apprehensive because now the war is unavoidable, and has to fight the two people that he loves.

My question is regarding the time period when Arthur’s character sketch came into being. Malory’s version of the story is already more story-oriented than Geoffrey of Monmouth’s account. The psychoanalytic approach to Arthur seems to fit onto this spectrum that ranges from a removed, public account, to an intimate, private story. I wonder why this story in particular seems to have experienced a general shift toward the intimate, private story.

Two Foxes, Three Farmers, One Moral, and (maybe) No Context

2008-11-30T15:27:00.000-08:00

Henryson's fables have brought to mind two popular texts that draw on the fabular tradition. First, there is Roald Dahl's excellent book (you could easily do it in an afternoon over the holidays) Fantastic Mr. Fox. In this tale an iteration of Renard must defend his family and a host of other burrowing creatures from three vengeful farmers. With the help of rabbits, beavers, and other digging creatures, Mr. Fox manages to burrow from one farm to the next, stealing choice morsels on his way.

It is highly entertaining, and philologically interesting. For instance, the names of the farmers are laden with significance. Boggis, a chicken farmer, is the biggest and fattest of the farmers; coincidentally, his name is simply "boggish" minus the "h", which means "baggy". Bean is a tall, thin apple farmer, constantly swigging from a jug of cider (he basically lives on fermented juice). MED definition two for "bean" reads "the weight of a bean; something of little value." Bean, being barely there, weighs about what his namesake indicates. Bunce is a short, hot-tempered farmer, not unlike Yosemite Sam. What's interesting about Bunce is that his name means "bonus" (get it: small "bonus"? As in, "small surplus"?), but it can also mean "buns", as in "bread", like the food that Mr. Fox and company are stealing from him. So Roald Dahl has his hand on the pulse of the fabular tradition.

Nickel Creek recorded a song, "The Fox", on their first album, Nickel Creek, which became for them a staple for every show because of its popularity. The storyline basically goes that a fox goes out on the town, steals the grey goose from the farmer's pen, and carries it home to his family who feast on it gleefully. The end. It's a delightful little song with a catchy tune, which explains its popularity.

The down-side to these texts is simply their lack of complexity. Henryson's fables, especially his assignment of animal essences, are much more subtle than their modern counterparts. The moral of both of these texts is very simple: "Farmers are not foxes, and should not try to outfox foxes." I wonder if this lack of profundity indicates a general lack of context for fables in our current milieu, with a concomitant inability to decipher the symbolism. It seems reasonable that in a postmodern age, especially in an urban context, we are detached from the behaviors of the animal kingdom (squirrels and rats might be the exceptions). Did modernity signal the demise of the fable?

"The Taill of the Paddok and the Mous" and "Journey to the West"

2008-11-29T18:42:00.001-08:00

There is an interesting parallel between Henryson's fable of the "The Paddok and the Mous" to one of the adventures in a Chinese classic titled Journey to the West. In that section, the main characters are the four monks in search of the Holy Scripture of Buddha. There is one master monk, and the other three have been some sort of supernatural creatures prone to mischief, and have been tamed to protect the master monk on this quest. Two of the supernatural creatures are animalistic (a monkey and a pig).

On the way to the holy land, these four get a ride down Heaven River on the back of a giant white turtle. Their trip there is smooth. As payment, the turtle asks the monk to ask Buddha the secret to losing his shell, so he could be human. If I remember correctly, the monks forget to ask Buddha this question. On the way back, the white turtle comes to bear them back. When they are on his back, it is revealed that they have forgotten to ask for him, so the turtle gets angry and shakes them off. Luckily, they survived, but the rolls of scripture were drenched, and the time that it takes to dry them leads them into more trouble.

The paddock and the white turtle seem to be similar conduits in that, no matter the intention of the apparent friendliness, the motivation is always selfish. And it seems that in literature, when the protagonist fully trusts another with life or spiritual salvation, the trust seems to call for questioning. Is this a pessimistic view of the necessity of self-reliance?

Against Nature?

2008-11-22T15:26:00.000-08:00

Looking at all the fables we’ve read so far, there seems to be some back and forth over the idea of going against nature. In different versions of The Cock and the Jasp, the cock is praised both for recognizing the value of the jasp, which doesn’t fit his nature as a bird (obviously) and for recognizing that it is not what he, as a bird, needs or should be looking for, which does fit his nature. The fact that this is the first fable in more than one collection and that this question is central to the fable’s moral, whichever way it comes down, definitely indicates that this was an important question to writers at the time. In that light, I found it really interesting that in the version of The Fox and the Wolf that we’re reading for Monday, the wolf describes himself as evil for biting thousands of sheep. Isn’t that what wolves do? How is that evil?

It seems like, in some fables, the animals are judged based on how well they live up to the expectations of that particular animal –i.e. the cock in some versions of the story, the wedder that gets killed for pretending to be a dog, and so on. In others, they are judged as people and given almost ridiculously human characteristics – I couldn’t get over the mouse in The Mouse and the Paddock having no horse to ride across the river (what a crazy image!) and asking for a priest while drowning in the river. This may be a discussion that took place in class on one of the days I was late – I know I missed some discussion of the difference between beast epic and Aesopian fables – but I wonder if this is a difference between the two types of fables (in beast epics, animals are judged as humans and Christians, and in Aesop’s fables, they are judged as animals) or if it is a little more complicated. I don’t know if I would call The Fox and the Wolf a beast epic, at least not completely, because the animals do display some animal-like characteristics and the wolf interacts with humans.

It may not be a significant difference – maybe just two different styles of fable-telling – but I couldn’t help noticing it in this case in particular. Poor wolf.

Henryson and Perrault

2008-11-20T19:25:00.000-08:00

Henryson’s moralitas for his fables keep reminding my of Charles Perrault’s morals for his fairy tales, so I thought I’d share one. Perrault tells many of the more "traditional" versions of fairy tales (though what is a "traditional" fairy tale is another line of discussion all together). Like Henryson, Perrault also likes to write little morals at the end of most of his fairy tales. The following is the moral for Little Red Riding Hood. In Perrault’s version, there is no hunter-rescuer, and the grandmother and Little Red do not get rescued. The fairy tale ends with the wolf saying, “The better to eat you with!” And then “upon saying these words, the wicked wolf threw himself on Little Red Riding Hood and gobbled her up” (Perrault 13).

Moral
From this story one learns that children,
Especially young girls,
Pretty, well-bred, and genteel,
Are wrong to listen to just anyone,
And it’s not at all strange,
If a wolf ends up eating them.
I say a wolf, but not all wolves
Are exactly the same.
Some are perfectly charming,
Not loud, brutal, or angry,
But tame, pleasant, and gentle,
Following young ladies
Right into their homes, into their chambers,
But watch out if you haven’t learned that tame wolves
Are the most dangerous of all. (Perrault 13)

Henryson reminds me of Perrault because they both tend to write morals to express their own views of society. Perrault’s morals feel more didactic, more cut-and-dry, but both writers are pedagogical.

**Citations from:

Perrault, Charles. “Little Red Riding Hood.” The Classic Fairy Tales. Ed. Maria Tatar. New York: Norton, 1999. 11-13.

Peace and Hwæt

2008-11-16T17:15:00.000-08:00

I'll admit it: I'm one of the people who put Dr. Quenthe up to having us read aloud in class. It's so choice. I think what made me do it, is the fact that quen the words are said aloud they cast a spell. Of course, quen we say them clumsily, the spell is broken. But the magic of hearing it quen it is well-read is well worth the effort. It is one thing to read a strange Anglo dialect on the page. But the fresh quite ("white") paper and modern Times New Roman font do not do it justice. Speak the language aloud, however, and all sorts of magic erupts. At least, in my mind it does.

Another point in favor of reading aloud is that often these older dialects look like nothing familiar on the page, but quen we pronounce them (or when Dr. Quenthe pronounces them correctly for us) we hear things we recognize, though we may not have seen them in the printed text. I've learned a lot about the connections between English and other languages from these sorts of phonic discoveries. (Quich is to say that "Hooked on Phonics worked for me.")

One of the most interesting points of our reading aloud together last week was the archaism of the "qu" sound in place of the "wh". Consider line 1050 in our text from last week, for example. (If you haven't noticed by now, I've been having some fun with it.) The connections between (or should I say, "betwene"?) English and Latin are fascinating as well (cf. Dr. Quenthe's comments on quid.)

All of this reminded me of a story, recounted in Humphrey Carpenter's biography, Tolkien (c'mon; you knew I couldn't leave him out of an entry). Tolkien

invariably brought the subject alive and showed that it mattered to him.
The most celebrated example of this, remembered by everyone was taught by
him, was the opening of his series of lectures on Beowulf. He
would come silently into the room, fix the audience with his gaze, and suddenly
begin to declaim in a resounding voice the opening lines of the poem in the
original Anglo-Saxon, commencing with a great cry of 'Hwæt!' (the first
word of this and several other Old English poems), which some undergraduates
took to be 'Quiet!' (Carpenter, 132-133).

Now, this story itself is a kind of apologia in favor of reading (or in Tolkien's brilliant case, reciting) a text aloud. Tolkien brought Beowulf to life:

It was not so much a recitation as a dramatic performance, an impersonation of
an Anglo-Saxon bard in a mead hall, and it impressed generations of students
because it brought home to them that Beowulf was not just a set text to
be read for the purposes of an examination but a powerful piece of dramatic
poetry (Carpenter).

"Powerful poetry." So perhaps there is magic in the speaking of the spell after all.

The Lion and the Mouse

2008-11-14T12:36:00.000-08:00

I came away from class yesterday mulling over our discussion about Henryson doing more than just translation . It makes sense that he would want to make Aesop's fables accessible to speakers of English (or maybe I should say Middle Scots), but also that there was more to his project than just translating - that he himself was also trying to say something about the world he lived in. I thought the moralitas of The Lion and the Mouse was an interesting place to look for this. According to Wikipedia (sorry), the moral of the original fable was simply "Little friends may prove great friends." Henryson's moral is much more complicated. He writes about the lion as a prince, emperor or king and the mice as his subjects, or "common folk," which seems like a pretty blatant political statement and possibly a critique of (and threat to) nobles who don't appreciate the value of their subjects. It was especially interesting that this fable was part of a dream vision that was part of the larger fable, and that the moralitas came from Aesop himself as he appeared in Henryson's (or the narrator's) vision - maybe this was a way for Henryson to avoid putting himself out there as a critic of powerful members of society?

Of Teleri and Tale-telleris

2008-11-08T16:43:00.000-08:00

"In Unitee Holy Chirche Conscience held hym,
And made Pees porter to pynne the yates
Of alle tale-telleris and titereris in ydel."

--Langland, Piers Plowman, Passus XX (298-300)

I was going to write a post on the Seven Deadly Sins in Piers Plowman until I stumbled across these three lines, and, after recently reading Usha's latest, had a Tolkien moment. The term that caught my eye--I'm not sure how I missed it before--is "tale-telleris."

In The Silmarillion Tolkien wrote a race of elves called the Teleri. According to his annotated index, they were

The third and greatest of the three hosts of the Eldar on the westward journey
from Cuivienen... Their own name for themselves was Lindar, the
Singers; the name Teleri, the Last-comers, the Hindmost, was given
to them by those before them on the march. (Tolkien, 350)

It's a highly speculative point, but the literary relation of the name "Teleri" with "tale-telleris" is irresistible. First of all, this race called themselves "the Singers," a name which brings to mind the gangland description of a snitch's actions: "he sang." Moreover, in Piers Plowman these characters are "coming after," hence Pees porter's orders to "pynne the yates" against them.

The question of Tolkien's intention with regard to this term is, sans textual evidence, unanswerable. But the connection is fascinating.

Wight/Wiht/Wyht

2008-11-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

This word appears several times in our readings from the Confessio Amantis: "wiht," translated as "person", referring to any person, in line 28; and "wyht" (line 1548) and "wiht" (line 1582), both translated as "creature" and used to refer to Florent's hag-bride. When I came across the first instance, I immediately thought of Tolkien's barrow-wights, obviously more monster than just person or creature, and later wondered if that connotation could be applied to the description of the Florent's bride (pre-transformation, of course). The Middle English dictionary lists four meanings for "wight" (and lists the other spellings under this entry rather than seperately), which I've copied here in a sort of abridged form:

(a) A living creature, an animate being; any creature, anybody;

(b) an individual human being, a specific man, woman, or child; also, an unborn child;

(d) an animal, a beast; pl. nonhuman creatures; also, vermin [often difficult to distinguish from (c)];

Given the ambiguity of the word, I think it was an interesting choice on Gower's part to use it to describe her - a tongue-in-cheek way of referring to her as unnatural, monstrous, or even vermin? It is glossed in the politest way possible in our text, but the other potential meanings definitely add a layer of interest to the reading.

Kempe's Power Play

2008-11-07T12:08:00.000-08:00

I was reading Anthony Goodman’s Margery Kempe and Her World, and came across an interesting piece of information about sex in Kempe’s time:

“The predominant ‘humours’ in men’s bodies inclined them to rational thinking as well as physical strength, whereas ‘female’ humours characteristically produced light-mindedness as well as bodily weakness. Consequently, women, by their nature, had an urgent impulse to seek for sexual intercourse in order to procure regenerative male infusion as a remedy for their ‘humoural’ deficiencies, as well as to fulfil their procreative urge. Men’s sexual desires distracted them from the natural exercise of reason” (Goodman 58).

If this was indeed the major thinking in Kempe’s time, then another layer of power struggle is added to the bargain Kempe made with her husband. It matter little whether the motivation behind chastity was altruistically divine or selfishly personal. By desiring a nonsexual marriage, Kempe was stepping into the role originally designated to males.

It seems that Kempe had more power in her relationship with her husband than other women might have had with their’s. Kempe’s money (and maybe even her status as the mayor’s daughter) had given her some power in the relationship, but it just might be that her stance on sex was another contributor. That is not to say that she was withholding sex to get other benefits from her husband. But rather, the knowledge that she was the one who did not want sex and he was the one constantly seeking it raises her above her husband in spiritual status.

It is true that her desire for chastity could be seen as a result of her divine devotion. However, it is interesting to note that it could also have been a result of her desire for divine power. This confusion between the possible motivations of seeking devotion versus seeking power could have fueled the controversy of her being a saint or a witch.

***
Goodman, Anthony. Margery Kempe and Her World. London: Pearson Education Limited, 2002.

Julian of Norwich and her times

2008-11-02T16:39:00.000-08:00

I was recently researching the rise of witch-hunts in the late Middle Ages, including the tendency for women saints to be suddenly considered as witches. Since Julian of Norwich was a woman saint of the that era, it is interesting to note a sort of carefulness that comes through in her revelations in A Revelation of Love. She makes some unusual assertions in this book, such as the Trinity and Mother and Father, and that both men and women are brides of God. The introduction states that the first thought is uniquely Julian; as of the second, I am going to show my ignorance by saying that I do not know if it has been expressed before. But in the paranoid times of the late fourteenth century, new statements regarding Christianity should be safeguarded by other proofs of faith, so as to not be persecuted as a heretic.

Julian must have been aware of her times. For me, the feeling that she was careful in phrasing her revelations comes from the feeling that when readers come away from A Revelation of Love, they have an overall sensation that it is a book of praise. This distances her from being thought of as a subject of inquiry.

Three writing decisions that might have helped in cementing her status as a devout Christian:

the language—she presents herself as intellectual and logical
the praises of God throughout the text—the reader is constantly reminded of her reverence of God.
ending with the note that her book is to be read by servants of God, and not “heretics”—therefore she literally allies herself with servants of God and differentiates herself from heretics.

Also, since The Broadview provides only excerpts, I am not sure if she omitted some of her thoughts. The introduction states that she was “unable to embrace the idea of eternal damnation,” which would have been contrary to the teaching of the Church. As is, even though some of her written ideas might be unusual, they do not set her apart as a person who did not completely accept all the teachings of the Church.

**All citations come from

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Volume 1, the Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Vol. 1. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006.

Shakespeare and the Gawain-poet

2008-10-25T13:02:00.000-07:00

Last weekend, I saw Henry IV at the Folger (a great production, by the way, that's running for about another month), and I have to confess that I went into it with pretty minimal knowledge of most of Shakespeare's histories. It was the perfect time for me to be immersed in one of them though, particularly this one, because I had just written my essay on the Gawain-poet and read a good deal about members of noble households in the late fourteenth century. The play takes place in 1402-3 (near the beginning of Henry's reign) and really brought home for me the sort of martial existence that many English nobles lived. We've talked in class about the fact that warfare was their responsibility in society, but it is sometimes easy to lose track of what that really meant, especially during some of the more lighthearted parts of poems like Gawain. Also, while the play deals pretty minimally with both women and the Welsh, it also really illuminates the complex relationship nobles had to both. On the one hand, the Welsh are sort of demonized, and certainly portrayed as sort of barbaric, but on the other, English nobles intermarried with them, not unlike what we saw in Gawain. The scene in which Hotspur's wife demands to know why he is leaving and he refuses to tell her also really reminded me of the power struggles between Gawain and Bertilak's lady, in that it was difficult to tell who really had the upper hand.

I found it really fascinating that a play written several generations after the turn of the fifteenth century but over 400 years ago still addressed many of the same issues that come up when we read works from that time period, and really enjoyed looking at the era from a slightly different perspective than the one we have now.

Verb Tenses in Medieval Plays

2008-10-21T18:27:00.000-07:00

It is interesting that the stage directions of all three plays are written in the future tense, whether using "will" or "shall." Compared to modern stage directions, which are in present tense, these plays carry a pedagogic tone. It is almost biblical: "Then shall Noah shut the window..." "Then Cain will answer..." (592, 638). Also scriptural sounding: "Then let Eve answer Adam..." (637). Although, by the 15th century, as exemplified in "Noah's Flood," the present tense is starting to be used alongside scriptural language: "She takes a swipe at him" (592).

This shift in language could be a ramification of the seemingly increase in popularity of this type of plays. That is, these plays are moving from within the setting of the church to the streets as performances in pageants. This movement could be a start to the use of biblical plays as entertainment. The switch in thinking about the purpose of plays could cause a switch in the language. That is, if a play is written with ecclesiastic didacticism, then it might use future tense to convey the sense of destiny in the actions. On the other hand, if a play is written for entertainment, no matter the characters and plot, then it might use present tense to place the importance on the actions themselves. It is possible that this all could have been done subconsciously.

More specifically, with the 10th century "Quem Quaeritis," the full intention behind putting it on was to pass along the message of Christ. (It might have had an effect of livening the congregation, which could be argued as entertainment. However, the target audience was still that of churchgoers, and it was used as part of the worshipping process to glorify God.) The 12th century "The Service for Representing Adam" was "not liturgical, but it is based on the experience of the liturgy" (626). That is, the play came out of the ecclesiastical tradition, and although it was based off of stories in the Bible, it was not used as a teaching tool. By the 15th century, "Noah's Flood" was performed more for entertainment than for didactic purposes. It drew upon the "story of Noah, a popular subject in medieval biblical drama" for its part in the cycle of biblical pageants from Chester (587). Also, the costumes of "Noah's Flood" were modern clothing of the time, "as with all other biblical drama of the period," compared to the ecclesiastical costumes in "Quem Quaeritis" (587).

**All citations come from

The Broadview Anthology of British Literature: Volume 1, the Medieval Period. Ed. Joseph Black, et al. Vol. 1. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2006.

The Most Boring Poet Ever?

2008-10-17T21:57:00.000-07:00

Ever since Professor Wenthe mentioned back in August that Langland is considered by some to be the most boring poet ever (or something to that effect), I've been anxious about reading Piers Plowman. My first impressions were that it was going to be a lot easier to follow than Pearl, which I found sort of difficult at times, but despite the reasons Piers should be a more accessible poem, I can't help but find it, well, boring. I've been thinking a lot about the similarities and differences in the poems and the poets, since I did my bibliographic essay on the Gawain-poet, so I thought I would write about some of the reasons that I expected to like it better, and why I think I don't.

The language Langland uses is considerably easier to understand - there are whole lines that are almost identical to modern English. Of course, his poem doesn't have the same incredibly complex structure as Pearl, so he wouldn't have had to use synonyms to fit his words in the form. But, more than that, the differences in their dialect (Langland's southern vs the Pearl-poet's northern) make Piers Plowman more accessible in that sense. One of the critics I wrote about in my essay (Derek Brewer) wrote that “Chaucer and Langland would have found the Gawain-poet’s dialect difficult.”

In addition, Piers Plowman has more of a physical representation of what it's getting at (the workers in the field, the tower, etc), which seemed to me at first like it would be helpful. So did the fact that his vision is a series of dreams, broken up by waking moments, rather than one long one. Still, at the end of the day, Pearl just appealed to me more because, while it had a bit of a lecture-y tone to it, it was about something we can all relate to: loss. Piers so far seems more like a general translation of religious doctrine into poetry and English: lecture-y without that more human element to make it resonate.

Lewis on Conquest

2008-10-16T17:53:00.000-07:00

(Special thanks to Dr. Wenthe for quickly providing a copy of Graham's version of this poem, reproduced below.)

I was struck by the tragic tone of "Erthe Toc of Erthe" the first time we read it. Then when Dr. Wenthe read Jory Graham's version of it in class, it reminded me of something I had read in C.S. Lewis's The Abolition of Man. This entry outlines the relationship between these poems and biblical conceptions of humanity, and how it all relates to Lewis's book.

First, the poem in two versions:

Erthe toc of erthe erthe wyth woh,
erthe other erthe to the earthe droh,
erthe leyde erthe in erthene throh,
tho hevede erthe of erthe erthe ynoh.

--Anonymous

Earth took of earth earth with ill;
Earth other earth gave earth with a will.
Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still:
Then earth in earth had of earth its fill.

--Jory Graham

The key to reading these seems to be deciphering the many uses of the word "erthe" (0r "earth", as it were). At any point "erthe" can mean "dirt", "nature", or "human flesh". All are biblical uses of the word. The Genesis author understands human flesh to have been made out of dirt, formed by God himself: "the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Ge. 2:7). Thus the author of Ecclesiastes can take up the theme: "Remember him--before... the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it" (Ec. 12:6-7). Finally, the book of Revelation uses "earth" in the cosmic sense: "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea" (Re. 21:1).

These associations encourage a reading of the poems above as both primeval and apocalyptic:

"Earth took of earth earth with ill;"
i.e., the cosmos brought from the ground flesh tainted by evil.

"Earth other earth gave earth with a will."
Women bore to the world men with a will, including a will to dominate.

"Earth laid earth in the earth stock-still:"
Humans laid humans in the ground, stiff and cold. Domination resulted in death.

"Then earth in earth had of earth its fill."
This line has at least three meanings. First, humans on earth had their fill of one another. Second, humans on earth had their fill of living (in the cosmos). Third, the land in the cosmos had its fill of humanity (and decided to be done with it, metaphorically speaking).

Interestingly, this is Lewis's reading in his book, The Abolition of Man, although he is not explicit about the fact that he is echoing the poems listed above. But let's take a look.

"Flesh tainted with evil"

"I am very doubtful whether history shows us one example of a man who, having stepped outside traditional morality and attained power, has used that power benevolently" (Lewis, 66). Or, to use Lord Acton's oft-quoted axiom, "Absolute power corrupts absolutely." The point that is overshadowed by Acton's version, but permitted in Lewis's, is that the problem is not power per se, but human nature. In Lewis, the deficit is in human composition, whereas in Acton it is in the power held thereby. Thus Lewis's view holds much more closely to the poems above.

"A will to dominate"

"We reduce things to mere Nature in order that we may 'conquer' them. We are always conquering Nature, because 'Nature' is the name for what we have, to some extent, conquered" (Lewis, 71). These are the words of a man who witnessed industrial buildup, profound scientific advance, and the modernization of society that begat mechanized warfare.

"Domination resulted in death"

"Man's conquest of Nature, if the dreams of some scientific planners are realized, means the rule of a few hundreds of men over billions upon billions of men. There neither is nor can be any simple increase of power on Man's side. Each new power won by man is a power over man as well. Each advance leaves him weaker as well as stronger. In every victory, besides being the general who triumphs, he is also the prisoner who follows the triumphal car" (Lewis, 58). It comes as no surprise that these are the words of a man who has lived through two world wars, and witnessed profound changes in culture--especially in attitudes toward the value of life--as the result of Western modernization. In the face of modern science's will to dominate, Lewis cries, "Is nothing sacred anymore?"

"Then earth in earth had of earth its fill."

For Lewis, to say that "humans on earth had their fill of one another" is the same as saying both "humans on earth had their fill of living" and "the land in the cosmos had its fill of humanity." Consider the first of these in light of the following:

"The price of conquest is to treat a thing as mere Nature. Every conquest over Nature increases her domain. The stars do not become Nature till we can weigh and measure them: the soul does not become Nature till we can psychoanalyse her... As long as this process stops short of the final stage we may well hold that the gain outweighs the loss. But as soon as we take the final step of reducing our own species to the level of mere Nature, the whole process is stultified, for this time the being who stood to gain and the being who has sacrificed are one and the same" (Lewis, 71).

"Having our fill of one another" took its ugliest form in Hitler's Final Solution, mentioned, perhaps, obliquely here (cf., "final stage"). It is in this sort of senseless violence that Lewis sees that our race has had its fill of living. But the most striking conclusion he reaches, also insinuated by the anonymous medieval poet and Jory Graham, is that in exterminating our own kind we bequeath the victory thought to belong to the 'winner' to nature itself:

"At the moment, then, of Man's victory over Nature, we find the whole human race subjected to some individual men, and those individuals subjected to that in themselves which is purely 'natural'--to their irrational impulses. Nature, untrammelled by values, rules... all humanity. Man's conquest of Nature turns out, in the moment of its consummation, to be Nature's conquest of Man. Every victory we seemed to win has led us, step by step, to this conclusion. All Nature's apparent reverses have been but tactical withdrawals. We thought we were beating her back when she was luring us on. What looked to us like hands held up in surrender was really the opening of arms to enfold us for ever" (Lewis, 67-68).

It is a chilling conclusion to reach, and one that accounts for the solemnity of the poems above. It is not insulated from moralism, for that is Lewis's point: we must adhere to the traditional morality which, he argues, cuts across cultures and history (Lewis, Appendix). If we accept the dilemma he has presented, the alternative is dire:

"Nature will be troubled no more by the restive species that rose in revolt against her so many millions of years ago, will be vexed no longer by its chatter of truth and mercy and beauty and happiness" (Lewis, 68).

Spiritual Sexuality and Sexual Spirituality

2008-10-11T13:26:00.000-07:00

In light of our discussion of Pearl, it seemed prudent to draw attention to the fact that there is a long tradition, even in works heavily influenced by Christianity, to pay, if not bawdy, then at least an edgy (by Christian sexual ethical standards) kind of attention to sexuality in discussions of spirituality. Indeed, it seems that most today who would call themselves Christians are uncomfortable with the notion that spirituality is sexual in any way, though many would admit that sexuality is decidedly spiritual. While this is not necessarily a contradiction, it seems to indicate that an investigation of the sexualization of spirituality--because it is often considered taboo, or at the very least, in bad taste--is warranted.

Because so much contemporary literature that converses with the medieval period has been influenced by the Inklings, it seems natural to turn in that direction to begin an investigation. For this entry, let's simply focus on C. S. Lewis. Although his works pertaining to Narnia are most popular, The Great Divorce, an allegory on the passage of souls from heaven to hell, speaks volumes more on sexuality and spirituality.

Note first that one of Lewis' characters, a ghost who has a "red lizard" on his shoulder, a lizard that whispers in his ear. Says the ghost to an angel who inquires about the ghost's sudden move to return to hell,

"Yes, I'm off... Thanks for all your hospitality. But it's no good, you see. I told this little chap," (here he indicated the lizard), "that he'd have to be quiet if he came--which he insisted on doing. Of course his stuff won't do here: I realise that. But he won't stop. I shall just have to go home." (Lewis, 99-100)

The angel offers to silence the lizard, to which the ghost readily agrees until he realizes that the angel is really offering to kill the lizard.

At this point, it becomes indubitable that Lewis' intent here is to symbolize lust. First, the entire tableau is preceded by the narrator's discussion of lust with George Macdonald. Second, the lizard happens to be red, which has long been the color of lust and its consequences, e.g., adultery (think Hawthorne, for example). Third, the man's response to the offer to kill the lizard is telling. Although he intimates that the lizard is "embarrassing," he also recoils from the thought of killing it, and goes so far as to make the excuse that he would have "to be in good health for the operation" (Lewis, 101).

Significantly, the lizard begins to talk to the ghost: "[If he kills me] you'll be without me for ever and ever. It's not natural. How could you live? You'd be only a sort of ghost, not a real man as you are now" (Lewis, 102). The appeal to the ghost's manhood here leads the interpretation. But more interesting still is the lizard's subsequent promise. "I know there are no real pleasures now, only dreams. But aren't they better than nothing? And I'll be so good... I'll give you nothing but really nice dreams--all sweet and fresh and almost innocent" (Lewis). To make a short allegory shorter, the ghost allows the angel to kill the lizard, which then turns into a white stallion (the ghost turns into a real man, who is, significantly, naked), and the man rides off on the stallion.

The point of it is simply that Lewis, as a literature scholar, is well aware of a thread in literature that equates sexuality and spirituality. And rather than merely letting sexuality remain a spiritual issue (see his chapter on "Christian Sexual Ethics" in Mere Christianity), Lewis has demonstrated that spirituality is also a sexual issue to some degree.

Gollum's Daisies

2008-10-05T18:51:00.000-07:00

I noticed in Lenten is come with love to toune that one line reads “Dayeseyes in this dales.” The first word is unmistakably familiar: “daisies,” but the revelation that arises from the poem is that it is a combination of “day” and “eye.”

In his work, The Hobbit, author and linguist J.R.R. Tolkien addressed this construct in a riddle, given in Gollum’s cave:

“An eye in a blue face
Saw an eye in a green face.
‘That eye is like to this eye’
Said the first eye,
‘But in low place,
Not in high place.’”

The answer is “’Sun on the daisies,’” as Gollum gives it. As such, it constitutes not only the answer to a riddle, but a kind of pun. “Sun” is the “day’s eye.”

Tolkien must have been aware of this. Indeed, a similar name formation arises in his flower, “kingsfoil.” The first half is obvious: “king.” “Foil” is a much more complex term. It may mean something like “to impede,” also “blade.” There is an aspect of it that connotes fragrance, from its root in Latin fullare, “to clean cloth.” Finally, it can mean “leaf.” As such, it stands for a variety of regal elements: a sword, a clean piece of linen, a rebuttal or tactical impediment of some sort (reaching perhaps, but the product of strategy and wisdom in governing; the product of a decree, maybe), a leaf, which is often an element of heraldry. In The Lord of the Rings, kingsfoil is the plant that begets healing to the wounded time and again, and which forms a significant part of (King) Aragorn’s heraldry after the War of the Ring.

Another two-part flower-name construct appears in English in the word “buttercup,” which, according to OED, is thought to be a combination of still two other two-part constructs, “butterflower” and “gold-cup” (or possibly “kings-cup”). Many other flower names I researched arose from Old French. “Rose” is actually from Latin. But there may very well be more English flower names that envelope older words with which we are familiar. Inquiry in this direction might well prove worth the effort.

Religion in "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight"

2008-09-29T13:16:00.000-07:00

This post is in response to the comments at the end of class regarding Gawain's tirade on "womanly wiles" by using examples from the Bible. I agree that this speech feels out of place. Throughout the poem, Gawain acts respectfully toward women—at least toward the woman he encounters—and it is not a stretch to imagine him as an advocate for equality. However, this image is dashed at the end when he presents as a truth that, in general, women are less trustworthy, following the tradition of Eve.

For me, because this speech feels out of place, I try to think about the author’s intent with assigning these assertions to Gawain. Overall, this poem has a strong Christian undertone. From the beginning it is clear that one of Gawain’s greatest virtues is that he is a good Christian. He has the image of Mary printed on the inside of his shield. He tries to follow in Jesus Christ’s footsteps by sacrificing himself for the whole. He prays constantly. This is why when Gawain talks about women using Biblical references, I get the feeling that it is the author’s attempt to drive home the relationship between mortality and spirituality. As we discussed in class, Gawain does pretty well for himself under the circumstances. However, he still blames himself for his one misstep of accepting the girdle because, he says, “For mon may hyden his harme, bot unhap ne may hit” (line 2511). I feel that he is concerned because even though he has done a good job as the mortal that he is, his soul, the part that will eventually ascend to heaven (hopefully), might be smeared. A misdeed can never be erased because it follows the eternal soul; after Gawain sheds his mortal body, he will have to face the immortal judgment.

It is interesting to compare Gawain’s strength in keeping his life and in essence respecting his temple, to his will in keeping his Christian soul clean. It is almost as if the more he wants to live and take care of his body, the less his morals can be kept. Personally, I feel that the way he acts could be the only way to come out of this situation with the least amount of injury in both respects.

Also, it might be significant that this whole ordeal starts as a Christmas game, and also ends at Christmas—the holiday that celebrates the birth of Christ.

Introducing Kate Rusby

2008-09-27T19:35:00.000-07:00

I'd like to introduce you all to a British musician, Kate Rusby, whose revival of an old British folk tradition brings to light several elements of Middle English poetry. In this entry, I will reference music from her albums The Girl Who Couldn't Fly and Underneath the Stars.

For starters, Kate does a nice job telling tales in song. Both albums contain several tracks that could just as easily have been adventures included in any of the poems we've read this semester. "The Blind Harper" is a witty bit about a blind harper (weird, I know) who steals the king's horse and gets paid--by the king--to do it. "The Goodman" tells the story of a husband who repeatedly comes home to fishy circumstances that are simplistically explained by his apparently playful wife.

Thematic content on both albums closely matches that which we have seen in Middle English lyrics: nature, women and religion. Religion is more scarce than the other two, limited to references to marriage and prayer. Women are probably the major topic of Kate's music, from "Mary Blaize" to "Polly" to "The Daughter of Megan." Waiting for the return of true love, especially from commercial voyages or foreign war, seems to be a major theme, again, hearkening to the Middle English lyrics we've read.

Kate's treatment of nature contains one striking difference from the medieval mindset: she looks on certain natural phenomena with much less fear and much more fondness than would the average medieval villager. Consider the darkness of the forest in Sir Orfeo, and one is struck by Kate's lyrics:

"Here is a tale of the trees in the wood
They were never that pleased on the land that they stood
So they upped and they walked on as far as they could
'Til they felt the sun shine on their branches...

There they did stand, and there they did stay
When there came a young boy who was running away
From a mad world, a bad world, a world of decay
And it's comfort he sought in their branches...

...the trees kept him safe in their branches" (Kate Rusby, "Little Jack Frost").

This is a far cry from Orfeo's experience of the enchantment of the forest. Kate's trees are not dark, but instead uproot themselves specifically for the purpose of moving toward the sunlight. Rather than occluding a friend, they become friends to a runaway who is not afraid of the world in the trees, but who is instead fleeing the world outside the forest. As his friends, they keep him safe in their branches.

To add to the friendly nature phenomenon, Kate's song "Moon Shadow" is an encomium to her shadow in the moonlight, portrayed as a close friend. One has to wonder how the superstitious medieval mindset may have thought of this.

Humor is not absent either. In similar kind to the irony of "Of all creatures women be the best" Kate gives us "Mary Blaize." A few good lines:

"Good people all with one accord remember Mary Blaize
She never wanted one good word from those who spoke her praise...
She strove the neighborhood to please with manners wond'rous winning
She never followed wicked ways unless when she was sinning
At church in silks and satins new with hoop of monstrous size
She never slumbered in her pew but when she closed her eyes" (Kate Rusby, "Mary Blaize").

The hilarity of this piece hinges primarily on common-sense tautologies that introduce a subtle English irony. For more delight, listen to the entire song. It's speedy rhythm sounds anything like the eulogy that the lyrics indicate it is.

Finally, some linguistic bits of Middle English remain in Kate's lyrics. "Bonnie House of Airlie" begins with, "It fell on a day," cf. "Gamelyn" line 81, in which "Gamelyn stood on a day" is clarified in the margin as "one day." So much the better. Kate's use of "on a day" is then a throw back to Middle English. The net effect is to produce songs that seem old, even when they aren't. Kudos to this enterprising musician. Give her a listen.

Recommended: the GW Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute

2008-09-24T22:39:00.000-07:00

Since Julia's post about the green children of Woolpit prompted a comment from me about Jeffrey Jerome Cohen's fine medieval scholarship, I thought I should mention that Professor Cohen is the director of George Washington University's Medieval and Early Modern Studies Institute, newly expanded from its beginnings last year as a seminar, and it has some very exciting events planned for this semester. Take a look at the GW MEMSI blog here for more information!

Brave or Reckless?

2008-09-20T11:59:00.001-07:00

Both Gamelyn and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight feature main characters or protagonists that are somewhat naive or reckless when it comes to confronting danger or the unknown. While a certain amount of recklessness could easily look like knightly bravery, I think there may be more going on than that. We talked a little bit in class this week about how Gamelyn is, in many ways, a poem about critiquing and even subverting authority - both the eldest son and the clergy. I think as we move further into SGGK, it will become evident that there is an element of that going on there too(and I will probably post about it next week). The naive attitudes of the main characters early on in both poems seem like a possible indication that English society in this time period was blind to the social and political upheaval that was coming there way. A few examples:

When Gamelyn's father dies, his oldest brother John pretends to take him and is inheritance under his wing, and Gamelyn goes along without suspicion (lines 70-73). By the time Gamelyn realizes that maybe his brother isn't quite treating him right, in lines 90-100, we get the sense that Gamelyn has been there for awhile. Later in the poem, the tables turn, and John and his men are pretty clueless about the danger that Gamelyn, Adam, and even Ote present once they have turned against him. Their ignorance leads to their deaths.

Likewise, in SGGK, Arthur seems perfectly comfortable welcoming a gigantic, magical green knight into his hall and agreeing to play a pretty dangerous game with him. Gawain enters into an agreement with the green knight that requires him to go wandering in the woods in unknown territory to seek out the green knight by himself. A lot is made of both of their bravery, but I wonder if we should be making something of their blindness to danger.

Another tale of green -- The Green Children

2008-09-18T21:20:00.000-07:00

Today when we were talking about Sir Gawain and the Green Knight someone brought up the possibility that by paralleling the poem with the legend of Troy, the author is trying to situate the story within a historic setting, garnering more credibility and prominence. The thought of history and myth reminded me of another myth I have read regarding the Green Children. I came home and reread it and was surprised to find that the article says that the tale might be "related to the Green Man or Jack-in-the-Green of English folklore, or even the Green Knight of Arthurian myth" (Haughton 238).

To give you an idea of the type of book it comes out of, it is an article in Brian Haughton's Hidden History: Lost Civilizations, Secret Knowledge, and Ancient Mysteries, in which he also provides articles regarding The Real Robin Hood, Troy, Atlantis, The Dead Sea Scrolls, The Queen of Sheba, etc. I just think it's interesting so I'm going to provide some excerpts below.

"During the troubled reign of king Stephen of England (1135-1154), there was a strange occurrence in the village of Woolpit, Near Bury St. Edmunds, in Suffolk. At harvest time, while the reapers were working in the fields, two young children emerged from deep ditches excavated to trap wolves... The children, a boy and a girl, had skin tinged with a green hue, and wore clothes of a strange color, made from unfamiliar materials. They wandered around bewildered for a few minutes, before being taken by the reapers to the village... They broke into tears and for some days refused to eat the bread and other food that was brought to them. But when recently harvested beans, with their stalks still attached, were brought in, the starving children made signs that they desperately wanted to eat them. However, when the children took the beans they opened the stalks rather than the pods, and finding nothing inside, began weeping again After they had been shown how to obtain the beans, the children survived on this food for many months until they acquired a taste for bread...The boy...sickened and died. But the girl adjusted to her new life, and was baptized. Her skin gradually lost its original green color and she became a healthy young woman. She learned the English language and afterward married a man at King's Lynn...

"The two original sources are both from the 12th century. The first is William of Newburgh (1136-1198), an English historian and monk, from Yorkshire...The other source is Ralph of Coggeshall (died c. 1228), who was the sixth abbot of Coggeshall Abbey in Essex from 1207-1218."

Haughton lists some explanations that have been put forward for the enigma of the Green Children, that the children:

originated from a hidden world inside the earth, that they had somehow stepped through a door from a parallel dimension
were aliens accidentally arrived on Earth
were the children in the Babes in the Wood folktale (first published in Norwich in 1595), except in this version (and therefore in reality), they survived an attempted arsenic poisoning by the medieval Norfolk earl

The most widely accepted:

were Flemish and lived in the village of Fornham St. Martin, and escaped to Woolpit when their parents were killed in the conflict. Their limited food supply caused them to develop chlorosis due to malnutrition. (Though there are many geographic and cultural issues that make this hypothesis unlikely)

"There are many aspect of the Woolpit tale that are found in English folk beliefs, and some see the Green Children as personifications of nature...Perhaps the children are related to the elves and fairies which, until a century or two ago, were believed in by many country folk. If the Green Children story is a fairytale, then it has the unusual twist of the girl never returning to her otherworldly home, but remaining married and living as a mortal...The color green has always been associated with the otherworld and the supernatural...Beans were said to be the food of the dead" (234-38).

Just an another tidbit for the stew of green-thinking.

The Legacy of "Orfeo": Part Two

2008-09-16T10:02:00.000-07:00

I had to order some books online and then await their arrival before I could write this post. Stephen R. Lawhead's Pendragon Cycle came to mind as I was reading "Sir Orfeo" for the very first time, for reasons that I can now discuss, since I finally have a copy of his works in my possession.

Lawhead's work is comprised of three volumes: Taliesin, Merlin, and Arthur. While Taliesin and Arthur are very interesting, it is Merlin to which I would like to draw your attention. Lawhead's Merlin has indubitably been influenced by "Sir Orfeo." But instead of commenting on each and every detail, I'll simply juxtapose the two texts below. Lines from "Sir Orfeo" are in italics, Lawhead's work is in normal text, enclosed in quotations.

Some necessary background on Lawhead's Merlin:

1. In Lawhead's formulation of the Arthur legend, Merlin's ancestors sailed from Atlantis and landed in Llyonesse, in the soutwestern corner of Roman Britain.

2. These Atlantean settlers become known in Britain as "the Fair Folk." Compared to the inhabitants of Britain, they have a much longer lifespan. Lawhead is obviously hearkening to "faerie" here.

3. Among the Atlanteans are Annubi the sorcerer, and Merlin's evil step-aunt, Morgian, Annubi's fell apprentice who later surpasses him, both in power and in evil. Thus the Fair Folk are known for their magic. Merlin's mother, Princess Charis, is also a healer.

4. Charis marries Taliesin, the mysterious man-child found by Lord Elphin of Gwynnedd in his father's fishing weir at his coming of age. The finding of Taliesin also marks Elphin's turn of luck. Before finding the babe, he was so unlucky that his father's subjects were ready to demand another heir as their king. Because of his occluded origin Taliesin may be interpreted as being "of faerie," but he is so in a different way than the Atlanteans. What is important is that Merlin may be interpreted as having been descended of faerie, and of royalty, from both sides.

5. Unbeknownst to the Atlanteans in Llyonesse, another group of Atlanteans survives and settles in the north, in the Celyddon Forest. These tribes eventually discover one another, and Merlin marries Ganieda, descended of Atlantis (and therefore of faerie).

6. At the height of Merlin's political strength, after he has been crowned King of Dyfed and just when he is about to unite the kingdoms of Llyonesse (his mother's people), Yr Wyddfa (his father's people), and Celyddon (his wife's people), Ganieda and the child she is carrying are brutally murdered in a Saecsen raid. His wife and child thus taken from him, Merlin slaughters the Saecsen raiders, and then flies into the wild where he lurks for many years.

7. Lawhead's tale is narrated by Merlin.

Section One: "Sir Orfeo," Lines 209-214

For now ichave mi quen y-lore,
The fairest levedi that ever was bore, (209-210)

"I [Merlin] fell across the body of my beloved, a great cry of grief tearing from my throat. I raised myself and held Ganieda's beautiful face in my hands. It was not beautiful anymore, but twisted in horrific agony, bespattered with her blood, her clear eyes cloudy and unseeing... Farewell, Ganieda, my soul; I loved you better than my life." (Lawhead, 227)

Never eft y nil no woman se.
Into wildernes ichil te
And live ther evermore
With wilde beasts in holtes hore; (211-214)

"I saw Lord Death moving among the tumbled corpses [of the Saecsen warhost], rubbing his fleshless hands and grinning his lipless smile as he gazed upon my wonderful work. He greeted me.

Well done, Myrddin. Such a handsome harvest; I am pleased, my son.

My horror could not be contained. Dark mist rose up before my eyes; the voices of the dead filled my ears with cries of sharp accusation. The bloody earth mocked me; sky and sun jeered. The wind laughed. I fled the field, seeking refuge in Celyddon's deep, black heart. I fled to the nameless hills, to the rock-bound mountains, to this barren outcrop with its cave and spring.
And here, Annwas, here is all Myrddin Wylt's kingdom. Here is where I have dwelt, and ever shall dwell.

Death, you have taken all the others--why have you not taken me?" (Lawhead, 234-235)

Section Two: "Sir Orfeo," Lines 238-264

Into the wildernes he geth.
Nothing he fint that him is ays,
Bot ever he liveth in gret malais. (238-240)

"They say Merlin mounted to the sky, taking the shape of an avenging hawk to fly away to the mountains.

Yet, when the voices of the searchers rang in the wood, where did Merlin hide? In what pit did Merlin cower while they cried out to him?

O, Wise Wolf, tell me, why was the light of the sun taken from me? Why was the living heart carved from my breast? Why do I haunt the desolate wastes, hearing only the sound of my own voice in the mournful sigh and moan of the wind on bare rock?" (Lawhead, 202)

He that hadde y-werd the fowe and griis,
And on bed the purper biis, (241-242)

"When I stood up again, Pelleas held out for me a deep blue cloak edged all around with wolf fur. It was a cloak made for a king; indeed, it was my own cloak remade--my old Hill Folk wolfskin new-sewn." (Lawhead, 240)

Now on hard hethe he lith,
With leves and gresse he him writh. (243-244)

"My clothing... was little more than a filth-crusted loincloth. It fell from me as I shrugged it off." (Lawhead, 237)

He that hadde had castels and tours,
River, forest, frith with flours (245-246)

"No one actually lived in the hillforts anymore, had not for a long, long time. But Maelwys [an allied king, and Merlin's stepfather] foresaw the day when fully stocked and gated forts would be required.

We also began planning the series of coastal beacons..." (Lawhead, 192)

Now thei it comenci to snewe and frese,
This king mot make his bed in mese. (247-248)

"I watch the winter stars glitter hard in the frozen sky. Were I not so forlorn, I would conjure a fire to warm myself. Instead, I watch the high cold heaven perform its inscrutable work. I gaze at the hoarfrost on the rocks and see the patterns of a life there." (Lawhead, 194)

He that had y-had knightes of priis
Bifor him kneland, and levedis,
Now seth he nothing that him liketh,
Bot wilde wormes bi him striketh.
He that had y-had plente
Of mete and drink, of ich deynte, (249-254)

"He blessed me from the holy text, then kissed me with a holy kiss, and I him, whereupon each of the others in the room knelt and stretched forth their hands to cover my feet as sign of their submission to me. All except Maelwys, of course, but he embraced me like a father.

In this way I was made King of Dyfed.

I began my reign in the usual way, I suppose: I shared wine with the men who would follow me. I distributed gifts among them and accepted their pledges of fealty. There was singing... and the feasting continued for three more days." (Lawhead, 189)

Now may he al day digge and wrote
Er he finde his fille of rote.
In somer he liveth bi wild frut,
And berien bot gode lite;
In winter may he nothing finde
Bot rote, grases, and the rinde.
Al his bodi was oway dwine
For missays and al to-chine.
Lord! who may telle the sore
This king sufferd ten yere and more? (255-260)

"I squat on my rock, and the rags of my clothes flap around me. Summer sun bakes and blisters, winter wind slices flesh from bone, spring rain soaks to the soul, autumn mists chill the heart.
Yet, Merlin endures. Destiny waits while Merlin squats on his rock above dark Celyddon. Forest Lord... Cernunnos' Son... Wild Man of the Wood... Myrddin Wylt... Merlin... He of the Strong Enchantment, who walked with kings, the very same who now grubs among rotting apples for his food..." (Lawhead, 189)

You may have noticed mention of Pelleas bringing Merlin's wolf-skin cloak, a symbol of his kingship. Lawhead's narrative differs from "Sir Orfeo" in that Merlin does not return to his kingdom to test his steward, but his steward, Pelleas, faithfully wanders in the wilderness seeking to reinstate his dirty, war-maddened, starving, naked king.

But what of Ganieda, the Eurydice figure in Lawhead's story? Does Merlin return with his queen? Give Lawhead a read to find out... but do yourself a great favor, and begin with Taliesin.

Nota bene: In Lawhead you will also find references to "Pwyll" and "The Mabinogi." There are probably other tales woven into his work, tales with which I am unfamiliar.

From Greek to Gaiman

2008-09-15T16:01:00.000-07:00

In response to Usha's blog: there does seem to be an interesting watering down of the traditional Greek myth of Orpheus. The setting morphs from Greek mythology's cruel underworld to Tolkien's fairly comfortable fairy realm. There also seems to be a move from realistic representations to fantasy. Of course, by "realistic" I do not mean that once upon a time there were underworld gods roaming about. It is more so that the stories of the gods were entwined with world, political, social, and moral views at the time. (Dragons were once considered real entities because people cannot travel as we do now, and since no one knows what is beyond the mountain over yonder, anything, even dragons, is a possibility.) As we move toward Tolkien's time, technologies advance, literacy increases, and the written word is now harnessed, molded, and marketed toward a target market that promises the biggest profit margin. Genres emerge, and anything with dragons seem to be shoved under "fantasy." Unfortunately, genres fiction carry a stigma in the literary world, making them seem as if they are ranked below "real literary fiction." In this way, when the myth reaches Tolkien, it does not carry as much weight as it did in ancient Greece.

An interesting side-effect, however, is that along with the adaptations of the myth, the story itself becomes much more important. In Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice, the myth is used as a background and the characters are flattened to serve didactic purposes. In more modern adaptations, the story and the characters are the points of interest. An example is Neil Gaiman's "The Faery Reel," first appearing in The Faery Reel: Tales from the Twilight Realm edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling (Viking Press). In that version, Gaiman's endnote states that

Most of the poems I’ve written are happy to sit on the page and be looked at. This one was written with the idea of a faery reel in mind, the beats of a dance that would make your feet twitch and set its measure in the back of your head, and so it was written to be read out loud. You could make up a tune for it, if you like. Proper faery tunes can fill your mind and your feet with their tune and their rhythm so there’s no room left to think of anything else and you dance and more to the beat of the song until you collapse, exhausted, and never move again. Don’t set it to one of those tunes. (437-38 )

Of course, this quote only is only relevant through an autobiographical critical approach. Plus, it even goes beyond the concentration on story and character and moves into a concentration on the provocation of emotions. Nevertheless, it supports the general shift of authorial intent--from using the myth as an allegorical tool toward using it a base of literary entertainment.

Julia

Sir Orfeo, Orpheus and Eurydice, and Smith of Wootton Major

2008-09-10T16:51:00.000-07:00

This post started as a comment on Aaron's post on Tolkien, but got a little out of control. While reading Sir Orfeo, I was reminded again and again of another of Tolkien's works: Smith of Wootton Major. In part, it is the language and the references to fairies that reminded me of Smith, but there are interesting similarities and contradictions in the stories as well. In many ways, Tolkien's story seems to play on the Orfeo/Orpheus story while almost reversing certain aspects of it. Both Sir Orfeo and Smith live in human societies that have some sort of contact with the world of fairies, and in both stories, a human is chosen to go, or be taken, to Fairy-land. In Sir Orfeo, however, Heurodis is kidnapped, and the Fairy-king's motivation to take her seems malicious but is not clear (although in Henryson's Orpheus and Eurydice, it seems to be her punishment for the sin of being a woman, or being a woman who actively courts a man - this article talks about how Heurodis, in comparison, is portrayed as pretty blameless for what happens to her). In Smith of Wootton Major, Smith is chosen when he is just nine years old to be granted special powers that, among other things, let him roam Fairy-land freely, and it seems to be because he is a kind and thoughtful boy who is somehow different from the others. He ultimately finds out that the king of Fairy is the cook of Wootton Major, who came to the town to work as an apprentice to Smith's grandfather, making the whole adventure feel almost like a family tradition.

Fairies are threatening in Sir Orfeo, and being taken to their world is a punishment (or a curse), presumably equivalent to being taken to hell in Orpheus and Eurydice. Although Tolkien's Fairy-land is described as "perilous" and certainly has threatening aspects of its own, it is a much more hospitable place than Sir Orfeo's Fairy-land, and Smith is imbued with a special protection that keeps him from harm. Several times in the story, Tolkien alludes to it being a place that reminds people of something familiar, but that they can't quite remember.

There are other similarities - there are certainly scenes in Smith of Wootton Major that evoke the ladies frolicking in the woods in Sir Orfeo, for example - but what I find the most interesting is that, just like the Sir Orfeo poet took the tragedy of Orpheus and Eurydice (I am assuming that the original story was more similar to Henryson's telling) and gave it a happy ending, Tolkien took the threatening aspects of the Orfeo story and turned them into something charming and comforting.

The Legacy of "Orfeo"

2008-09-09T13:59:00.000-07:00

As noted in a previous post and in one of my comments, Tolkien will be a major player in the contemporary conversations over the texts we're covering. Says the preface to "Sir Orfeo" on page 213 of The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, Vol. 1, "Tolkien studied the poem extensively and may well have been influenced by it in writing some portions of The Lord of the Rings." Indeed, there is scholarship that suggests this.

Tom Shippey's works on Tolkien, The Road to Middle Earth and J.R.R. Tolkien: Author of the Century, are two of the most insightful books on Tolkien that I have read. Perhaps by historical accident, Shippey's life closely followed Tolkien's own, inasmuch as he attended many of the same schools and even occupied the same chair at Oxford for a time. Ergo his look into Tolkien's work is unique in that his perspective on English Literature is most closely aligned with Tolkien's own.

On 34-35 of Author of the Century Shippey argues that the appearance of the deer on the path through Mirkwood, followed by the merriment of the elves in the forest, witnessed by Bilbo and the errant dwarves, is an obvious reference to "Sir Orfeo." Writes Shippey:

Orfeo's hunt is 'dim' because it is not clear he is in the same world as the
fairies, who chase beasts but never catch them. The dwarves' hunt is
'dim', more practically, because they are after all in Mirk-wood and
cannot see or even hear clearly. But the idea is the same in both places,
of a mighty king pursuing his kingly activities in a world forever out of reach
of strangers and trespassers in his domain. (Shippey, 35)

Interesting.

But "Orfeo" was of still greater import to Tolkien. As a linguist, he readily noticed that "faerie" ("fairy") was not merely a singular noun: it may be read as a collective noun as well. "Orfeo" afforded the justification for this reading in line 194: "With fairi forth y-nome." Compare the three renderings here:

Broadview (notes): "With enchantment [she was] taken forth."
Shippey: "She was taken away by the fairy-people" (Shippey, Road, 57).
Tolkien: "By magic was she from them caught" (Shippey, Ibid.).

The Broadview editors have chosen to emphasize the potency of the faerie, their locus of power, as the agency by which the queen was taken, whereas Shippey and Tolkien name the faerie directly--and plurally. Regardless, Shippey allows for the Broadview editors' reading of things: "'Fayre' in that context means 'glamour', the deceptio visus of the inhabitants of Fairyland" (Shippey, Ibid.).

This point is essential not only for The Hobbit, but for The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings as well. Lines 347-360 of "Orfeo" closely match Tolkien's description of "the Hidden Kingdom," Gondolin, in The Silmarillion (cf. Tolkien, The Silmarillion, chs. 16, "Of Maeglin," and 23, "Of Tuor and the Fall of Gondolin"). (Incidentally, "The Fall of Gondolin" was one of the earliest pieces of Middle Earth to be recorded by Tolkien.) Right down to the entrance wrought in stone, one could get the impression that Gondolin is really a close, although more au naturale, rendering of the faerie kingdom in "Orfeo."

In both The Silmarillion and The Lord of the Rings the concealment of elvish kingdoms closely resembles the experience of Orfeo with the faerie in "Sir Orfeo." The otherworldliness of Elu Thingol's kingdom of Doriath, closely guarded by the magic of his wife, Melian, seems a striking literary extrapolation of the Broadview editors' translation of line 194 discussed above. Similarly, this sort of enchantment also appears in The Fellowship of the Ring:

On the green bank near to the very point of the Tongue the Lady Galadriel stood
alone and silent. As they passed her they turned and their eyes watched her
slowly floating away from them. For so it seemed to them: Lorien was sailing on
to forgotten shores, while they sat helpless upon the margin of the grey and
leafless world." (Tolkien, 393)

In this particular case, the enchantment is not so much in the content of the literature as in its form. Tolkien has left the reader to question whether the enchantment is real, an actual occurrence, or merely psychological, an epistemic twist to which the reader and the characters have been subjected. And this question is also in the spirit of "Sir Orfeo": is it real, or merely a dream, a story?

Rote learning

2008-09-08T13:03:00.001-07:00

My thanks to Janice, who forwarded a link to a website that offers various models of rote for sale. Click the link to view (and listen to!) plucked stringed instruments that may resemble those used to accompany the Breton lais. Note, however, that these models are described as "Saxon" or "Germanic" rotes, based on historical finds from East Anglia and the Black Forest, respectively; as such, they may differ from the instruments played by the Celts of (Great) Britain or (Little) Brittany.

More on the Moor Maiden

2008-09-06T10:11:00.000-07:00

http://www.jstor.org.proxyau.wrlc.org/stable/2856553

This article looks at different interpretations of Maiden in the mor lay - apparently it's been pretty contentious - but none of them involve her being dead. Still interesting though.

Dead Lovers, Infidelity, and the Plague

2008-09-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

In Thursday’s class, we talked a little bit about infidelity in the Middle Ages, and I couldn’t help but wonder if the plague had some influence on it. Of course, sexual infidelity is a timeless subject of writing, and there are probably any number of novels, songs and self-help books being written about it every month. But within the context of plague-ravaged Britain (I lovede a child of this cuntree was written in the middle of the 14^th century, and the plague reached Britain in 1348), it’s easy to imagine an unusually high occurrence of infidelity as part of the mass hysteria that surrounded the disease.

Another question that came to mind when rereading some of the poems with the plague in mind: in addition to the several that were obviously about death or dying, two of the poems struck me as being about dead lovers, but didn’t necessarily have to be read that way: Maiden in the more lay and My lefe is faren in a lond. The first was written in the early fourteenth century, and so predates the plague (but I do wonder whether the maiden was dead or just sort of camping out on the moors eating flowers, which sounds like a nice vacation), but the second was written in the late fifteenth century, well after the plague first arrived but still during a time that was very much feeling its influence. I'm curious about whether other people read them this way.

A Quick Hello

2008-08-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

Just as a quick warm-up post, I want to share something that crossed my mind in class today. When Professor Wenthe was talking about how "ichot" was a combination of "ich" and "wot," and how the language was carried down to even Shakespeare's era in Hamlet's speech, "God wot," I mis-wrote in my notebook, "Godot." God knows? Of course my mind immediately jumped to Beckett's Waiting for Godot: Waiting for God Knows...? Perhaps a knowledge of Middle English was one of Beckett's reasons for picking the name. In addition, there are evidence that the phrase "God wot" is in the consciousness of modern artists, such as in the 1868 song "A Bone, God Wot!" and even a 1964 TV series, "Channing: Freedom is a Lovesome Thing God Wot." Just an interesting sneak peek at the continuation of history. I am very interested in the allure of Old/Middle English in the modern world. I am thinking along the lines of inspirations for J.R.R. Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, as well as the genres of fantasy, magic realism, romanticism, and even realism.

I'm still trying to get a feel for my concentration in the class. My future (actual) posts will be more formal...

Julia

Audio alternative for "Sumer is icumen in"

2008-08-25T14:26:00.000-07:00

If for any reason you have trouble gaining access to the recording of "Sumer is icumen in" on the Broadview Anthology website, you should be able to launch a recording of it here. This page is maintained by Elly van Gelderen and can also be reached (more circuitously) via her History of English website, which offers a lot more information and many more links.

The recording on this site begins with the Latin lyrics "Perspice christicola" (the latter word is abbreviated xpicola in the manuscript, using "x" and "p" to represent the chi and rho from the Greek spelling of christos); then it shifts into the Middle English lyrics that are more familiar today.

Some lyrical links

2008-08-25T13:18:00.000-07:00

Click on the poem names below for links to online images of their texts in manuscript:

"Sumer is icumen in (The Cuckoo Song)"

"Bytuene Mersh and Averil (Alisoun)"

These images are hosted by the Wessex Parallel WebTexts Project, edited by Bella Millett (English, School of Humanities, University of Southampton). I recommend exploring the WPWT site more fully! (It's also linked to the right, under "Useful Online Resources."

Protocols for posting

2008-08-24T17:59:00.000-07:00

Ideally, an entry posted to this blog should both record an interesting thought on the part of its author and strive to provoke further thought on the part of its readers. An entry should be clear and concise, and when appropriate it should make use of the Web-based resources available to blogs (for example, links to specific other pages under discussion or to sites hosting texts or forums of interest, and images that illustrate relevant points of interest).

Posts can vary in length. A paragraph can suffice, provided it offers a complete idea or raises an interesting problem in a fully intelligible way. But a post may also constitute a brief essay in itself, if you are moved to pursue the thread of a particularly interesting topic. Given the screen-based interface, however, you should avoid posting lengthy entries that would require scrolling down for more than a few screens. If you want to sustain an argument that's longer than that, you should really break it down into a series of separate posts. That will both ease readability and help to ensure that comments are focused on discrete points of interest.

As for the topics of your posts, all I ask is that they relate to the subject of our course. How they relate is up to you! You may choose to write a response to a current text under discussion, or you may prefer to continue an argument about a broader theoretical approach. You may also use this space to solicit feedback on your own research interests, or to explore other aspects of our topic that couldn't fit it into our syllabus. Reviews and recommendations of other texts (including articles and books of criticism) are also appropriate, but make sure to avoid mere plot summary or paraphrase—give your readers a sense of the work's value and tackle its claims.

The main purpose of these blog entries is to facilitate the exchange of ideas and information among participants in our class. The exchange can be as lively and as wide-ranging as you want it to be, as focused and as deeply-considered as you can make it. I expect that we'll all learn what posts work best by simply continuing to post, read, and comment regularly. I look forward to following the progress of our blog!