Old English Literature (AD 450 – 1066) The Middle English literature (1066 – 1485)

Old English Literature (AD 450 – 1066) The Middle English literature (1066 – 1485). The Renaissance literature.

1. Analysis of Beowulf.

An Analysis of Beowulf: Symbiosis of Hero and Monster.

Beowulf is the quintessential Anglo-Saxon hero. He 
symbolises the manners and values dictated by the Germanic 
heroic code, such as loyalty, courage, courtesy, honour and 
discipline. His ironclad commitment to the heroic code with 
it's emphasis on glory in life and after death leads him 
beyond heroic necessity to excess and pride. However, for 
Beowulf to achieve immortal fame after death his heroic 
abilities must be challenged. Therefore, heroes and monsters 
must exit symbiotically in order to define each other as 
heroic or monstrous.

Seamus Heaney argues that Beowulf's encounters with 
the three monsters in the poem (essentially Grendel, 
Grendel's mother, and the dragon) "as the three agons in the 
hero's life" (xxvii) . The protagonist, Beowulf, is 
evaluated by these three antagonists and it could be argued 
that the poet exploits these three enemies as figures to 
exhibit Beowulf's physical strength and his superb ability 
as a warrior. "The monsters (in Beowulf) are not an 
inexplicable blunder of taste; they are essential, 
fundamentally allied to the underlying ideas of the poem." 
(Tolkein, Page 115). They are the perfect enemies for a 
young glory-hunter who ultimately lives for the preservation 
of earthly glory after death.

Our first impression of the great thane, Beowulf, is 
that he is the absolute antithesis of the malicious Grendel; 
indeed, even before his name is mentioned in the poem he is 
declared as "the mightiest man on earth, highborn and 
powerful". The disparity between Beowulf and Grendel is 
established immediately within the poem, but their 
relationship is symbiotic in ways. Although Beowulf is 
elevated to hero status by his people, he requires Grendel 
to exist in order for him to be heroic and to ensure this 
long-lasting fame even after his death. Similarly, Grendel 
requires Beowulf to exist in order for him to be defined as 
a monster. Beowulf is loved by the Danes, Grendel is feared. 
Grendel embodies everything that Beowulf is not, and he acts 
as an ominous reminder to all men of the importance of 
remaining true to one's lord, and of the severe, 
irrevocable implications that are thrust upon anyone who 
dares to betray one of their tribe, as Cain did when he 
slaughtered Abel.

However, perhaps there is also evidence in the poem to 
suggest that Beowulf and Grendel may not be completely 
dissimilar as would initially appear. In his battles, 
Beowulf displays his supernatural strength. In his fight 
against Grendel, even though Grendel is renowned worldwide 
for his ferocity and brutality: "he grabbed thirty 
men...blundering back with the butchered corpses" 
(122-125), he insists in fighting without the aid of 
weapons. This mysterious action can be interpreted in many 
ways. One may suggest that it is evidence of his 
"ofermod", like what the poet attributes to Byrthtnoth 
in The Battle of Maldon, that he can be as monstrous and 
bestial as Grendel, possibly even more so based on his 
victory.

Furthermore, Robin Hood is also notorious for displaying 
"ofermod" as is evident in Robin Hood and the Monk. The 
hero attempts to enter Nottingham alone, without his 
disguise and band of yeomen, and thus places himself in 
mortal danger. The hero's imprudent attitude to his own 
safety, his devotion to the Virgin, his courage and his 
determination echo the heroic scene in Beowulf, when Beowulf 
enters the dragon's lair alone. Robin Hood, like Beowulf, 
is intellectually blinded by his stringent adherence to the 
heroic code.

Seemingly, Beowulf's mission in life is to ensure the 
immortalisation of his fame at all costs. This is apparent 
from the final line of the poem, when he is remembered as 
being "the keenest to win fame" (3182). Therefore, it 
appears implausible that Beowulf would have ventured into 
battle against a deadly monster, without weapons, if he 
believed there was a strong possibility that he may be 
defeated. The likelihood of him risking his life at a 
relatively young age, and thereby putting his precious fame 
in jeopardy seems quite unlikely.

The boundary between Beowulf and the monsters is 
considerably less definite than one may have imagined. Some 
critics argue that the fearsome she-monster, Grendel's 
mother, can be seen in some ways as representative of this 
apparent merge between humans and monsters within the poem. 
In one sense, she is nothing more than another repulsive 
monster, a "monstrous hell-bride" (1259), a 
"tarn-hag" (1519). Yet, at the same time, we also see 
her as a bereaved mother, overwhelmed with sorrow and anger 
after her only son's violent death, who is determined to 
avenge his murder, a practice which would have been quite 
acceptable in those times. Perhaps then it is possible that 
she is not a typical monster and that her human attributes 
are profoundly distorted to make her less human and 
effectively more acceptable to kill despite her gender.

Similarly, this distortion of the human attributes of 
the enemy is noticeable in The Battle of Maldon. This poem 
embodies the conflict of heroism and cowardice as seen in 
the Anglo-Saxons' battle against the Vikings. The poet 
distinguishes the Vikings from the Anglo-Saxons by 
exemplifying them as "the wolves of war" (Hamer 97). The 
poet's purpose for doing this can be analysed in numerous 
ways. Perhaps the poet is attempting to dehumanise the 
Vikings by depicting them in terms of their animalistic and 
bestial qualities in order to disassociate the Anglo-Saxons 
from them. Hatred of the enemy is magnified when the 
self-other boundary is enlarged, and perhaps this is one of 
the reasons why the enemy must always be categorised on a different level.

This creation of the self-other division with the enemy 
is still evident in society today, for example if we 
consider the 9/11 terrorist attacks. "One man's 
terrorist is another man's freedom fighter". Before 9/11, 
terrorists would have been viewed, in a more positive light, 
as freedom fighters. At present, as a result of the power of 
media, freedom fighters are not seen as people attempting to attain 
freedom, but as a source of evil in itself terrorising 
humanity. The enemy's human qualities are distorted beyond 
reality in order to make it tolerable to hate and kill them.

Consequently, the symbiotic relationship which exists between Beowulf  
and the monsters in this poem cannot simply be dismissed as a simple case  
of "good versus evil", the humans being "good" and the monsters being 
"evil". By allowing us to see the complexity of these 
creatures, the author of Beowulf uncovers a newfound depth 
to the conventional stereotype of monsters. However, one 
must remain unbiased and question the presentation of the 
enemy because, as the poem illustrates, humans can be just 
as capable of carrying out the same horrific actions as beasts.

2. The Middle England. Medieval genres.

Middle English Genres:

Courtly Romance--Knight's, Man of Law's, Squire's Tale  
Breton Lay (short romantic poem, not a song)--Franklin's Tale  
Fabliaux (fable-like short story with a snappy ending)--Miller's, Reeve's, Merchant's Tale  
Tragedy (through medieval eyes, at least)--the Monk's Tale  
Exempla--Pardoner's, Wife of Bath's Tale  
Sermon (or didactic treatise)--Parson's Tale  
Beast Fable--the Nun's Priest's Tale 

About Misogynic Literature in the Middle Ages:

The Wife of Bath's complaint that literature is anti feminist because it is written by men has more recently been made a literary history. Feminist criticism has pointed out that literary history, though not outspokenly misogynist like some medieval literature, has nevertheless presented female experience and creativity from a predominantly male point of view. Because traditional literary history excludes many women writers from the canon and because it starts chronologically with periods when only a few highly privileged women could write at all, which did in fact prevail until very recent times, that authorship is essentially a male prerogative.

The ideal of virginity and Antifeminism:

Medieval literature reveals two diametrically opposed stereotypes of women, one represented by Eve, who caused the Fall of man, and the other by Mary, sometimes referred to as the Second Eve, who bore the Savior of man. The Latin Ave, the angel's salutation to Mary (Ave, Mary), it was noted at that time, is "Eva" spelled backward; and as the Fall was associated with Eve's sexuality, so salvation was associated with Mary's virginity. The medieval cult of the Virgin is closely connected with the ideal of chivalry. The image of Mary is pictured on the inside of Sir Gawain's shield (I, lines 648-50), and he is "her knight" (I, line 1769). Her power is a function of her purity: virginity is the force that enables the weak to control the strong. The mystery and idealism that surrounded virginity is very much in chivalric culture. At the other extreme, woman is seen as the seducer and betrayer of man. In the first shock of shame, when the Green Knight confronts Sir Gawain with knowledge of the green girdle, Gawain bitterly accuses the ladies who have tricked him and launches into a diatribe against women, starting with eve. Although the speech is a typical example of antifeminism, we need not take it at face value because, in the case of sophisticated writers like the Gawain poet or Chaucer, characters and even narrators don't necessarily speak for the author. The very existence of the extreme views, moreover, creates opportunities for irony that cuts in more than one direction. By making Sir Gawain, hitherto the model of chivalry, churlishly condemn women like a medieval clerk, the poet, with humor and understanding, lets us see his hero's human imperfections and the instinct of even the best of knights to blame his failure on a woman, just as Adam did. Sir Gawain, it should be noted, recovers his poise and accepts the blame for his own fault along with the green girdle as a reminder of it. 

Complex irony also qualifies the antifeminism in the "Wife of Bath's Prologue." We can easily see the irony that, by her own account, the Wife is herself the domineering, lustful, and calculating shrew painted by the antifeminist writers. That portrait, though, has been humorously exaggerated, in part by the Wife herself, whose intention, she tells the pilgrims, "nis but for to pleye" (line 198). In addition to her less admirable traits, Chaucer has endowed the Wife with humor, generosity, an irresistable zest for life, and, not least, a stubborn refusal to let herself be exploited in a world where women have no education and few rights, and where rich old men acquire young girls as property. Her "Prologue" can be read as an indictment of the culture that caricatures women and denies them any human dignity. In the Wife's marriage to her fifth husband, the former Oxford clerk who torments her with anecdotes from his "book of wikked wives" (line 691), Chaucer humorously, but also with much poignancy, portrays the clash between Woman and "Auctoritee," the clerical establishment that condemns her.  
    Fabliaux such as "The Miller's Tale" stereotype women as cunning and faithless. At the same time, the comedy creates sympathy for them, and their male victims usually deserve their fate. Like Alison and the Wife of Bath in her first three marriages, fabliau heroines are often spirited young women coupled with old husbands, and the authors sympathize with their natural impulses and desires for a freer life.  
    In The Second Shepherd's Play (which I did not assign your class to read), the Wakefield Master has created a delightful counterpoint between the two types of womanhood. Gill's and Mak's constant breeding keeps the family poor and hungry; when Mak steals a lamb, Gill, with typical female cunning, devises the scheme of disguising it as her newborn baby. The plot of the stolen lamb is followed by the Nativity scene with Gill's counterpart, the Virgin, and the true Lamb of God, the Christ Child. This juxtaposition has none of the stern opposition of "Eva" and "Ave." In the context of Christmas play, Gill and the Virgin share a common humanity with each other and with the male characters that draws our sympathy.

Noble or gentlewomen: when the noble or gentle widow happened to survive her husband or children who had died  
through violence and disease and lived herself to and advanced age, she had exceptional opportunities and motives to pursue a more consistent life of seclusion, reading, reflection, and prayer, approximating to that of a nun or a solitary, sharing their circumstances and even taking their vows. 

Courtly love  
    In theory "courtly love" has been seen as the other side of the coin of antifeminism. Scholars have used the term to designate a set of literary conventions that supposedly idealizes women and makes them into objects of worship. The lady is wooed, usually at a distance, by a knight who fights in her honor, calls himself her "servant," and suffers insomnia, anorexia, pallor, chills and fever, and other symptoms that, he insists, will be his death if he does not obtain her "mercy." (Ex. St. George, the Redcross Knight, is Una's protector, her knight. Sir Philip Sidney's lyrics is based on courtly love.) The relationship between the knight and the lady is an inversion of the relationship between lord and vassal under feudalism. Because aristocratic women were married off for rank and property, and husbands enjoyed total authority over their wives, it has been argued that courtly love was incompatible with marriage and thus necessarily clandestine, although in Chaucer's "Knight's Tale" and "Franklin's Tale" courtly suitors woo and marry their ladies. Whether courtly love had any bearing on actual social custom in the Middle Ages is a vexed question, but one may safely assume that the literature reflects a new deference toward "ladies" that still governs much of our social behavior.        

Chaucer almost always treats courtly love tongue-in-cheek. In "The Miller's Tale" the wooing of both Nicholas and  
Absolon parodies the language and gestures of courtly lovers, and of course the heroine is no lady. The Gawain poet stands courtly love on its head by having the lady woo the knight and reproach him with failing to behave like knights in romances (lines 1515-34). As with the antifeminist stereotype, the cliches about courtly love tend to dissolve when they are subjected to humor.  
        The only serious affair in the medieval section is that of Lancelot and Guinevere, but it is certainly no idealization of love or of woman. Throughout the Morte Darthur, Malory has portrayed Guinevere as imperious, passionate, and jealous. He reluctantly endorses Lancelot's loyalty to his lady, not so much because Lancelot loves her as because his honor demands it. Although forewarned, Lancelot visits her on the fatal night "Because the Queen has sent for me." On the other hand, once the adultery is made public, Arthur must have Guinevere burned at the stake because his honor requires it. Of Lancelot's rescue, Sir Gawain says, "he hathe done but knightly, and as I would have done myself and [if] I had stood in like case." What Gawain cannot forgive is Lancelot's inadvertent killing of Gawain's brothers in the course of the rescue. Lancelot's conflicting loves for Guinevere and for his brother knights ultimately destroys the Round Table. It is a conflict between love for a woman and male bonding, and the woman would be expendable were it not for the overriding consideration of honor. As Arthur ruefully confesses: "Much more I am sorrier for my good knights' loss [the loss of my good knights] than for the loss of my fair queen; for queen I might have enough, but such a fellowship of good knights shall never be together in no company."

The mysterious Pentangle  
The pentangle is a symbol of natural perfection. Gawain is said to be "faultless in his five senses" (line 640) and unfailing in his "five fingers" (line 641). (That is, he possesses the virtues of generosity or magnanimity, fellowship, chastity, courtesy, and pity or compassion). His faith in the five wounds of Christ and five joys of Mary suggests that he is the ideal Christian knight; loyalty to his lord, the cornerstone of feudal culture, is combined with devotion to Christ. Besides, it is said to be a token of truth (line 625). In accepting the magic girdle, Gawain fails a crucial test of virtue and reveals how difficult it is for a man to be the ideal Christian knight.

3. Medieval romances (Sir Thomas Malory's work, "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight").

Middle English romance was the principal form of secular literature in later medieval England. More than eighty verse romances (metrical and alliterative), composed between c.1225 and c.1500, survive, often in multiple manuscript versions and, later, in early modern prints. The single most important literary legacy of the English Middle Ages - the ancestor of the modern novel as well as almost all contemporary popular fiction, in print and on screen - the Middle English romances provide us with a provocative insight into the medieval imaginary and they repeatedly challenge our assumptions about medieval English culture and its preoccupations.

The Database of Middle English Romance seeks to make this rich body of literature more readily accessible to the modern reader, both academic and lay. Key information, including (where known) date and place of composition, verse form, authorship and sources, extant manuscripts and early modern prints, is provided for each romance, as is a full list of modern editions, and a plot summary designed to allow readers to negotiate more easily the extraordinary diversity of the genre. There are direct links to all of the modern editions that are available online. The database is searchable by manuscript, by a set of fifty 'key words' (representing common motifs and topics found in more than one romance), by verse form, and by plot summary.

STORYTELLING was the great art of the Middle Ages, and the romance was a special form of this art. It was a long-continuing and popular SIR THOMAS MALORY form; the stories that Malory told were also in substance many hundreds of years old. They were ennobled by long tradition; they were, too, believed to be true history. But they represented at the same time an enlarged picture of contemporary life. This seems one way of defining the romance. It gives an idealized version of the life of the knightly class; it is the warrior's daydream, designed for recreation (or "solace"), not instruction (or "doctrine"), and representing the average sensual man's point of view. Such stories might also reflect and celebrate contemporary events; Malory in The Tale of the Noble King Arthur that was Emperor himself through Dignity of his Hands seems to shadow the glorious campaigns of Henry V, as his sourcepoem had those of Edward III and the Black Prince. But it is quite exceptional for romances to carry religious overtones, as in the great fourteenth-century poem of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. In Malory, the Tale of the Sankgreal is a separate story, in which the religious is simply a particular department of the marvellous. Miracles or legends of the saints are the religious equivalent of the knightly romance; the marvellous was allowed a very large share in both kinds. Romance differs from epic in its readiness to include the fantastic, magical, and wishful elements largely within the action. In epic, though the world presented is enlarged and ennobled, it remains the world of everyday. It has been suggested that the epic material of one race or culture becomes romance when it is handed over to another race or culture and needs to be reinterpreted; when it has lost its social roots. Romance therefore presupposes epic; Malory recreated an epic story from romance. The hero of a medieval romance, whatever the age in which he lived, always becomes a knight. In the romances of Troy, Hector is described as a knight, the "root and stock of chivalry"; Alexander becomes a medieval king. So, too, Arthur the Romano-British chieftain was seen as a contemporary ruler surrounded by his chivalry, the knights of the Round Table. The heroic early French epic of Charlemagne and the Twelve Peers of France underwent a similar transformation. The medieval epic poem, such as Beowulf or the Song of Roland, dealt with the war leader and his band or comitatus; ultimately the structure of feudal society was based upon such bands, united by personal oaths of fidelity which bound vassal to lord and lord to vassal. The strong personal unity of a group of fighting men, in which unshakable loyalty and courage were essential for survival, developed into the feudal state in which the barons were bound to their lord the king, the lesser tenants to their own lords, and the whole structure depended upon a network of loyalties, all of a personal kind. The society depicted in the romances is the uppermost stratum of this social order. There is very little sense of the underlying and supporting levels of society. In Malory this is particularly noticeable. The churls who appear are churlishly treated, as when Lancelot strikes an uncooperative carter "a reremain," a blow over the back of his neck with a mailed fist, and summarily stretches him dead. Manners consist in giving each man his due; and the Lady Lionesse thinks a kitchen knave deserves nothing but insults. The characters in romance are elected by age as well as class. They consist almost entirely of fighting men, their wives or mistresses, with an occasional clerk or an enchanter, a fairy or a friend, a giant or a dwarf. Time does not work on the heroes of Malory; they may beget sons who grow up to manhood, without seeming to change in themselves: it is impossible to think of an old age, still less a late middle age, for Lancelot or Guinevere. There are very few old men or women, almost no infants or children. It is also a world in which family relationships, though they exist, are usually of comparatively little significance. Fathers are finally supplanted by sons (Lancelot by Galahad, Arthur by Mordred); the relation of husband to wife is a feudal and not a personal one. Brothers are related chiefly as brothers-in-arms; sisters and mothers hardly exist. The deep relationships in this world are those of knight and vassal, or its mirror image of lady and lover; and of these, the former is in Malory the most important, the last exhibiting the same virtue of fidelity which is more amply mirrored in the comradeship of arms. There is no doubt that even in the loves of Arthur, Lancelot, and Guinevere, the masculine loyalties triumph. It is the mature recognition of responsibility for their guilt toward society that keeps Lancelot and Guinevere apart in the end. So later still Sir Lancelot laments over the two he had loved.