Are We More Tolerant than Medieval Europe?

While I was reading the Nederman exerts, I kept wondering if we (by which I mean Americans in 2010) are more tolerant than the peoples of medieval Europe. Are we so far removed from the "monolithic persecuting society" of the Middle Ages to which Nederman refers? As a believer that history repeats itself, I would suggest that we are not, though our intolerance in more subtle and unspoken. We don't make polemical statements such as Roland's "Christians are right and pagans are wrong". We don't care for people who show outright and malicious intolerance (such as the Arian Brotherhood, the Ku Klux Klan, and the West Borough Baptist Church. We pride ourselves on our tolerance of beliefs and lifestyles different from our own. After all, we tell ourselves, America is a place founded on the idea of equality and freedom for all. Americanism, then, is the binding element of our culture, much as Christianity was for medieval Europe. But, we tell ourselves, Americanism holds tolerance as a central tenant, unlike medieval Christianity.

However, the history of this country has shown we have been anything but tolerant. Racism has and continues to have a volatile presence in America and has shaped much of its history, culture, and law. Some modern wars might be labeled holy wars and be compared to the crusades. Gender and gender roles continue to be problematic, despite seeming advances of activist and suffrage movements. Christianity has been and is a domineering and influential force in both the private and public realms. Violence has and still is committed against deviant groups. Patriotism and nationalism still rides high, and while many may never say it, they believe the American way of life is superior to all others in the world. Aren't all of the attitudes, actions, and historical references I've just listed the very things we say made Medieval Europe intolerant? Are we really different from them? Is tolerance just something we give lip service to?

Of course, when I say "we" and "Americans" I am speaking of a collective and not of individuals. I am making generalizations without considering specifics. But this is also true of Medieval Europeans. As Nederman shows, medieval Europeans did conceive of tolerance and argued for it. Even within Christianity there was recognized diversity. And there were certainly individuals who rebelled against social norms. What might distinguish us from the medieval Europeans is the way we deal with intolerance. We are not burning heretics at the stake, executing sexual deviants, or confining women to the home. But we share the attitudes that caused the medieval Europeans to do these things. And who is to say we may not do these things some day? As long as these attitudes persist, intolerance will continue to grow and may become as brutal and deadly as it was in the past.

The Middle Ages as a Monstrous Other

Even taking the past on its own terms and not imposing our modern understanding, it is impossible not to look at the Middle Ages and be constantly aware of how different the world was six hundred and more years ago. There are moments where a reader of medieval literature can easily find familiarity, but those moments are greatly overshadowed by the largely overlooked differences.

The Middle Ages form an other simply in the fact that that era is past and no scholar of the present can identify with it fully. We are outsiders looking in, but there's a thick pane in the glass of time that we just can't get past. Does our interest make the Middle Ages less of an other, because we so often seek and find ourselves in the people of our past? Or does our fascination reverberate with a further othering, because we cannot fully understand? Perhaps we are intrigued by the Middle Ages the way the Roland poet or the Beowulf poet seem fascinated with a religious culture not their own, and yet fail to fully prevent their self-understanding from color how they understand that other.

I am constantly reminded by the people I know who aren't medieval scholars that this era that fascinates me has no hold on their interest. My peers in the theatre department were teasing me just this morning for knowing the meaning of the -wright in playwright as 'to make' or 'to build.' It seems every little thing I know has something to do with Middle English, which one friend jokingly imitates by mumbling through his beard incoherently. If I am in some small way othered by my study of the Middle Ages, then to the general population outside our small world of medievalists, how much of an other must the era itself be?

Perhaps in some ways it is monstrous too. Life was terrible then, people say. No indoor plumbing, no central heating, the plague, low life expectancy. Every child who wants to be a princess or a knight eventually grows up to realize that in the Middle Ages they probably would have been a peasant and dead in their twenties or thirties. It's frightening to imagine living then. The Middle Ages are monstrous to us indeed, even if those who study it are perhaps desensitized to it. Why else would we equate the Middle Ages positively as just the time between better eras, and negatively as the Dark Ages?

Taking the Past Seriously

I liked that Nederman ended his conclusion with a plea that we take the past seriously. Though his words immediately preceding this sentence indicate that he meant that Medieval Europe should be considered when we attempt to understand our current political and philosophical environment, I feel like his words could be used to address some of the recurring issues we have had in our class.

Taking the past seriously means that we must endeavor to understand the Europe of the Middle Ages on its own terms; instead of just imposing our current intellectual categories onto the literary figures of the past, we also should attempt to interpret them using the categories that were available at the time. I am not saying that there is not a valuable interpretation to be made of, for example, Sir Gawain as a homosexual or Margery Kempe as delusional, but that interpretation should be aware of the temporal imperialism that is enacted as a result. The attitude in much of those claims seems to be that the writers of the Middle Ages were children, unaware of the true meaning of their words and of their narratives, and that it is up to us, the adults of history, to tell them what they mean.

In terms of Nederman's broader discussion of toleration, I feel that this means that we should be wary of dismissing the tolerance that was present in medieval Europe, just because it does not look or sound like the tolerance we practice (or sometimes fail to practice) today. Expecting to see ourselves reflected back in the literature of centuries ago seems a much less satisfying intellectual pursuit than tracing the reflections of that same literature in our culture today.

Kempe and Christ

When we read the anti-semitic passages in class today, I was bothered when Kempe says to the Jews, "You cursed Jews, why slay you my Lord Jesus Christ? Slay me rather, and let me go" (140). Doubtless this plea is a strong emotional response to Christ's passion, but it perhaps betrays a serious misunderstanding of Christian theology for Kempe. According to Catholic doctrine and the Bible, Christ had to die for the salvation of the world, and only Christ's death could achieve this. God would only accept Christ's death because Christ lived a sinless life. Kempe, by her own frequent admission, is a sinner, and whatever special grace God has bestowed on her, she is not Christ. Yet, in this passage, she is offering herself as a substitute for Christ. She should know that Christ's death, as horrible as it was in her imagining, was absolutely necessary for salvation. If she really wants the Jews to crucify her instead, is she suggesting that her death will atone for the sins of the world or is she forgetting that if Christ doesn't die, there is no hope for her?

This is not the only place where Kempe tries to be a stand-in for Christ. Throughout the text, she mentions how people malign her, accuse her of being demon-possessed, and being a radical. Christ’s contemporaries spoke similarly of him. Kempe also challenges the religious authorities of her day, just as Christ did. She endured increasing hardships later in life, being abandoned by loved ones and her followers, just as Jesus was. Jesus called his disciples to be like him, and Kempe, like many aspiring saints, is striving to imitate her Lord. But at what point do they stop trying to be like Christ and think they have become equal with him or even surpass him? In Kempe’s case it is difficult to tell, but the fact that she went to such lengths to get her biography written done shows she wanted someone to know of her efforts.

Epileptic and Anorexic

Julius Cesar was an epileptic. There are many evidences about it and there is not any author I know who actually denies it. Of course the Romans did not say that he was epileptic, but said he had a sacred illness that put him in contact with the gods. Julius Cesar probably believed this himself, and it is very probably that epilepsy was one of the reasons to actually increase his self esteem. Nowadays, however, there is not any author who argues that he was actually touched by the gods and that epilepsy is just a modern interpretation of the phenomenon. Of course none of us actually believes in the Roman gods, they are just poetic figures used time to time as metaphors…

In the case of Margerie Kempe, however, her evident anorexia is read as some spiritual other thing. Of course she and her contemporaries read it as some religious fast and put much of spiritual content in it, but, even with its spiritual content, that was anorexia. Nowadays, anorexia is socially encouraged with the name of “diet” and actual diets really become alimentary disorders with enough similarities with Margerie’s disorders. Fasts were also socially encouraged during the Middle Ages, and the line that separated the pious fast from the alimentary disorder was equally thin.

Why we cannot say that Margerie had anorexia in a pious version, just as we say that Cesar had epilepsy in his own Roman version, but epilepsy on the bottom line?

Margery Kempe's Monstrous Otherness

At first I didn't find anything odd about reading a book by a woman in a class about the monstrous and the other. Femininity was a massive point of othering, so of course it makes sense to read something exploring that group. But the more I read of Margery's book, the more clear it becomes that Margery is not really a part of 'that group.' She is not othered just because she is a woman, she is othered even from women by being almost monstrously different.

A large part of what makes Margery 'not quite right' to those whom she writes as her contemporaries is the fact that she does not behave as a woman should. She screams in church, she refuses to sleep with her husband, she goes off traveling, she claims knowledge of God. Some of what she does may even be slightly less weird because she is a woman - we would all be raising our eyebrows a little higher if a man was writing about being wedded to the Godhead. But most of Margery's oddities would be a problem for a man as much as for a women. Pilgrims who want a jolly supper would probably have been just as unfriendly to a man trying to talk about solemn church things all the time, and they probably would have been even less gentle kicking him out of their company. If a man screamed in church, the parishioners would be just as annoyed. If a layman was claiming direct access to God, he would have been dubbed just as much a false Lollard as Margery was.

Margery's experience is not what anyone would call that of a normal or average woman in late medieval England. So if she is not part of an othered group, can she still be an other? Or is it when a definite other cannot be grouped in with others of its ilk that it becomes - as perhaps Margery does - a monster?

Margery the Loud

Something that we touched on in class yesterday was the volume of Margery's demonstrations of devotion through weeping, crying and roaring loudly during church services a dinners. Even though we addressed how this behavior would have seemed jarring in her church and her larger community, I feel like her loudness is especially interesting within the context of the silent Christian women we have encountered in our previous texts.

Silence seems to be a key characteristic of the literary Christian women, beginning with our encounter with Julianna of The Song of Roland. As a Saracen queen, she had a voice and used it to express her anger against her failed gods, but once she is converted, her voice is not heard again. Similarly, when Silence is publicly returned to the realm of women by marrying the king, we as readers are cut off from her thoughts and words. Margery, who seems to want everyone to hear her feelings, seems to be cut from an entirely different cloth.

In writing her autobiography, Margery is obviously speaking to her book's audience, but she is also implicitly arguing for the value of her voice among the faithful. We can think of this as just a "PR campaign for sainthood," which I am sure it at least partially is, but I think that is too narrow an interpretation. She, and many of the other women mystics at the time, are redressing the tradition of silence around their place in Christian discourse.

Even though, if I were part of her fellowship, I would probably also be put off by her constant weeping through dinner, her daring in publicly and with great volume expressing the truth of her connection to God should not be underestimated.

No Good Wife

There is an almost comical moment in chapter 11 of The Book of Margery Kempe when her husband asks her “whether you [Margery] would allow my head to be cut off, or else allow me to make love with you again, as I did at one time?” When she replies, “Truly, I would rather see you being killed, than that we should turn back our uncleanness,” it seems he is justified in telling her “you are no good wife.”

This small scene evoked from me two responses to Margery’s devotion to God. The first, and more likely intended response was: wow, that’s an intense love of God. However, my second though was: Well, she might resent this guy who got her pregnant 14 times, and not that she’s seeking revenge, but seeing him go might not be a heartbreaker. Of course in the end, Margery cares for her husband preceding his death, thus to a certain extent proving a defense to both my second reaction, and her husband’s allegation that she is a no good wife.

The Book of Margery Kempe seems as much about self-expression as it is self-defense. The third person provides an interesting lens through which to view her spiritual autobiography. While it appears to be a revealing third person account and the reader is aware of emotional struggles etc. the view of a third person narrator gives a sense of remove from Margery that a first person account would not provide. Rather than seeing through Margery Kempe’s eyes, we are focused on Margery Kempe. While I would not argue that this third person account is objective, it does seem to assert authority by at least posing as more than her personal view of the world.

Devout or Delusional?

Margery Kempe can either be called devout or delusional. In her own time, it seems many took the later rather than the former view. In her biography, those who witness her constant prayer and weeping think she is trying to get attention or is neglecting her duties. The few friends she has are frustrated with her. Even Jesus seems exasperated with her at times.

This is all typical for visionary literature of the medieval period. The visionary, especially if it was a woman, was often ridiculed. But the visionary took the scorn and derision as proof that her visions were valid. The more Kempe is criticized, the more fervently she prays and fasts and weeps for her sins. Her love for Jesus becomes more eroticised - she wishes he would come down from the crucifix and embrace her. She prefers her mystical lover to her husband. Again, this was common with such literature. Some of these female mystics would not even look at men so they wouldn't be distracted from their Lord. Some were nuns, literally called "the brides of Christ". The "prayers" and "mystical encounters" with Jesus could be read as love poetry or amorous dialogues. Jesus is all they desire.

For some of these female mystics, it is easy to see what might have caused them to break from reality (or have closer communion with Jesus, however one wishes to see it). For Kempe, I think it is less obvious. She comes from a wealthy family and has married well. It seems after she nearly dies in child birth that the change happens. Is this the effects of postpartum depression? Has her near-death experience caused schizophrenia (or conversion?)Or as with other mystics, did her visions (hallucinations?) come after a long period of extreme fasting, sleep deprivation, and bodily penitence?

What about the elephant in the room?

Our last set of readings arrived to one conclusion: there were homosexuals or gay people in the Middle Ages. Any other metaphor, poetic image or even any convention about using male pronouns to talk about women cannot keep our attention away from this fact: the elephant in the room. The idea of sex in the Middle Ages was strongly identified to intercourse, a possibility given by nature only to men, therefore, the absence of lesbianism in the discourse about (against) homosexuality should not surprise us.

The Catholic clergy has been always a common place of sexual tension: sex of any class was forbidden. One can think that many of men enclosed together and talking about love could find a lot of temptation, even though if they were not originally gay, as happens in our prisons nowadays. Young boys without secondary sexual characteristics were appealing to the old priests and the boiling activity of their adolescence was also an open door for temptation and consummation.

Women dressed as males are also a common place in the Middle Ages, beginning with Jean D'Arc herself. However, the male clothes on a woman often were justified by some higher purpose, but the question about the sexuality of those virgins in male garments is at least intriguing... or may be not, and the answer is more obvious than what The Romance of Silence wants to admit.

In both cases, male and female, friendship was in fuzzy place, and the terms to refer to it were quite ambiguous. Except in some poems, as in the Jewish poets studied in our last sessions, the terms to describe men are quite feminine, as Perceval's red lips. 

Personally, I think that sexuality of any kind is impossible to repress and that it finds always the ways for its consummation. The Middle Ages seems to be not an exception. However, was it not a veiled subject? The Roman of Silence did not talk about sex, except for Eufeme who was under a wrong impression. There were rules of alleged grammar that allowed the poet to use male pronouns to talk about women. Were not those a strategy to actually talk about men and make the poems pass as an stylistic innovation, even though if they were used to actually talk about women many times?

Probably sexual indiscretions were not weird, and only characters as this Allan of Lille were actually concerned about the offenses against Nature and not only about only keeping the face. Anyway, sex of any kind was illicit outside of marriage, and, if we believe our texts, Middle Ages were plenty of it!

Al Sharif al-Taliq and Lacan

I found Richard Serrano's article "Al-Sharif al-Taliq, Jacques Lacan, and the Poetics of Abbreviation," a little problematic because I wasn't sure exactly how his conception of the writer trying to conceal or cover "the original trauma of the poem" in Lacanian terms differed from the way poetry normally works. I also wasn't sure, moreover, how his employment of Lacan's theories differed from conventional literary interpretation.

He states that the trauma is an event that exists beyond or before language, behind the "accessible Symbolic Order," and that attempts to describe or relate trauma via language also, necessarily, obscure it. He writes, "Attempts to account for this moment - and, simultaneously, to hide it - result in language that constantly obscures the original trauma yet relentlessly points back to it" (141). So - if I'm understanding this right - if I attempted to relate via writing a traumatic experience, I would simultaneously obscure the original traumatic episode with imperfect language and, at the same time, still refer to it because it is the point of my writing.

But how does this differ from the way poetry normally works? Metaphors, similes, figures of speech, etc. all operate to point to an experience but, since they cannot perfectly render the experience for us, they could also be said to obscure said experience at the same time. And, of course, we measure a poet by how well he employs metaphors, similes, figures of speech, etc. which ties into Serrano's idea that the "cover up" functions as a mechanism for self-glorification for the poet. My point is, though, that you can get to his conclusion without having to resort to Lacanian theory or employ such terms as "trauma" or "psychoanalysis."

I just had a lot of "duh" moments as I was reading the article and I got the feeling that Serrano was hiding behind the buzz word "Lacan" whilst performing good, old-fashioned literary interpretation.

The Irrelevance of Gender

Like Parzival and Silence, the poems in these excepts emphasize an ideal of beauty that is not gender specific. The young men of the Hebrew love poetry and the cup-bearer of Al-Sharif al Taliq's poem are both described in what we would now consider to be feminine terms - the lips, flushed cheeks, slender thighs and thin waist are all physical attributes that we would not consider fully masculine today. Rather, they are signs of youth, boyishness, or femininity - all qualities that make the young man of the poet's gaze an object of desire to the presumably older man.

(This makes me wonder if there is much poetry celebrating masculine beauty from this time. I would think that objectifying a full-grown man would be seen as transgressive, as would the expression of female desire, but I could be wrong.)

What I thought was most interesting was Serrano's comment that the sex of the beloved in Al-Sharif al Taliq's writing is actually not known, nor is it important: "The use of the masculine pronoun in referring to the beloved...does not necessarily mean that he is male. Love poems of this period sometimes addressed women with masculine pronouns and masculine forms of nouns. The gender of the addressee here is ambiguous and probably irrelevant" (153).

According to Serrano, all extra-marital desire was considered illicit, so the desire of a man for a young man instead of a young woman would not have been thought of as any more scandalous to express. Where we would now view the divide between homosexual and heterosexual desire as stark, the line between marriage and non-marriage was the primary consideration.

The Desire of the King

Our final class discussion on Silence, during which we noted that Silence seems to be a character devoid of desire, made me question our reading of King Evan's desire. We assume, that because he chooses at the end to marry his young and beautiful great-niece, that he desires her sexually and we see him as a creepy old man because of it.

If we look more closely at the end of the poem, however, we can see that the poet never mentions Evan's physical attraction to Silence. Instead, when she is revealed to be a woman, he praises her only for her loyalty to her father's wishes: "Indeed the price of your loyalty / is far above that of my royalty. / There is no more precious gem, / nor greater treasure, than a virtuous woman" (Lns 6630-6634). Though he is comparing her to a "gem," his language is hardly romantic - the virtue of loyalty is one shared by men and women. Silence's loyalty to the king was, in fact, probably best demonstrated when she was a knight and fighting the rebellious counts on his behalf. He could also be emphasizing her loyalty in comparison to the disloyalty of his wife; perhaps after being betrayed by Eupheme, he desires a new wife who will be as loyal as a knight.

Still, his final decision to marry Silence is seen as a result of much consultation, rather than personal feelings: "Then the king took her to wife - / that's what it said in the book where I found this story - / on the advice of his / most loyal and trusted advisers" (Lns 6676-6680). The advisers seem to have an interest in Silence being married off, in being silenced and brought back into proper gender roles. Perhaps marrying her to the king would mediate the scandal produced by her successful knighthood? She could no longer be perceived as such a threat once she is allied so closely with the king.

Whether the final marriage was a political solution devised by the king's counselors, or the king's decision to marry a more knight-like bride, or the poet's attempt to re-inscribe Silence into a feminine role, it appears far removed from the courtly love of Silence's parents.

Cross Dressing

The motives of Silence seem to be almost as pure as Joan of Arc’s. The debate between nature and nurture is at least weird: it is about Merlin and his veganism and not plainly about Silence. In the case of Silence, nurture has some altruist reason, as preserving her inheritance –it does not seem that altruist now, but it is some family duty at the time. The story is far from sexual motivations and, as always in feminine transvestites, the clothes are for some other purpose different of a sex or gender matter. The Eufeme affair is just collateral damage and a tool to put a little of drama in the story.

The male transvestite in the “Silence” impersonates a nun and his disguise is a trick to get to Eufeme, the queen, who is not precisely a trustable woman. For a male dressing as woman could be only a trick or joke; women transvestism obeys to higher purposes, extreme circumstances and it ends to be a proof of virtue, just as in the case of Jeanne d’Arc.The end of the book is interesting: Silence, back in her feminine form, marries the king who was her former boss and friend and becomes the queen. Is this a sign that virtues are always proper of males? 

The word ‘virtue’ comes from the Latin word ‘virtus’ that also derivates from ‘vir’, the Latin word for man.

Are virtues conceived as a primary masculine quality and only accidental and scarce among women? Silence male actions are praised and she is considered a virtuous woman…

Nurture and the Devil

I was interested that the final debate between Nurture and Nature ends so firmly on the side of Nature, and even goes so far as to say that Nurture was the ultimate reason for the fall of mankind: "Nothing was ever in Adam / except what God created / and placed there. / It is not like God / to leave an evil nature in him to claim him...Whatever evil Adam did / was due to you, Nurture, without a doubt, / for the Devil fed him / evil, rotten advice." (Line 6057 - 6070)

This stark division of Nurture and Nature along the lines of good and evil seemed surprising, but slightly less so when I considered the relation between God and Nature in the poem. In many of the previous sections, Nature is shown to be the creator of man - a creator who occasionally makes mistakes and allows a little rough flour in with the fine - but in the relation of the fall of mankind, only God is given creative powers, and he never makes mistakes. If Nature is simply the agent of God (helping with the work of creating a larger population?), and Nurture has "opposed [Nature] ever since the first man / sinned be eating that apple" (Lines 6046-6047), then Nurture is in some way consistently interfering with God's work.

Still, considering that Nurture is the reason that Silence was able to grow into the person she becomes- valiant, brave, and strong as well as beautiful - I was taken aback that it would be so explicitly associated with the Devil. The text even seems to argue that the nurturing of Silence allows greater wrongs, such as King Evan's not allowing women to inherit, be redressed. Silence's story may end with her reversion to her Nature, but the story would not have existed had Nurture not taken precedence for a large part of Silence's life.

Silence of Men

In the end Silence appears to be rewarded for her loyalty. The king is actually fairly explicit in saying “Silence, know that you have saved yourself / by your loyal actions (6636-6637).” Loyalty thus is held in high virtue by the poem.

It is interesting that by remaining quiet Silence’s loyalty is displayed in contrast to the queen’s disloyalty. (Perhaps this suggests that silence itself can be revealing, as if silence is a nonverbal statement of sorts). When the poet discusses Queen Eufeme and her lover’s executions, her lover is referred to as the nun—even though in reality he is neither a nun nor even female. While this execution implies that both men and women are subject to loyalty and the consequences of disloyalty, the use of language (the reference to the man as “nun”) only seems to implicate and pass judgment women.

On the one hand, the praise of Silence and her loyalty seems to be positive for women. However, the poet outright says that doing the right thing comes unnaturally to women, making Silence a sort of anomaly. It is as if to say she is as brave valiant and loyal as a man, how bizarre.

The conclusion makes no straightforward judgment of men, rather men seem to be used as a comparison to the women. It is curious that while loyalty affects both women and men (the nun in this case) the men are left in the silence of the poet. The silence seems to suggest that men are inherently more loyal than women. This seems to be achieved through the indirect description of men (“a woman has less motivation” (6588)), by cues of being opposite of the women that the poet directly addresses. Therefore, silence again seems to make a statement.

The Ending of "Silence"

We'll soon be coming to the ending of Silence which, I'm going to assume, will frustrate a lot of people. I'm not sure what I was expecting regarding Silence's end as I read through the text but I know that I was not expecting the ending we got. Prof. Wenthe noted that I argued in my presentation that the ending of Silence need not be a statement that the restoration of gender categories wins at the end of the day and I hold by that statement which puts me at odds with Sharon Kinoshita. But I don't know if I would say that I am optimistic - as Prof. Wenthe puts it - about the ending. The ending to me just represents one of the many ways that gender can manifest itself in the text and need not represent THE way - hence, possibility as opposed to limitation. Otherwise, Silence's end would be a major letdown.

I think the text practices a form of contained subversion which would address why the text seemingly seems to reinforce traditional conceptions of gender while, at the same time, reinforcing a less conventional, more unstable one. In order for the text to "pass" it must conform to normative values and ideologies but underneath this layering is one that threatens to plunge these same normative values and ideologies into disarray. And, so, Silence's end is just a ruse (I hope) in order to deflect attention away from those aspects of the text that might be deemed too controversial or revolutionary.

It's unfortunate that we have no record of its reception in the thirteenth century because I think such information would really help us determine what may or may not be happening in the text.

Silence in the Romance Thereof

It feels fairly obvious that Silence is not so named for nothing. I feel the need to use male pronouns when talking about Silence's outward life, because Heldris has thus far only used feminine pronouns when Silence is having a crisis of identity and is about to decide to live as a woman.

So he is obviously named Silentius for the secrecy he lives under. Although he is regularly unsure of whether he should remain a he, his silence and that of his parents and friends is what keeps it going. But the very name calls our attention not only to other uses of the word silence, but also points where sound in incongruous with it.

At Silence's naming, Cador says, 'Silence relieves anxiety' (2069). That is fairly straightforward, 'silence' serves as both the child and calmness, peace. But then, after hearing of Silence's disappearance, when Heldris is describing the grief of Cador and Eufemie, he mentions it being 'appropriate to keep silent' over one's grief (3032). Is the reference to the cause of their grief her intended? The jongleurs, shortly thereafter, are silenced that Silence might play (3158). How odd it is, that Silence is in fact the only one permitted to not be silent!

A final set of weighty uses of Silence's name top off the first half of the poem. While Silence is overhearing the plots against him, 'Silence was listening and heard them' (3403). And, 'Silence didn't want to utter a word' (3410). And yet, it is through sound that Silence, who, with a capital S, reads more like the embodiments of Nature and Nurture than any other character, easily sends the treacherous jongleurs on their way.

Silence is not a Transgendered Person

Since it's inevitable that the topic of gender with come up in "Silence", I want to say that I don't think the poem can relate to contemporary theories of transgenderism or queerness. "Silence" might seem conducive to such topics, but the text does not lend itself to such a reading. It is clear that Silence is being raised as a boy due to King Evan's law which states only sons may inherit. A lengthy passage assures us that Nature spared nothing to make Silence the most beautiful girl possible. Her biological gender is never in dispute - no ambiguous genitalia or hermaphroditic characteristics. She is without a doubt female. The fact that her parents take so many precautions to hide her from society attests to this. Silence is also well aware that she is a girl and understands why she must act and appear as a boy. It is not as though she fells like a boy trapped in a girl's body and wants her physical gender to match her emotional/psychological gender. Neither is her situation permanent. She only need perform as a boy until she comes into her inheritance or until her parents have a son. This all stands in contrast to the modern conceptions of transgenderism, where a person seeks to identify with or become another gender. Silence is a tale more similar to several Shakespeare plays where a character must perform as the opposite sex to achieve an end, but steps out of that role once the end is achieved. This is also similar to the plot of "Mrs. Doubtfire", where Robin Williams' character must act like an woman to be with his children. He does not surgically want to be transformed into a woman anymore than Silence wants to be. Both are disguising themselves for a purpose, and once that purpose is accomplished, the disguise is removed. They are not transgendered people, they are actors trying to survive.

Unnatural

Alan of Lilly is very depressed about homosexuality. At least, that is what we as modern readers would say. The text, however, never uses this word, since it was coined long after Alan was writing. Instead he chooses to compare this perversion of nature as a perversion of grammar. Why does he do this? It would seem, in his mind, that the issue is to do with fruitfulness. Just as “proper” (by which I mean heterosexual) sex can produce children, so too does proper grammar beget language. “Gay” sex is not reproductive, so in Alan’s way of thinking, it is unnatural, because, according to him, it is natural that sex results in offspring. This is how it is with the long catalogue of creatures and plants that appear on Nature’s garments. Nature is fruitful, so anything that is not fruitful, or barren, is unnatural. Grammar, too, must produce language, so if grammar is perverted in the same way sex is, it will be sterile. This is why Alan (and other people) are afraid of homosexuality. For them, it works against the fecundity of nature. If plants, animals, and people do not reproduce, what will happen to the world? It is a depressing thought. This is why Nature makes her plea or plaint. Her whole existence is based on reproduction. Nature is all the living things that inhabit the world (as represented on her robe). They are both producers and products of her. If they die out, she will die out, and vice versa. That is why it is so important for her and Alan to stamp out anything unnatural. It will destroy everything.

What Alan Leaves Out

Alan of Lille gives what seems to be an extensive list of animalia when describing the cloak and vestments of Nature in The Plaint of Nature. His structure to this leaves vast room for analysis of how each creature merited importance and what apparently did not.

Alan goes through the birds first, listing at least 34 by my count. It includes birds of prey, exotic birds, commonplace birds, domestic birds, woodland birds, mountain birds, you name it. Aside from considering a bat to be a bird, for which we must forgive Alan given the knowledge of his time, the list is fairly comprehensive. Only 16 fish are named, but they span salt and fresh water, edible and not - also fairly comprehensive.

The land animals less so. We have 27... mammals. Alan gets a good range in, from elephants to squirrels and including even the fanciful unicorn, and yet he only considers the furry critters among us to be worth mention. Why does Alan leave out reptiles, amphibians and - possibly the least forgivable - bugs? It seems that insects and arachnids, etc should be plenty noticeable to Alan, so he does not have the excuse that perhaps lizards and frogs were not present in his mind. Is Alan suggesting by omission that such creatures are not so much within the domain of nature? Or was it merely something he overlooked?

On a tangentially related note - why is it that Alan never mentions Helen of Troy by name? She becomes the Curly's wife of The Plaint of Nature. But while he seems to have no problem with direct name-dropping, why does Alan shy from using hers? Virgil, too, is brought up by periphrasis, though not repeatedly like Helen. Paris and Aeneas, matching to each, are mentioned easily - so why not these?

Dear Uncle, what ails you?

In contrast to The Nibelungenlied, Parzival seems to end on a hopeful note. Anfortas is relieved of his suffering, Condwiramurs and Parzival are reunited, and Feirefiz falls in love. When the question is finally revealed, I was thrilled to see that it returned to the concept of compassion, a concept Parzival perhaps mastered in the end.

What seemed particularly compelling and refreshing through the reading of Parzival was the compassion displayed in the “othered” or “monstrous” characters. Of course Cundrie is described in quite animalistic terms (“Her nose was like a dog’s…Cundrie’s ears resembled a bear’s…p. 163) which makes her physically monstrous, but her temperament is nothing like Grendel’s mother or Morgan Le Fey, who have intentions of being destructive. As we’ve discussed in class, Cundrie understands the disposition Parzival must demonstrate in order to find the graal.

Likewise, another character who is physically othered is Feirefiz, with his magpie complexion. In the fight scene between Parzival and Feirefiz we see a form of compassion from Feirefiz when Parzival’s sword breaks; instead of killing Parzival he calls a truce. Perhaps the loophole in the argument of Feirefiz’s compassion would be the reference to “the hand of Him on high. May He avert their dying! (p. 371)” Either way, I am compelled the “infidel was magnanimous” whether it was inspired by God or not (p. 371).

And while it would be difficult to conflate these two characters into a single race (based on physical appearance and background) their physical “otherness” would bring them into a category separate from Parzival himself. However, if otherness translates to a category and perhaps a simple understanding of race, this particular picture painted by Wolfram and translated to our modern views could be hopeful; both Parzival and the “others” share an understanding of compassion. If there is compassion between categories, perhaps we end in hope.

Parzival's Damsels in Distress

Sharon Kinoshita, in an article titled "The Politics of Courtly Love: La Prise d'Orange and the Conversion of the Saracen Queen," argues that possession of the Saracen woman became a surrogate for and a means of possession of the Saracen world. She examines Orable from La Prise d'Orange and argues that Guillaume Fierebrace's conquest of her is really a symbolic conquest of the city. I think this also rings true for the possession of women - both Saracen and not - in Parzival; more often than not, the women are linked to a throne or region that needs governance and the knight who "wins" her almost always "wins" a kingdom in the process.

After Gahmuret and the Queen of Zazamanc unite, the Queen makes clear what the noble knight has won: "I and my lands are subject to this knight," she declares to her people and she later echoes this sentiment via her letter: "Return, and from my hands receive a crown, sceptre and kingdom that have been bequeathed to me" (49). Likewise, Condwiramurs is trying to protect both "land and person" from Clamide's "wooing" and, instead, "bestowed her lands and castles on him [Parzival], for he was the darling of her heart" (110). The woman-land conflation is all over Parzival and seems to suggest that women's bodies do not function merely as their own but also as cultural signifiers.

Kinoshita's above article implies that women's bodies act as signifiers for their culture; that, essentially, the representation of conquest of an entire people can be brought out by the conquest of a single individual. This is problematic because this "site" then becomes a figurative battlefield as opposed to belonging to the individual herself thus raising the question: what would happen if women became agents and knights of their own, pursuing lands and saving others from harm, as opposed to acting as signs for conquest or the conquered?

The Question

The purpose of the Question is not so much for Parzival to know what the Question is, so much as to test whether he's the kind of person who would ask the Question. So why is Parzival still out of luck?

The little courtly training Parzival has had served to curb his natural inquisitiveness. The little Parzival who asked the knight if he was God probably would have asked so many questions during the Gral procession that he would have hit the right one eventually. But the more grown up Parzival - the very same knight who gets welcomed to the Table Round - has other things on his mind. After the Gral comes out, the first we hear of Parzival is only peripherally related to the Gral: "This tale declares that Parzival gazed and wondered on that lady intently who had brought in that Gral, and well he might, since it was her cloak that he was wearing" (125-126). Parzival's thoughts are at least in the right direction, but he is distracted by the gesture he received from the Gral-bearer. Would he have thought of the Question if she had not given him her cloak?

It seems Parzival is put more at a disadvantage by the reception of his hosts than by incapability to ponder. "...they had come to know heartfelt grief. Parzival was not made to know this in any way" (121). Sure, Parzival should notice that the lord of the castle is incredibly ill, but he specifically says that God crippled his body - how was Parzival to know that his compassion could remedy that misery?

If Parzival was supposed to be the kind of person who would as the Question, I am not convinced that not being that person makes him quite the terrible churl that Sigune and Cundrie declare him to be. Parzival was acting in a perfectly rational and polite way given the information that was presented to him, so why should he have to bear such insults because the folks at Wildenberg were disappointed after hardly giving him a chance?

Atonement

It seemed appropriate that just after Parzival is chastised by his cousin for not asking “the question” he bumps into the scanty covered Jeschute who is running from her husband Orilus. Of course many years earlier Parzival caused lady Jeschute much pain and suffering when, in youthful ignorance, he ate her food and stole her jewels.

In the two encounters thus far with Parzival’s cousin, Sigune, she seems to unwittingly direct him toward his future. In their first encounter she informs him of who he is, and points in a direction away from her lover’s killer that just so happens to lead to Arthur’s court. In Parzival’s next encounter with Sigune she seems to send him off in a state of dispair. However this is perhaps his beginning path towards the graal?

If so, it therefore seems appropriate that Parzival bumps into Jeschute; his actions with her seem to be a sort of blemish of his past. It might be unlikely that Parzival could achieve the graal with this sin hanging over his head. Although this situation does not seem to be the highly planned test we saw in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it does seem to be a chance for atonement for Parzival. And it may be that only because he is able to reconcile Jeschute and Orilus, he can move forward towards his goal.

Talking about the sarracen woman...

It is very simple: the Christian, white, Franc and European people are the good ones. The black and pagans are the bad ones. There is nothing relative about this values; loyalty is not a value unless someone is loyal to the Christian, white, Franc and Euorpean people. Women who are loyal to their own blood are simply bad women, even though, or especially if they show the same virtues that Christians show to their own people. Values are not some abstract premises that claim to be universal standards as Kant´s ethics. The true values are the values that we believe and we believe them because they are ours; the beautiful women are our white blond women. If someone can marvel about this phenomenon, is because he or she did not watch cowboys movies in where the pale faces were always the good ones and the red skins were the bad guys. A nationalist narrative is not the search of the Universal Good or a treatise of ethics: is simply the affirmation of a nation –or an ethnicity in this case –as the holders of the truth. If there is a desirable princess for one of “our” princes, it is because she is in some way similar to us. This truth is not a metaphysic one. These texts are so far from that! This truth is the kind of truth that Nietzsche used to declare: “Truth is what is convenient to life.” Not what is convenient to every life, but to “our” life specifically, and that is the life of Christian, white, and European people. This idea is still strong. We just have to look to any TV commercial to acknowledge that “we” still believe that our women are the most beautiful, our religion the only true and our culture the only valuable. This voice spoke through Angela Merkel a few days ago: “We feel tied to Christian values. Those who don’t accept them don’t have a place here…” Middle Ages are finished, are they?

A Weak Anchor

It is ironic that Gahmuret’s emblem is an anchor. He is always so restless, always seeking adventure, and (to put it in modern psychological terms) has serious commitment issues. He is unstable and flighty, not the characteristics usually associated with an anchor.

He also seems to suffer from lovesickness. Hopelessly smitten by Queen Belacane, he cannot sleep thinking about here. “The hero lost his patience with the night for dragging on so. With thoughts of the dusky Moorish Queen he fell from swoon to swoon, he whipped from side to side like an osier, setting his joints a-cracking” (Wolfram 30). This is the angst typically ascribed to lovesick woman, not a valiant knight. It also shows the disparity between him and his emblem, as an anchor holds firm a ship that is being tossed and buffeted by the waves.

This is not, however, the only scene that feminizes Gahmuret. On page 43, he is said to have “full lips [that] shone like rubies, red as fire”. Rarely are men’s lips mentioned when describing his physical appearance, much less how red they are. Yet the poet points this out as one of his most salient features.

There is another feminized outpouring of grief on page 57, and this time, another character comments on it:
‘Now summon up all your courage,’ said King Hardiz, ‘for if you are a man you must not voice your grief beyond measure.’
But alas, Gahmuret’s anguish was too great. A torrent gushed from his eyes.

Gahmuret’s behavior throughout the poem is vexing because it does not exemplify knightly, Christian, or manly virtue. The emblem of the anchor is even more problematic. Unless Wolfram meant it to be a joke, it doesn’t seem to represent Gahmuret in anyway.

Girdle Power

In both the Nibelungenlied and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight a girdle has a major impact in the action of the story. In Sir Gawain and the Green Knight the green girdle almost leads to Gawain's demise, but only ends up being a symbol of his deceit and fear. In the Nibelungenlied Brunhild’s girdle becomes a strong piece of the argument between Brunhild and Kriemhild. It is, of course, this argument that leads to the ultimate destruction.

Why is it that a woman’s intimate garment can cause so much trouble for our medieval friends? While the green girdle does not seem quite as treacherous as Brunhild’s girdle (perhaps because the green girdle was given away and Brunhild’s was forcefully taken…) it is still a source of guilt for Gawain. However the significant difference in treachery seems to be that the green girdle does not come from a monstrous woman, just a lady. And while the green girdle may or may not have magical power, it does not cause problems nearly as severe as Brunhild’s girdle does.

The female presence seems different in the Nibelungenlied compared to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Of course Morgan swoops in at the end but she’s no Kriemhild. Morgan only fails to kill Guenevere, she does not incite the slaughter-fest of two entire kingdoms. It thus seems that the treachery of Brunhild’s girdle highlights the monstrosity of women who do not fit social expectations and take revenge. The girdle was taken from a quasi-monstrous figure, Brunhild, and ultimately reveals the most beautiful woman in the land, Kriemhild, as monstrous. Perhaps the girdle as an intimate garment is able to reveal the most personal traits.

Brunhild in "The Nibelungenlied"

The Nibelungenlied's Brunhild seems, on the surface, to be a proto-feminist type. She is a mighty sovereign in her own right and vies with men at throwing javelins. She participates in masculine warrior culture and is a formidable opponent to even the bravest warrior. And, yet, for all her strength and shrewdness, she takes part in the masculine warrior culture without challenging or subverting cultural norms that relegate women to mere prizes for marriage. Her unusual strength, even, makes her more of a spectacle than a symbol for female empowerment.

All of the women in The Nibelungenlied are given in marriage by their male protectors usually in exchange for a certain favor or desirable outcome. Gunther, for instance, promises Kriemhild to Siegfried in exchange for Siegfried's help in overcoming Brunhild: "I will do it," Siegried tells Gunther, "if you will give me your sister fair Kriemhild, the noble princess...I wish no other reward for my trouble" (54). They're not subtle about it - Kriemhild is, in effect, a prize for a certain type of requested behavior. It's what we expect and I doubt many of us are surprised by it; what I found surprising, however, is that Brunhild offers herself as a literal prize to suitors. Gunther and Siegfried talk of "winning" the Icelandic queen suggesting that, just as Kriemhild is part of an exchange that reduces her to a "reward" or prize, so too is Brunhild.

One could probably point to Brunhild's astonishing strength and superhuman abilities as evidence that she is challenging conventional notions of femininity and, yet, her strength reinforces the concept of woman as object or spectacle. While she claims on pg. 60 of our text that neither her nor her ladies are to stand at the windows "as a spectacle for strangers" she, only six pgs later, renders herself a literal spectacle by hurling heavy boulders and throwing javelins and combating with Gunther-Siegfried. She may be a formidable opponent but she's also taking part in a discourse that monopolizes on the belief that women are objects by, in effect, becoming an object to watch.

The part that is most disturbing to me is, as mentioned above, she enters into this discourse of her own accord. She makes herself a spectacle and she makes herself a prize. But, I guess, you could argue that just by taking matters into her own hands she is making a powerful statement about female agency and initiative...or, on the flipside, she's just reinforcing masculine warrior culture at her own expense.

Kriemhild and Friends

It seems a bit odd to me that Kriemhild is described with so little detail for all that she is clearly the dominating female presence of The Nibelungenlied. We are told again and again that she is beautiful and “beyond all measure lovely” (17), et cetera, but we never really learn anything about what she actually looks like. In fact, it seems that as much detail is expended describing Kriemhild’s attendants as Kriemhild herself.

In the prelude to Siegfried and Kriemhild’s first meeting, “Uote appeared with Kriemhild, having chosen for company a hundred fair ladies or more, magnificently gowned, while her daughter, too, was attended by a troop of comely maidens” (47). In this instance, we have no description of how Uote and Kriemhild were dressed at all, and they are only bolstered by the grandeur of those they employ – as though having the lovelier attendants goes to proves one’s own beauty.

Kriemhild is constantly paired with this bevy of lovely ladies. When Siegfried and Gunther come to speak to her, “the lovely girl dressed herself exquisitely … and now her train, too, were adorned becomingly” (55). It is as though the presence of her well-dressed train is substitute for a description of her exquisite clothing. Yet, in some places we are told specifics of what people wear, and thus we can take those incidents therefore to have the greater weight for being so rare. These moments include descriptions of the clothing made for Gunther’s sojourn to Brunhild as being made of silk from fanciful Arabian cities.

But perhaps more interesting is the moment Kriemhild appears without her cohorts. The night of Gunther and Brunhild’s wedding, “Kriemhild was summoned before the King, and she appeared at the foot of the hall with her comely maidens in attendance: but at once Giselher leapt down the stair. ‘Tell these girls to withdraw – only my sister is to remain with the King!’ and so Kriemhild was ushered into the royal presence…” (85). Kriemhild has practically been asked to appear without her clothes.

It is not until the scene of Kriemhild’s legal marriage that she is permitted to appear without accompaniment, and it seems this is because she has gained some kind of new stature. After this scene she immediately begins appearing without attendants (mostly at night, with Siegfried), which leads me to conclude that once she is officially Siegfried’s bride, she no longer needs this lovely accompaniment to testify to her own beauty. Perhaps it is only in marriage that Kriemhild is finally made beautiful without question.

Morgan the Crone

I was happy to read in Heng's article that so many have been puzzled by Morgan le Fey's sudden and unexpected responsibility for the action of the romance of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. It is certainly a tricky interpretive mystery, one that leads to a lot of interesting questions about her intentions and her success that are, to allude to Heng's title, knotty.

One knot in particular that interests me, however, is that of Morgan's evident old age. When she is described, ever so briefly, her main characteristic is that of her great age, especially in contrast with the youthful and beautiful Lady. Since Arthurian legend tells us that Morgan is Arthur's half sister, and that he, in this poem, is barely out of his youth, her apparent age is something of a mystery.

It could be that her age is a disguise, meant to conceal her presence in the castle and her control over the plot. After all, Sir Gawain shows himself to be more likely to pay attention to the young ladies than his venerable elders. The lack of unveiling of that aspect of the disguise would seem to weaken this theory, however, especially given the "reveals" that occur in this tale and that of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell.

Another theory is that she is meant to contrast to Gawain's patron, the Virgin Mary, who is often depicted as youthful and maidenly, and Guenevere the young queen. Morgan could be meant to be the wicked old witch preying on young ladies, in the same way that the stepmother in Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnell preyed on her youthful stepdaughter.

Whether either of these, or some unknown third option, was the intent of the author is obviously impossible to know, but in any case, her age lends yet another layer of mysterious on top of the already enigmatic Morgan.

The Beheading Game

The beheading challenge in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight presents the immediate and obvious problem that the Green Knight should not have survived Gawain's blow. It seems both cruel for Gawain to accept and silly not to - after a single strike he will have won. He will have secured his reputation as being up for any challenge, and he will have expelled that creepy green fellow from the court.

And yet there is a hovering what if. What if the Green Knight survives to strike a return blow in a year's time? Aside from common knowledge asserting that the Green Knight will die... what about his personage suggests that he won't survive? He's part giant, perhaps a bit elvish in appearance, and as such is massive. He comes shoeless, without armor and bearing a holly bough, asserting peace, but also carrying the axe for his own beheading. Even disregarding the fact that he's green, I don't think this stranger ought to be trusted and he certainly does not come across as the kind of idiot who would get himself killed. In fact, I should think that in all cases of beheading challenges, the challenged party would get a little suspicious that the knight offering up his own neck would have something up his sleeve.

Given this reasonable mistrust, I am not at all surprised that Gawain flinched while receiving his own blow. Why would this enchanted Green Knight magick his way out of his own beheading only to teach Gawain a lesson? So of course Gawain fully expected to die... And of course the poet needed him to flinch in order to further teach the lesson that he should have faced his own death bravely.

I have to wonder though, if the Green Knight (and his enchantress backer who will remain unnamed lest I spoil the end) has such magic that he can survive his own beheading, would he have been able to make Gawain survive a beheading as well? Would living through what he expected to be his death be a much more effective method of teaching bravery? Or would subjecting Gawain to such a supernatural experience take away from his (more or less) untainted perfection of chivalry?

Sir Gawain the Other

I found the end of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to be a curious triumph for Sir Gawain. Gawain seems to display noble behavior throughout the poem, he steps up and somewhat courageously takes the Green Knight’s challenge, he keeps his promise and seeks out the Green Knight a year later, and he honors his deal with Lord Bertilak until the green girdle is introduced.

To me the green girdle is a humanizing moment where he follows human instinct instead of perfect knightly behavior. It seems as though fear was always in the background (who wouldn’t be at least a bit afraid of a beheading Green Knight?), however it wasn’t the authority directing Gawain’s decisions—he was pursuing the Green Knight regardless. It seems in the moment he decides to take the green girdle he went from being idyllic—a sort of other—to human. And perhaps this complexity is one of the brilliant achievements of this poem, Gawain who is a type of other becomes one of us.

In the end, although Gawain’s life is spared, we aren’t presented with a traditional triumph or tragedy. There is no fight, no blood, no struggle. Again, this pulls Gawain closer to human than was the dragon slaying Beowulf, perhaps. It’s almost ironic that it all ends in Gawain realizing that he was acting on human instinct, not living up to the reputation of Arthur’s knights. These ironic strands of Gawain’s shame are teased even further when the court laughs and all decide to wear a green sash in honor of his adventure. Perhaps this is the poet revealing his suspicion of ideal Knightly behavior.

Women and Guile in SGGK

I came across some lines in SGGK that reminded me of some current research I'm doing for my mentored scholarly essay on the presumed affinity between women and jinn in the medieval Islamic imagination; a lot of what I've read so far seems to position this affinity in women's presumed tendency towards "guile." It's such a funny word that the following SGGK lines really jumped out at me: "But no wonder if a fool should fall for a female / and be wiped of his wits by womanly guile - / it's the way of the world" (2414-16). The Middle English word used in the poem is "wyles" or wiles or trickery suggesting that women and trickery, or guile, go hand in hand.

The SGGK lines reminded me of the opening of The Arabian Nights where King Shahrayar, upset that his wife has been having an affair, leaves his kingdom with his brother. After he sets out, he comes upon an ifrit and a young woman; after the young woman tricks him and his brother into having intercourse with her, he swears off all womankind and claims that their "guile is great." This tendency towards guile, towards trickery, has become a conventional characterization of women in traditional Islamic literatures but it is, of course, a convention in traditional Western literatures as well with Eve functioning as the prototype.

It begs the following questions: What does it mean that this concept of "woman's guile" surfaces in a text like SGGK and Islamic literary texts, such as The Arabian Nights? What is it about women that makes them such easy targets for such characterizations?

One critic I have been reading for my mentored scholarly essay, Nawal El Saadawi, posits that, before patriarchal religions and systems took root, representations of strong female goddesses were common but that they steadily declined once patriarchal religions became more popular. You can see this a little bit with the clash between "Morgan the Goddess" and the Christian faith that Sir Gawain embodies. El Saadawi argues that, in order for patriarchal systems of thought to set itself against what came before, it had to discredit the competing ideologies and one way to do so was to rewrite representations of strong women as threatening or evil. We can certainly see this operating, to some extent, in SGGK and other texts whereby women are credited for introducing or maintaining evil in the world and, to be closer to God and Christ, is to also distance yourself away from women. It's one way to explain why such characterizations of women, as embodiments of guile and deception, were so popular.

Courtesy

What was that courtesy code of the knights? Strong guys, strongly armed going here and there wearing armors… they are supposed to be good makers, but why doing the right thing required swords? A bunch of armed guys with volatile tempers are controlled by this alleged code. They were not like the modern police, they did not answer to a superior except for a lord or a king who was too busy doing his own violence against the villain of the moment.

The code looks abstract and vague from this point of history. It is almost a good manner manual, but did it have actual ethic content? Being brave and doing the good thing seems not to be enough specific rules, and the respect of the honor sometimes seems more like an infantile excuse for bullying… except that we are talking about big guys with swords.

May be is because of my Hispanic heritage that when I think about a knight I cannot avoid thinking about “Don Quijote de la Mancha”, trying to force someone to confess that his “Dulcinea” was the most beautiful girl ever… “Don Quijote” was a lousy warrior and most of the times he got beaten, but he could take the “Helmet of Mambrino” –which was actually a barber’s bowl –using violence. His courtesy code was absurd even in the sixteen century.

Was the Chivalry Code more logical during the middle ages and its application restricted toe when it was possible, as the modern Humanitarian Law? Were these knights actually models of virtue or just a bunch of belligerent guys doing almost what they wanted?

Ugliness and Beauty

One topic I didn't have time to discuss in my presentation was the relationship between ugliness and beauty. In all the texts we have read so far, the narrators give us plenty of details regarding the hideous features of the monsters/others. Indeed, the narrator of "Dame Ragnelle" leaves little to imagination when describing the loathly lady.

However these same narrators are almost silent when it comes to beauty. Other than using vague sup relatives like "the most beautiful woman ever", the narrators never give us a sense of what they look like. What color of hair does Dame Ragnelle have post transformation? What facial features does the fairy queen in Lanval have? What does the narrators lack of description mean? I would propose that the reason has to do with the nature of beauty. It has been said, "Beauty is in the eye of the beholder". Beauty is relative because there is no universal standard of what beauty is or is not. Indeed, movies stars, models, and the like possess a marketable beauty because many other people consider them beautiful. But even celebrities are not considered beautiful by everyone. Everyone has his/her own definition of beauty, so no person can be universally acclaimed as "the most beautiful".

By contrast, ugliness/monstrous is easier to pinpoint. The narrators can expound on the grotesque details of the ugliness/monstrous because these details are more universally identifiable. It is doubtful that anyone in any time or culture would consider a woman with boar's tusks to be attractive! Beauty then is subjective, whereas ugliness/monstrous is objective (at least more so than beauty). While we can debate who is the most beautiful man or woman on earth, we will all probably agree that Grendel, his mother, the Carl, and the loathly Dame Ragnelle are not.

Dame Ragnelle and Queen Bramimonde

I found The Wedding of Sir Gawain and Dame Ragnelle the most interesting of the three Sir Gawain poems we had to read for Monday's class. The character of Dame Ragnelle is truly fascinating: she is monstrous, "she was as ungoodly a creature / As evere man sawe, withoute mesure" (228-9), she exhibits agency and a desire for "sovereynte" and, after her marriage to a knight and magical transformation into the most beautiful woman at court, is also magically transformed into an obedient wife. Her trajectory in the poem reminded me of the Saracen princess or queen who displays all the qualities that are disdained in a good Christian woman but is still considered a herione and, upon marriage to a knight and conversion from paganism, becomes the perfect wife.

In many ways we can think of Dame Ragnelle as a proto-feminist: she wishes, above all, for autonomy. She is shrewd and she is bold and she is willing to risk disloyalty to the only family member we know of, her mischief making brother Sir Gromer Somer. She is similar to Queen Bramimonde who also exhibits her own agency and has no problem hurling curses at her own gods thus demonstrating that she, too, is willing to exhibit disloyalty to religion and family which is only further confirmed by her later conversion. Both are willful women who are tamed by marriage and absorption into a new society. Dame Ragnelle, despite her insistence that all women really want sovereignty, is all too happy to give this up, voluntarily, upon her marriage to Sir Gawain and Bramimonde-Juliana becomes fully absorbed into Christian society as a mild mannered lady.

For all the parallels, however, it is the difference between Dame Ragnelle and the typical Saracen princess/queen that struck me. Dame Ragnelle is ugly, is monstrous, is so completely other, whereas medieval poems typically portray the Saracen princess as beautiful, alluring and, most importantly, white. (I know there are cases when she is black but, as far as I know, when she converts to Christianity her blackness melts away into whiteness.) The Saracen princess is exactly like a Christian heroine except she is willful and disobedient to her family and faith. These kinks, as it were, are remedied upon her conversion and marriage whereupon she is transformed into the good Christian woman. In the Saracen princess case, her monstrosity is her paganism and sense of agency which can be changed by conversion. In Dame Ragnelle's case, however, she may already be Christian but she is willful and disobedient and, most importantly, really really ugly. The Saracen princess is admired for her beauty, already in a sense belonging to the society that she will join at the end of the poem, but there is no place for Dame Ragnelle and she has to force her way into society where she is barely tolerated. It begs the question: what is the function of Dame Ragnelle's monstrosity? Is it caused, in part, by her agency and willfulness or is that just a symptom of it?

In both cases, however different on the surface, there are two women who are figured as monstrous - one for her geographic location and one for her appearance - and a marriage to a knight is central to her transformation, not only into an acceptable Christian lady who must look the part, but also one who must act the part.

Chivalric Code vs. The Law

In the Carle of Carlisle I was fascinated by Sir Gawain’s immense courtesy to the Carle, especially after Jeffery Jerome Cohen pointed out that this courtesy “is synonymous with unthinking obedience” (161). Cohen also points out that Sir Gawain partakes in gluttony, lust, and homicide, which are all prohibited in chivalric code.

While gluttony, lust, and homicide sound like a good old medieval time, it doesn’t seem that Sir Gawain was merely rolling his dice in Vegas; he was very particularly following the desires of his host. My big question becomes why? Why would Sir Gawain show courtesy to a monster of sorts? Doesn’t chivalric code trump monster favors? In the end I was convinced otherwise.

This poem seems to suggest that following the rules and laws of the realm a knight enters is more important than the values of the chivalric code. When Sir Gawain and the other knights first enter the Carle’s castle they are met by a bear, boar, bull, and lion. The Carle immediately asserts himself as their ruler by commanding the animals to stop snarling, and the animals follow his orders. The knights are very clearly on the Carle's turf.

Sir Gawain seems to follow the animals lead, obeying the desires of the Carle. Because Sir Gawain shows this courtesy to the Carle instead of following chivalric code (and in the end is rewarded with his life) it seems the poem might be making the statement that following the codes of a particular realm while within that realm is more important than the values of chivalry.

The Monstrous Female Body in "Beowulf"

Beowulf states in the poem "Sorrow not, wise one! It is always better / to avenge one's friend than to mourn overmuch" (1384-1385). That is, of course, unless you are a woman. For a woman to avenge one's friend, or one's son as illustrated by the actions of Grendel's mother, is problematic - in Beowulf such a woman functions as a perversion of the ideal female in Danish society. For a woman to exhibit agency is figured as fearful, threatening, even monstrous. Women, particularly women's bodies, have always posed a threat to society and Grendel's mother is just another to add to the list.

Jane Chance, in "The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel's Mother," convincingly argues that the function of Grendel's mother in the poem is to represent everything a woman should not be and do: she should not avenge her son's death, she should not show agency but, rather, passivity in matters of state, she should not exhibit pride, etc. Because Grendel's mother does show agency she is figured as monstrous and it is made clear in the poem that there is no room for her in respectable Danish society. And, yet, upon first read I found myself almost sympathizing with Grendel's mother - she has just lost her son and, in a society that places signficance on vengence and kinship, I thought it was only normal for her to want to avenge her son.

Over the centuries, women's bodies have always held a certain amount of fascination for some but, unfortunately, this fascination has usually morphed into disgust and evidence for their affinity towards less Godly, and more monstrously demonic, forces. The body of Grendel's mother is an example of this. She is the only mother in the poem to give birth and raise a son without a father-figure. In fact, it is not altogether clear if there ever was a father at all thereby endowing the body of Grendel's mother with unfathomable powers which would, undoubtedly, seem threatening to the male dominated society of the Danes. Moreover, her battle with Beowulf is imbued with sexual overtones which could further suggest fear of female sexuality. It is only natural, then, that she should be a monster as the perversions she represents would not be embodied by a good Danish woman.

Only the Lonely

One of the most surprising things to me about the great death of Beowulf is that he does not die alone. When, before preparing to confront the dragon, he states, "I would always go before him, / alone on the front line - and all of my life / I will wage war, while this sword endures" (lines 2497 - 2499), the poem seems to be setting up a parallel between being a great fighter, and fighting alone, which would lead one to assume often means dying alone.

In Beowulf's two other major fights, he is very much depicted as the lone warrior fighting against evil, while those around him sort of, kind of help out. When he kills Grendel, the other men of the hall, even the fighters he hand-picked to assist him, are prevented from helping because of their use of weapons. When he invades Grendel's mother's home, he does so by himself. The many battles that occupied the fifty years between his defeat of Grendel's mother and his confrontation with the dragon were no doubt filled with cooperative warfare, but we hear less about those, implying that the heroics that are worth writing about are those in which one man takes on many monsters.

Compounding our image of Beowulf the lonely is the fact that we never hear about him marrying or having children, something that I would think was odd for the leader of a people, who would in other circumstances would feel compelled to produce a son to carry on his leadership. Instead, he is a man only of war, with no need for a "peaceweaver" wife, or sons to continue his reign.

This is not to say that Beowulf is outside of society in any way - he is not Grendel. Beowulf is both within the hall society and a little above it. He participates in the celebrations and exchanges of property that come along with being a good fighter, and he is seen as a loyal thane, but he is dedicated to fighting and defending his people, which seems to set him a little apart from others.

Yet Beowulf the solitary is given company at his death in the form of the loyal Wiglaf, who not only helps him to defeat the dragon (doing most of the heavy lifting himself), but comforts him and stays with him. Wiglaf is acting as a surrogate son in ensuring that Beowulf is honored, and he is also acting as a kind of surrogate "reader" of Beowulf's life by ensuring this his last words are heard. Perhaps lone warriors are not truly alone as long as we hear of their good deeds.

Super Beowulf?

Beowulf is a man, just a simple mortal who can be under water by a day and sometimes exhibits some superhuman strength… but he is just a man. Was he the whole day inside the water or was he just the most part of it? How could he survive the lake were Grendel’s mom seemed to live? Of course this is just an overheard story, a legend and it is impossible to know what really happened or if something actually really happened. However, assuming the poet wanted to establish that Beowulf was just a simple mortal, did they knew at the time the real capacities of human body?

Time is a subjective impression, especially if somebody is not wearing a precise watch and it is very probably that somebody could really think he or she is really a long time under the water and, without counting the times a person goes out to breathe it could seem that someone is under the water the whole day! However, this attempt of explanation is just speculation. What can we say about a world with trolls! What is a troll, actually! Beowulf takes place in a non historic world or at least in a world where its historic aspects are totally hid for us.

What we can know by reading Beowulf is about the character of the people who conceived it and enjoyed it, about their beliefs and hopes. We can also know how their ways passed to us as parts of the Western Culture, but we cannot know what really happened there, if something happened, and some of their perspectives are lost for us forever. That is the problem when time goes by without proper records.

The Uncle Pagan...

Poor old Danish and poor old Geats! They never knew about the holly revelation and that is why they were idolatrous. If they knew the true God they probably never had to hire Beowulf, because God would not permit Grendel killing thanes…

The poet shows more mercy to the ancient Danish and Geats than Roland’s author shows for the Saracens. Is it just a difference of style? Well, first of all, with women exchanged as presents and to seal alliances, it is of high probability that our unknown author had a Danish grandmother or a Geat aunt. Secondly, at the time when this poem was written, most of the Danish and Nordics tribes were already Christians, just like the English of the time. English ancestors were also Pagans until three or four generations before the poem was written and they shared many aspects with ancient People of the North… so let’s be indulgent to the ancient pagans. They did not know about Christ and if they knew, they would embrace the true faith, because they were Christian in their character and they had the favor of the Lord…

The poem presents the ancient pagans as Christians in their ways and tries to present them as the prototype of chivalry and knighthood, even when, at that time, those things were not invented yet. The poem reinterprets an old story and presents it as compendium of “Christian” –as Christianity was understood in Middle Ages –and noble virtues present in the very origin of the People of the North, who shared some codes with the contemporary English. Was this poem composed in occasion of some alliance?

Wealhtheow the Slave-Servant

Knowing what we do about Wealhtheow (particularly regarding her prominence in Hrothgar's court and her contrast to Grendel's mother), how can we explain a name like Wealhtheow?

While at least one scholar has noted that this could be a nickname, I have to contest - what kind of nickname is a literal combination for "slave/foreigner" and "servant?" The possibility that someone consciously applied that name to this woman (whether it was the poet or someone who knew her)suggests that we may extrapolate from that name deeper knowledge of her character and position in both Danish society and the poem. As I mentioned previously, Wealhtheow seems to present an example of a strong queen. How, then is she slave, foreigner or servant?

It seems more logical that the "Weal-" portion of her name suggests that she is a foreigner, an outsider to this culture. From all that we have seen presenting women as peace-weavers in this culture, Wealhtheow could easily have been born leagues upon leagues away and married to Hrothgar to seal some sort of peace accord. In that sense, although made immediately royal by her status among the Danes, she is a slave to that self-same peace. In the seventeenth fit, Wealhtheow comes forward immediately following the story of how Hildeburh lost brother, husband, son, everything through the pitfalls of her own peace-weaving, and we see that Wealhtheow is aware of this because she presently defends the rights of her sons. Although the individual composing Wealhtheow's nickname may have intended the meaning 'foreigner,' 'slave' seems to be just as appropriate to her tightly locked position in Hrothgar's hall, in which she has very little freedom at all.

The fact that her name/nickname concludes "-theow" or "servant" perhaps should not surprise us, especially if we consider Wealhtheow an example of what a good hall-wife should do: serve her people and her guests. Wealhtheow is clearly described passing the mead cup from highest- to lowest-ranking thanes in Heorot and finally to Beowulf. Additionally, she serves Beowulf in presenting him with gifts. And on a bawdier note, she clearly serves Hrothgar when he wishes to seek his queen's bedchamber (664-665).

For all that Wealhtheow is a prominent figure in these first two-thirds of the poem (she is the only woman exposed to the grisly spectacle of Grendel's head, for example, in lines 1648-50), she is not necessarily a dominant character. As weird as is feels to jokingly (or heaven forbid - tenderly) call someone your dearest slave-servant, the name certainly fits.

Hrothgar the Lazy

One of the fundemental responsibilities of a king is to protect his people. This is especially true when a violent, man-eating monster is nightly breaking into his mead hall and eating his thanes! For 12 years, Grendel terrorizes Heorot and its environs, yet Hrothgar apparently does nothing to stop him. There are no indications in the text that Hrothgar attempts to deal with Grendel, or that his thanes and people are bothered or upset by the ineffectiveness of their leader. This is bizare to me since our society wants to oust any leader if he cannot resolve a problem in a few years, let alone 12 years.

Hrothgar, at least from the way he is introduced in the opening fitts, seems like he is a capable warrior. In fitt I the poet says, "Then success in war was given to Hrothgar, / honor in battle, so that his beloved kinsmen / eagerly served him / until the young soldiers grew / into a mighty trop of men" (I:64-67). He builds an impressive mead hall, has ample rings and treasure to give, and is married to a gracious woman. It would seem he has the makings of a good ruler. But military prowess, wealth, and generocity do not always denote an effective leader. This appears to be the case with Hrothgar, who lets Grendel roam the land unchecked.

Perhaps, though, he doesn't have time to fight the monster because he is more interested in pursuing other interests, mainly his wife. Several other blogs have rightly pointed out that Hrothgar often is seen emerging from the woman's chambers or relies on Wealhtheow. It seems she keeps Hrothgar on a short leash, or he would rather spend time with her than attending to his duties. I am not sure which of them is pulling the strings, but in any event, Grendel has free reign.

I don't want to judge him too harshly since there is so much the poem doesn't say about him. However, enough of his character is described to question his leadership. I do know that I were a subject of his, I would have left Heorot a long time before Beowulf showed up, that is if Grendel didn't kill me!

Is a Monster a Monster?

In Jane Chance’s article The Structural Unity of Beowulf she suggests that the attempt of Grendel’s mother to avenge his death would be justified if she were human and male. This got me thinking. It seems to me that being a human is the more weighted of these two characteristics, as I find it unlikely that a mass-murdering-monster’s father could avenge his son’s death with no consequence. On the other hand, could a human mother avenge her son’s death with no consequence? I’m not sure. Perhaps I’m being unfair—not all monsters are of the Grendel human eating troupe. However, it still seems more probable that the mother could avenge without consequence—Being human matters.

But this is really neither here nor there. What I find most interesting is Beowulf’s treatment of the two monsters. As victims, both Grendel and his mother are beheaded. There is no distinction based on sex. To me this starts to suggest that monster is the defining characteristic, and gender takes the backseat.

In line 1393 Beowulf also fails to use the correctly gendered pronoun to describe Grendel’s mother. Beowulf says “he will find no protection” when referring to Grendel’s mother. This further suggests that monster is the focus, and gender the background.

Finally, Beowulf underestimates Grendel’s mother when he says “The horror was less / by as much as a maiden’s strength / a woman’s warfare, is less than an armed man’s” (1281-1284). As we know, the battle with Grendel’s mother is more treacherous that the battle with Grendel himself. Perhaps Grendel’s mother not fitting the medieval female stereotype indicates her monster trait weighs more.

Of course this is not to say that gender does not add complexity to this monster! It is just to point out that Grendel’s mother doesn’t receive much special treatment as a result of her gender. But in the end, perhaps for a female that is special treatment in and of itself.

Grendel and Technology

Along the lines of Aia's and Megan's posts, I have been thinking about what Grendel might have represented to the original audience of Beowulf. Clearly, as Liuzza says, he is a terrifying combination of pagan and Christian threats, an amorphous boogie-man that is all the more frightening for being undefined. Still, the aspect that most fascinates me about Grendel is that weapons have no power over him because "he had worked a curse on weapons / every sort of blade" (ln 804-805). Could it be that he represents a past that is not only pagan, but also pre-technology? He can be seen not only as a destroyer and consumer of men, but also the embodiment of the fear that the things that man has created to make him safe are of no use against true evil.

We can see this first with the ease with which Grendel penetrates the hall, which is depicted as beautiful and towering, something that "the sons of men should remember forever" (ln 70). The pride of the Danish people, filled with its lords and warriors, as well as poets and musicians (all the best representatives of the current culture, in other words) becomes a target for Grendel's rage and then the site of frequent massacres. The Geats, with their beautiful, well-made and frightening armor and weaponry, are in fact no better equipped to meet Grendel than their counterparts. The look-out may be impressed by their showing, but the reader knows that all of their shields will not keep them safe against Grendel.

Only Beowulf's lucky decision to meet the demon without a sword - something that he amusingly seems to consider a way to keep things fair ("I will not kill him with a sword, / put an end to his life, though I easily might; / he knows no arts of war, no way to strike back" ln679-681) - leads to the defeat of the monster. In other words, only by regressing back to an earlier form of combat is Beowulf able to survive and kill Grendel. The people end up being saved, not by superior weapons, but by a very firm grip. This seems to me to suggest that there was an anxiety about the technology of the time - the swords, chain mail, and shields- and a fear that there might exist something in the world that could not be stopped by such civilized defenses.

Lanval feminsit?

Is the fairy world in "Lanval" a world of feminine supremacy? The fairy world appear as a world with not masculine presence at all. The fairies travel alone and that is very uncommon for the medieval human women:they are enormously rich and they are in control. On the opposite there is Arthur's world. He is in the middle o finishing a war against Picts and other tribes and spreading presents among his knights. Women has no name and we do not even know if his queen is Guinevere or another previous wife.

Lanval gets rich after his erotic  encounter with the fairy, but he is questioned about his masculinity. Have he lost his male virtues because of the encounter with the fairy?

The fairy finally came in his help. The man is rescued by the girl and taken to the other world... this world is also the world of the death. Arthur himself will be transported there at the end of his life...

At least in this story, fairy world looks as women dominated world, maybe with no man in it. The doubt is if we can take Lanval story separated and assume this view as general view of this other world or if it is just a fantasy of the author... who happens to be a woman, a literate woman and probably an ambitious one. 

The Power behind Hrothgar's Throne

Who is Wealhtheow? She is Hrothgar's queen, we know that much. But aside from numerous qualities praising her to this extent, that is all we know. And yet she is vastly important. For all that she is relationally ambiguous, she is hugely important to the first two parts of the story. Hrothgar rarely appears without her, and her presence is much more than just silent feminine existence.

Notably, in a passage following the fatal injury of Grendel, Hrothgar "strode glorious / from the women's chambers" (is this a shameful place to be? this is where he has been in hiding) "with a great entourage, / a chosen retinue, and his royal queen with him / measured the meadhall-path" (lines 921-924). In the day of victory, Wealhtheow emerges triumphant alongside Hrothgar. It would seem that during a time of danger, he was actually taking refuge in the women's quarters, in her domain where she would assume a dominant protective role. We are told earlier that "The war-chief wished to seek Wealhtheow, / his queen's bedchamber" (lines 664-664). Whether there is a sexual refuge implied here or not, Wealhtheow is definitely given the authority of being Hrothgar's safe space when he doesn't want to die a horrible death at Grendel's hands.

Additionally, during the celebratory feasting, it is Wealhtheow that we hear speak, far more than anyone else. We are told of the gifts Hrothgar gives to Beowulf, but it is Wealhtheow who provides the poet with commentative narrative within the story. She is the character strong enough to present gifts along with compliments and well-wishes for their use. "Beowulf, beloved warrior, wear this neck-ring..." (line 1216). Et cetera.

The real clincher in her position as a powerful female figure in her community is her behavior as hostess. She concludes the short speech begun above thus: "The troop, having drunk at my table, will do as I bid" (line 1231). This is her party, and she knows it.

It seems that Hrothgar is as much defined by his queen - and by her constant strong presence - as he is by Heorot or the persecution from Grendel. She is quite literally the power behind his throne.

Looking Back in Beowulf

R. M. Liuzza states in our Intro to Beowulf that the average reader approaches the text with the expectation that s/he will come face to face with the "collective unconscious of English culture, [that the text] will allow him to experience at first hand what is primordial, elemental and primitively powerful in it." But, he goes on to say, the reader finds that Beowulf does not contain anything we might call primorodial but is, itself, looking back as well (17). It's as if we are reading an epic about the making of an epic. This raises the question as to whether there is anything "primordial" or "elemental" in any culture or literature or whether whatever is deemed to be "primoridial" is, itself, contingent on the age (among many other things).

This idea of looking back has always fascinated me as it has fascinated many who are interested in understanding, not only literary or nationalisitic origins, but also human ones. The Victorian period is wrought with novels and essays and poems about looking backwards to our past, our primal ancestors, at the same time that they are fervently pushing forward with industrialization and modernization. This idea that we cannot move forward without taking stock of our origins is not a new one and it seems to be operating in Beowulf in a fundamental way.

I should say at this point that I have only done the reading for our first Beowulf meeting - just wrapped up the battle and defeat of Grendel. It seems to me to be a battle between the hero, Beowulf, and the very material and extremely hostile world in which Beowulf must decide what man he will be and what he will fight/stand for. This battle becomes a microcosm for the world at large that is taking stock of the kind of nation and people they want to be. They must rid themselves of the past that no longer serves them (and maybe Grendel is a symbolic stand-in for paganism?) before they can move forward to what seems to be a more Christian future. They must, in a sense, come to terms about their past before they can move forward.