1. LITERATURA INGLESA MEDIEVAL

Después de los Pilares, pasamos a la unidad 2 - Renaissance literature. Necesitaremos los textos de Sidney, Spenser y Shakespeare (de éste hay varios).

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Un interludio en los Pilares: PREMIOS NOBEL RECIENTES (EN INGLÉS)

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Terminamos la Edad Media con una panorámica de los siglos XIV y XV: The Age of Chaucer.

 

Recordad que, simultáneamente a las clases presenciales, seguimos avanzando por la SECCIÓN B del curso, el siglo XX. Hay nuevos materiales sobre la unidad 6 en el enlace correspondiente de la columna derecha (Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, etc.).

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Última semana antes del Pilar:

Necesitaremos en clase los textos de:
-Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

- Chaucer, The Canterbury Tales

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Si queréis optar por hacer trabajos de curso, quizá os interese leer unas notas sobre cómo hacer un comentario de texto.
 

 

1. LITERATURA INGLESA MEDIEVAL

 

Siguen aquí notas sobre el tema 1. En la columna derecha irán apareciendo los enlaces a los demás temas, tanto de la Sección A (presencial) como de la Sección B (no presencial).
 

LATE MIDDLE AGES:

Battle of Agincourt (Henry V, 1415)
End of 100 Years' War and Wars of the Roses under Henry VI and Edward IV (Lancaster vs. York)
1476: Caxton's printing press
1485 Richard III (of York) defeated by Henry VII (House of Tudor)

Middle English literature: 15th century

John Skelton, Colin Cloute. Satire.
____. Magnificence. Morality play. 1515
 
Cycles of Mystery Plays (York, Wakefield, Chester, East Anglia)
Morality plays: Mankind, Everyman, The Castle of Perseverance

First women writers:
Julian of Norwich
Margery Kempe


John Lydgate (c.1370-c.1451):
- Troy Book
- The Siege of Thebes
- The Fall of Princes

Sir Thomas Malory, Morte Darthur, ed. by William Caxton, 1485.


Scottish literature:

Robert Henryson (1425-1508):
- The Testament of Cressid
- Moral Fables of Aesop
William Dunbar (late 15th)



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Una introducción a la sociedad de la Inglaterra medieval y al Middle English:

- vídeo titulado "Historical context for the Canterbury Tales" https://youtu.be/1epKYZURHB8
 

- y "Chaucer's England":

 

 

 

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Middle English Literature: 14th century


 

GEOFFREY CHAUCER     (c. 1343-1400)

Chaucer, Geoffrey. ?  The Romaunt of the Rose. Trans. from Guillaume de Lorris. C. 1368-72.
_____. The Book of the Duchess. Poem. 1368-72.
_____. "The Monk's Tale."  c. 1372-80. Later included in The Canterbury Tales.
_____. The House of Fame. Poem. 1378-80.
_____. The Parlement of Foules [The Parliament of Fowls]. Poem. c. 1380-82. _____. The Legend of Good Women. Poem.  1380-87.
_____. Boece. Trans. of Boethius' The Consolation of Philosophy. C. 1380-87.
_____. The Knight's Tale. Romance, based on Boccaccio. C. 1380-87. Later included in The Canterbury Tales. 

_____. Troilus and Criseyde. Narrative poem. c.1382-86. (From Boccaccio's Filostrato).
_____. Treatise on the Astrolabe. Scientific prose. 1391.
_____. The Canterbury Tales. Verse narrative. Written 1388-1400.



Rhyme Royal stanza: ababbcc


SOBRE CHAUCER:

Unos apuntes introductorios a Chaucer, y otros A NIVEL AVANZADO

También aquí. una introducción a su obra.



Y en audio: 

© ''IntelliQuest World's 100 Greatest Books''* 1995:

Geoffrey Chaucer (/ˈtʃɔːsər/; c. 1343 -- 25 October 1400), known as the Father of English literature, is widely considered the greatest English poet of the Middle Ages and was the first poet to have been buried in Poet's Corner of Westminster Abbey. While he achieved fame during his lifetime as an author, philosopher, alchemist and astronomer, composing a scientific treatise on the astrolabe for his ten year-old son Lewis, Chaucer also maintained an active career in the civil service as a bureaucrat, courtier and diplomat. Among his many works, which include The Book of the Duchess, The House of Fame, The Legend of Good Women and Troilus and Criseyde, he is best known today for The Canterbury Tales. Chaucer is a crucial figure in developing the legitimacy of the vernacular, Middle English, at a time when the dominant literary languages in England were French and Latin.

The Canterbury Tales is a collection of stories written in Middle English by Geoffrey Chaucer at the end of the 14th century. The tales (mostly written in verse although some are in prose) are told as part of a story-telling contest by a group of pilgrims as they travel together on a journey from Southwark to the shrine of Saint Thomas Becket at Canterbury Cathedral. The prize for this contest is a free meal at the Tabard Inn at Southwark on their return.

Following a long list of works written earlier in his career, including Troilus and Criseyde, House of Fame, and Parliament of Fowls, the Canterbury Tales was Chaucer's magnum opus. He uses the tales and the descriptions of its characters to paint an ironic and critical portrait of English society at the time, and particularly of the Church. Structurally, the collection resembles The Decameron, which Chaucer may have read during his first diplomatic mission to Italy in 1372.

*This audio collection contains a treasury of 100 classic books and includes info on the life and times of the author, the theme of the book, the characters, the story outline, a concise yet detailed abridgement of the story and a discussion of the values that make each book one of the great classical works of literature.

 



An introductory video lesson on The Canterbury Tales:






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A nivel avanzado:

Chaucer: NIVEL AVANZADO


Some notes on John Gower
 
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14th century:

1336- Edward III begins Hundred Years' War
1348- Black Death
1381- Peasants' Revolt
1399- Deposition of Richard II by Henry IV


Geoffrey Chaucer    (c. 1343-1400)

John Gower (1325?-1408):

Speculum meditantis (Le Miroir de l'Homme)

Vox Clamantis
Confessio Amantis (in English)


Gawain poet:
Cleanness, Patience, Pearl, and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (late 14th c.)

The plot of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

William Langland, Piers Plowman (1362-92)

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NIVEL AVANZADO:

Un audio sobre Piers Plowman (In Our Time).

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (vídeo, NIVEL AVANZADO)

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Other religious works:

Cursor Mundi (encyclopedic poem, Northumbria, c. 1300) 

The South English Legendary
Dan Michel, The Ayenbite of Inwit

Religious Reformers: Wyclif and the Lollards

 

Other (anonymous) works:
William and the Were-wolf (from the French, c. 1350)
Morte Arthure & Le Morte Arthur (note that these anonymous romances are not the later work by Malory)
King Alisaunder
The Destruction of Troy   (Continental sources, the Troy stories)




Chroniclers: 

Robert of Gloucester, Robert Mannyng of Brunne

 

 

 

 

 

 

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The Middle English Context (NIVEL AVANZADO)

The History of the English language: An overview
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El martes 28 hablaremos algo más de literatura medieval, y leeremos algo de Beowulf. Traed la primera selección de lecturas de esta obra, Beowulf, en las fotocopias, y también las hojas que repartimos en clase.

 

Empezamos también a poner materiales de la SECCIÓN B de la asignatura (siglo XX, no presencial), que se irán añadiendo en los enlaces de la columna de la derecha. Empezando por el tema 6, Literatura Inglesa y Norteamericana 1900-1960. 

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13th century:

Verse narrative:

Layamon. Brut. c. 1205.  (Arthurian Cycle)
Guy of Warwick
King Horn
Havelok the Dane c. 1280.

Moral works:
The Owl and the Nightingale. c. 1200.
The Seven Sages of Rome
Barlaam and Josaphat


Devotional works:
Orm. Ormulum. c. 1200.
Ancrene Riwle    c. 1215.
Kentish Sermons
Hali Meidenhad


Latin churchmen: 

Robert Grosseteste, Roger Bacon, Duns Scotus (philosophers)
Walter Map, De nugis curialum (c. 1200);  ? prose Lancelot
Roger of Wendover, Flores Historiarum (Flowers of History) (1235)
Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora (1259)





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12th century

NIVEL AVANZADO:

The Twelfth Century: Anglo-Norman and Anglo-Latin literature



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Anglo-Saxon Literature (up to the 11th c.)

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Beginning of the Middle English period:
Norman Invasion (Battle of Hastings, William the Conqueror: 1066)

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NIVEL AVANZADO:

 

- From Old English to Middle English

- MIDDLE ENGLISH: THE LANGUAGE OF THE CANTERBURY TALES

 

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Para este primer tema (LITERATURA MEDIEVAL) es muy recomendable empezar por este capítulo de la Penguin Short History of English Literature: OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE.

 

Nuestra lectura principal para esta semana: Beowulf.  Para completar el tratamiento de estos temas, recomiendo acudir a los manuales. Por ejemplo, así trata el capítulo de Beowulf el manual de Michael Alexander. También tenéis aquí unos apuntes y lecciones adicionales, algunos a nivel más avanzado.  (NIVEL AVANZADO: Beowulf).

Aquí un vídeo sobre The language of Beowulf. Parte de una serie de lecciones muy útiles que se encuentran en YouTube.

Y aquí una breve película de dibujos animados sobre Beowulf:

En conjunto, la mejor película sobre Beowulf es la de Robert Zemeckis (2007), Beowulf—aunque no es nada fiel al original, como tampoco lo son otras que se han hecho con este título, sí es recomendable.

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RECAPITULACIÓN DE LA PRIMERA SEMANA

- Actividades de la primera semana


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OLD ENGLISH LITERATURE c. 500-1066


Celtic Britain

-   Rebellions vs. Rome: Boadicea

  The Roman occupation (c. 43-420)
       Julius Caesar, then Claudius  
 
Anglo-Saxon conquest c. 450
       Germanic tribes: Angles, Saxons, Jutes
       English kingdoms: Northumbria, Mercia, Wessex, Sussex, Essex, Kent...
 
c. 600 Christianization (Ethelberth's laws)
       Monasteries: Iona, Jarrow, Winchester, Abingdon, Canterbury, Peterborough... 
 
Caedmon's Hymn (7th c.) (in Bede's work:)


The Venerable Bede, Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum. 732.

The Danish invasions

871-899 King Alfred

1066 The Norman conquest

- Manuscripts:
The Lindisfarne Gospels
The Exeter Book
The Vercelli Book
The Beowulf Manuscript
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

Some authors and works

- Saints' lives (Judith, St. Guthlac, Andreas)
 
- Biblical poems and translations (Genesis, the Gospels) - The Dream of the Rood, The Phoenix
 
- Popular sermons (Blickling Homilies)

- Religious poets: Caedmon, Cynewulf (Christ, Juliana, Elene, The Fates of the Apostles - early 9th c.), 
 
- Bestiaries, Riddles...

- Elegiac poems: Deor, Widsith, The Seafarer, The Wanderer, The Ruin, The Wife's Lament, The Husband's Message, Wulf and Eadwacer.
 
- Epic poems: Beowulf, The Battle of Brunanburh, The Battle of Maldon
 
 
Poetic style: 
The kennings. Alliterative verse. Understatement.

- Learned literate culture: 

    - In Latin: Aldhelm, Bede, Alcuin of York.

    - In English: Aelfric and Wulfstan (Homilies)
    

 - King Alfred (trans. of Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Psalms)

- The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle

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- Old English and the Anglo-Saxons: NIVEL AVANZADO



- THE HISTORY OF ENGLISH (NIVEL AVANZADO)

In Search of the Dark Ages (NIVEL AVANZADO)

 

IN SEARCH OF THE DARK AGES. Una serie de la BBC sobre la primera Edad Media y el periodo anglosajón en Inglaterra. Aquí un capítulo sobre Offa, rey de Mercia (en la época de Juego de Tronos de la historia inglesa, allá por el siglo ocho). Habla de él la Anglo-Saxon Chronicle que aquí nos enseñan.

 Hay otros episodios en YouTube.

Anglo-Saxon Prose (NIVEL AVANZADO)

 

(from Legouis and Cazamian's History of English Literature; London: Dent, 1937)

Origins. (12. Anglo-Saxon Prose. Alfred, Aelfric, Wulfstan). (1)

The breach between Anglo-Saxon and English poetry is everywhere apparent, and to pass from Cynewulf to Chaucer is to bridge a deep gulf. The poetry of the Anglo-Saxons is deliberately archaic. In order to produce a desired emotional state in its hearers, it reverts to traditional turns of expression, to words almost consecrated, as religion works its effects by the constantly recurring use of an ancient liturgy. This poetry is modelled on an earlier age of which the remoteness cannot now be determined. It retains many periphrases and locutions already obsolete, imitates and systematizes the disorder of primitive lyrical construction. The poetic form tends towards the past.

On the other hand, the tendency of the prose is towards observance of the rules of ordinary speech, unless it copies the Latin prose of the clerks. Its object is to instruct and inform, not to move, and since it thus educates the understanding, it necessarily turns to the future. There is therefore nothing surprising in the fact that the prose writings of the Anglo-Saxons, which are much less curious than their poetry, are also much nearer ourselves. No revolution seems to separate Alfred's pages from those of Caxton, Aelfric's from Wyclif's. There is a change but no break. National and linguistic continuity is felt to exist; there almost seems to be a continuity in the thought as it is framed in much the same mould as now. While an Englishman has to make a quite considerable effort in order to read the verse of the Anglo-Saxons, he finds it comparatively easy to understand their prose.

If such facility be not marked in the oldest prose literature, this is because it is either of earlier compilation than any of the poetry extant—like the laws of Ina, king of the West Saxons, which were promulgated at the end of the seventh century, although our transcription dates only from the time of Alfred—or because some of this prose is more than half poetry and seems to be fragments of old epic tales. This character belongs to many passages of the chronicle usually attributed to the influence of King Alfred, of which we have distinct versions written by the religious of different monasteries, those of Winchester, Canterbury, Abingdon, Worcester, and Peterborough, the last-named having continued its narrative to the middle of the twelfth century. In this chronicle several references to early times, brief but impressively vehement, are pagan in feeling and emphasis and seem to date from the pre-Christian period. Even in the references to the eighth century there are a suddenness and a roughness in the narrative which betray that mental and grammatical habits were still empirical. It is continually necessary to complete the ellipses and to relate the pronouns to their proper subjects, as with a story told by a small child. For instance, the chronicler relates, as follows, the beginning of the struggle between Cynewulf and Sebright in 755:

This year Cynewulf took from Sebright his kingdom, and the councillors of the West Saxon [did as much], for unrighteous deeds, except Hamptonshire, and he [that is, Sebright] reigned there [that is, in Hampshire] until he slew the alderman who stayed longest with him. Then Cynewulf drove him to the forest of Andred, where he remained until a swain stabbed him at Privett, and he [that is, the swain] revenged the alderman Cambra.

The alderman is not named until he is mentioned for the second time.

This formless prose was succeeded at the end of the ninth century by a regular prose possessed of nearly all its essential parts. Since it is modelled on Latin texts, which are almost literally translated, it is very near English prose, as that was fixed, and also near French prose which was formed under the same masters.

Alfred, the glorious king of Wessex, was the pioneer of the prose-writers. The exclusively poetic or Latin literature which had hitherto flourished had emanated principally from the north-east, the country of the Angles, or from central Mercia. About 800, the supremacy was passing to the south-west, and the king of Wessex was tending toward the sovereignty of all the Germanic groups settled in the island. But the Danish invasions supervened, and with them the destruction of the centres of religion and letters. In the year 878 it seemed as though nothing would escape the invaders. It was then that the young King Alfred withdrew to Athelney in Somerset, formed there a nucleus of resistance, defeated the Danes, and won from them a treaty which left him the south of England while they remained masters of the old country of the Angles and northern Mercia.

After his victory, Alfred set himself to retrieve his country from the barbarism to which it had relapsed. A decadent and demoralized clergy had sunk into depths of ignorance. Alfred did for Wessex what Charlemagne, a hundred years earlier, had done for the country of the Franks: he endeavoured to teach the people, and to re-establish Christian discipline and culture, and to this end he brought foreign monks into his kingdom and reformed education. It was under his influence that the earlier poetic works, which had almost all been written in the Northumbrian dialect, were transcribed into the language of the West Saxons.

The part which the king himself took in this literary movement was considerable. His early education had been much neglected, and he had to learn before he could teach. He surrounded himself with scholars and learned men, learnt Latin after he was grown up, for Saxon had been the only language of his childhood, and had no sooner learnt it than he began to translate the works which seemed to him most apt to civilize his people. It was thus that he became the father of English prose-writers.

Whether in the works he inspired or in those he himself produced, an effort is apparent to regularize the old elliptical, abrupt style, with its obscurity and lack of continuity. Thus the Annals or Chronicles of Winchester, Alfred's capital town, were amplified and given smoothness until they are almost a continuous story, in which, for instance, the history of the king's war against the Danes can be read without any irritating difficulty in following the text.

Alfred himself is credited with a translation of the Universal History of Orosius, the compilation which made antiquity known to the Middle Ages. The task was difficult, for Orosius, a Spanish historian and theologian of the fifth century, writes an obscure, tortured Latin. Sometimes Alfred, as he himself says, translates 'word by word, sometimes meaning by meaning.' Although the literal translation had the most formative influence on prose, it is naturally the free version which most attracts us. Its very weaknesses are characteristic. Alfred, who does not know Latin very well and who has acquired no historical sense, aims at producing a work of pedagogy. The result is that he is often very inexact, and that, as he diverges from his author, he attains to a certain originality. While he deletes what seems to him of little use to his subjects, he also makes additions, especially in the geographical section. One of the stories he adds, that of Ohthere's sail along the shores of Scandinavia, is so simple and elementary in style that its vocabulary differs only slightly from modern English. The conclusion is that the spoken language was almost fixed.

Of Alfred's other translations, either made or ordered by him—Bede's Ecclesiastical History of the Angles, the Pastoral Rule of Gregory the Great, and the Consolation of Boethius (2)—it is the Boethius which is the most interesting. His choice of this book, which was again translated by Chaucer, is characteristic. Boethius has reproduced the Platonic and Stoic doctrines, coloured by Christianity and at their highest moral level—the distinction between true and false happiness, the lofty discussions on the existence of evil, on human liberty, and on divine prescience. He gives these abstractions a dramatic frame. Philosophy herself appears to him in his prison, and drives away the Muses, those prostitutes who were vainly seeking to console him. Thus he makes use of allegory, and although his style is not always pure and is often mannered, it is full of life and movement. His book could not but suffer gravely when it was translated by Alfred, who mistakes the meaning fairly frequently and is incapable of conveying the fine shades. When he renders the metrical passages, which have a classic elegance, his limitations obtrude themselves. But in nobility of sentiment he is the equal of the Latin author. He explains, as follows, his reasons for undertaking this arduous task:

As I have desired material for the exercise of my faculties that my talents and my power might not be forgotten and hidden away, for every good gift and every power soon groweth old and is no more heard of, if wisdom be not in them. Without wisdom no faculty can be fully brought out, for whatsoever is done unwisely can never be accounted as skill. To be brief, I may say that it has ever been my desire to live honourably while I was alive, and after my death to leave to them that should come after me my memory in good works.

This king's literary work was, like his political work, interrupted for almost a century after his death in 901. The sketchy civilization of Wessex was once more scattered to the winds, and the clerks relapsed into ignorance and inertia. They were gradually redeemed thence, during the tenth century, by a reform of the monasteries which was inspired by the similar movement accomplished in France under the influence of the Benedictines. Religious houses were founded and organized in England, on the model of the abbeys of Cluny and Fleury, in which a strict rule enjoined intellectual work. This innovation was led by Dunstan, Archbishop of Canterbury, and his friend Aethelwold, 'the father of the monks.' Secular priests, not bound to celibacy, then abounded in the monasteries. They retained something of the patriarchal constitution which the Church of Ireland had originally given to their communities, and therewith very disorderly morals, much laziness, and gross superstition. The fact is proved by the so-called Blickling Homilies, a medley of canonical and uncanonical legends which swarm with strange arguments and allusions. It is to works of this kind that Aelfric alludes when he says: 'I have seen and heard many heresies in many an English book which unlearned men, in their simplicity, took for great wisdom.' Stories of the saints, replete with the marvellous, and the obsession that the end of the world was at hand, take up most space in this collection.

It was at this time that the strict rule of Saint Benedict was introduced. Morals once more became austere. The lives of the saints did indeed remain the principal subject of study and the marvellous continued to fill a large place in them, but the stories, as compared with their predecessors, were pure and even reasonable. Two men who with Alfred are the best writers of Anglo-Saxon prose are connected with this reform, Aelfric and Wulfstan.

Aelfric was a pupil of the monastic school which Aethelwold founded at Abingdon, and he wrote in the first years of the eleventh century. We owe to him a Colloquium for teaching Latin by conversation, and a vocabulary which was the first Latin-English dictionary. But he made his name by his Homilies, that is, his compilations and translations from the Fathers of the Church which form two series of forty sermons each, and commemorate the various saints venerated by the Anglo-Saxon Church.

Aelfric's prose, unlike that of Alfred, is written not to be read but to be spoken to the people, in the conventional tone of a priest delivering a sermon. It has therefore a rhythm which brings it near to verse: its sentences are divided into sections, more or less equivalent to the metrical line, and it is frequently alliterative. For this reason scholars were long uncertain whether to classify it as verse or prose. It celebrates the saints, as the scops once sang the deeds of warriors. This poetic prose marks a great advance on that of Alfred. It aims at beauty, measure and harmony. It is remarkably clear and finished. There is much less awkwardness and effort in the connection of phrases than in Alfred's writings. In fact, the author is consciously literate, even when he is using the vulgar tongue, and he excuses himself, with some shame, for the popular character of his translation of the Latin homilies, pleading the ignorance of his fellow-countrymen.

Wulfstan, who was Archbishop of York from 1002 to 1023, was first of all a preacher. The most remarkable of his homilies dates from 1012, the time when the English were suffering the ills of the Danish invasions. With deep feeling the homilist deplores the irreligion and immorality of his people to which he attributes their misfortunes, and he proclaims the near advent of the great chastiser, the Antichrist. Wulfstan is less of a finished artist than Aelfric, but the popular emphasis of his language gives it rich color and lively tones.

After Wulfstan all was over: the Antichrist came indeed. The Danes became masters of the country, and then, after a short interval of independence, the Anglo-Saxons were brought under the Norman yoke. Such prose writings as we have prove, however, that, even without the Norman Conquest, Anglo-Saxon prose would have taken shape, modelling itself on Latin, and, with the exception of part of its vocabulary, would have become much what it was when in the fourteenth century it regained a place in literature.

It was poetry which was principally affected by the Conquest. The poetic form had outlived its time and had little life left in it. It was conventional and was getting further and further away from the real language of the people. It was fated to be abolished and superseded. The aesthetic ideal was to undergo a change, or rather a revolution. England was to learn to love verse of another kind, other cadences and new subjects. All the rich ornament which profusely decorated verse with a pomp still half barbaric was to go out of fashion. Poets were to shed their periphrases and ejaculations, and gradually to learn sobriety of style and an art almost unknown to them, that of stating facts clearly, grouping them, and inventing stories.




Notes

(1) Bibliothek der angelsächsischen Prosa, edited by C. W. M. Grein, R. P. Wülker, and H. Hecht, Leipzig and Hamburg, 1872 et seq. The Whole Works of King Alfred the Great, edited by J. A. Giles, 3 vols. (Oxford and Cambridge, 1858); Stopford Brooke, King Alfred as Educator of his People and Man of Letters (1901); H. Sweet, Selections from Aelfric's Homilies (Oxford, 1896); A. Napier, Wulfstan's Homilies (Berlin, 1883); B. Thorpe, Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church, vols. (Aelfric Society, 1844-6); C. L. White, Aelfric, a New Study of his Life and Writings (Yale Studies in English, 1898).

(2) King Alfred, Old English Version of Boethius, ed. Sedgefield (Oxford, 1899).

The Fates of Men (NIVEL AVANZADO)

Poema anónimo anglosajón. Aparece en el Project Gutenberg eBook of Old English Poems. Tiene un cierto toque a la canción Who By Fire de Leonard Cohen.


Full often through the grace of God it happens
That man and wife to the world bring forth
A babe by birth; they brightly adorn it,
And tend it and teach it till the time comes on
With the passing of years when the young child’s limbs
Have grown in strength and sturdy grace.
It is fondled and fed by father and mother
And gladdened with gifts. God alone knows
What fate shall be his in the fast-moving years.
To one it chances in his childhood days
To be snatched away by sudden death
In woeful wise. The wolf shall devour him,
The hoary heath-dweller. Heart-sick with grief,
His mother shall mourn him; but man cannot change it.
One of hunger shall starve; one the storm shall drown.
One the spear shall pierce; one shall perish in war.
One shall lead his life without light in his eyes,
Shall feel his way fearing. Infirm in his step,
One his wounds shall bewail, his woeful pains—
Mournful in mind shall lament his fate.
One from the top of a tree in the woods
Without feathers shall fall, but he flies none the less,
Swoops in descent till he seems no longer
The forest tree’s fruit: at its foot on the ground
He sinks in silence, his soul departed—
On the roots now lies his lifeless body.
One shall fare afoot on far-away paths,
Shall bear on his back his burdensome load,
Tread the dewy track among tribes unfriendly
Amid foreign foemen. Few are alive
To welcome the wanderer. The woeful face
Of the hapless outcast is hateful to men.
One shall end life on the lofty gallows;
Dead shall he hang till the house of his soul,
His bloody body is broken and mangled:
His eyes shall be plucked by the plundering raven,
The sallow-hued spoiler, while soulless he lies,
And helpless to fight with his hands in defense
Against the grim thief. Gone is his life.
With his skin plucked off and his soul departed,
The body all bleached shall abide its fate;
The death-mist shall drown him— doomed to disgrace.
The body of one shall burn on the fire;
The flame shall feed on the fated man,
And death shall descend full sudden upon him
In the lurid glow. Loud weeps the mother
As her boy in the brands is burned to ashes.
One the sword shall slay as he sits in the mead-hall
Angry with ale; it shall end his life,
Wine-sated warrior: his words were too reckless!
One shall meet his death through the drinking of beer,
Maddened with mead, when no measure he sets
To the words of his mouth through wisdom of mind;
He shall lose his life in loathsome wise,
Shall shamefully suffer, shut off from joy,
And men shall know him by the name of self-slayer,
Shall deplore with their mouths the mead-drinker’s fall.
One his hardships of youth through the help of God
Overcomes and brings his burdens to naught,
And his age when it comes shall be crowned with joy;
He shall prosper in pleasure, in plenty and wealth,
With flourishing family and flowing mead—
For such worthy rewards may one well wish to live!
Thus many the fortunes the mighty Lord
All over the earth to everyone grants,
Dispenses powers as his pleasure shall lead him.
One is favored with fortune; one failure in life;
One pleasure in youth; one prowess in war,
The sternest of strife; one in striking and shooting
Earns his honors. And often in games
One is crafty and cunning. A clerk shall one be,
Weighted with wisdom. Wonderful skill
Is one granted to gain in the goldsmith’s art;
Full often he decks and adorns in glory
A great king’s noble, who gives him rewards,
Grants him broad lands, which he gladly receives.
One shall give pleasure to people assembled
On the benches at beer, shall bring to them mirth,
Where drinkers are draining their draughts of joy.
One holding his harp in his hands, at the feet
Of his lord shall sit and receive a reward;
Fast shall his fingers fly o’er the strings;
Daringly dancing and darting across,
With his nails he shall pluck them. His need is great.
One shall make tame the towering falcon,
The hawk on his hand, till the haughty bird
Grows quiet and gentle; jesses he makes him,
Feeds in fetters the feather-proud hawk,
The daring air-treader with daintiest morsels,
Till the falcon performs the feeder’s will:
Hooded and belled, he obeys his master,
Tamed and trained as his teacher desires.
Thus in wondrous wise the Warden of Glory
Through every land has allotted to men
Cunning and craft; his decrees go forth
To all men on earth of every race.
For the graces granted let us give him thanks—
For his manifold mercies to the men of earth.

El viento de tormenta

El viento de tormenta

Quién hay de ingenio tan potente y espíritu agudo
Que pueda decir quién empuja mi fuerza fiera
Por el camino del destino, cuando me alzo vengativo
Asolo la tierra, con voz atronadora
Arranco las casas de las gentes, y robo las maderas del palacio;
Humo gris se levanta sobre los tejados—en la tierra,
El ruido y gritos de muerte de los hombres. Sacudo
El bosque, los árboles florecidos, y tumbo los troncos,
Voy errante, con techo de agua, por amplio camino,
Impulsado por los poderes. A hombros llevo
El agua que ha envuelto alguna vez a todos
Los moradores de la tierra, a su carne y a su espíritu.
Dí qué es lo que me hace invisible,
O cómo me llamo yo, que llevo esta carga.

A veces me lanzo entre las olas agolpadas,
Para sorpresa de los hombres, y ando por el suelo profundo
Al que han ido los guerreros del mar. Las olas blancas azotan,
Con espuma como caballos, el océano se desgarra
El lago de la ballena ruge y rabia,
Olas salvajes golpean la orilla, lanzan rocas,
Arena, algas, agua, a los altos de los acantilados,
Cuando doy golpes, levanto a hombros el poder de las aguas
Y hago temblar las amplias profundidades.
Y no puedo escapar de mi lecho marino si no me lo permite
El que me guía en todos mis viajes. Dime, tú tan sabio,
¿Quién me separa del abrazo de los mares,
Cuando las aguas vuelven a estar tranquilas,
Y las olas en calma, que antes me cubrían?

A veces mi Amo me arrincona;
Me agarra y me sujeta, me encierra a la fuerza
Debajo de las tierras y los campos. Toda mi potencia
Se queda apretada en una cárcel estrecha y oscura,
Y tengo la tierra dura sentada a mis lomos.
No puedo huir del peso de esta tortura,
Pero sacudo las casas de piedra de los hombres:
Las grandes salas de banquetes, con adornos de cuerno, tiemblan
Las paredes se agitan, y se ciernen sobre los guerreros,
Retiemblan los techos, las ciudades.
El aire está tranquilo por encima de la tierra,
El mar medita, silencioso, hasta que me abro paso y salgo,
Al galope, por orden de mi amo,
Mi Señor, que en el principio de todo me impuso ataduras,
Las cadenas de la creación, para que no pudiese escapar
De su poder inflexible—mi guardián, mi guía.
A veces me lanzo hacia abajo, azoto las olas y las levanto,
Alzando aguas blancas, echando contra la orilla
A los mares grises como piedra, con sus sus flancos de espuma
Contra la muralla del acantilado, oscura masa que se alza
Sobre los montes de agua oscura que hay abajo,
Impulsados por el mar, se elevan uno contra otro
Como dos acantilados, en el camino de la costa—
Y se oye el grito de las quillas,
Los gemidos de los moradores del mar,
Los altos acantilados aguantan
La carga de los mares, el choque de las olas, el agua en guerra,
Cuando un tropel de tropas se agolpa en el promontorio,
Allí ha de luchar fieramente el barco
Cuando el mar le roba sus artes y su fuerza,
Y las almas de los hombres, aterrorizados
Entre la espuma blanca de las olas,
Allí se ve el poder al que obedezco
Cuando voy cruel por mi camino de destrucción—
¿Quién podrá contenerme?
A veces salgo a la carrera entre las nubes que llevo a caballo,
Vuelco las jarras de la lluvia negra,
Lleno de olas las corrientes, hago entrechocar las nubes
Con una voz potente, y saltan pedazos de luz,
Oleadas de nubes se levantan sobre los hombres sin concierto,
El trueno oscuro rueda con estrépito de batalla,
Y caen gotas oscuras de su seno, olas de lluvia de la nube guerrera,
Como caballería oscura de tormenta; el miedo sube como marea
En los corazones de los hombres, un terror creciente,
Las fortalezas mismas sucumben al temor, cuando esa horrible tropa
Se lanza a la destrucción, cuando espectros flotantes
Alzan espadas afiladas como la luz.
Necio es el que no teme entonces el golpe mortal,
Pero muere lo mismo, si el Señor
Lanza silbando una flecha desde el temporal,
Que cruzando la lluvia le atraviesa el corazón.
Pocos siguen con vida, si les alcanza el dardo que grita con la lluvia.
Yo soy quien da lugar a estos combates,
Cuando corriendo paso entre la muchedumbre de nubes,
Salgo con gran fuerza y vuelo sobre la superficie del agua.
En las alturas las tropas chocan con estruendo, y luego,
A cubierto por la noche, me hundo bajo el suelo,
Y me quito carga de los hombros,
Una vez más renovado por el poder de mi Señor.
Soy un sirviente poderoso. A veces lucho,
A veces espero bajo el suelo;
Otras veces vuelo hacia abajo y me hundo bajo el agua,
A veces causo peleas entre las nubes que van veloces,
Rápido y salvaje, viajo por todas partes. Dime mi nombre,
Y Quién me despierta de mi descanso,
O Quién me está sujetando cuando estoy callado.

_________


Es éste el primero (o los tres primeros, según otros) de los poemas-adivinanza anglosajones, recogidos hace unos mil años en el Libro de Exeter. Aquí hay una edición en red de las Exeter Book Riddles. Observan Legouis y Cazamian, en su Historia de la Literatura Inglesa, que este poema no deja de recordar a la Oda al Viento del Oeste de Shelley. Quizá sea en parte por lo aficionados que eran los anglosajones a dar voz o personificar a seres inanimados. Así por ejemplo en el Sueño de la Cruz, donde la cruz toma la palabra, o en El mensaje del esposo, donde habla la tablilla de madera donde se ha grabado el mensaje con runas. Las adivinanzas, perífrasis y expresiones indirectas están por todas partes en la poesía anglosajona, por ejemplo en las kenning. También recuerda este poema del viento, cómo no, al Apocalipsis, con sus huestes celestiales.

—oOo—

The Wanderer

The Wanderer 

An anonymous Old English poem

Often the lonely one longs for honors,
The grace of the Lord, though, grieved in his soul,
Over the waste of the waters far and wide he shall
Row with his hands through the rime-cold sea,
Travel the exile tracks: full determined is fate!
So the wanderer spake, his woes remembering,
His misfortunes in fighting and the fall of his kinsmen:

“Often alone at early dawn
I make my moan! Not a man now lives
To whom I can speak forth my heart and soul
And tell of its trials. In truth I know well
That there belongs to a lord an illustrious trait,
To fetter his feelings fast in his breast,
To keep his own counsel though cares oppress him.
The weary in heart against Fate has no help
Nor may the troubled in thought attempt to get aid.
Therefore the thane who is thinking of glory
Binds in his breast his bitterest thoughts.
So I fasten with fetters, confine in my breast
My sorrows of soul, though sick oft at heart,
In a foreign country far from my kinsmen.
I long ago laid my loyal patron
In sorrow under the sod; since then I have gone
Weary with winter-care over the wave’s foamy track,
In sadness have sought a solace to find
In the home and the hall of a host and ring-giver,
Who, mindful of mercy in the mead-hall free,
In kindness would comfort and care for me friendless,
Would treat me with tenderness. The tried man knows
How stern is sorrow, how distressing a comrade
For him who has few of friends and loved ones:
He trails the track of the exile; no treasure he has,
But heart-chilling frost— no fame upon earth.
He recalls his comrades and the costly hall-gifts
Of his gracious gold-friend, which he gave him in youth
To expend as he pleased: his pleasure has vanished!
He who lacks for long his lord’s advice,
His love and his wisdom, learns full well
How sorrow and slumber soothe together
The way-worn wanderer to welcome peace.
He seems in his sleep to see his lord;
He kisses and clasps him, and inclines on his knee
His hands and his head as in happier days
When he experienced the pleasure of his prince’s favors.
From his sleep then awakens the sorrowful wanderer;
He sees full before him the fallow waves,
The sea-birds bathing and beating their wings,
Frost and snow falling with freezing hail.
Then heavier grows the grief of his heart,
Sad after his dream; he sorrows anew.

His kinsmen’s memory he calls to his mind,
And eagerly greets it; in gladness he sees
His valiant comrades. Then they vanish away.
In the soul of a sailor no songs burst forth,
No familiar refrains. Fresh is his care
Who sends his soul o’er the sea full oft,
Over the welling waves his wearied heart.
Hence I may not marvel, when I am mindful of life,
That my sorrowing soul grows sick and dark,
When I look at the lives of lords and earls,
How they are suddenly snatched from the seats of their power,
In their princely pride. So passes this world,
And droops and dies each day and hour;
And no man is sage who knows not his share
Of winter in the world. The wise man is patient,
Not too hot in his heart, nor too hasty in words,
Nor too weak in war, nor unwise in his rashness,
Nor too forward nor fain, nor fearful of death,
Nor too eager and arrogant till he equal his boasting.
The wise man will wait with his words of boasting
Till, restraining his thoughts, he thoroughly knows
Where his vain words of vaunting eventually will lead him.
The sage man perceives how sorrowful it is
When all the wealth of the world lies wasted and scattered.
So now over the earth in every land
Stormed on by winds the walls are standing
Rimy with hoar-frost, and the roofs of the houses;
The wine-halls are wasted; far away are the rulers,
Deprived of their pleasure. All the proud ones have fallen,
The warriors by the wall: some war has borne off,
In its bloody embrace; some birds have carried
Over the high seas; to some the hoar wolf
Has dealt their death; some with dreary faces
By earls have been exiled in earth-caves to dwell:
So has wasted this world through the wisdom of God,
Till the proud one’s pleasure has perished utterly,
And the old work of the giants stands worthless and joyless.
He who the waste of this wall-stead wisely considers,
And looks down deep at the darkness of life,
Mournful in mind, remembers of old
Much struggle and spoil and speaks these words:
‘Where are the horses? Where are the heroes?
Where are the high treasure-givers?
Where are the proud pleasure-seekers? Where are the palace and its joys?
Alas the bright wine-cup! Alas the burnie-warriors!
Alas the prince’s pride! How passes the time
Under the shadow of night as it never had been!
Over the trusty troop now towers full high
A wall adorned with wondrous dragons.
The strength of the spear has destroyed the earls,
War-greedy weapons, Fatality inexorable;
And the storms strike down on the stony cliffs;
The snows descend and seize all the earth
In the dread of winter; then darkness comes
And dusky night-shade. Down from the north
The hated hail-storms beat on heroes with fury.
All on earth is irksome to man;
Oft changes the work of the fates, the world under the firmament.
Here treasure is fleeting; here true friends are fleeting;
Here comrades are fleeting; here kinsmen are fleeting.
All idle and empty the earth has become.’

 

So says the sage one in mind, as he sits and secretly ponders.
Good is the man who is true to his trust; never should he betray anger,
Divulge the rage of his heart till the remedy he knows
That quickly will quiet his spirit. The quest of honor is a noble pursuit;
Glory be to God on high, who grants us our salvation!”

"El viajero errante". Un poema anónimo de hace más de mil años, que me gusta incluir en mis clases de literatura anglosajona; esta traducción inglesa viene del Project Gutenberg eBook of Old English Poems, aunque cambio algún detalle. Aquí hay una traducción española. Contiene una de las visiones más memorables del fin del mundo y de la extinción de la raza humana; no tiene nada que envidiar, desde luego, al Last Man de Mary Shelley o a Darkness de Lord Byron—o a La peste escarlata de Jack London. Combina de modo quizá ilógico pero poéticamente efectivo la vejez de un hombre y el fin del mundo; la ruina y muerte de una civilización entera, con el exilio y la nostalgia del último superviviente de un tiempo pasado, que viaja por un mundo inhóspito que ya nada le ofrece, quedando sólo el consuelo del recuerdo y la ilusión del más allá. Aunque no puedo librarme de la sospecha de que el toque de esperanza celestial que cierra el poema es un añadido cristianizante a un poema todavía más pesimista y desengañado, un auténtico viajero de otros tiempos, el poema mismo, que viene realmente de un mundo ya moribundo y sin esperanza de volver a la vida plena. Es especialmente llamativa la manera en que, en un poema dentro del poema, el viajero errante se imagina a sí mismo como everyman, meditando como lo hará todo superviviente sobre la desaparición de todo lo que conocía, y sobre la faz que ahora ve claramente de un mundo hostil a las esperanzas y las empresas humanas.

Wayfaring Stranger

—oOo—