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)

The Faerie Queene (Oxford Companion) (NIVEL AVANZADO)

 

From The Oxford Companion to English Literature, ed. Margaret Drabble.

The Faerie Queene, the greatest work of *Spenser, of which the first three books were published 1590, and the second three 1596.

The general scheme of the work is proposed in the author's introductory letter addressed to *Ralegh. By the Faerie Queene the poet signifies Glory in the abstract and *Elizabeth I in particular (who also figures under the names of *Britomart, *Belphoebe, *Mercilla, and *Gloriana). Twelve of her knights, the 'patrons' or examples of 12 different virtues, each undertake an adventure, on the 12 successive days of the queen's annual festival, and an account of their origins was to have been given in the last of 12 books. Prince Arthur symbolizes 'magnificence', in the Aristotelian sense (says the author) of the perfection of all the other virtues (he must have meant not 'magnificence' but 'magnanimity', or 'gentlemanliness'). Arthur has a  vision of the Faerie Queene and, determining to seek her out, is brought into the adventures of the several knights and carries them to a successful issue. This explanation, given in the introduction,does not appear from the poem itself, for the authors starts at once with the adventures of the knights; as we have it the poem does not conform to his scheme. Of the six books Spenser published, the subjects are:

I, the adventures of the *Redcrosse Knight of Holiness (the Anglican Church), the protector of the virgin *Una (truth, or the true religion), and the wiles of *Archimago and *Duessa.

the Redcrosse Knight, in Bk I of Spenser's *Faerie Queene, St. George, the patron saint of England. He is separated from *Una (the true religion) by the wiles of *Archimago (hypocrisy) and is led away by *Duessa (the Roman Catholic religion) to the House of Pride. He drinks of an enchanted stream, loses his strength, and is made captive by the giant *Orgoglio (pride). Orgoglio is slain by Prince *Arthur, and Una leads her knight to the House of Holiness, to learn repentance and be healed. The Knight and Una are finally betrothed, after he has killed the dragon which besieged her parents' castle.

Una, in Bk. I of Spenser's *Faerie Queene, typifies singleness of the true religion. She is separated from the *Redcrosse Knight of Holiness (the Anglican Church) by the wiles of *Archimago, but meets and is protected by a lion, until the latter is killed by *Sansloy, who carries Una off to a forest. She is rescued by fauns and satyrs, and is finally united to the Redcrosse Knight.

Archimago, or Archimage, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, is the great enchanter, symbolizing Hypocrisy, who deceives *Una by assuming the appearance of the *Redcrosse Knight (I.i). His deceits are exposed and Archimago is 'layd full low in dungeon deepe' (I.xii.36). From this he emerges in Bk II to seek vengeance on Sir *Guyon for what he has suffered at the hands of the Redcrosse Knight, and employs *Braggadochio for the purpose. 

Duessa, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, the daughter of Deceit and Shame, Falsehood in general, in Bk I signifies in particular the Roman Catholic Church, and in V.ix, Mary Queen of Scots.

Orgoglio (Italian, signifying haughtiness), in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (I. vii, viii) captures the *Redcrosse Knight, and is slain by Prince *Arthur.

Arthur, Prince, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene. He symbolizes 'Magnificence' (Magnanimity), in the Aristotelian sense of the perfection of all the virtues. He enters into the adventures of the several knights and brings them to a fortunate conclusion. His chief adventures are the slaying of the three-bodied monster *Geryoneo and the rescue from him of Belge (the Netherland) V. x, xi); and, jointly with *Artegall, the slaying of the *soldan (Philip II) in his 'charret hye' (the Armada) (V. viii).

Sansfoy, Sansjoy, and Sansloy, three brothers in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (I. ii. 25 et seq.). Sansfoy ('faithless') is slain by the *Redcrosse Knight, who also defeats Sansjoy ('joyless') but the latter is saved from death by *Duessa. Sansloy ('lawless') carries off *Una and kills her lion (I. iii). This incident is supposed to refer to the suppression of the Protestant religion in the reign of Queen Mary.

II, the adventures of Sir *Guyon, the Knight of Temperance, his encounters with *Pyrochles and *Cymochles, his visit to the Cave of *Mammon and the House of Temperance, and his destruction of *Acrasia and her *Bower of Bliss. Canto x of this Book contains a chronicle of British rulers from *Brut to Elizabeth;

Guyon, Sir, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, the knight of Temperance. His various exploits, the conquest of *Pyrochles, the visit to the cave of *Mammon, the capture of *Acrasia, and the destruction of her *Bower of Bliss, are related in II. v-xii.

Braggadochio, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, the typical braggart. His adventures and final exposure and humiliation occur in II. iii; III. viii, x; IV iv, v, ix; V. iii. Cf. *Trompart.

Trompart, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (II. iii),

wylie witted, and growne old

In cunning sleights and practick knavery.

attends *Braggadochio as his squire, and with him is finally exposed and beaten out of court.

Pyrochles, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, symbolizes rage. He is the brother of *Cymochles, the son of 'old Acrates and Despight' (II. iv. 41). On his shield is a flaming fire, with the words 'Burnt do I burne'. He is overcome by Sir *Guyon (II. v), and tries to drown himself in a lake to quench his flames. He is rescued and healed by *Archimago (II. vi. 42-51), and finally killed by Prince *Arthur (II. viii).

Cymochles, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (II. v, vi, and viii), 'a man of rare redoubted might', given all to lust and loose living, the husband of *Acrasia and brother of *Pyrochles. He sets out to avenge on Sir *Guyon the supposed death of his brother, but *Phaedria intervenes. He is finally slain by Prince *Arthur

Phaedria, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (II. vi), the Lady of the Idle Lake, symbolizing immodest mirth.

Mammon, theCave of, described in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (II. vii). It is the treasure-house of the god of wealth, visited by Sir Guyon. Milton in his *Areopagitica uses the example of Spenser making Guyon visit the cave of Mammon, 'that he might see and know, and yet abstain'.

Acrasia, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, II. xii, typifies Intemperance. She is captured and bound by Sir *Guyon, and her *Bower of Bliss destroyed.

Bower of Bliss, the, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (II. xii), the home of *Acrasia, demolished by Sir *Guyon.

 

III, the legend of Chastity, exemplified by *Britomart and *Belphoebe;

Britomart, the heroine of Book III of Spenser's *Faerie Queene, the daughter of King Ryunce of Britain and the female knight of chastity. She has fallen in love with *Artegall, whose image she has seen in a magic mirror, and the poet recounts her adventures in her quest for him. She is the most powerful of several types of Queen Elizabeth in the poem. 

Belphoebe, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, the chaste huntress, daughter of the nymph Chrysogone and twin sister of *Amoret; she partly symbolizes Queen Elizabeth. Belphoebe puts *Braggadochio to flight (II. iii), finds herbs to heal the wounded *Timias ('whether it divine Tobacco were, / Or Panachae, or Polygony', III. v), and rescues Amoret from *Corflambo (IV. vii).

Artegall, Sir, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, V, the champion of Justice. *Britomart, to whom his image has been revealed by a magic mirror, is in love with him, and her quest of him ends in their union. Representing Lord Grey de Wilton, he undertakes the rescue of Irena (Ireland) from the tyrant Grantorto. Jointly with Prince *Arthur he slays the *soldan (Philip II of Spain). His name perhaps signifies 'equal to Arthur'.

Timias, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, Prince *Arthur's squire, may represent *Ralegh. When wounded (III. v), he is healed by *Belphoebe. The incident of Timias and *Amoret, in IV vii. 35 and 36, may allude to Ralegh's relations with Elizabeth Throckmorton.

Amoret, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, III. vi, xii and IV. vii, daughter of the nymph Chrisogone and twin sister of *Belphoebe. She is 'Of grace and beautie noble Paragone', and has been married to Sir *Scudamour, but carried off immediately after by the enchanter *Busirane and imprisoned by him until released by *Britomart. *Timias loves her, but being reproved by Belphoebe leaves her. This incident refgers to the displeasure of Queen Elizabeth at the relations of  *Ralegh with Elizabeth Throckmorton.

Busirane, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (III. xi and xii) the 'vile Enchaunter' symbolizing unlawful love. He is struck down by *Britomart in his castle and forced to release *Amoret. On the door of one of the rooms of the castle was written:

Be bold, be bold, and every where Be bold.

But on another iron door,

Be not too bold.

 

IV, the legend of *Triamond and *Cambell, exemplifying Friendship; together with the story of *Scudamour and *Amoret.

Triamond, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (IV. iii, iv), the Knight of Friendship. After an inconclusive fight with *Cambello  in the contest to decide which of her suitors *Canacee (Cambello's sister) is to be awarded, Triamond and Cambello swear eternal friendship. IN the tournament arranged by *Satyrane, Triamond, though wounded, returns to rescue Cambello. He marries Canacee.

Cambell, or Cambello, the name given by Spenser in The Faerie Queene, IV. iii, to *Cambalo, whose tale he borrows from 'Dan Chaucer, well of English undefyled', and completes. Cambell is brother of *Canacee, for whom there are many suitors. It is arranged that the stronges of these, three brothers, shall fight with Cambell and the lady be awarded to the victor. Two of the brothers are defeated: the contest between the third, *Triamond, and Cambell is undecided, each wounding the other.They are reconciled by Cambina, Triamond's sister; Canacee is awarded to Triamond and Cambell marries Cambina. The magic ring of Canacee in the 'Squire's Tale' reappears in the Faerie Queene, with the power of healing wounds.

Canacee, the daughter of King Cambuscan in Chaucer's 'Squire's Tale' (see CANTERBURY TALES, 11) and in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, Bk IV. 

Cambalo, one of the two sons of King Cambuscan, in Chaucer's 'Squire's Tale': see CANTERBURY TALES, 11; see also *Cambell for the continuation of his story in Spenser's *Faerie Queene.

V, the adventures of *Artegall, the Knight of Justice, in which allegorical reference is made to various historical events of the reign of Queen Elizabeth: the defeat of the Spaniards in the Netherlands, the recantation of Henry IV of France, the execution of *Mary Queen of Scots, and the administration of Ireland by Lord Grey de Wilton;

soldan (from the Arabic sultan). The soldan or souldan, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (V. viii) represents Philip II of Spain. He is encountered by Prince *Arthur and Sir *Artegall with a bold defiance from Queen *Mercilla (Elizabeth), and the combat is undecided until the prince unveils his shield and terrifies the soldan's horses, so that they overturn his chariot and the soldan is torn 'all to rags'. The unveiling of the Shield signifies divine interposition.

Geryoneo, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (V. x and xi), a three-bodied giant who represent's Philip II's power which controlled Spain, Portugal, and the Low Countries.

Mercilla, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene (V., viii), 'a mayden Queene of high renowne' (Queen *Elizabeth I), whose crown the *soldan seeks to subvert.

VI, the adventures of Sir *Calidore, exemplifying Courtesy. 

Calidore, Sir, the Knight of Courtesy, the hero of Bk VI of Spenser's *Faerie Queene. He pursues and chains the *Blatant Beast. One of Keats's earliest poems, the fragment 'Young Calidore is paddling o'er the lake' (1816) was inspired by him.

Blatant Beast, in Spenser's *Faerie Queene, Bk VI, a monster, the personification of the calumnious voice of the world, begotten of Envy and Detraction. Sir *Calidore pursues it, finds it despoiling monasteries and defiling the church, overcomes it, and chains it up. But finally it breaks the chain, 'So now he raungeth through the world againe.' Cf. *Questing Beast. (Glatysaunt Beast, the creature in Malory's *Morte D'Arthur which is the original of *Spenser's 'blatant beast'. The word is from an Old French term meaning 'baying', 'barking'. In Malory it is pursued by Palomydes the Saracen).

There is also a fragment on *Mutabilitie, being the sixth and seventh cantos of the legend of Constancie, which was to have formed the seventh Book. This fragment contains a charming description of the seasons and the months.

'Mutabilitie Cantos', name given to the fragmentary 'Book VII' of Spenser's *Faerie Queene: two cantos only, first published with the folio edition of The Faerie Queene in 1609. They describe the challenge of the Titaness Mutabilitie to the cosmic government of Jove. (The first canto includes the charming topographical fable of Faunus and Molanna, which reflects Spenser's affection for his Irish home.) The goddess Nautre vindicates Jove's rule, displaying its orderly beauty in a procession of Seasons and Months, asserting finally that natural things 'are not changed from their first estate / but by their change their being doe dilate'. The cantos can be seen as an epilogue to The Faerie Queene, ending with the poet's prayer. 

The work as a whole, modelled to some extent on the *Orlando furioso of Ariosto, suffers from a certain monotony, and its chief beauties lie in the particular episodes with which the allegory is varied and in descriptions, such as those of the Cave of Mammon and the temptation of Sir Guyon by the Lady of the Idle Lake, in Bk. II. The meaning of many of the allusions, which must have added to the interest of the work for contemporaries, is now lost. The poem is written in the stanza invented by Spenser (and since utilized by James *Thomson, *Keats, *Shelley, and *Byron), in which a ninth line of twelve syllables is added to eight lines of ten syllables, rhyming  a b a b b c b c c.

Edmund Spenser

—oOo—

Beowulf

An introduction to Beowulf. Basic facts from The Oxford Companion to English Literature, followed by some introductory study guide videos. Plus an account by David Daiches, and other materials.


Beowulf, an Old English poem of 3,182 lines, surviving in a 10th-cent. manuscript. It tells of two major events in the life of the Geatish hero Beowulf: the first when, in his youth, he fights and kills first Grendel, a monster who has been attacking Heorot, the hall of the Danish king Hrothgar, and then Grendel's mother who comes the next night to avenge her son; the second, 50 years later, when Beowulf, who has for a long time been king of the Geats, fights a dragon who has attacked his people, in a combat in which both Beowulf and the dragon are mortally wounded. The historical period of the poem's events can be dated in the 6th cent. from a reference to Beowulf's king Hygelac by the historian Gregory of Tours; but much of the material of the poem is legendary and paralleled in other Germanic historical-mythological literature in Norse, Old English, and German.

Although it has been suggested that the date of the poem may be nearer to that of its manuscript in the 10th cent., the poem is generally dated in the 8th cent., perhaps in its second quarter, at a time when England was being won over from paganism to Christianity. This date is taken to account for the strong thread of Christian commentary which runs through the poem, seemingly inappropriate to the date of its historical events. The degree of Christian morality inherent in the poem has been one of the two principal critical talking points about Beowulf; the second is the consistency or otherwise of the poem's construction. W. P. Ker (in Epic and Romance, 1896) regarded the monster stories as insignificant and the peripheral historical allusions as weighty and important. This view was most famously opposed by Tolkien in "The Monsters and the Critics" (1936) where he argued that it was precisely the superhuman opposition of the heathen monsters that elevated the poem to heroic stature, and that all the other allusions were related directly to the transient grandeur of Beowulf's life and battles with the monsters.

Beowulf is much the most important poem in Old English and it is the first major poem in a European vernacular language. It is remarkable for its sustained grandeur of tone and for the brilliance of its style, both in its rather baroque diction and in the association of the elements of its plot.


Ed. F. Klaeber (1922), etc.; C. L. Wrenn (1953, rev. W. F. Bolton, 1973); trans. E. T. Donaldson (1966); G. N. Gammonsway and then others in Beowulf and Its Analogues (1968); R. W. Chambers, Beowulf: An  Introduction (3rd edn with supplement by C. L. Wrenn, 1959); L. E. Nicholson (ed.), An Anthology of Beowulf Criticism (1963). Heaney's new translation appeared in 1999.












Study Guides for Beowulf:


















Lessons on Beowulf  from the University School at Nashville:

Introduction:
    http://youtu.be/wdmtgb4a4q4







 


ADVANCED LEVEL:



Now a longer introduction, from A Critical History of English Literature, by David Daiches (London: Secker and Warburg, 1960). Followed by Michael Wood's documentary In Search of Beowulf.

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Of surviving Anglo-Saxon literature, that which brings us most closely into contact with the Germanic origins of the invaders is the heroic poetry, which still bears traces not only of the pre-Christian heroic society of the continental Saxons and others, but also of that community of subject which linked these early English with the wider civilization of Germania. This is written in the language we know as Old English or Anglo-Saxon, which is essentially the English language in an earlier stage of its development, with inflections which have since disappeared, a relatively small vocabulary from which many words have since been lost (though some which are lost to standard English remain in altered from in Scots and in regional English dialects), and significant differences between, for example, the West Saxon dialect of the south and the Anglian dialect of Northumbria. The verse is alliterative and stressed, without rhyme, each line containing four stressed syllables and a varying number unstressed. There is a definite pause (caesura) between the two halves of each line, with two stresses in each half. 

We geascodon   Eormenrices
wylfenne ge þoht;   ahte wide folc
Gotena rices;  þæt wæs grim cyning.
Sæt secg monig   sorgum gebunden,
wean on wenan, wyscte geneahhe
þæt þæs cynerices   ofercumen wære.

To the superficial eye this looks very far removed from modern English; and in a sense it is. (The letter þ—"thorn"—has the sound of "th"). But a literal translation helps to bring out its relation to modern English: 

We have learned of Eormanric's
wolfish disposition; he held wide dominion
in the realm of the Goths. That was a cruel king.
Many a man sat bound in sorrows,
anticipating woe, often wishing
that his kingdom were overcome.

Some thirty thousand lines of Anglo-Saxon poetry have survived, nearly all of it contained in four manuscripts (1), and we have no reason to believe that the older, nonreligious poetry that survives is more than a casually preserved fragment of what was written. Specifically religious poetry might be expected to have earned ecclesiastical care and preservation, but the heroic poetry which connects more directly with the Germanic origins of the Anglo-Saxons could not be expected to arouse any special ecclesiastical interest even when it had been superficially purged of its pagan feeling and in some degree Christianized in thought. The conversion of the English peoples began with the arrival of Augustine in Kent in 597; he had been sent by Gregory the Great with a band of monks in order to achieve his missionary task. But, though Æthelbert, king of Kent, was duly converted to Christianity and Augustine was soon able to establish the seat of his bishopric at Canterbury, the permanent establishment of Christianity through England proved to be a much lengthier task and one which required the active intervention of Celtic missionaries from Ireland and Scotland. Differences between the customs and practices of the Irish Church—which had remained somewhat isolated from Rome—and the Roman Church, which had sponsored Augustine's mission, made for certain difficulties between those English ecclesiastics who looked to Rome and those who looked to Iona and to Ireland, and these were not resolved until the Synod of Whitby in 663 (2); but it is sufficient for the student of literature to note that the development of English Christianity was not continuous but sporadic from the first century and more, with certain notable setbacks such as the defeat and death of the Christian Edwin, king of Northumbria, at the hands of the pagan Prenda, king of Mercia, in 632, which meant the disappearance of the Christian Church in Northumbria until its re-establishment by Aidan and his followers from Iona. If even the external ecclesiastical organization was thus unstable in the early centuries, it is not difficult to see how traces of pagan thought in varying kinds of relation to Christianity persisted for some time after the nominal conversion of the English.

Unfortunately, though much is known in general about the mythology of the Germanic and the Norse peoples, we have very little definite information about the heathen background of Old English culture. Though we can drawn analogies between what we know of Scandinavian heathendom and what we surmise of its Old English equivalent, the fact remains that the common origin of the two was was already far in the past by the time we find the Anglo-Saxons in England. Old English place names give some indication of pre-Christian activity associated with certain localities in Anglo-Saxon England, but tell us nothing of the larger patterns of attitude and belief which are of the most relevance for a study of the literature. That Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry, even as we have it, is the product of a pagan heroic society and in social tone and general mood bears evidence of its origins, can hardly be disputed. But debate on the degree to which Beowulf, for example, has been modified by a relatively sophisticated Latin culture—not only by Christian sentiment but, as has been claimed, by a Virgilian tradition,—cannot be resolved without knowledge of more details than it seems likely we shall ever possess about primitive Anglo-Saxon beliefs. On the whole, it would seem likely that Beowulf and such other remains of early English heroic poetry as survive are closer to their pagan origins in mood and purpose than is sometimes believed.

Though there are difficulties in placing the earliest extant Anglo-Saxon poetry in its cultural context, we can take some comfort from the knowledge that what has survived of Anglo-Saxon poetry, fragmentary though it is and an arbitrary sample though it may be, is of earlier date than any extant poetry of the other Germanic literatures—of Old High German or Old Norse, for example. Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry is the nearest we can get to the oral pagan literature of the Heroic Age of Germania. The stressed alliterative verse of Anglo-Saxon poetry is clearly the product of an oral court minstrelsy; it was intended to be recited by the scop, the itinerant minstrel who frequented the halls of kings and chiefs and sometimes found continuous service with one master. One of the earliest surviving Anglo-Saxon poems, Widsith, is the autobiographical record of such a scop. The poem as we have it is probably not homogeneous—some of the lines seem to be later interpolations—but the core of the work finely reflects the heroic attitude to the bard's function and gives us a fascinating glimpse of the Germanic world as it appeared to the imagination of the Anglo-Saxons. The text we have of the poem is in the Exeter Book, and is thus tenth-century and in the West Saxon dialect; the poem—which must have been originally composed in Northumbria—dates from the late seventh or early eight century, though parts of it must be older even than that. Widsith, the "far wanderer," tells of his travels throughout the Germanic world and mentions the many rulers he has visited. Many of the characters he mentions figure in other poems—in Beowulf, for example, and in the fragmentary stories of Finn and Waldhere. The princes he claims to have visited cover virtually the whole Germanic world and their lifetimes extend over two hundred years. He was, he tells us, with Eormanric (the Gothic king who died about 370): "likewise I was in Italy with Ælfwine," he tells us elsewhere in the poem, and Ælfwine is Alboin, king of the Lombards, who died about 572 (and who is, incidentally, the latest character to be mentioned in any Germanic heroic poem). The poem thus cannot be true autobiography. It is, however, something much more interesting than that: it is a view of Germanic history and geography as it appeared to a Northumbrian bard of the seventh century drawing on the traditions of his people. What strikes us most forcibly is its catholicity: praise is meted out impartially to Huns, Goths, Burgundians, Franks, Danes, Swedes, Angles, Wends, Saxons, Langobards, and many others. "Ætla [Attila] ruled the Huns, Eormanric the Goths, Becca the Bannings, Gifica the Burgundians, . . . Theodric ruled the Franks, Thyle the Rondings, Breoca the Brondings, Billing the Wærnas. Oswine ruled the Eowan, and Gefwulf the Jutes, Fin Folcwalding the race of the Frisians.  . . . Offa ruled Angel, Alewih the Danes; he was the most courageous of all these men, but he did not excel Offa in his mighty deeds." We are given here a bird's eye view of the subject matter of Germanic heroic poetry; and we are reminded that the heroes of that poetry were not regional or national but common to all Germania.

Widsith may be primitive stuff as poetry—indeed, the first catalogue of rulers in the poem is cast in the form of a very early early type of genealogical verse and may well date from the beginning of the sixth century or even from before the coming of the Anglo-Saxons to Britain—but it is this very primitive quality which is of most interest. In its combination of historical memories and heroic traditions it shows us something of the historical foundations of heroic poetry and reminds us of the nature and extent of that wide world of Germania which the author of Beowulf was equally to take for granted as familiar to his audience and thus as suitable material for allusion and analogy. The whole world of barbarian wanderings and conquests—the world which collided with, in a sense destroyed, and in a sense was absorbed by, the Roman Empire—is here sketched out. And that world provides the orchestration, as it were, for Beowulf.

Beowulf holds a special position in Anglo-Saxon literature—indeed, in older Germanic literature as a whole—because it is the only complete extant epic of its kind in an ancient Germanic language. Nowhere else is a traditional theme handled in a long narrative poem against a background which reveals to us the culture and society of the Heroic Age of the Germanic peoples. Whether there were in fact other Anglo-Saxon epics, which have not survived, is a question which may well be debated forever; but the fact remains that Beowulf survives in a single manuscript, which was damaged by fire before it was ever studied or transcribed. If it is impossible to determine conclusively whether it was the Anglo-Saxon epic or simply an Anglo-Saxon epic (though it should be mentioned  that modern opinion inclines to the belief that it was the only poem of its kind composed in Anglo-Saxon times), it can at least be said that it is a poem technically impressive in its handling of narrative verse, remarkably successful in rendering that combination of heroic idealism and somber fatalism which seems to have been part of the Germanic temper, yet structurally weak and providing insufficient unity of tone or organization to hold together effectively the two central episodes and the many digressions which make up the whole. Though the ultimate origin of the story is folklore (working, as folklore does, on history), and behind the poem probably lies a variety of popular lays, the poem as we have it is generally agreed to be the work of a single author writing in the first half of the eighth century, though a powerful case has been made out for its having been composed orally by a heathen considerably earlier, with the Christian references (of which there are about seventy) representing later revision or interpolations. Future scholars may well return to this latter view.

Beowulf falls into two main parts. The first deals with the visit of Beowulf, nephew of King Hygelac of the Geats (the Geats probably occupied what is now southern Sweden), to the court of King Hrothgar of Denmark. The aging Hrothgar had long been plagued by a man-eating monster, Grendel, who came regularly to the king's great hall of Heorot to prey on his warriors, and it was to slay the monster that Beowulf came to Denmark. He fights with and mortally wounds Grendel in Heorot, and when Grendel's mother comes to take revenge for the death of her son he follows her to her underwater home and after a desperate struggle slays her too. Beowulf and his companions then leave for home, laden with honors and presents from the Danish king. The second part takes place fifty years later, when Beowulf has long been king of the Geats. A dragon, guarding a hoard of treasure, has been disturbed, and has been going out to wreak slaughter throughout the land. Beowulf, to save his country from the dragon's ravages, undertakes to fight it, and though he succeeds in slaying it he is himself mortally wounded in the struggle. The poem ends with an account of Beowulf's funeral: his body is burned on an elaborate funeral pyre, amid the lamentations of his warriors.

There are historical elements in Beowulf, though they are seen through the folk memory and the folk imagination, in combination with a variety of marvelous legends. There are also onumerous digressions and allusions which make it clear that the author is taking for granted among his readers (or auditors) knowledge of a whole body of stories concerning Germanic heroes. In the feast of Heorot celebrating Beowulf's victory over Grendel we are told how the minstrel recited the story of Hnæf's death at the hands of the sons of Finn and the subsequent vengeance taken on Finn by the Danes, whose leader Hnæf had been. Part of the minstrel's recital is given at considerable length in Beowulf, but it can have had little meaning to anyone without a knowledge of the whole story. We can in some degree reconstruct the sequence of events with the help of a fragmentary Anglo-Saxon lay, The Fight at Finnsburh, which appears to deal with other events in the same story, told on a different scale. Other stories are referred to in Beowulf more casually, and part of its interest lies in the thread of Germanic story that runs, through allusions, analogies, and references, through the poem. Though it is an Anglo-Saxon poem, composed in England, it harks back to the period of Germanic history before the Anglo-Saxon invasion and shows no bias toward English heroes. Geats, Danes, and Swedes occupy the foreground of the narrative, and emerging briefly from the background are a number of figures whom we also meet in Scandinavian tradition and in the poetry and legends of a variety of Teutonic peoples.

On the surface, Beowulf is a heroic poem, celebrating the exploits of a great warrior whose character and actions are held up as a model of aristocratic virtue. It reflects the ideals of that state of society we call the Heroic Age, and its resemblance to the Odyssey in this respect has often been noted. The grave courtesy with which men of rank are received and dismissed, the generosity of rulers and the loyalty of retainers, the thirst for fame through the achievement of deeds of courage and endurance, the solemn boasting of warriors before and after performance, the interest in genealogies and pride in a noble heredity—all these things are to be found in both poems. But Beowulf is also a record of marvels rather different in kind from those encountered by Ulysses in his adventures, and, further, its Anglo-Saxon gravity is reinforced by the introduction of Christian elements which do not, however, seriously weaken the pagan atmosphere of the poem, for they are concerned with large elemental facts such as God's creation and governance of the world and such Old Testament stories as that of Cain's murder of Abel. If the general atmosphere of Beowulf can be called seriously pagan, with the seriousness deepened and the pagan heroic ideal enlarged by Christian elements, it is certainly not uncivilized, though the civilization it reflects is primitive enough. There is a genuine ideal of nobility underlying its adventure stories.

It is the splendid gravity of the poem that falls more impressively on modern ears. Sometimes in a single line the poem conveys atmosphere and mood to perfection. We are given an acount of Beowulf's reception at Heorot, and his confident words before his warriors lay themselves down to sleep. Then:

                           Com on warne niht
scrið (3) an sceadu-3en3a.   Sceotend swaefon,
þa þæt horn-reced         healdan scoldon,
ealle buton anum. . . .
    Ða com of more   under mist-hleoþum
3rendel 3on3an, 3odes yrre bær. . . .
                  
                            Came on the dark night
gliding, the shadowy prowler. The warriors slept
who were to hold the antlered hall,
all but one. . . .
    Then from the moor under the misty cliffs
came Grendel marching, he bore God's anger.

The tone is not uniform, but the poem is at its most effective in its moments of slow terror or suspense, and in its more elegiac moods. It has neither the larger epic conception of the Odyssey nor the fine polish of a "secondary" epic such as the Aeneid. But it is an impressive, if uneven, performance, carrying us successfully into the Anglo-Saxon heroic imagination, with its emphasis on solemn courtesy, generosity, fidelity, and sheer endurance. And underlying all is the sense of the shortness of life and the passing away of all things except the fame a man leaves behind.

There is little else surviving of Anglo-Saxon literature which makes direct contact with the older heroic view of life. Deor, an interesting poem of forty-two lines, is the complaint of a minstrel who, after years of service to his lord, has been supplanted by a rival, Heorrenda. He comforts himself by recounting the trials of Germanic heroes, all of which were eventually overcome. After each reference to the troubles of some famous character there occurs the refrain

Þæs ofereode,     þisses swa mæg.
That was surmounted; so may this be

                     
We get fascinating glimpses of figures famous in Germanic legend—Weland the smith, Theodoric the Ostrogoth, Eormanric the Goth, and others—and of the troubles they suffered or caused; but the main interest of the poem lies in its combination of this kind of subject matter with a personal, elegiac note, not common in Anglo-Saxon poetry, though found even more intensely in The Wanderer and The Seafarer, to be discussed later.









Notes

(1) These are: (1) MS Cotton Vitellius A XV in the British Museum, which contains Beowulf, Judith, and three prose works. (2) The Junius Manuscript in the Bodleian Library, Oxford (MS Bodleian Junius 11), which contains Genesis, Exodus, Daniel, and Christ and Satan. (3). The Exeter Book, given by Bishop Leofric to Exeter Cathedral, containing Christ, Juliana, The Wanderer, The Seafarer, Widsith, Deor, and many other short pieces. (4). The Vercelli Book, preserved in the cathedral library at Vercelli, in northern Italy, which contains Andreas, The Fates of the Apostles, Address of the Soul to the Body, The Dream of the Rood, and Elene.

(2) Not 664, as is traditionally held. Bede dates it 664, but he begins his year in September, and as the Synod can be shown to have been held in late September or early October, this would mean 663 in our dating.

(3) ð, like þ, has the sound of "th". Ð is the capital form of ð.



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Michael Wood, In Search of Beowulf. A BBC documentary: 

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Some additional materials:



"Beowulf the Legendary Geatish Hero" (History Channel - Clash of the Gods series).
 

 
In Search of the Dark Ages. Michael Wood documentary video series.
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBOXjuzxIKcom1QRkE0y62DyEt_4jkKw4
 

The Wanderer  

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