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 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

Beowulf: NIVEL AVANZADO

NIVEL AVANZADO: Beowulf

Bragg, Melvyn, et al. "Beowulf." BBC (In Our Time) 5 March 2005.* Online audio:
    http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b0542xt7

(Ojo, si vuestro navegador no tiene Flash, podéis bajar estos audios en versión mp3).


Un documental de la BBC sobre Beowulf:

Una nota sobre el autoengendramiento del poema en Beowulf

 

 —And some notes on Anglo-Saxon prose.

Orientations: Beowulf

From Michael Alexander's 

History of English Literature 

(2nd ed., Palgrave Macmillan, 2007)

Beowulf

Like Greek literature, English literature begins with an epic, a poem of historic scope telling of heroes and of the world, human and non-human. Compared with the epics of Homer, Beowulf is short, with 3182 verses, yet it is the longest as well as the richest of Old English poems. Like other epics, it has a style made for oral composition, rich in formulas. The poem is found in a manuscript of the early eleventh century, but was composed perhaps two centuries earlier still, on the coasts of the Baltic. This was the northwest Germanic world from which the English had come to Britain. The coming of the Saxons is recalled in a poem in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for 937.


... from the east came
Angles and Saxons up to these shores,
Seeking Britain across the broad seas,
Smart for glory, those smiths of war
That overcame the Welsh, and won a homeland

The first great work of English literature is not set in Britain. Beowulf opens with the mysterious figure of Scyld, founder of the Scylding dynasty of Denmark, who would have lived c. 400, before England existed. A Hengest mentioned in a sub-story of the poem may be the Hengest invited into Kent in 449 (see page 12). The Offa who is mentioned may be an ancestor of Offa, King of Mercia in the 8th century.


Beowulf showed the English the world of their ancestors, the heroic world of the north, a world both glorious and heathen. Dynasties take their identity from their ancestors, and the rulers of the English kingdoms ruled by right of ancestral conquest. The date and provenance of Beowulf are uncertain, and its authorship unknown, but the poem would have had ancestral interest to such a ruler. West-Saxon genealogies go back to Noah via Woden; they include three names mentioned in Beowulf—Scyld, Scef and Beow. When in the 7th century the English became Christian they sent missionaries to their Germanic cousins. The audience for poetry was the lord of the hall and the men of his retinue. Such an audience was proud of its ancestors—even if, as the poem says of the Danes, 'they did not know God'.

The text of Beowulf is found in a manuscript in the West-Saxon dialect of Wessex which had become the literary standard. All the texts in the manuscript are about monsters, but the prime concern of Beowulf is not with monsters or even heroes but with human wisdom and destiny. It recounts the doings over two or three generations about the year 500 of the rulers of the Danes and the Swedes, and of a people who lived between them in southern Sweden, the Geats. The name Beowulf is not recorded in history, but the political and dynastic events of the poem are consistent with history. Beowulf is the nephew of Hygelac, King of the Geats, who died in a raid on the northern fringe of the Frankish empire. This key event of the poem is recorded in two Latin histories as having happened in about 521.

Hygelac fell in a raid in search of booty. In attacking the Frisians on the Frankish border, Beowulf's uncle was asking for trouble, says the poem. The Franks took from Hygelac's body a necklace of precious stones, a treasure previously bestowed on Beowulf by the Queen of the Danes as a reward for having killed the monster, Grendel (see below). On his return from Denmark, Beowulf had presented this prize to his lord, Hygelac, but the necklace was lost in this needless attack. Beowulf stopped the enemy champion, Dayraven, from taking Hygelac's armour by crushing him to death with his bare hands. Beowulf returned with the armour of thirty soldiers, and declined the throne, preferring to serve Hygelac's young son. But when this son is killed for harbouring an exiled Swedish prince, Beowulf became king and ruled the Geats for 'fifty years'.

The poem has a mysterious overture in the arrival of Scyld as a foundling child, sent by God to protect the lordless Danes, his victorious life and his burial in a ship. His great-grandson Hrothgar inherits the Danish empire and builds the great hall of Heorot, where he rewards his followers with gifts. At a banquet, Hrothgar's poet sings the story of the creation of the world. The sound of music, laughter and feasting is resented by the monster Grendel, who comes from the fens to attack Heorot when the men are asleep. He devours thirty of Hrothgar's thanes. Beowulf hears of the persecution of the Danes and comes to kill Grendel, in a tremendous fight at night in the hall. The next night, Grendel's mother comes to the hall and takes her revenge. Beowulf follows her to her lair in an underwater cave, where with God's help he kills her. Finally, in old age, he has to fight a dragon, who has attacked the Geats in revenge for the taking of a cup from his treasure-hoard. Beowulf faces the dragon alone, but can kill it only with the help of a young supporter; he dies of his wounds. The poem ends with a prophecy of the subjection of the Geats by the Franks or the Swedes. The Geats build a funeral pyre for their leader.

Then the warriors rode about the barrow
Twelve of them in all, athelings' sons.
They recited a dirge to declare their grief,
Spoke of the man, mourned their King.
They praised his manhood, and the prowess of his hands,
They raised his name; it is right a man
Should be lavish in honouring his lord and friend,
Should love him in his heart when the leading-forth
From the house of flesh befalls him at last.

This was the manner of the mourning of the men of the Geats,
Sharers in the feast, at the fall of their lord:
They said that he was of all the world's kings
The gentlest of men, and the most gracious,
The kindest to his people, the keenest for fame.

The foundation of Germanic heroic society is the bond between a lord and his people, especially his retinue of warriors. Each will die for the other. Beowulf's epitaph suggests an ethical recipe for heroism: three parts responsibility to one part honour. The origin of Beowulf's life-story in the folk-tale of the Bear's son and his marvellous feats, is transformed by the poem into a distinctly social ideal of the good young hero and the wise old king.

The heroic world is violent, but neither Beowulf nor Beowulf is bloodthirsty. The poem shows not just the glory but also the human cost of a code built upon family honour and the duty of vengeance. This cost is borne by men, and differently, by women. In this aristocratic world, women have honoured roles: peacemaker in marriage-alliances between dynasties, bride, consort, hostess, counsellor, mother, and widow. In Beowulf the cost of martial honour is signified in the figure of the mourning woman. Here is the Danish princess Hildeburh at the funeral pyre of her brother Hnaef, treacherously killed by her husband Finn, and her son, also killed in the attack on Hnaef. Shortly after this, Finn is killed by Hengest.

Hildeburh then ordered her own son
To be given to the funeral fire of Hnaef
For the burning of his bones; bade him be laid
At his uncle's side. She sang the dirges,
Bewailed her grief. The warrior went up;
The greatest of corpse-fires coiled to the sky, 
Roared before the mounds. There were melting heads
And bursting wounds, as the blood sprang out
From weapon-bitten bodies. Blazing fire,
Most insatiable of spirits, swallowed the remains
of the victims of both nations. Their valour was no more.

The heroic way of life—magnificent, hospitable and courageous—depends upon military success. It can descend into the world of the feud, violent and merciless. The heroic code involves obligations to lord, to family and to guest, and heroic literature brings these obligations into tension, with tragic potential.

A comparison can be made between Beowulf and the Achilles of the Iliad. When Achilles' pride is piqued, he will not fight, rejoining the Greeks only after his friend and substitute is killed. Achilles takes out his anger on the Trojan Hector, killing him, dishonoring his corpse and refusing to yield it for burial, until at last Hector's father humiliates himself before Achilles to beg his son's body. Achilles is reminded that even he must die. Homer's characterization is more dramatic, brilliant and detailed; the characters of Beowulf are types rather than individuals. The ethos is also different. Beowulf devotedly serves his lord Hygelac, and his people the Geats. His youthful exploits in Denmark repay a debt of honour he owes to Hrothgar, who had saved Beowulf's father Edgetheow, paying compensation for the life of a man Edgetheow had killed. Like Achilles, Beowulf is eloquent, courageous, quick to act, unusually strong. But Beowulf is considerate, magnanimous and responsible. As Hrothgar points out, he has an old head on young shoulders; he makes a good king. Yet as the poem makes clear in a series of stories marginal to Beowulf's own life, most warriors from ruling families fall far short of Beowulf's responsibility and judgement. Beowulf is both a celebration of and an elegy for heroism. The ideal example set by Beowulf himself implies a Christian critique of an ethic in which honour can be satisfied by 'the world's remedy', vengeance.

Grendel envies the harmony of the feast in Heorot and destroys it. He is a fiend: feond means both enemy and malign spirit. He is also in man's shape, though of monstrous size. He is identified as a descendant of Cain, the first murderer, who in Genesis is marked and driven out by God from human society. Fratricide was an occupational hazard in ruling Germanic families, since succession was not by primogeniture but by choice of the fittest. In the heroic age of the north, sons were often fostered out, partly to reduce conflict and risk, but fraternal rivalry remained endemic. In Beowulf the greatest crimes are treachery to a lord and murder of kindred. The folklore figure of Grendel embodies the savage spirit of fratricidal envy. The dragon is a brute without Grendel's human and demonic aspects. He destroys Beowulf's hall by fire in revenge for the theft of a golden cup from his treasure. The dragon jealously guards his hoard underground, whereas the king shares out rings in the hall.

Beowulf commands respect by the depth and maturity of its understanding. Although its archaic world of warriors and rulers is simple, the poem is often moving in its sober concern with wisdom and right action, the destiny of dynasties, the limits of human understanding and power, and with the creative and the destructive in human life. Its style has reserve and authority.

Beowulf

—oOo—

Old English and the Anglo-Saxons: NIVEL AVANZADO

OLD ENGLISH AND ANGLOSAXONS: NIVEL AVANZADO:

- Un pequeño tutorial sobre The Early Anglo-Saxons.
 

- The Venerable Bede: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bede

A BBC audio on the Venerable Bede: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p004y26h

- Poesía religiosa anglosajona—around Cynewulf

- Y otros poemas del inglés antiguo que no vimos:

Del Génesis B, la rebelión de Satanás:
https://litinglesa.blogspot.com/2019/09/la-rebelion-de-satanas.html

"Los destinos de los hombres": https://litinglesa.blogspot.com/2021/09/the-fates-of-men-nivel-avanzado.html

Uno de los poemas-adivinanzas del Exeter Book, "El viento de tormenta": https://litinglesa.blogspot.com/2021/09/el-viento-de-tormenta.html

- Documentales históricos sobre la Edad Media:

- In Search of the Dark Ages (Video).



HISTORY OF BRITAIN (VIDEO).

—Una serie en YouTube muy visible. Aquí tenéis otro, también de la BBC, sobre la invasión anglosajona, un poco demasiado revisionista: https://youtu.be/b0-N05K_MKY


- Es muy recomendable el documental de la televisión británica Seven Ages of Britain: Age of Conquest:

https://www.enhancetv.com.au/video/seven-ages-of-britain-age-of-conquest/380

 



  - Una historia literaria clásica, NIVEL AVANZADO, sobre literatura inglesa medieval:

Ward, A. W., and A. R. Waller, eds. From the Beginnings to the Cycle of Romance. Vol. 1 (English) of The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. Ed. A. W. Ward and A. R. Waller. Online at Bartleby.*

         http://www.bartleby.com/211/index.html

         2013

 

La rebelión de Satanás

NIVEL AVANZADO: La rebelión de Satanás


Del Génesis B, poema contenido en un manuscrito de hace mil años, el códice anglosajón Junius 11. Hay una edición en red en Project Gutenberg:


 V

(ll. 235-236) "...Eat freely of the fruit of every other tree. From that one tree refrain. Beware of its fruit. And ye shall know no dearth of pleasant things."

(ll. 237-245) Eagerly they bowed them down before the King of heaven, and gave Him thanks for all, for His teachings and counsels. And He gave them that land to dwell in. Then the Holy Lord, the Steadfast King, departed into heaven. And the creatures of His hand abode together on the earth. They had no whit of care to grieve them, but only to do the will of God for ever. Dear were they unto God as long as they would keep His holy word.

VI

(ll. 246-260) The Holy Lord, All-wielding God, with mighty hand had wrought ten angel-orders in whom He trusted well, that they would do Him service, and work His will. Therefore God gave them reason, with His own hands shaped them, and stablished them in bliss. But one He made so great and strong of heart, He let him wield such power in heaven next unto God, so radiant-hued He wrought him, so fair his form in heaven which God had given, that he was like unto the shining stars. He should have sung his Maker's praise, and prized his bliss in heaven. He should have thanked his Lord for the great boon He showered on him in the heavenly light, and let him long enjoy. But he turned him to a worse thing, and strove to stir up strife against the Highest Lord of heaven, who sitteth on the throne of glory.

(ll. 261-276) Dear was he to our Lord. Nor could it long be hid from God that pride was growing in His angel's heart. He set himself against his Leader, scoffed at God with boasting, and would not serve Him. He said his form was beautiful and bright, gleaming and fair of hue. Nor could he find it in his heart to serve the Lord God, or be subject to Him. It seemed to him that he had greater strength and larger following than Holy God might have. Many words the angel spake in his presumption. By his own power alone he thought to build a stronger throne and mightier in heaven. He said his heart was urging him to toil, to build a stately palace in the north and west. He said he doubted in his heart if he would still be subject unto God:

(ll. 277-291) "Why should I slave?" quoth he. "I need not serve a master. My hands are strong to work full many a wonder. Power enough have I to rear a goodlier throne, a higher in the heavens. Why should I fawn for His favour, or yield Him such submission? I may be God as well as He! Brave comrades stand about me; stout-hearted heroes who will not fail me in the fray. These valiant souls have chosen me their lord. With such peers one may ponder counsel, and gain a following. Devoted are these friends and faithful-hearted; and I may be their lord and rule this realm. It seemeth no wise right to me that I should cringe a whit to God for any good. I will not serve Him longer."

(ll. 292-298) Now when God had heard all this, how His angel was beginning to make presumptuous head against his Leader, speaking rash words of insolence against his Lord, needs must he make atonement for that deed, endure the woe of strife, and bear his punishment, most grievous of all deaths. And so doth every man who wickedly thinketh to strive with God, the Lord of might.

(ll. 299-319) Then Almighty God, High Lord of heaven, was filled with wrath, and hurled him from his lofty throne. He had gained his Master's hate, and lost His favour. God's heart was hardened against him. Wherefore he needs must sink into the pit of torment because he strove against the Lord of heaven. He banished him from grace and cast him into hell, into the deep abyss where he became a devil. The Fiend and all his followers fell from heaven; three nights and days the angels fell from heaven into hell. God changed them all to devils. Because they heeded not His deed and word, therefore Almighty God hurled them into darkness, deep under earth, crushed them and set them in the mirk of hell. There through the never-ending watches of the night the fiends endure an unremitting fire. Then at the dawn cometh an east wind, and bitter frost, ever a blast of fire or storm of frost. And each must have his share of suffering wrought for his punishment. Their world was changed when God filled full the pit of hell with His foes!

(ll. 320-322) But the angels who kept their faith with God dwelt in the heights of heaven.

VII

(ll. 322-336) The other fiends who waged so fierce a war with God lay wrapped in flames. They suffer torment, hot and surging flame in the midst of hell, broad-stretching blaze of fire and bitter smoke, darkness and gloom, because they broke allegiance unto God. Their folly and the angel's pride deceived them. They would not heed the word of God. Great was their punishment! They fell, through folly and through pride, to fiery depths of flame in hell. They sought another home devoid of light and filled with fire—a mighty flaming death. The fiends perceived that through the might of God, because of their presumptuous hearts and boundless insolence, they had won a measureless woe.

(ll. 337-355) Then spake their haughty king, who formerly was fairest of the angels, most radiant in heaven, beloved of his Leader and dear unto his Lord, until they turned to folly, and Almighty God was moved to anger at their wantonness, and hurled him down to depths of torment on that bed of death. He named him with a name, and said their leader should be called from thenceforth Satan. He bade him rule the black abyss of hell in place of striving against God. Satan spake—who now must needs have charge of hell and dwell in the abyss—in bitterness he spake who once had been God's angel, radiant-hued in heaven, until his pride and boundless arrogance betrayed him, so that he would not do the bidding of the Lord of hosts. Bitterness was welling in his heart; and round him blazed his cruel torment. These words he spake:

(ll. 355-367) "This narrow place is little like those other realms we knew, on high in heaven, allotted by my Lord, though the Almighty hath not granted us to hold our state, or rule our kingdom. He hath done us wrong to hurl us to the fiery depths of hell, and strip us of our heavenly realm. He hath ordained that human kind shall settle there. That is my greatest grief that Adam—wrought of earth—should hold my firm-set throne and live in joy, while we endure this bitter woe in hell.

(ll. 368-388) "Alas! could I but use my hands and have my freedom for an hour, one winter hour, then with this host I would— But bands of iron crush me down, the bondage of my chains is heavy. I am stripped of my dominion. Firmly are hell's fetters forged upon me. Above me and below a blaze of fire! Never have I seen a realm more fatal—flame unassuaged that surges over hell. Ensnaring links and heavy shackles hold me. My ways are trammelled up; my feet are bound; my hands are fastened. Closed are the doors of hell, the way cut off. I may not escape out of my bonds, but mighty gyves of tempered iron, hammered hot, press hard upon me. God hath set His foot upon my neck. So I know the Lord of hosts hath read the purpose of my heart, and knew full well that strife would grow between our host and Adam over the heavenly realm, had I the freedom of my hands.

VIII

(ll. 389-400) "But now we suffer throes of hell, fire and darkness, bottomless and grim. God hath thrust us out into the black mists. He cannot charge upon us any sin or evil wrought against Him in His realm! Yet hath He robbed us of the light and cast us into utter woe. Nor may we take revenge, nor do Him any evil because He stripped us of the light. He hath marked out the borders of the world, and there created man in His own image, with whom He hopes again to people heaven, with pure souls. We needs must ponder earnestly to wreak this grudge on Adam, if we may, and on his children, and thwart His will if so we may devise.

(ll. 401-407) "No longer have I any hope of light wherein He thinketh long to joy, in bliss among His angel hosts; nor may we ever bring this thing to pass, that we should change the purpose of Almighty God. Let us therefore turn the heavenly kingdom from the sons of men, since we may not possess it, cause them to lose His favour and turn aside from the command He laid upon them. Then shall His wrath be kindled, and He shall cast them out from grace. They shall seek out hell and its grim gulf, and in this heavy bondage we may have the sons of men to serve us.

(ll. 408-424) "Begin now and plan this enterprise. If ever in olden days, when happily we dwelt in that good kingdom, and held possession of our thrones, I dealt out princely treasure to any thane, he could not make requital for my gifts at any better time than now, if some one of my thanes would be my helper, escaping outward through these bolted gates, with strength to wing his way on high where, new-created, Adam and Eve, surrounded with abundance, dwell on earth—and we are cast out hither in this deep abyss. They are now much dearer unto God, and own the high estate and rightful realm which we should have in heaven! Good fortune is allotted to mankind.

(ll. 425-437) "My soul is sorrowful within me, my heart is sore, that they should hold the heavenly realm for ever. But if in any wise some one of you could bring them to forsake God's word and teaching, soon would they be less pleasing unto Him! If they break His commandment, then will His wrath be kindled. Their high estate shall vanish; their sin shall have requital, and some grim penalty. Take thought now how ye may ensnare them. I shall rest softly in these chains if they lose heaven. Whoso shall bring this thing to pass shall have reward for ever, of all that we may win to our advantage, amid these flames.


Sigue la tentación de Eva, y la escena de la manzana. El origen del símbolo de Apple. El Satanás del poema anglosajón es un cabecilla rebelde que se ha alzado contra su señor feudal. Pueden compararse los versos del más famoso monólogo de Satanás en el Paríso Perdido de Milton, donde el tono es más subjetivo y existencial, con más énfasis en la interioridad:


Hadst thou the same free will and power to stand?
Thou hadst. Whom has thou then, or what, to accuse,
But Heaven's free love dealt equally to all?
Be then his love accursed, since, love or hate,
To me alike it deals eternal woe.
Nay, cursed be thou; since against his thy will
Chose freely what it now so justly rues.
Me miserable! which way shall I fly
Infinite wrath and infinite despair?
Which way I fly is Hell; myself am Hell;
And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep
Still threatening to devour me opens wide,
To which the Hell I suffer seems a Heaven.
O, then, at last relent! Is there no place
Left for repentence, none for pardon left?
None left but by submission; and that word
Disdain forbids me, and my dread of shame
Among the Spirits beneath, whom I seduced
With other promises and other vaunts
Than to submit, boasting I could subdue
The Omnipotent. Aye me! they little know
How dearly I abide that boast so vain,
Under what torments inwardly I groan.

Y de ahí a James Joyce: "Non serviam!"

Según Michael Alexander, no es imposible que Milton conociese este texto del Génesis B, pues estudió anglosajón y conocía a Junius, el primer editor del manuscrito.
 

Un pájaro en la noche y la destrucción de los altares
  

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The Anglo-Saxon Elegiac Poems

NIVEL AVANZADO: David Daiches - The Anglo-Saxon elegiac poems

From the chapter on Anglo-Saxon literature in A Critical History of English Literature, by David Daiches.

Though some of the Anglo-Saxon religious poems, especially some of those by Cynewulfand his school, express a personal devotional feeling, none of them can be said to be really lyrical in character or to have been written primarily for the purpose of exploring personal emotion. Neither the heroic nor the religious poetry of the Anglo-Saxon tends toward the lyric, and though a note of somber elegy is sometimes struck, it is rarely developed for its own sake. There is, however, a group of Anglo-Saxon poems in which a mood of lyrical elegy predominates, and these stand somewhat apart from the poetry we have already discussed. Of these The Wanderer and The Seafarer are the most similar to each other. The Wanderer is the lament of a solitary man who had once been happy in the service of a loved lord but who now, long after his lord's death and the passing away of that earlier time of happiness and friendship, has become a wanderer journeying in the paths of exile across the icy sea. The poem ends with some conventional moralizing, but the main part of the elegy is an impressive lament for departed joys, done with a plangent tone of reminiscence and an effective use of the ubi sunt? theme—"where are the snows of yesteryear?"—that was to become such a favorite in medieval literature. The Seafarer, which has the same melancholy tone, the same mingling of regret and self-pity, is the monologue of an old sailor who recalls the loneliness and hardships of a life at sea while at the same time aware of its fascination. Some critics take it to be a dialogue, in which the old sailor urges the hardships of the seafaring life against the argument of an eager young man anxious to take to the sea and attracted by the difficulties, and the poem can indeed be read in this way; but the fluctuating moods of the poem seem more impressive if taken as the alternation of weariness and fascination in the same person. Whichever way we read it, however, it is the elegiac element that stands out from among the sometimes obscure sequence of moods, which ends, like The Wanderer, with a conventional religious sentiment. The date of both these poems is uncertain: they may be almost as old as Beowulf. Both are found in the Exeter Book.

Another poem in the Exeter Book, which is generally given the title of The Wife's Lament, can also be considered as belonging to this group of elegiac monologues. It is difficult to follow the precise situation the speaker is describing, but apparently the wife has been separated from her husband and forced to dwell in a cave in the forest by the plottings of his kinsmen. In spate of the comparative obscurity of the situation, the central emotion comes through strongly, and the note of personal passion—the love and longing for the absent husband, the curse on the enemy responsible for her present plight—rings out with remarkable clarity. Similar in many ways to this poem is The Husband's Message. Here the speaker is the piece of wood on which the letter is carved: it first tells the wife its own life story and then goes on to speak the message now carved on it. The husband reminds the wife of her earlier vows, tells her that he has been driven from her by a feud, and bids her join him across the sea. Wulf and Eadwacer is another dramatic monologue, existing only in a fragment of nineteen lines in the Exeter Book, which, for all the obscurity of the situation described, expresses and intense romantic passion in a way quite uncharacteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry as it has come down to us. Wulf is the woman's outlawed lover and Eadwacer her hated husband, or at least the man with whom, against her will, she is forced to live. The passionate cry of

Wulf, min Wulf,     wena me þine
seoce gedydon,      þine seldcymas
murnende mod,     nales meteliste—
Wulf, my Wulf, my longings for thee
Have made me sick, thy rare visits,
It was my sorrowful heart, not want of food—

might be Iseult calling for Tristan as conceived by some nineteenth-century romantic poet. The Wife's Lament, The Husband's Message, and Wulf and Eadwacer represent all we have of Anglo-Saxon love poetry. They have not been tampered with by cleric anxious to give a moral and religious twist to the end, but have survived in all the intensity of their original utterance. How many poems in a similar style may have been lost it is impossible to tell, nor is it easy to see for what kind of an audience this kind of poetry was written. We know to what taste the Anglo-Saxon heroic poet catered, and we can understand the appeal of the religious poetry of the age; but these passionate renderings of personal emotion, devoid of either heroic atmosphere or religious teaching, must have appealed to a taste one is not accustomed to thinking of as at all prevalent in the Anglo-Saxon period of English culture.

There is one other interesting Anglo-Saxon poem with an elegiac tone; it is a description of a ruined city (perhaps Bath) in about fifty lines, found in the Exeter Book. It is a sad picture of desolation and decay set against an account of the earlier prosperity of the place, and, though the text is imperfect, the sense of passionate regret at the passing away of what was once lively and beautiful is conveyed with impressive eloquence. No clerical improve has tagged a religious moral on to it (or, if he has, it has not survived in the incomplete version which alone is extant) and the mood is somberly fatalistic. The Ruin is not incompatible in feeling with much of Beowulf, which has its own stern sense of fate, and we can see from it how in Anglo-Saxon poetry one kind of elegiac mood was the reverse of the medal whose obverse was heroic.

The Exeter book contains nearly a hundred Anglo-Saxon riddles, some of which seem to have been translated from Latin originals composed in England by clerics of the seventh and eighth century and some derived from the fourth- to fifth- century Latin writer Symphosius. This from of literary amusement has little appeal for the modern reader, though many of The Riddles—which are in regular Anglo-Saxon verse form—show considerable literary skill, particularly in descriptive passages. Their chief interest today lies in the incidental glimpses they give us of the daily life of Anglo-Saxon England and the folk beliefs of the time. Similarly, the so-called "Gnomic Verses," some of which are also in the Exeter Book, and some in a British museum manuscript, with their generalizations about morals and experience and the properties of objects encountered in daily living, are of interest to the social historian as the only group of existing Anglo-Saxon poems which are not on the whole aristocratic in origin; they reflect the manners and opinions of the peasantry of the period.

Toward the end of the Anglo-Saxon period the old heroic note, so long unheard, re-emerges finely in two poems dealing with contemporary history. The Battle of Brunanburh appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicleunder the date 937: it celebrates the victory of Aethelstan of Wessex and Eadmund, his brother, against the combined forces of Olaf the Norseman, Constantine, king of Scots, and the Britons of Strathclyde. There is an important difference, however, between the heroic tone of this poem and that of the older Anglo-Saxon poetry. In the older heroic poetry, emphasis was laid on the individual hero, and his national origins were of little importance—he was one of the heroes of Germania and as such claimed the admiration of all the germanic peoples without any national prejudice. But The Battle of Brunanburh shows strong patriotic sentiment. The victory is regarded as a victory of the English forces against Norse, Scots, and Welsh enemies, and though the heroism of Æthelstan and Eadmund is celebrated, the two princes appear not as heroes in their own right so much as champions of their nation. The Battle of Maldon appears in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 991. It deals in the older epic manner with one of the many clashes between English and Danes that resulted from the latter's attacks on England, which culminated in the conquest of the country by Cnut (Canute) in 1012. The older heroic poems did not, of course, deal with historical events that had only just occurred, nor, as we have noted, did they show any trace of national patriotic feeling. Yet The Battle of Maldon is remarkably similar in spirit to the older heroic poetry. It is the story of a disastrous English defeat: Byrhtnoth, ealdorman of Essex, who led the English forces, fought and died in a recklessly courageous attempt to stem the Danes. The poem contains nine speeches, mostly of exhortation and encouragement to the English forces, delivered by seven different speakers; many of the English warriors are mentioned by name (though not one of the Danes is so singled out); the passionate loyalty of retainers to their chief is eloquently presented; and the tone of desperate courage against hopeless odds becomes more and more intense as the poem proceeds, to culminate after the death of Byrhtnoth in the final words of his old retainer Byrhtwold.

Hige sceal þe heardra,     heorte þe cenre,
mod sceal þe mare,     þe ure mægen lytlað.
Her lið ure ealdor     eall forheawen,
god on greote;     a mæg gnornian
seðe nu fram þis wigplegan     wendan þenceð,
Ic eom frod feores;      fram ic ne wille,
ac ic me be healfe     minum hlaforde,
be swa leofan men,     licgan þence.

Thought shall be the harder, heart the keener,
Courage shall be the more, as our might lessens.
Here lies our lord, all hewn down,
The good man in the dust; ever may he lament
Who now from this war-play thinks to turn.
I am old in years; from here I will not go,
But I by the side of my lord,
By the man so dear, purpose to lie.

And, in this high strain, Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry comes to an end.

In Search of the Dark Ages (Michael Wood)

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