the glory and the challenges

I am on a graduate thesis committee. (This is a first for me. I have read and edited graduate theses many times, but this is the first time I will be a part of the process of writing one–aside from my own.) I hope to avoid any repetitions of the single altercation in the hallways of English at my university (which, sad to say, was in reference to my thesis) and to avoid looking like an idiot.

Reading through a bit of postcolonial discussions.

First, let me confess, I know next to nothing (at this point) about postcolonial theory. I have read a lot of the anthropology which was used in service of colonialism, at least according to some authors. Having studied history as an undergraduate, I have a bit more than a passing knowledge of the colonial imperative and the devastation it imposed on various people groups, including some of my own ancestors.

Having said that, I am using this post to ruminate on my first thoughts upon reading in the literature of postcolonial theory.

Why does postcolonialism enshrine the duality of neo-colonialism or colonialism itself? While the authors argue against Orientalism as a monolithic cultural construct created to subjugate people groups and “native countries” (which are also colonial political structures), they create Occidentalism, in which the West becomes a monolithic cultural construct which must be violently overturned in order for the subaltern peoples to reach their potential. If there is no Orientalism, there should also be no Occidentalism. If violent conquest of a people group is bad, violent reconquest of a political fiction should also be bad. If the colonialists have exited the country, why does anyone need to rebel against them violently?

I would agree with the connection of power and knowledge, but debate that knowledge of another people/culture/time/space is inherently used to minimize that people/culture/time/space. I would also argue that knowledge alone, the purely academic knowledge that so many of us pursue on a regular basis, is not powerful nor power-creative in and of itself. Instead the knowledge must be allied with some other entity/imperative/discussion/decision in order to invoke connotations or realities of power. Knowledge by itself is not power, but only a potential for power.

Foucault is obviously going back on my reading list.

These are notes to myself… but if they will benefit you, please feel free to take advantage of them.

Arthuriana Pedagogy

TEAMS Medieval

Leeds’ CFP

Battle of Maldon, in legos, subtitled and without the Old English subtitles

Monstrous Felines in OF Arthuriana at Kalamazoo’s 48th Medieval Congress
Brandy N. Brown, Penn State U

on floor of cathedral Tronto, Italy (1165) is mosaic, image of crowned figure with scepter
King Arthur riding a goat/horse (with bridle’s erased during restoration)
next to him is a black cat
to right (later) is nude figure, Merlin
Arthur being mauled by black cat while Merlin watches.

in two texts (Welsh and French) epic hero has to prove himself in battle against Chapalu
originally is a beastly cat
later is a Muslim captured in body of cat

Chapalu evolved in response to Islam during Crusades

Geoffrey Cohen’s argued that monster …
“other” in physicality and spirituality
Saracens cannot be presented as normal. Even before Crusades, pagans were weirdly bodied.
Sign of monstrosity.

Chapalu = Muslim trapped who must battle forever until he has been fought and defeated by a knight
stays at the court

Welsh Triads glassy smooth cat that became a devastation to an island, which Kay eliminates…
Merlin Arthur defeats the cat “filled with devils”

large black cats were considered avatars for the devil

cat kills and destroys whatever it touches
Arthur decides to kill.
Cuts the cat in half with his sword.
Arthur’s wounds are then treated with an ointment to draw out the poison.

In 12th C, cat captures and kills near a swamp. “hell cat”
contemporary Latin elegy tells same story

In this tradition, battle with cat is final fight.

Attended the Arthurian Monsters session at Kalamazoo’s 48th Medieval Congress. Hard to hear some of this. Didn’t get as much information as I wanted.

This is the second session:

Giant of Mont-Saint-Michel: Grendelkin?
Kris Kobold, York U

OE student PhD

giant is powerful being, causes disorder, captures a maiden, eats humans, killed by Arthur

significant that several studies find that the giant is parallel with Grendel
some of these parallels
Possible that poet of Morte d’Arthur knew monster traditions of OE

“thurs” in line 1100, means demon/spirit in ME
referred to as a fiend
simply simile, giant’s thighs are as thick as a giant’s
poet of Md’A hearkens to OE, where “thurs” is giantish creature
Beo 424-26 announces he will fight w Grendel
note that thurs as giant, MdA only attestation in ME prose and verse for using as a giant
demonic giant aspect linked with Bible… (Grendel descendant of cain)

giant from Latin, Nephilim in Bible = sons of God and daughters of men
flood sent because of their wickedness

means fallen ones
in this tradition “ygantes” becomes demonic

early Bib exegetes Tertullian
“sons of Gods” = fallen angels

MdA says he is “born of fiends” (engendre de findas)

daughters of men, biblical commenters believe related to daughters of Cain
righteous and accursed natures
giants descended from Cain

one of feature that marks Grendel are his eyes, which shine “with a hideous light most like a flame”
MdA 1087 line related to the appearance, glowing face and eyes
this feature later subsumed by other types, but belonged originally to giants (SGGK)

Arthur arrives not in time to rescue the woman, but only to stop the cannibalism
numerous biblical prohibitions against blood consumption (vampires)

8th C, commenting on Gen 9:4, makes explicit that giants ate flesh with blood

w/ St Michael and Christ references, Arthur is Christian hero

monster in OE subverts and threatens, not just the individual but the society, here is a ME revival of OE sentiment
giant is a king/ruler
his presence causes social and political turmoil.

Nicholas Grimald’s Translation of Bibilical Material in the Oxford Plays at Kalamazoo’s 48th Medieval Congress
Elisabeth Dutton, U de Fribourg
professor of medieval English in Fribourg, Switzerland
publishes on Tudor drama
book on Julian of Norwich, also editor of edition of Julian
experienced stage director

not expert on Latin at all…
which makes this ironic to work on this

part of Oxford something…

Grimald published
became classroom work
then became source for passion plays

all sorts of things to investigate

1619-1662 Nicholas Grimald
June 1657 published 42 poems in Tottel’s Miscellany…
only 10 poems in July 1657
perhaps the poems were removed because he became known as a recanter and was a poor poet

Any time someone says something good about Grimald, someone immediately responds to detract all good from it. For example, Xxx says Grimald was a proto-metaphysical poet, but Hudson says they are qualities of Latin poems of which his poems are “merely” translations.

Nott implies that Grimald claimed originality to his own work. Innovation was valued, but Grimald never said he was original. Indeed, his translations keep the wordplay from the Latin into the English… Therefore actually very difficult/expert presentation.

John Foxe innovation in religion… reformers retort is to restore. Renewal of the old, not new.

Newness is a virtue only when it escapes history or religious experience.

sacred and new is oxymoronic.

from St Paul dying to the world to Julian and Piers Plowman… to the metaphysical poets, Christian writers commonly employ oxymorons to reveal truth. Crucifix (death on cross) becomes fount of life.

In Christus Redivivus Grimald translates the ideas from Vulgate style into Virgilian Latin.
No direct analogy between x and Didot.
Mary Magdalene tells about Peter of his first meeting with Christ.
In Grimald, Mary uses extended simile that is not in any other source that we have found.

“the sun is buried under shadows” (like that)
Christ as light of the world…
images of light and darkness is too ubiquitous.
convincing epic simile

Grimald is not the first to make the soldiers guarding the tomb of Christ four. (To number them as four.)
Not being as inventive as we might like to think.
But his Latin medium is much more developed. Low characters speaking in Latin would be comedic.
They speak to Caiphas, prophesying about Christ.
echoes this “better that one man be obscured than that so many of our high honors be taken away” (Christus Redivivus IV).

“Happy are we to whom there has fallen so great a reward for our labors, such as neither the dice nor chance has given us for ages”… what the guards of the tomb said.
… “so pursue them that they may bear witness there is no gout in their feet”… talking about the apostles “stealing away” the body of Christ.

difficulty of translating a translation that has been translated…

Merrill says “translation of the play necessarily presents to the modern ear, accustomed to the simplicity of Biblical English, what seems at first to be jargon. As Grimald’s Latin is neither purely that of the Vulgate nor that of the Aeneid, so the English of the translation is neither that of the King James version of the Bible nor that of present-day English, but necessarily presents a mixture of elements as curious as the mixture of the Christian and the Pagan elements in the play” (60).

rhetoric is borrowed by a hero to praise himself
“high language to praise a middle-sized person” and bravery shown up “in a battle of the armed against the unarmed”

as Grimald translates, so is Grimald translated…

The Middle English Translation of Gower’s Traitie and the Ballad in England
Philip Knox, U of Oxford
doctoral student
authorship and reception of Roman de la Rose in 14th C England
paper coming out in Notes and Queries

in final leaves, XXX contains a 15th C x dialect translation of Traitie

translator self-identified as Quixley

how far a works form can be seen as integral to its meaning?
translational praxis influenced by theoretical assumptions, if not theories?

elaborate patterns of rhyme songs

English ballad in 14th C was characterized by translation, France -> England -> France again

volley against a French guy,
Arch Butterfield’s excellent study in A Familiar Enemy

ballads bouncing to and fro across the channel

Minos trapped Echo, but Echo trapped Narcissus in self-adoration.

John of Gaunt translation.
poet sends his work to his translator…

Chaucer has issues with rhyming English ballads.

widespread lyrical discussion, blurring lines between lyric and narrative
From Song to Book (about French experience of same argument)

monologic, didactic treatise
moralizes the ballad
Quitidian reality of illicit sex and marital faithfulness…

revolutionizes the envoie’s subjectivity in Gower’s Traitié
“to the university of the whole world”
How would Gower have pronounced his own name in French?

What should we think of Quixley’s translation? of the movement from France, to London, to Yorkshire?

Were literate priests losing French in 15th C in Yorkshire?

interesting light cast on work if consider Speculum vitae… “In Inglische tunge”
to him that readeth this work…

Quixley replaces Gower’s line of “to the university of the world” with “that you may come when you heathen wende, to the blisse that is withouten end.”

Ballad a form characterized by translation.
Ballad often identified its status as sent to a single person (though perhaps sent to a literate elite).

Medieval Translation Theory and Practice II: Generic Considerations Past and Present at Kalamazoo’s 48th Medieval Congress

Organizer: Jeanette Beer, U of Oxford
Presider: Jeanette Beer

From Bede to Wyclif: Did the Translators of the Wycliffite Bible Use OE Sources?
Elizabeth Solopova, U of Oxford
research fellow on the English faculty, a William Golden Fellow at Braisnow’s College
current research project, mss of Wycliffite Bible

possibility that WBible were familiar with OE sources, usually rejected as unreasonable

“From Bede to Wycliffe: Medieval … “ article
“distance that separates OE from Wycliffite is as great as that which separates Wycliffites from us”
“of such OE that scarcely can any man read them”

at least some ME scholars had skill to read OE language
(what about the OE translation of Bible that I just saw the book for? OE Bible version…)

OE first book was Aelfric’s work, intended to provide a precedent of Protestant view
Parker’s edition was first (1500s)

no shortage of evidence at end of 14th C, OE translation of Bible was frequently invoked
“Treatise in Favor of Biblical Translation” published in 1407-1410 Wycliffite author
Section 1 on handout reproduces…
Says Bede translated the Bible, St. John’s gospel…
“of so oolde Englische that vnnethe can any man rede heme, for this Bede regnede an hooly doctor”…
King Aelfred translated the psalter…

Dialogue between X and Clock
also mentions that Bede translated Bible and Alfred translated psalter

This is a common discussion.
Assumed that ME knew only from historical sources.

“OE mss had little value in the Middle Ages”…
both script and language were unfamiliar
BUT they were not completely unread.

Thomas Radborn, monk of St Withers, studied Bede in mid-15th C
also cited will of King Alfred and Vision of Eldrede
evidence of curiousity and real understanding comes from running titles, glosses, and notes from 14th and 15th C

annotations included:
Bodleian 340 and 342, collection of homilies in two volumes by Aelfric, written in 1100…
OE words written in middle of 14th c
glosses are almost all limited to OE translations of Bible quotes
glosses attest to interest in OE translations of Bible, and thereby an interest in OE language
glosses are sometimes explained as unfamiliarity with the OE language

title: Female Sexuality and Forms of Knowledge in the OE at Kalamazoo’s 48th Medieval Congress
original title: Gender, Anonymity, and Hagiography
Stacy Klein, Rutgers

“I pray to God …” that only exact copying of Aelfric’s work…
one of the non-Aelfrician works added is Life of Saint Mary of Egypt

do the anonymous hagiographies offer us an alternative tradition? A break from old ideas of past? away from Benedictine forms? different understandings of spirituality?

Magennis notes that Anonymous Life offers Anglian (not West Saxon) product, “radical tradition” of alternative…
He talks about vocabulary.
I want to talk about two other points in the alternative spirituality of The Life
life representation of female sexuality and sanctity
conceptual model to acquire or increase spiritual knowledge

Who can tell me something else? (lines 62-64)

polite questions about who can help pursue wisdom
different model
OE Life rejects idea of stark contrast between old and new, instead shows continuity between old life (of prostitution) and new (as saint)
differs from 10th century, esp Aelfric’s, hagiographies

all critics who write about life write about contrasts/opposites (binaries)
everything is contrastive
Shrine/Shine/Shein?, Annie Orchard, and Magennis “old life of sin and new life of sanctity”
ostensibly in and through these contrasts that they argue that knowledge is acquired through contrast and understanding difference
contrasts is common of OT writing and Aelfric’s typical reduction of number of characters to clarify contrasting

not the main strategy of text here
new saint not so different from prostitution-sinner
does not abandon her seduction, but applies it to spiritual experience
almost all interaction are erotic and sexually charged

transfers desire to new and different … potentially productive forces for women and men
Mary employs tools of former trade to the great benefit of the monastery
early part shows her gathering men together with her rhetorical skills and power of persuasion
later part shows her teaching Zosimus and the monastery

continuity rather than contrast

relationship between female and male positive
contact between men and women as potentially positive components

Seven Sleepers at Kalamazoo’s 48th Medieval Congress
Thomas A. Bredehoft (working on book on this which will be published this year?)
tabrede at gmail.com

favorite songs is Dylan’s “Hurricane”
It’s my work, he’d say, and I do it for pay,
And when it’s over, I’d

epo-coinu in English
part of brilliance lies in way he makes up rule for his songs as he goes along

author of Seven Sleepers is the 11th century Bob Dylan?

argues Seven Sleepers is verse, not prose.
In book talked about how it can be delineated as verse.
What I did not attempt in book, is whether whole of Seven Sleepers is a verse (800+ lines)?
Part of difficulty of accessing verse or prose of 11th C is lines, meter
metrical psalms is far less well understood
manifest differences between psalms and Aelfric shows change in OE verse
what one must do to determine if verse is to examine whole of text, see if it has a consistent line structure.
Does it have lines or equivalent metrical structure?
not delineated as verse in mss
but that has no bearing on whether it is verse or prose

short answer:
not decided on final lineation
do think it is a verse intention
1100 lines of OE verse

three passages (on handout for examples), not typical, but exemplary

alliteration:
difficulty to determine what words included in alliteration
all nouns, verbs
but only some adverbs, adjectives
infinitives potential

counted some speculative alliterations, because they were function words

all three non-alliterating lines in the first example of 16 lines, then all have connections to prior alliterative
there are line links of rhyme
rhyme echoes
10 examples of final –on inflection in 11 verses is too insistent to ignore
there are 7 different verbs. Not repetition of verbs causing the inflectional rhyme.

lineation is stretch lines in verse

6 potential alliterations randomly in a line just over 15% chance
torture line includes allusion to beasts of battle

passage should be identified as rhyming

Not all of Seven Sleepers is as strong and impressive in use of rhyme and alliteration.
Don’t label it as prose, just because it fails to match meter of Beowulf or Aelfric.

Not able to be contained in a rigid count of nouns and stresses.

Rhyme and alliteration remarkable performance, even in irregularities.