Review of Week 3: Sept 4, 6 (9:25)

Tuesday, September 4 (9:25)

by Vince Gorman

Overview:

So Professor Seaman began the class by discussing Anglo-Norman society. There was a feudal system under William the Conqueror, which was basically the holding of land in exchange for labor. The distribution of land from top (king) to bottom implied that all of England belonged to him. From that came a centralized sort of government, which became one big pyramid scheme wherein the King distributes land to nobles and nobles to knights, etc.

Then there was King William, who brought the Norman norm of a writing-focused government to England, using documents to have control over things. There was an assimilation of Jews into society, but they were continuously shunned until their expulsion in 1290.

There was a change in the language that writings were produced in. They were very invested in British myth making, which stemmed from the desire in leadership to not seem like a foreign crowd when they took over. They intended to build a different history to legitimize themselves. And this was all part of building an identity, which led to the works we discussed that day.

We discussed the genre of Romance, which was originally written in French. During the twentieth century, there were attempts to define the term romance, but they failed because it involves a wide variety of things. But there were things that romance stories had in common – an origin in vernacular, the narrative / story, a tragic element / an obstacle to overcome, comic (has happy ending, people make it through, there is a future, etc.). The stories were mainly about knights, ladies, and the highest echelon of society – the elite. And there was definitely self promotion among the elite and an identification among themselves. The knights usually had to balance strength and courtesy. Many times, there was a role for the supernatural. French romances were mainly in verse, though Malory wrote in prose. Not all romances are Arthurian, but the others have analogous situations.

Arthur was a romanticized Celt in Britain. Glorified for the fighting of Anglo Saxons and saving Britain (in this fantasy version). Popular with underdog stories that could relate to many people. There were two different Arthurian types of stories. There were history stories, in which he challenged the continent and wins most of Europe. They were very fantastical. Then there were the romance stories, which mainly concerned domestic affairs and how things are sustained at home and weren’t very political.

Courtly Love Conventions. Characteristics – they were originally French, knight serves lady instead of lord or served both, love at first sight, ladies are always in charge and encourage knights to do great things, knights come back and are rewarded for service (they are subservient and not requited), experience of love sickness. These characteristics did not explain what it was really like to experience love in the middle ages but it was a way for them to talk about and express concerns and desires.

Marie de France. Writing in England – Anglo Norman. Norman court in England. She was associated with Henry II and was the one woman we know of writing at Henry’s court in England.

She wrote Lanval. We talked about how Lanval was being forgotten by King Arthur and was at the mercy of everyone else and felt shame. He was a foreigner – people envy and alienate him, even though he is a king’s son from somewhere else. Arthur seems to be disengaged. Lanval ends up wandering into the woods in the process of losing his reputation instead of gaining it and a fairy figure comes to rescue him – she is some sort of magical lady who has wealth beyond all kings and earthly values. She offers him everything including love as long as he tells no one. This is important because he invests in lady instead of court.

Guenevere offers herself to him, he rejects and gets in trouble for doing so. He is going to be exiled for insulting queen and Arthur unless he can prove this fairy lady is real. And, she does come to save him and they leave off to Avalon. Which is not of this world, but is better than this world.

Conclusion of Lanval. Failed human society because romantic love cannot be sustained in this world. It defies reintegration of courtly order. Male/female alternative for kingly/knightly companionship.

Bisclavret. We are directed to see the wife as a monster/beast. She betrays husband repeatedly and manipulates him and marries someone else when he is away. He comes back and they torture the wife and exile her – she deserves to be outwardly marked for her inner cruelty. This is the opposite of Lanval. Lanval is rewarded with love, Bisclavret rewarded by king. Intimate knight/king relationship – king lavishes him with gifts. Optimistic depiction of relationship between king and knight.

We ended class briefly talking about Malory. Wrote in 1400s at the end of the Arthurian tradition and is less critical of tradition. In Malory’s work Arthur is humble, practical and does things for others. He is patient and loyal to foster parents and brother. Common people respond to him.

Key term: 

largesse – freely giving, liberality in bestowing gifts.

Tuesday, Sept. 4 [we had 2 students signed up for one day, in this case]

by Danielle Powell (whose laptop crashed after class and is still being repaired, so what appears here is from memory; see the 10:50 class’s notes for further details)

We began class with the discussion of Lanval, by Marie. We discussed the position of men and women within the story, pointing to the fact that the fairy woman, the knight’s beloved, took care of him by giving him gifts. She possessed all control within the relationship, leading us to a key term that we discussed in length called Courtly Love, which is a literary phenomenon that looks at women within the Middle Ages as having control within the romance and complete obedience from the man who is her beloved. We looked at Guinevere’s role within the story as well, who provided a stark contrast of selfishness to the giving Fairy.

We then moved on to Bisclavret. Where we looked at the wife’s betrayal of her werewolf husband. We discussed the fact that the point about the wife rejecting her husband was the main objective of the story versus the fact that he was a beast. We see him relationship blossum with the King, and question whether or not it is a homosexual connection instead of just a friendship. We looked at:

The King himself took Bisclavret
Inside, and closed all the doors tight;
He returned when the time was done.
He brought along two barons, not one.
They entered the chamber, all three.
On the king’s royal bed, they see
Lying fast asleep, the knight.
The king ran to hug him tight;
He kissed him a hundred times that day.

when it talked about the King tucking Bisclavret into bed and giving him a kiss on the lips. Shows their intimate relationship and again begs the question about whether the relationship between a man and his lord might be more meaningful than that between him and his lady, quite a different possibility from Lanval.

We then looked at Malory from Morte Darthur and again examined the role/power that woman play within these stories. We get a painted picture of Sir Arthur as being the most giving and noble hero, never boasting about being able to pull the sword from the stone but humbly accepting the honor. We also look at struggle  of Sir Gaiwain and Lancelot, concluding our reading with their final battle scene on their horses, with Sir Gawain who “enforced himself with all his might and power”, destroys Lancelot.

We concluded the class with some last minutes comments from students, and then discussed what we had to look forward to next class which is Sir Gawain and the Green Knight and our RAP and RAP4 quiz in OAKS.

Thursday, Sept. 6

by Amelia Navarrete (9:25)

The class began with a basic timeline, moving our class forward the next couple of weeks. The focus in class will be shifting to Middle English and we will be focusing on Chaucer next week. Dr. Seaman also commented that she was happy that people were being more specific with blog comments, she hopes that the class will continue to use specific lines in order to justify their responses. Ending the introduction of our class Dr. Seaman introduced our paper that is due September 26 at 11pm in the drop box on OAKS. The guidelines for paper one can be found on our blog, under assignments.  Assistance to the assignment itself can be found on our blog as well; there is a sample paper, formatting help and a conventions for writing about literature worksheet. In the process of completing this paper a one-page description on what you will be writing your paper on will be due at 11 pm on Tuesday September 18th in the drop box as well. Each part of the assignment should be double-spaced and use MLA format. There are a number of topics to choose from for this paper. Dr. Seaman stressed that this paper is a larger literary analysis, and you therefore should not focus on close readings of short passages. Be prepared to discuss the different paper topics in class on Tuesday.

After this discussion on the “big picture”, we continued on to focus on Middle English. Dr. Seaman handed out an activity focusing on the language of Middle English. We went through the poem by Chaucer that was not translated from Middle English. Dr. Seaman had us go through this poem and circle the words that did not seem familiar to us. After doing this we looked at the translated version of the poem and discussed the language and the plot of the poem. Dr. Seaman took us step by step on how to interpret Middle English. It is much easier to go through a poem and read it out loud, especially because the words are spelt differently from what we’re used to. After discussing with the class, a lot of the words that we circled were because we couldn’t understand the spelling, not the vocabulary. Specifically: “y” can be “g”, “y” is also frequently used for “I” and the sound of an “e” is different in modern English then Middle English. The goal of this exercise was to help us feel more comfortable with the language and not be so intimidated by how different the language looks. As a recap: when we begin to read middle English try to read it out loud to yourself and remember that most of the words are still words we have in the English Language today.

We completed this exercise and then brought our attention to a timeline of what we have read and what we will be reading in class:

1150-70: Marie

1330’s: Sir Orfeo

1375 – 1400: Sir Gawain – Chaucer is also in this time frame

1470 – Malory

After going over this timeline, Dr. Seaman pointed out that there isn’t much literary writing from the 1200s that we continue to read. There are various reasons for this. During the 1200s English was transitioning from being a spoken to also a written language in England. The Norman Conquest had taken place, and there was a transition of language from French to English. Literature during this time was also very spiritual and religious; therefore we weren’t getting a lot of romance writing, which is what we’ve been focusing on in our readings. The English romances during the 1200s were starting out orally at this point.

We spent the remainder of the class going of “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight”. There is one existing manuscript copy in existence. It contains four poems, all of which are assumed to be by the same person. This poet is usually referred to as the “Gawain poet” or “pearl poet”. This manuscript is now online, with images! Dr. Seaman was generally excited when she shared this with the class, because having a manuscript online, especially with pictures isn’t common for British Literature. We looked at these pictures in class. The first picture is of Gawain chopping off the Green Knights head and with the other knights at the round table watching. The second Picture depicted Gawain pretending to sleep as the Lords wife tickled his chin. This picture really made it clear that she was being very aggressive, invading his privacy by being in the curtains of Gawains’ bed. The final image showed the first page of the actual text. The left column was decorated as well as the first letter of the passage. The writing was also very legible, which is impressive for such an old text.

Moving on to the actual reading of the text. Gawain appears in the poem as very refined, courtly, and as a round table knight. Gawain is a very positive model, Dr. Seaman explained this by saying he was “good” with the ladies and a Christian. In another tradition of Gawain he is a more physical character. The writing of Sir Gawain is appreciated because it brings together three very different narratives and blends them together. There are three different themes in the story: the beheading game, the temptation story and the exchange of winnings. All three of these are tied together at the end. The author also uses what is referred to as the “bob and wheel”: four lines with half lines above it.  There is a blending of two poetic lines unique to this poem specifically. For instance each stanza begins with between 7 to 20 lines and every stanza ends with four short lines. This blend is made up of alliterative lines in the first section and end rhyme, with a metrical beat, makes up the last four lines following the Latin and French tradition. Continuing our discussion of form we concluded by talking about the number of stanzas. There are 101 stanzas; this is a reflection of a year and a day, which follows the span of the story.

Dr. Seaman then asked the class what Author’s court was like. Author is presented as a very playful character in this poem. For example, he likes to play games during the holidays. This poem reflects “the good ole” days for Author. Taking place during Christmas and New Years the poem shows how the simply joys of youth become complicated as the plot continues. Guinevere is a “trophy” in this poem. And finally, the Knights of the Round Table are portrayed as courteous brothers.

We wrapped up the rest of class by discussing the plot of the poem. The Green Knight makes a very notable entrance to King Authors’ Kingdom. He shows up unarmed, giving off the impression that he is a friend not a foe. Everything about his appearance is structurally “right”, besides the fact that he’s green. However, he disregards everyone as he enters, asking who’s in charge when it is more then clear that Author is in the front at the head of the table. This clearly shows that the Green Knight is dismissing Arthur’s authority. The Green Knight then presents his challenge to the court. As a reader, Dr. Seaman pointed out that this challenge is seen as absolutely impossible. “You cut my head off and then I’ll cut off yours.” But Gawain publicly commits every day, as if keeping a contract. We touched back on Gawain’s trademarks in this poem. Especially how he goes to church a lot, this shows that he is not just religious but loyal. The author makes constant references for medieval Catholics; an example of this is how Mary is on the inside of the shield. Dr. Seaman noted that Gawain specifically says that he doesn’t have a beloved in the poem, however some believe that in a sense Saint Mary is his beloved.

Finally coming to the end of the class, we came to the end of the poem. Gawain accepts the sash also referred to as the girdle. This is a moment in the poem where he is NOT thinking of his religion. Gawain accepts this because Bertilak’s wife tells him that if he’s wearing nothing will hurt him.  As a good Christian he should’ve kept his life in G-d’s hands, but instead he relies on the sash. In the end, once the plot is revealed, Gawain wears the sash to show his lack of faith as well as his disloyalty to the lord. He portrays himself as a bad knight and a bad Christian even though the Green Knight declares that he has forgiven him.

Noteworthy Quotes:

Lines 13-15: “And Far over the French sea Felix Brutus On many Broad hillsides settles Britain with delight;”

King Author’s court is associated with the great Troy

This is an example of Translatio Imperii – Translation of rule from great nation to great nation, in this case going back to Troy and that central authority being dispersed to different lands in Europe (with Brutus bringing it to Britain)

Lines 136 – 150: These lines describe the Green Knight “bursting into the hall”. It also describes his appearance, how he is “most attractive of size” and finally ending with him being completely green.

Lines 1880-1884: “There he confessed himself honestly and admitted his sins, both the great and the small, and forgiveness he begs, and calls on the priest for absolution, and the priest absolved him completely and made him as clean as if the Judgment were appointed for the next day.”

Here Gawain is confessing honestly, but he still keeps the sash on in the end. In conclusion this confession is useless because he continues to put his trust in the sash and not in G-d.

Preview of Week 4 (Sept 11, 13)

by Dr. Seaman

We settle into Middle English of the 14th century this week, after Marie in the 12th and Malory in the 15th centuries last Tuesday, followed by Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’s introduction of the 14th century to us on Thursday.

Tuesday we will begin class by discussing Paper 1. Be sure to take a close look at the assignment sheet, here on the blog. Note, too, the sample topic description and sample paper formatting, etc., associated with the Paper 1 assignment sheet in the drop-down menu.

In class on Tuesday we will focus primarily on Sir Orfeo. Like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, it has some associations with the classical past, in this case through the poem’s being a loose retelling of the story of Orpheus and Eurydice. That said, the poem feels thoroughly medieval, very clearly a romance. Pay special attention to the source of the conflict in the poem as well as the details of how the hero is able to overcome the challenges. We will read another short poem from Chaucer (and consider the one you read in class Thursday, too, when we were focusing primarily on the language rather than the content and style of the poem.) You have a shortRAP and RAPQ for Tuesday, focusing on “Cultural Expression in the 14th Century.”

Thursday we will plunge into our multi-day discussion of Chaucer. We won’t be reading the General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales, so I will provide some background on that in class before we discuss one of the tales particularly beloved of modern readers, the fabliau The Miller’s Tale. Pay special attention to the ways the narrator describes different characters in his introduction of them early in the tale. And if, in the end, you’re wondering, “Wait, did what I think happened just happen?” the answer is “Yes!”

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