A post about excuses … lots of ‘why nots’

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I’m going to be dead honest for a moment. I love this blog. That is, I love the concept of it. The doing of it is difficult for me.

I love British literature. I was in the library yesterday yearning to read all the books before me (Life in Medieval England, The Complete History of Great Britain, Kings and Queens, etc.) and realizing I don’t have enough time in my life to read them all. Why, why, why, don’t I have enough time? I don’t have kids. I don’t have a job that’s so demanding that I don’t have time for myself. But what I do have is a ton of interests. I love to do volunteer work. I love to watch TV. I love to go out to eat. I love keeping in touch with people, which means time on the phone, on e-mail and on Facebook. I love to cook. So paring it down to read what I want in British lit doesn’t come easily.

But the point of this blog was to make me sit down and do it. Read it, absorb it and write about it. I do read it and I tend to absorb it. My stopping point comes with the writing about it. I feel paralyzed by fear that I didn’t read enough or read it thoroughly or understand it properly, and I can’t possibly put something out there that makes me look stupid, right? Except the fact that I post once every 2 to 3 months and yet continue the facade of “Day 19” accomplishes that mission all on its own….

It is one of the things that will make me die unhappy, that is, having not absorbed a satisfactory amount of British lit before my day is up. I can’t let myself die feeling lost without having this simple feat accomplished. Because I have so many other things I want to do — after this, I want to go after the anthology of American literature, plus there’s a million other books out there I want to attack.

So I will take comfort in the fact that I don’t have enough readers to judge my lack of British history knowledge or my shallow understanding of literary theory. I will post, by God, whether it’s good or not, and relish in my plan of making British literature as much a part of my life as I truly want it to be.

Do you hear that, Sir Thomas Wyatt? You’re next!

Editor’s note: This post was written on my original blog one year ago. I have not posted since then. This is another of my failures. I have had tons of drama the past year that I have allowed to become an excuse for not writing. I’m trying to stop this continuing failure and get back into my book! Any encouragement is welcome; apparently, I don’t do well trying to take on such a monumental task in a vacuum.

 

John Skelton

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Poetry is difficult for me. I like it, but if I miss the point, I really miss the point. And without the other context around it, like you’d have with a short story or novel, I find myself often — yes — missing the point.

John Skelton is the poet I was to read for this entry. I’m pretty sure I missed the point on all his poems. But he was quite an interesting guy. He tutored King Henry VIII when the king was a young boy, he served as clergy for a time, and he was known as a practical joker. He goaded Cardinal Wolsey with his satiric attacks on the clergy and government, leading Wolsey to imprison Skelton a time or two.

His poems imitated medieval satire and his “open satires” were written in short rhymed lines. The Skeltonic lines would have two to five beats, ending in rhyme, and going on until Skelton himself ran out of good rhyming words to keep moving forward with.

Mannerly Margery Milk and Ale was the first of his I read. It looks like it would probably be pretty funny if I understood it. It is partly spoken by a clerk and partly sung by Margery and a bass. The Norton intro to it even says it has an ironic ending. The best I can figure is that Margery is fussing at this man for most of the poem and then tells him to wed her. Not sure I got that right.

To Mistress Margaret Hussey is an ode to the lady in the title, who is both gentle and strong. She’s patient and kind and happy. It looks to me like this poem employs the Skeltonic line mentioned earlier: The rhyme scheme is basically AAABBBCCCDD throughout.

Lullay, Lullay, Like a Child is a lullaby parody. At first it’s very sweet, with baby in mom’s lap, but by the end, it sounds like she’s rocking to sleep an intoxicated, snoring man. The rhyme scheme is ABABBCCDD.

Colin Clout is a much longer poem that takes shots at Cardinal Wolsey. The book includes only an excerpt.  In the excerpt is Skelton’s commentary on his style of poetry:

For though my rhyme be ragged,
Tattered and jagged,
Rudely rain-beaten,
Rusty and moth-eaten
If ye take well therewith
It hath in it some pith.

 

Sir Thomas More

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I have hit a roadblock, and that roadblock is Sir Thomas More.

More is such a complex and admirable man that I feel that I am destined to do him a disservice with my lack of knowledge about him in my tiny little blog post. I’ve been working on reading the excerpt from Utopiathat appears in the Norton Anthology. It’s not long and it’s not hard to read. But I know that once I finish reading it, I have to make a blog entry about it, and I’m anxious about how little of his story I’ll be able to tell because I don’t know enough about him.I recently watched the episode of The Tudors in which More was beheaded. So many people were being beheaded back then, and all of them are difficult to think about. But More was such an educated and focused individual, and it appears that King Henry felt enormous guilt over the execution — what a shame it was for them and for the world.

So, Sir Thomas More, I will remove your roadblock status. I will post about you, Sir, and I will do it soon. I apologize in advance for any disservice I may do you. Thank you for being such a strong and interesting figure!

 

Popular ballads

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It has been ages since I’ve posted, but that’s partly because it’s so difficult for me to come up with anything intelligent to say about a few scattered poems. But I’ll try anyway … and then, on to the 16th century!

This section in the Norton Anthology was made up of ballads that are undated and anonymous, generally coming from oral tradition in England and Scotland. The book points out that ballads are often written during different periods of time by protestors, and it cites Bob Dylan and Dudley Randall from the 1960s. I thought that was an interesting observation!

The first of these poems is called Judas, from a 13th century manuscript. It is about Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, and what’s notable about it to me is that it’s arranged in couplets and it’s full of repetition. Entire lines would be repeated right after each other, and other fragments would show up in the very next couplet.

Next was an excerpt from A Gest of Robyn Hode, from the late 15th or early 16th century. Silly me, I thought Robin Hood was a rather modern creation. I had no idea his roots went so far back! In fact, he was first mentioned in Piers Plowman, which I read a couple of months ago. Robin Hood rose from the resentment by the commoners of the aristocracy. The excerpt merely introduces Robin and Little John, tossing in a reference to the Virgin Mary and the sheriff of Nottingham.

Ah, Lord Randall — this one I actually knew! I know the sound of the music and the beat it should be sung to, and I can’t recall why I know this. Regardless, this poor young Lord Randall has been hunting, then had dinner (eels in broth, yuck!) with his true love, then his bloodhounds swelled and died, and then Lord Randall himself had been poisoned and, I assume, died at the end of his poem.

Bonny Barbara Allan is another one I’m pretty sure I know. A jingle rings in my head as I read it, but maybe I’m making that up. It’s a pretty simple little tragic ballad about Sir John Graeme dying and then his love, Barbara Allan, saying she would die the next day.

The Wife of Usher’s Well is about a woman whose three sons were killed in war, I assume. (It only says “o’er the sea.”) But then the sons’ ghosts came to visit her and she fixed up a feast, but the men were gone by the time the rooster crowed the next morning.

The Three Ravens is about three ravens watching the following scene: A slain knight lies under his shield with his hound dogs sitting at his feet and hawks flying around his body to protect him. A doe comes up and kisses his wounds, throws him up on her back, takes him to be buried, then dies herself.

Sir Patrick Spens is about a man who was commanded to sail a ship even though he felt the mission would be deadly because of an upcoming storm. Turns out, he was right, and he now lies 50 fathoms deep with all the other passengers of the ship.

Finally, The Bonny Earl of Murray is my final piece, written around 1750. It is about the political murder of a popular Scots noble in 1592. King James VI of Scotland had ordered Huntly to arrest the Earl of Murray, but Huntly killed him instead.

All right, that’s it! I’m done with the Middle Ages and am moving into the 16th century, the literature of which this book classifies from 1485 to 1603.

 

Everyman

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Everyman (1485) is a morality play, which is different from the mystery plays I wrote about earlier. According to the Norton Anthology, morality plays used allegory to dramatize the Christian struggle with morality. In Everyman, the main character is deserted by all the things he cherished most in life — Beauty, Fellowship, Strength, etc. — and all that was left for him to take to the grave was Good Deeds.

The first part was his conversation with Death, which I found most enjoyable of the whole play, I guess because it’s so commonsense.

I am Death that no man dreadeth,
For every man I ‘rest, and no man spareth;
For it is God‘s commandment
That all to me should be obedient.
…
I set nought by gold, silver, nor riches,
Nor by pope, emperor, king, duke, nor princes,
For, and I would receive gifts great,
All the world I might get.
…
But to the heart suddenly I shall smite,
Without any advisement.

The Anthology pointed out that it was humorous how all the friends took off when Everyman needed them. Here are some examples of the lame excuses and funny getaway lines:

Fellowship: I wot well I said so [that I would go with you], truly.
And yet, if thou wilt eat and drink and make good cheer,
Or haunt to women the lusty company,
I would not forsake you while the day is clear,
Trust me verily!
…
And as now, God speed thee in thy journay!
For from thee I will depart as fast as I may.

Cousin: No, by Our Lady [I will not go with you]! I have the cramp in my toe:
Trust not to me. For, so God me speed,
I will deceive you in your most need.

Beauty: What, into this grave, alas?
…
And what, should I smother here?
…
I cross out all this! Adieu, by Saint John–
I take my tape in my lap and am gone.

Strength: In faith, I care not;
Thou art but a fool to complain;
You spend your speech and waste your brain.
Go, thrust thee into the ground.

Then, at the end, the Doctor comes in and tells the audience that they better put their stock in Good Deeds rather than in Goods and Beauty:

For after death amends may no man make,
For then mercy and pity doth him forsake.

 

Morte Darthur

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Sir Thomas Malory, author of Morte Darthur, was a trouble maker — breaking in, plundering, extorting and, worse, raping — and the Norton Anthology says he possibly “took the law into his own hands with unnecessary enthusiasm.” (Great line, guys!) He spent lots of time in prison, which is where he crafted Morte Darthur.

The Norton Anthology explains that he was a Lancastrian supporter during the Wars of the Roses, and he was likely persecuted by the Yorks (Edward IV supporters) more harshly than he should have been or that he acted up more because the Yorks were in power. He probably would have been happy to see that the Lancasters finally won the battle in 1487 when Henry Tudor of the House of Lancaster took the throne, ending the Wars of the Roses. But Malory died many years before, in 1471, right after Henry VI of Lancaster resumed the throne then lost it to Edward IV of York. Malory’s Morte Darthur wasn’t printed until 1485.

The Norton Anthology points out that Arthurian legend is similar to the legends of Robin Hood and the American West in that they share the ideal of maintaining order in a lawless land by the efforts of the individual, who fights for the right against overwhelming odds. It parallels this ideal to Malory’s life, in which he tried to enforce what he thought was right by violence, but rather than maintaining order, he disrupted it.

What the Norton Anthology draws attention to with Malory’s writing is his use of naturalistic, down-to-earth dialogue; understatement, in which his characters use few words in times of great emotional tension; and narrative prose, as beautiful as had usually been reserved for poetry. One piece I liked was this one, describing the battle between Arthur and Mordred:

And never since was there never seen a more dolefuller battle in no Christian land, for there was but rushing and riding, foining [lunging] and striking; and many a grim word was there spoken of either to other, and many a deadly stroke.
…
Then King Arthur looked about and was ware where stood Sir Mordred leaning upon his sword among a great heap of dead men.
…
Then Sir Lucan took up the King the t’one party and Sir Bedivere the other party; and in the lifting up the King swooned and in the lifting Sir Lucan fell in a swoon that part of his guts fell out of his body, and therewith the noble knight’s heart burst. And when the King awoke he beheld Sir Lucan how he lay foaming at the mouth and part of his guts lay at his feet.

What I read was only an excerpt of what sounds like a very long book. But based on what I read here, it’s probably a very enjoyable book to read. It brought life to characters, specifically King Arthur and Sir Gawain, that I haven’t seen in any movies or in any of the previous writings I’ve read about them. (To clarify, this was a very different picture of Sir Gawain than I read in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This character was more robust, was followed over a longer period of time than in the Green Knight, and had a much greater loyalty to Arthur and deeper relationship with him than any of the other knights.)

Also, I was thankful to the Norton Anthology for pointing out how difficult Lancelot’s situation was. As a knight, he was very chivalric — loyalty, strength in battle, and romantic love were all very important. It says: “But Lancelot is compromised by his fatal liaison with Arthur’s queen and torn between the incompatible loyalties that bind him as an honorable knight, on the one hand, to his lord Arthur and, on the other, to his lady Guinevere.” It helped me read it with Lancelot’s struggle in mind.

 

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

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Sir Gawain and the Green Knight was great! I was so glad that I couldn’t remember how it ended because I really enjoyed reading it and anticipating the outcome. It was very dramatic!

Sir Gawain was written in the late 1300s, and the author is possibly the same one who wrote Pearl, Patience and Purity, three religious poems. The poem is half-comedy, half-religious character study. It combines chivalry and romance.

The language was beautiful. The book says it is written in the alliterative meter of Old English verse. The alliteration in each line is clever throughout. I almost had to skip ahead because the boar-hunting scene was so real that I really felt for the boar:

But in as much haste as he might, he makes his retreat
To a rise on rocky ground, by a rushing stream.
With the bank at his back he scrapes the bare earth,
The froth foams at his jaws, frightful to see.
….

The boar makes for the man with a mighty bound
So that he and his hunter came headlong together
Where the water ran wildest — the worst for the beast,
For the man, when they first met, marked him with care,
Sights well the slot, slips in the blade,
Shoves it home to the hilt, and the heart shattered,
And he falls in his fury and floats down the water,
ill-sped.
Hounds hasten by the score
To maul him, hide and head;
Men drag him in to shore
And dogs pronounce him dead.

Poor little guy! I also enjoyed Sir Gawain’s vanity when he put on some borrowed clothes at the castle where he rested.

When he had found one he fancied, and flung it about,
Well-fashioned for his frame, with flowing skirts,
His face fair and fresh as the flowers of spring,
All the good folk agreed, that gazed on him then,
His limbs arrayed royally in radiant hues,
That so comely a mortal never Christ made
as he.

Plus, it’s hilarious (maybe not meant to be) that he must confess his indiscretion to everyone at home upon his return. “The blood burns in his cheeks, For shame at what must be shown.”

Great story!

 

Chaucer and the Canterbury Tales

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Ultimately, I failed on this one.

For the last 3 weeks, I have been trying to read the Canterbury Tales and I can’t get through them. I can’t seem to get any context for what I’m reading, except for what’s printed in the Norton Anthology. And the stuff that’s in the Anthology is good — good enough that it makes me think I don’t even need to read the Tales! I was trying to read them slowly so I could understand and read all the footnotes, but at that pace it would have taken me a year to get through. Then I tried buzzing through it, and I found that I was absorbing nothing. So I stopped so I can keep moving through the Anthology.

By the end of Volume 1, I may feel compelled to come back and try again. I hope so.

However, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Chaucer and his connections to royalty. He wrote so much more than Canterbury! I read some of his poems as well, and they were OK. One was particularly amusing because it was too his pocketbook (“purse”) as it was too light — he was broke!

 

Wanderer, and Battle of Maldon

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When I go from the book to the web to find other sources of material or criticism of each piece, I am amazed at how different the translations are of the same story. I know that Old English is tough to read and hard to translate while maintaining the integrity of the piece; however, the versions are so completely different that the tone changes. In my last post, I included all the pieces from Beowulf that I thought were delicious; but then I found another copy of Beowulf at Barnes & Noble, and it was completely different, and I couldn’t even recognize some of my favorite parts! “Swallowed all the morsels” read more like “ate the whole man,” which is excruciatingly boring in comparison. I experienced some of the same with The Wanderer. The Norton Anthology version is very different than this one: http://www.hermitary.com/lore/wanderer.html.

The Wanderer was sad, but it didn’t tear at my heartstrings. It had some nice lines:

• “There is now none among the living to whom I dare clearly express the thought of my heart.”
• “I covered my gold-friend in the darkness of the earth.”
• “All delight has gone.”
• “Then the wounds are deeper in his heart, sore for want of his dear one.”
• “a wolf shared one [man/body] with Death”

However, on the whole, it didn’t take my breath away as being so sad.

In The Battle of Maldon, I enjoyed the story of battle. With this one again, the translations I found online differed greatly: http://www.battleofmaldon.org.uk/ But the Norton Anthology version included some really great descriptions:

• “The time had come when doomed men should fall. Shouts were raised; ravens circled, the eagle eager for food. On earth there was uproar.”
• “The slain fell, carrion, to the earth.”
• “Spear oft pierced life-house of doomed man.”
• “Then they advanced: they cared not for life.”
• “The slaughter-wolves advanced.”

And I especially enjoyed this line from when a soldier stabbed his enemy:

“the bold man laughed, gave thanks to God that the Lord had given him this day’s work.”

Not much like my day’s work! It must be different when the purpose of your employment is to destroy the enemy!

 

Beowulf

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Day 2: Beowulf

I started Beowulf and feel terribly confused. Too many H names. Too many family lineages to follow. I considered skipping it, but I decided maybe I was just too tired and that I should save it for another day.

So Day 2, Feb. 3, was not as productive as Day 1. But I will have lots of time on Day 3 to dedicate to it.

Day 3: Beowulf

Yes, yes! It was fantastic! How exciting this is. I’ve discovered what is beautiful and fun about Beowulf. Of course, I didn’t get half of it — the names, the family relations, a lot of the historical context. But the language was so clever.

I read in the Old English poetry section (page 4) about kenning, forming a sort of compound word. Instead of saying “body,” one could say “life-house.” The Beowulf author was particularly fond of this literary device. See the following words:

• bed-companion
• sword-hate
• soul-slayer
• night-horrors
• sea-cliffs
• sea-road
• battle-brave
• whale-fishes
• flood-waves
• war-stroke
• battle-blade
• sword-point
• sea-streams
• sword-wounded
• victory-weapons
• hell-slave
• dying-place
• gallows-grim
• victory-blessed
• life-injury
• wonder-smiths
• iron-blade
• spear-death
• war-evil
• world-candle
• boar-banner
• head-sign
• life-slayer
• heart-streams
• bone-house
• war-flames
• war-storm
• war-armor
• war-steam
• sea-army
• heart-care

The way the writer created such great visuals is really amazing to me. Check these out:

• as Grendel opens the door of the hall: “Driven by evil desire, swolled with rage, he tore it open, the hall’s mouth.”
• after Grendel opens the door: “Then his heart laughed: dreadful monster, he thought that before the day came he would divide the life from the body of every one of them, for there had come to him a hope of full-feasting.”
• when Grendel first comes into the hall: “…starting his work, he suddenly seized a sleeping man, tore at him ravenously, bit into is bone-locks, drank the blood from his veins, swallowed huge morsels; quickly he had eaten all of the lifeless one, feet and hands.”
• when Beowulf attacked Grendel: “he knew his fingers’ power to be in a hateful grip.”
• when Grendel is on his way home after injury: “…weary-hearted, overcome with injuries, he moved on his way from there to the mere [lake] of the water-monsters with life-failing footsteps, death-doomed and in flight. There the water was boiling with blood, the horrid surge of waves swirling, all mixed with hot gore, sword-blood. Doomed to die he had hidden, then, bereft of joys, had laid down his life in his fen-refuge, his heathen soul: there hell took him.”
• referring to Grendel’s hand stuck on top of the roof: “…the foe’s fingers. The end of each one, each of the nail-places, was most like steel; the hand-spurs of the heathen warrior were monstrous spikes.”
• talking about a historic battle: “Heads melted as blood sprang out — wounds opened wide, hate-bites of the body. Fire swallowed them — greediest of spirits … their strength had departed.”
• about Grendel’s mother: “after the bitter battle an avenger still lived for an evil space: Grendel’s mother, woman, monster-wife, was mindful of her misery … [ancester of Cain] From him sprang many a devil sent by fate.”
• during the celebration: “Then Grendel’s head was dragged by the hair over the floor to where men drank, a terrible thing to the earls and the woman with them, an awful sight: the men looked upon it.”
• during the dragon fight: “…hot and battle-grim seized all his neck with his sharp fangs: he was smeared with life-blood, gore welled out in waves.”
• as Beowulf died: “That was the last word of the old man, of the thoughts of his heart, before he should taste the funeral pyre, hot hostile flames.”
• during Beowulf’s cremation: “Heaven swallowed the smoke.”

Also, I thoroughly enjoyed the contrast between how the author described the “good guys” (Beowulf and the warriors) versus the “bad guys” (Grendel and his mother, and the dragon):

Good guys:

• warrior fierce in battle
• protector of warriors
• great-hearted kinsman
• great-hearted one
• best of men
• the hardy one
• warrior glorious with gold

Bad guys:

• wild ravager
• foul ravager
• dreadful monster
• creature deprived of joy
• hell-slave
• loathsome despoiler
• one without glory
• life-enemy
• hateful outcast
• enemy of mankind
• war-terror of a wife
• wandering murderous spirit
• awful creature
• mighty worker of wrong
• bloody-toothed slayer
• deadly flying thing
• the terrible guardian
• life-slayer
• awful earth-dragon

I found Beowulf confusing and uninteresting at first. But as soon as I let myself enjoy the language and not get caught up in the details about who was related to whom and what historic battle they were talking about, I discovered why it’s a classic: It’s a beautifully written piece that can be enjoyed by simpletons like me as well as by literary and historian scholars.

My third “day” of journaling was spread out over Feb. 4, 5 and 6. My next two readings are The Wanderer and The Battle of Maldon.

Editor’s Note: This was originally published as two posts, Feb. 4 and 7, 2009. It was part of an experiment in which I’d read and blog about another piece in British literature every day in 2009. I failed.