Medieval Pornstars

Since it's slow, I thought I'd just share this tidbit.

Someone recently found this humble blog by googling "medieval pornstars." Lo, and behold, we are the 5th entry for said search string -- look for yourself. I'm sure our stats will go up now that I have so entitled this post...

Hope everyone's having a happy holiday and best wishes for the new year!

Best,
Your Local Medieval Pornstars

UPDATE, 12/27/07, 8:46pm: Now we're #1! Woo-hoo!

Beowulf-What's Up With That?: Some Fledgling Thoughts

No, not the movie, which I confess I have yet to take in. Before beginning I should note that this is my first post to this forum, and I know I can not match the posts of my fellow new bloggers here at Modern Medieval. My thanks to Matt for including me.

Ok, back to Beowulf. I know, its not a very Christmasy post-topic. Still, I think it appropriate at this holiday season. Here's why.

Over the last decade, well, really just eight-nine years, Beowulf has enjoyed a great deal of public attention, quite apart from the scholarly attention. There was one of the first digitized manuscript projects, Electronic Beowulf, and Seamus Heaney's translation, followed quickly by a Christopher Lambert movie (with a character named Roland in purple leather who proved to be every bit as deadly to Hrothgar's men as Grendel, and a couple of pornstars and a techno beat). About the same time came a delayed 13th Warrior movie, based on Michael Crichton's novel, itself a sort of H. G. Wellsian take on the poem. Since the turn of the millenium there has been another new translation, Roy Liuzza's, at least two extensive and useful websites offering new editions and translations of the poem, the Sci Fi channels Grendel movie, the Gerard Butler vehicle (with Sarah Polley playing a combination of conscience, whore, wise woman, and the lady of the Wife's Lament)Beowulf and Grendel, and of course the most recent Beowulf currently in theaters, with as Michael Drout put it so well, Angelina Jolie doing philology nekked. The scholarly world has not been far behind. In addition to scholars and interested amateurs doing new editions and translations and other work on the web, there have appeared by my count 3 new editions (ok, one edition is in the Electronic Beowulf, but still), the appearance of Andy Orchard's critical companion, and John Hill's cultural study. And the poem has now become post-modern with an excellent array of essays edited by Eileen Joy and Mary K. Ramsay and published by Pat Connor at West Virginia Press titled, The PostModern Beowulf. I hope I'll be permitted a shameless plug here and note that The Heroic Age will be publishing an essay by Daniel Murtagh in a new column edited by Eileen in the next issue along these same lines and I'm quite excited about it. Well, this is a long paragraph and I'm certain that I'm overlooking material that should be mentioned.

Quite apart from the scholarly work, as subject to fads as anything is, the popular attention is astounding. It is tempting for me to bring up the subject of how we in the medieval academy can and should foster this, but I've covered that on my own blog and it will be addressed in an upcoming issue of The Heroic Age (another plug). And it would be tempting to discuss how well the poem has been adapted to screen or retold etc, but again, another subject covered elsewhere. I mention these things only help keep me on the topic I want to address in this post and that is what Beowulf has to say to us, why the poem, and other great poems, are garnering public attention now and why so many have missed the point.

In addition to Beowulf, a few other epics have received more popular attention: The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid. Each is in its way both a foundational and fundamental text for cultures of the past and for modern culture, even in the US of A. And each in its own way paints a picture of heroism in battle and yet paints a very ugly picture of war and battle. If we just focus on Beowulf, one of the recurring themes of the poem is the futility of the heroic culture in which the eponymous hero lives, moves, and has his being. The systems of vengeance and wergild are shown to be useless, the practice of peace-weaving by marriage is shown to be futile, the societal structure of obedience and faithfulness til death to one's lord especially if like Beowulf and Hrothgar they are good and generous lords is demonstrated to be ineffective since thegns consistently in the poem (and not just Beowulf's it must be added!) are faithless (save Beowulf himself). The popular takes on the poem certainly pick up on these themes: it is in fact seemingly the only point of the Polley character in Beowulf and Grendel: to ask Beowulf after Grendel's death "Have you learned nothing..." which in the movie results in Beowulf's careful building a burial cairn for Grendel, and so again according to the movie avoiding any future vengeance and conflict. Certainly other modern takes want to play on these themes while introducing the modern element that needs to explain Grendel's actions against a backdrop of some wrong done to him by Hrothgar (whether as neglectful father or as slayer of Grendel's unmentioned paternal unit or some other take).

If we look at The Iliad, The Odyssey, and The Aeneid we see similar themes. Wars there will be, war is sometimes necessary, but war is ugly and personally very costly. Society in many ways does not work (though it works in The Aeneid far better than in other epics in part because that's the point: Roman society is ordered and is the best in comparison to Greeks and others).

I'd suggest that it is this that makes Beowulf a poem for our time. We're supposedly in the midst of a war, a war started by a senseless act of violence that was not directly provoked--just as Grendel attacks Heorot apparently without cause other than that he hated the joy of Heorot at its height. The poem speaks of a hero from outside who comes and deals with the threat, only to be replaced by another more dangerous threat. And that speaks to our fear and that fear has been used to justify our current state. I don't want to wax political here, tempting as that is. I merely want to point out that Beowulf is as important and apt now as it was 1000 years ago when copied down in the midst of renewed Viking raids on England. Beowulf still has a great deal to say to us, and it is the search for that meaning that in great part fuels renewed interest in the poem in the public sphere.

There are other aspects to it as well that I'll mention here and perhaps return to or let others comment elsewhere. But we've also seen a renewed interest in our comic book heroes, though that movement has been going for a lot longer, and I suggest (and I think Dr. Nokes of Unlocked Wordhoard has touched on this) that the desire for heroes is still with us and that in part a need for Batman or a new Superman or the X-Men is the same need for Beowulf or Odysseus or Achilles. Whether modern versions of these hero tales have done justice to the originals, is another question. But without question our society is searching yet, and in tales like Beowulf, we may still find meaning for the 21st century.

Reading R.I. Moore

Someone at The Guardian (Madeleine Bunting) has discovered R.I. Moore. Specifically, Ms. Bunting has read Prof. Moore's The Formation of a Persecuting Society, published first in 1987, now reissued in 2007. The book, if I may be so bold to say, is part of the medievalist's canon. You simply need mention his name and people know the book, or at least the argument. You may not agree with that argument -- and indeed many don't -- but you have to acknowledge the subtlety and intellectual deftness of Moore's work. But enough about that. Read the book.

Anyway, Ms. Bunting wants to draw parallels between "medieval times" (the phrase makes my skin crawl) and today. She starts with a meditation on the meaning of "medieval" and how Christmas and children's films are steeped in that pseudo-medieval fantasy that's so familiar. Then, she talks about the more tawdry bits -- anxiety about the apocalypse, perceived threats by Islam, and (here's where Moore comes in) the creation of a state bent on categorizing, controlling, and subjugating entire groups of people.

"It makes a mockery of the idea that we use "medieval" as a term of abuse to fling at others, when really it's a term that correctly defines enduring and deeply shameful characteristics of our own society against which history warns us to be scrupulously vigilant."

And so perhaps Ms. Bunting is right, in the end, that we should remain vigilant, since

"the horrific lessons of the 20th century can leave us no room for the complacent belief that this weapon of political advancement has become redundant."

Ms. Bunting does a pretty good job here but she seems to be tending towards the same trap that I've warned of before on this blog. Context matters. Bunting seems to admit as much:

"One can see the pattern in 16th-century witchcraft trials and religious persecution, right up to the Holocaust or the informants of the German Democratic Republic. All follow a pattern first laid down between the 11th and 13th centuries, even if many of the circumstantial detail differs." [my emphasis]

The problem, however, is that that circumstantial detail -- brushed off as rather inconsequential here -- is exactly what matters. History doesn't repeat. It echoes; similar but not the same, recognizable but distorted. The witch trials were not the same as the papal inquisition in Languedoc. The Bush administration is not the totalitarian regimes of the 20th century. Ms. Bunting et al., don't try to recreate the past and don't look for the past to be recreated. In other words, don't learn about the past so you're prepared to fight the previous war. Be prepared to fight the next war.

A Day Late and a Dollar Short... But Really Modern Medieval

Most have now heard of this, I'm sure. Originally posted at Old English in NY, the language of Old English is apparently alive and well. Eddie Izzard went to Holland to buy a cow, speaking only Old English. He did and he did.



Freakin' sweet.

Dr. Nokes Pronounces

Over at Unlocked Wordhoard, on how to read allegory. Although Dr. Nokes limits his discussion to allegorical literature (literature explicitly intended to be read as allegory), I think his notes are much more broadly applicable to anything written in the Middle Ages (and much written before and after). Take my favorite teaching example from the late 11th century:

Emperor Henry IV tried to present himself as another Charlemagne but instead turned into another Roboam.

-- Lambert of Hersfeld, Libelli de institutione Herveldensis ecclesiae quae supersunt, ed. O. Holder-Egger, MGH SRG (Hannover, 1984), 38:353.

Now, what does that mean? Lambert doesn't say but he knows that you (the reader) will get it. You'll hear "Charlemagne" and think "pious," "conqueror," "emperor," "Aachen," and remember the grandeur of his empire. But Lambert also knows that you'll hear "Roboam" and think "Israel," "dissension," "struggle," and "collapse." Roboam was the succesor of Solomon and the king who allowed a united Israel to splinter and ultimately collapse. Lambert's on the side of the papal reformers and he's making quite a statement about the emperor here -- masked, perhaps to us, but not to his contemporaries.

As Dr. Nokes says, read carefully. Lots of neat stuff there.

Euromad: Cutting Edge Technology

So, since we're experimenting here in this blog. A friend and blogger, the mysterious "Euromad," saw the call for contributors I posted and was wondering if we could also do something with relevant excerpts from other person's blogs. If others want to try something similar, right now I'm thinking what the heck. Contact me with an excerpt and link. So long as it's relevant to the site's "mission statement" and you link back here, I'll put it up.

So, here we go:

About ten years ago France opened a new library, the last of the Mitterand monuments. At that point the BN somehow became the BnF (Bibliothèque nationale de France). The new site is known, short hand, as “Mitterand.” The old one, pictured above, “Richelieu.” But it remains for me simply “the BN,” and that parvenu building on the southeastern fringe of the city (about which I will have much more to say in the near future) is “the new BN.” I handle change, you see. I just don’t handle it well.

Anway, the BN is a real example of 19th-century grandeur, its breath-taking monumental reading room today sitting largely empty of people and of books, inhabited at the moment chiefly by ghosts of readers past. I had originally envisioned this article as a heart-felt tribute to those days gone by, but my last foray into nostalgia left me so emotionally gutted that—it seemed to me—well, enough said.

Let us focus instead on the happy accident that one corner of the grand building has remained largely unchanged, itself as resistant to the ravages of time as am I: the Salle des Manuscrits, pictured above, where I have done most of my work of any consequence as a historian. I really don’t believe that, most of years of my life, I’m much good as a scholar. But to ascend the magnificent stairway and to sit in this lovely, often sun-drenched nineteenth-century space, surrounded by two-tiered grand bookcases, and with literally tens of thousands of hand-written documents at your disposal, all catalogued and indexed with varying degrees of detail (but all catalogued and indexed—hello, Vatican!) . . . well, how could you not get good work done?

Read more...

Just Tell Her Already

So, this is my first blog ever...and I want to thank Matthew for having me aboard.

I've been working on an article about the Pearl-poet for the last few months, and by way of talking about one of the issues I am having with those poems, I wanted to talk about the movie Evan Almighty. Evan Almighty has been out for awhile, I know, but I have a two year old son and our Netflix list is a little back-logged. This movie is not great, as Rotten Tomatoes can attest. For those of you who have not seen the movie, it is a retelling of the Noah's Ark story, twisted into an environmental fable and something about loving your family, I am not totally sure. The issue I have is that there is a complete lack of communication with the family on why exactly Evan Baxter (our Noah figure) is building this ark. His wife is the most upset (there is a scene where he builds the ark with his sons, like they are building a dog house on the weekend), because she doesn't understand (he's a newly elected Congressman with a new McMansion in a newly developed plan. Oh, and they drive a new Hummer) what is going on with him--if he is stressed out, she wonders, why doesn't he tell her. Evan (and God) choose not to let her in on the whole, "God told me to build an Ark" thing. Eventually, Joan Baxter (played by the lovely Lauren Graham of Gilmore Girls and Bad Santa fame) and the kids leave because Evan is way too "Last Supper" (his hair has grown out and he is now dressed in "Biblical" garb), and are going to her mom's until Evan calms down. Yes, I know, this is a plot thing (she has to go away in order to realize how much she misses Evan), but this is the "exact" same thing that happens in the Pearl-poet. It is the most pronounced in Cleanness where both Sarah (Abraham's wife) and Lot's wife (she does not deserve a name) are never told who their guests are--in Sarah's case it is God and in Lot's case they are angels. Ad Putter in his Introduction to the Pearl-poet argues that one of the keys to the poem is that Lot's wife, in particular, is unable to understand ontological categories. For example, she does not understand why her angelic guests would not want salt in their food, so she puts salt in their food (and is later punished by being turned into a pillar of salt). Lot's wife and Sarah do not understand that their guests are different beings who need different treatment. And yet, in the poems, the husbands do not treat their guests differently than any other guest.

And, that's my problem with Evan Almighty and the Pearl-poet (though he is one of my favorite poet [or poets depending on who you listen to])--the men who are supposedly privy to understanding divine beings and how they should be treated (though for Evan it takes some convincing) never share this information with their wives--and in many cases their wives suffer (the most extreme case being Lot's wife--with the whole pillar of salt thing). Why do this to these women? Why is the exclusion of women from divine knowledge so important as a plot point? I am not sure I have an answer to why it happens, but as a reader of the Pearl-poet, it feels like a flaw that there is no model for us to understand how to treat the divine and how to treat mortals (and that ontological differentiation is what Cleanness seems to be about, but I think that theme flows into other poems, as well). Maybe I should take comfort that in Pearl itself, God punishes the Dreamer (a man) for not listening to the divine knowledge of his daughter. But, then again, he doesn't die (turned into a jewel himself--wouldn't that be poetic justice on par with Lot's wife?); he's merely woken up and he resigns himself to going to Church. In Evan Almighty, God (or Al Mighty, as it says on his name badge), appears to Joan in a restaurant and gives an interesting exegetical reading of the Noah's ark story that has nothing to do with God's wrath (this is God telling us what he really meant by the Flood...ahhh Hollywood), and everything to do with trusting your husband. So, apparently despite the threat of global warming (and maybe some subtle criticism of the government's handling of Katrina), the movie is really representing idealized 1950's husband and wife relations (be a good wife and listen to your husband). In Cleanness and in Sir Gawain, it is a similar theme: listen to your husband, don't put salt in the food, don't laugh, go and seduce the guest!!

Cheers.

Violence in History

Over at In the Middle, Eileen Joy has a very moving post up now, building off of a recent viewing of the Ken Loach film, "The Wind that Shakes the Barley." I share her concern, as I've noted elsewhere, that no history (memory?) should be considered" sacred. It is precisely our job, as academics, medievalists, and public intellectuals, to problematize those "sacred" narratives, especially when they tend towards the troubling, violent, and/or exclusionary.

Another thing that struck me, being a pseudo-Carolingianist (or Car-oh-LING-ee-ahn-ist, for those of the more UK persuasion), was her note about Michael Moore's forthcoming book on Frankish bishops. Man, does that sound intersesting. I don't know, however, how true it is that popular scholarly opinion holds that "force" is the most decisive factor in how things turn out. It seems to me like it could be a bit of a straw man argument. That being said, I'm getting this third-hand, have not seen anything Prof. Moore has written, and I'm perfectly willing to be convinced otherwise. He is, however, certainly right that few write "big" histories anymore. But that too might be changing, I think. Watch out for Brett Whalen's monograph from Harvard UP, in a year or so. I might even have something to say about something (eventually).

Welcome: Introduction: New Beginning

I'm pleased to introduce Modern Medieval's 2 new co-bloggers, handily listed for you (in no order I can discern) to the right. -->

Larry Swain (theswain) is currently a graduate student at the University of Illinois, Chicago, finishing his dissertation on Aelfric, and is on the market. He blogs at The Heroic Age and The Ruminate, and is the Acting Editor-in-Chief of the journal The Heroic Age. His "interests here are to comment on various aspects of appropriation of the medieval in the modern, and how we in the field should best approach and react to these appropriations."

Prof. Christopher Roman (Croman) is an Assistant Professor of English and Coordinator of the Writing Center at Kent State University, Tuscarawas, where he teaches composition, creative writing, and medieval literature. His published work has focused on anchorites and mystical literature. He's now working on an article about the Pearl-poet.

Please join me in welcoming them and in hoping for many fruitful discussions for the future!

Hollywood in the Holy Land

Don't have too much to say about this, except that it sounds quite interesting and it's all about the medievalism. Details concerning the Call for Submissions can be found over at In the Middle.

Contributors: An Update

I've gotten a couple of emails and I should be ready to introduce a couple of co-bloggers in a day or so. So stay tuned...

There may be room for 1 more though if anyone's interested. Send me an email.