Medieval Literature - 1st Part

19/09/2022
The Wanderer

Line 28 - alguien que ha conocido el dolor como compañero de viaje. El exilio le llama, no alillos de
oro trenzado, escarcha que congela el corazon, no frutas de la tierra. Escarcha que congela el corazon.
Recuerda a los compañeros de mesa y al tesoro distribuido,.... lo invitaron al banquete. Ese momento
feliz ya no existe.
- twisted gold rings : anillos de oro trenzado/ alancado
- litotes : figura literaria que deberemos reconocer - understatement

The dream of the rood

- the crucifixion from de perspective of a tree a talking cross
- emphasis
- comitatus lord + thane - comitatus ideal - relation between lord and thane - as secret as the
connection between the cross, an intimate connection
- Christian and pagan elements
- the cross - should we value the cross? - element of the medieval thinking
- Christianism being presented as paganism

Beowulf

Basic facts:

● Beowulf’s structure:
- 3,182 lines often divide into 43 fits/ Sections
- Ring structure: Beginning, development and end.
● Literary origins of Beowulf → Every epic text comes from pangermanic culture
● Recurrent rhetorical devices :
-Kennings: all the time, compound metaphor, banhus ( -bone housel= body),
hronrade (- whale road= sea)
- Litotes: an ironic understatement or negative expression
● Beowulf is an alliterative poem
● Beowulf is written in west Saxon
●
Other important facts:

- The first version is a manuscript

- It has been suggested that it may date from the 7th or even the 11th century. But could be in
the 7th century because of the usage of the language.
- It has been suggested that it may date from the 7th or even the 11th century.

Context :
 ● Situated in the Southern Scandinavia/ north germanic world (5th - 6th century) towards the
end of the wandering of the people.
● Ethnogenetic function → The genesis of the people

● 673-735 - King Alfred paid well for literary entertainment so there was interest in producing
it.
● Oral verse was used as an instrument of cultural indoctrination, the ultimate purpose of which
was the preservation of group identity
● 757 - 496 - Offa II was into promoting culture. The book talks about an offa king, so one of
the reasons why we can place the book
●

Theories about the book:

- Beowulf was composed bilingual, and each part could be written by different people.
However, there is a systematic flow so it is most probable that it was just an author. We can
not forget that imitation was common in medieval England, so there are different possibilities.

- Anglo-Saxon poetry does not follow conventional poetry forms of modern English poetry
- Beowulf shows lexical innovation, musical and phonological innovation, and complex
language,s o every single detail is important, and creativity with a lot of logic.
- Beowulf is an alliterative poem

Close reading - Lines 64-85

English Spanish

The fortunes of war favored Hrothgar.

Friends and kinsmen flocked to his ranks, young
followers, a force that grew to be a mighty army. So
his mind turned to hall-building: he handed down
orders for men to work on a great mead-hall meant to
be a wonder of the world forever; it would be his
throne-room and there he would dispense his
God-given goods to young and old-but not the
common land or people's lives.6
Far and wide through the world, I have heard, orders
for work to adorn that wallstead were sent to many
peoples. And soon it stood there finished and ready,
in full view, the hall of halls. Heorot was the name"
he had settled on it, whose utterance was law.
Nor did he renege, but doled out rings and torques at
the table. The hall towered, its gables wide and high
and awaiting a barbarous burning.That doom abided,
but in time it would come: the killer instinct
unleashed among in-laws, the blood-lust rampant.'
La suerte de la guerra favoreció a Hrothgar.
Amigos y parientes acudieron a sus filas, jóvenes
seguidores, una fuerza que se convirtió en un
poderoso ejército. Así que su mente se volcó en la
construcción de salones: dio órdenes para que los
hombres trabajaran en un gran salón del hidromiel
destinado a ser una maravilla del mundo para
siempre; sería su salón del trono y allí dispensaría los
bienes que Dios le había dado a jóvenes y viejos,
pero no la tierra común ni la vida de la gente.6
A lo largo y ancho del mundo, según he oído, se
enviaron a muchos pueblos órdenes de trabajo para
adornar aquella rambla. Y pronto estuvo terminado y
listo, a la vista de todos, el salón de los salones.
Heorot era el nombre" que le había puesto, cuya
pronunciación era ley.
Tampoco renegó, sino que repartió anillos y torques
en la mesa. La sala se alzaba, con sus frontones
anchos y altos, y esperaba una quema bárbara. Ese
destino se mantenía, pero con el tiempo llegaría: el
instinto asesino desatado entre los parientes políticos,
la sed de sangre desenfrenada.'
commentary :

- Show power → megalomania

- The text was celebrating the power of Heorogar but at the end of the paragraph remebers that
everything is not permanent, thats very typical philosphical medieval way of thinking of the world
- Idea of repetition of the circle

-division between cristianity vs paganism

- idea of wyd - divine force from norms that constrols yoour life
- many storys in beowulf - a lot of metapoetic culture with references to other poets
-hygelae
-more flexible kind of writting

Various facts:

- the firts reference to a man of power in Shieldings was a danish warrior adored by everyone.
- the story begins with the funeral, the neguining is dark and sad
- the book ends with the funeral of Beowulf → circle structure of the text
- the sheildings were ruled by beowulf
- the lord and the retainer
- Heorogar - prince of the shieldings
- this is how a good lider should be, also beowulf would look like this at the end of the poem
- Heorogar vs beowulf - share more than we think
- the idea of fate as something medieval
- According to talking Grendel, the monster is the perfect model of evil, medieval men were very
clear about ideas but, was he an exile thedar(?)→caminante del exilio. Was it a real monster?. If you
don’t belong anywhere you are going to be excluded from life, you are going to be a monster, he is fed
up with the noise because the noise is all that he doesn’t have because is a banished men.
- Cain’s clan →fist monster → Assasin
- Pagan goods →demons →killer of souls
- Good the creator vs the evil creature and the enemies of good

close reading - Lines 170- 188

- everything before this part is framework of the book, after this, it tells a story of power and
mith

English Spanish

commentary:
 - they can't sleep in a fixed place because the monster attacks from nowhere - deus ex machina
- Finally we have gotten to the main point because beowulf appears and his first description
- The initial detailsl before are a narrative technique to situate people, narrative framework,
mythological framework and genealogical framework

Close reading - lines 198 - 209

English Spanish

commentary:
- clear identification of how is beowulf →as a boss
- he wants glory
- fame is transcendental , everything is ephimeral, the limits of life, human conditon is weak
but fame is the reason to you to be remebered and Beowulf whats that.
- The idea of fate

Close reading - Lines 370 - 383

Spanish English

- Shows the connection with him

- Old friendship, all is connected in the end, fate again
- A problem of religion
- Harold bloom → great creatic of Beowulf → could be interesting to read

3/10/22

Exam:
- commentary,
- identification
- contextualization
- what happends before and after the historical background
- translation

multiple choice exercise → concepts, events, dates

Important topics in Beowulf:

 - Marriage: not mentioned, no wife and no son
- Materialism is a very significant idea, with emphasis on gold and treasure
- paganism
- Mechanism for peace
- Grendel’s identity
- Grendel’s mother
- Masculinity in Beowulf
- Medieval England
- context

Sr. Gawain and the Green knight

● Allegedly based on a book that was never found → probably based on celtic oral tales
● king Arthur and nationalism → A celt that becomes romanised to protect the england built by
brutus.
● Anoymous

Contextual important facts:

- Battle of hastings
- Henry II
- 1380 →benedict reform
- Multilingual England, middle English c.1150, synthetic analytic
- William the conqueror: New nobility and centralized power.
- Feudal system: lord and vassal, 1086. →The domesal book .
- Centralisation and bureaucratic organization, →1096.
- Oxford university is founded →1209
- Cambridge university is founded
- 1215 →Magna carta
- 1272 → Edward I: conquest of wales and subjection of Scotland
- 1307 → Edward III: beginning of one hundred years’ war and parliament as an independent
institution and the strongest one in Europe.
- Black plague (1348-1351)
- 1381→ English rising or the peasant’s revolt = To abolish lordship and serfdom
- 1399→ Rebellion and Henry IV
- 1455 -1487→ war of the roses
- 1476→ Craxton introduce the printing press
- 1485 →Henry Tudor defeats Richard II

Anglo-norman Literature and chivalry:

- 12th-century anglo norman aristocratic poets: Thomas of England/ Britain: Tristian

- French influence
- Romance: knowledge, love, happy ending stories, perfection, idealisc and quest
- Court of king Arthur, simplified adaptations of French romanced into England
6/10/2022

Close reading - Lines 180 -222

English Spanish

además de una frondosa barba que crecia hasta

The fellow in green was in fine fettle. su pecho, que colgaba con el explendido
The hair of his head was as green as his horse, cabellera de su cabeza y que estaba (lopped)
fine flowing locks which fanned across his back, podada, de tal manera que sus brazos estaban
plus a bushy green beard growing down to his (gowed) atabiados de verde. Engarzados al
breast, which hung with the splendid hair from cuello como la capa de un rey, ( the main) la
his head and was lopped in a line at elbow crin de su montura la azicalada a juego, peina y
length so half his arms were gowned in green anudada en forma de rizos , recubierta en
growth, crimped at the collar, like a king's cape. oro/ornamentada con oro, enrredada y
The mane of his mount was groomed to match, entrelazada, verde sobre oro. El espolón estaban
combed and knotted into curlicues then tinseled acabados de la misma manera, con una radiante
with gold, tied and twisted green over gold, cinta verde trenzada con cuentas, al igula que la
green over gold. cola hasta la propia punta. Y una larga y
The fetlocks were finished in the same fashion apretada correa atandolo con fuerza/
with bright green ribbon braided with beads, as enlazandalo con fuerza. Donde brillantes
was the tail-to its tippety-tip! campanas de oro pulido tañian/repicaban
And a long, tied thong lacing it tight where claramente claramente. Ningun hombre vivo
bright and burnished gold bells chimed clearly. había presenciado semenjante guerrero, tan
No waking man had witnessed such a warrior or curioso caballo de guerra, de otro mundo pero
weird warhorse otherworldly, yet flesh and de carne y hueso. Su mirada era tan brillante de
bone. brillante relampago/ extremadamente brillante
His look was lightning bright said those who decian aquellos que se deslumbraron con su
glimpsed its glow. brillo. Aquello parecia que ningun homnbre
It seemed no man there might survive his podria sobrevivir a su golpe violento.
violent blow.

Commentary:
- Represents nature → Nature’s methapore
- Outside-inside story

General facts:

- Hunting→seduction
- First night →one kiss from de lady of the castle
- second night - two kisses
- third night - safety belt and three kisses, but he does not give the belt to the lord.
 - the first attempt is a fail
- the second attempt fails
- In the third attempt there is a moment of tension
- Everything was planned
- the green belt represents that he is sinful and insincere. It became the symbol of unity and
companionship in Camelot
- Green represents nature, as what we do not like, as the opposite of culture, is everything you
want to deny in order to be someone with honour, one of the main motifs is that he must as a
Christian knight must resist nature, by nature we say seduction, temptation…
- he wins the green by giving his life to god→ He is able to resist temtaption all along the book
except one small time
- the green knight wanted wa r→ proposed the game to show what he really is and to be men
of honour, which is a metaphor →He wants to show that he overcomes nature
- “so here is the house for Arthur” he scoffed

10/10/22

Close reading - 943-960

- Courtly love - Love between a lady and a Knight, pattern of dominance, lord/vassal, the
lady of the castle is the dominant and the guy is going to less and less. Patriarchal society
but here is the reverse situation. Courtly love as a protofeminist example of love?
- Feminism perspective- it is a masculine court, an androcentric discourse and the problem
of idealization Essentialization of women
- Frame story- beheading game: Exchange game
- Is testing a virtue

close reading- lines 1105- 1125

English Spanish

commentary:

- everything is presented as a playful game when is not,

- Christian morality→ he is beeing tested
- covenant ( alianza) - al pacto que se establecía entre Dios y su pueblo o bien entre Dios y
algún personaje concreto - en el libro se utiliza esta palabra porque se quieren referir a una
forma más profunda y con un significado religioso - between the lord and teh servants??

Lines - 1105 - 1305

 - he notices that is nothing to be done,
- Balance between purity/chastity and politeness/correctness
- Overstep one of the main features of the courtly love
- the lord accepted the kiss
- comeliest - incomodo
- the perfect triangulation of desire → Gwain, the lord of the castle and the lady of the castle
- direct remittance → es un triangulo, el deseo no e spropio es un deseo dictado por la
sociedad
- it is a constant trap in country love, Gawain breaks his purity when he decided to accept that
present

Lines 1633- 1647 → third important scene

- there is an imbalance

Close reading - Lines 1849-1869 → Una de las parte favs. del profe

But the knight who knew of the power knitted in

it would pay a high price to possess it, perhaps.
For the body which is bound within this green
belt, as long as it is buckled robustly about him,
will be safe against anyone who seeks to strike
him, and all the slyness on earth wouldn't see
him slain.' The man mulled it over, and it
entered his mind it might just be the jewel for
the jeopardy he faced and save him from the
strike in his challenge at the chapel.
With luck, it might let him escape with his life.
So relenting at last he let her speak, and
promptly she pressed him to take the present,
and he granted her wish, and she gave with good
grace, though went on to beg him not to whisper
a word of this gift to her husband, and Gawain
agreed; those words of theirs within those walls
should stay.
His thanks are heartfelt, then.
No sooner can he say how much it matters,
when the third kiss comes. his way.

Commentary:
- He has been defeated by the lady of the castle
- The final violation of the contract
- Miserable as a match because
- Intense kisses
 - Gawain feels miserable and wants to return the kiss as best he can to feel better about himself,
he knows he is the only one who is not being honest, he also knows he is keeping a secret, this
fragment is ironic. They are playing a game all the time
- Final temptation

Lines 2030 - 2047

- to test how heroic he is as a knight

- he is exaggerating the amount of his evil to prevent Gawain
- the first attempt - Gawain flinches
- the second attempt - Does not flinches this time

Lines 2309- 2320 → third attempt

- happy but morally ashamed

- what can we make behind the identity of the green knight?
- is he acting for the sake of the Christian idea?
- He is going to explain that he is done in the following scene

Lines 2345 - 2355

-wooing→hacer la pelota a alguien

-By accepting the blame he searches compassiowhich n, seems emotional manipulation as there is a
overreacting
-The green knight in the middle ?? - Is he a knight???? complementary figures as they are playing a
game on each other, gawain feels that is being tested
- He is taking advantage of the game keeping the secret, he is aware of her own picture, existence and
game .

13/10/2022

- green knight is redemptive

- is going to be an element that will transform

Lines 2429-2455

-A very complex moment

-A lady next to the big lady
-He became the green knight because of magic
-The double identity was possible because of morgan lafeir
- In her less clear side, she is entirely pagan, evil and antichristian and has a relation whit nature, she
is the most significant figure of the tale
-Sr. Gawain is the richest character of the tale

Lines 2455- 2473

- Clear intention and evilness

- He is beeing redeem
 -
Lines 2505- 2521

- sash - banda
- the honor is going to be shown and represent with the sash

Questions for the exam:

● what is the role of nature in epic(Beowulf)and romance (Green knight) tradition of the text
covered in class.
- paganism and nature
- green knight, temptation, space in the tale
- nature in the sense of temptation and what sr gawin fails as a j¡knight, because she prefers to
preserve her natural preservation instead of boeing a good caballero y leal, he is defeated by
nature

● Question about sr Gawain - the balance e between humility and fame, chastity/politeness and
loyalty/egoism

● The force of sin and redemption in sr gawain and the green knight →in this question is
important to talk about nature

● the dynamics of desire in Sr.Gawain and the green knight

-How desire is shaped, how everything is going to be trnasfer that desire
- Sr.Gawain say something about desire at the end of the tale→said that it was her fault but it
was worthy, as a knight sometimes you had to do self→ castration as a knight …
Ideal of self- castration and to reframe form every sexual activity

● The esence of sin

● Moral ambivalence/ ambiguity/ paradox in the identity of the green knight→ one of the
favorite question of the teacher, dice que espera un super essay
●
- we have to describe the two personalities as a figure of nature but also as a figure of
redemption. No podemos solo decir que es un pagan, hay que profundizar.

Geoffrey Chaucer - The father of english literature

● born about 1340

● Son of a wine merchant
● page for countess of ulster
● He ended up workinG as a linguistic translator at the cour of king edwards III

- direct influence by european writers

 - chaucer is famous for wrap the great italian writers ans going to give them a name in Eglish
- He gave us a connection with europe
- wordliness - he is going to give us a realistic image of the social classes of that time,
controller of customs
- vernacular English - vernacular meaning “ of the people”, wanting to represent what the
people said
- sociologist commones, bourgeois and court
- London English
- Ancestor of what it still often calles “standar” english

● sense of oratily
● rich versification
● -sylabic poetic line
● -rhyming couplets mainstay of narrative poetry in english

were are going to classify its works in three phases :

- first fase: french sources, french forms, french-visions

- second fase: italian liteatry influences, huaman sexual desire,
- Third phase:
- somthing new that resonates beyond its time
-intelectuality + freshness
- the canterbury tales - a new sense of writing and morality, he is more modern,
ambiguous and psychological
- a colorful cross selection of thd main english clases

El prologo de canterbury tales es SAGRADO, es obligatoria leerselo para el examen

17/10/22

The canterbury tales

● Laylife →vida plebeya

● was left unfinished
● 4 by each pilgrim, 30 pilgrims
● Genres →v we got several modalities, a character symbolizes an idea, morality tales also
fableux (comic tale) and stage satire
● we tend to associate it with a new sense of art and modern authorship
● complex feminine tale, told from the perspective of a woman → we can not forget it is a satire
and that it has a conservative view
● a very interesting critic of problems of the society

- every member of society is related to its stage, but at the same time, in some weird democracy
- Constant tension state and equality
- women were in a separate state
- a story in a story
 - a metafictional work →a story about stories, a circular
- is a storytelling contest
- a tale that is always framed and dependent on the narrator’s perspective
- is the narrator reliable?
- Groups of tales and characters exchanging things till they form nine different groups of tales,
we have prologues and sometimes epilogues that when you put them together make sense .
- It start with a decorated description of a springtime , it gave us the idea that the text could be
courtly love
- we do not have a clear representation of the nobility.

Close reading - page 20

Ready to go on pilgrimage and start For Listo para peregrinar y emprender

Canterbury, most devout at heart, At night there
came into that hostelry Some nine and twenty in a
company Of simdry folk happening then to fall In
fellowship, and they were pilgrims all That towards
Canterbury meant to ride.
The rooms and stables of the inn were wide:
They made us easy, all was of the best.
And, briefly, when the sun had gone to rest, I'd
spoken to them all upon the trip And was soon one
with them in fellowship,.
Pledged to rise early and to take the way To
Canterbury, as you heard me say.
Hacia Canterbury, muy devotos de corazón,
Por la noche, cuando entraton en aquel hostal
sobre unos nueve y veinte en un grupo
de distintas personas/personas diversas que
casualmente se unieron
en comunidad, y todos ellos eran peregrinos
que hacia Canterbury pretendían cabalgar.
Las habitaciones y los establos de la
posada/eran amplios: Nos acomodaron , todo
era de lo mejor. Y, brevemente, cuando el sol se
había ido a descansar, había hablado con todos
ellos sobre el viaje.
Y pronto fui uno con ellos en comunidad ,
prometí levantarme temprano y tomar el
camino a Canterbury, como me oísteis decir.

close reading - Page 20

English Spanish

there was a Knight a most distinguished man,

Who from the day on which he first began

To ride abroad had followed chivalry,

Truth, honour, generousness and courtesy,

 He had done nobly in his sovereign's war

And ridden into battle,no man more,

As well inChristian as in heathen places

and ever honoured for hsi noble grace

Commentary:
- war represented
- knight represents nobility
- yeoman
- a perfect nun - but there somthinggggggg , because the enormous anticlericalism sense
- there is always a small critique od the narrator
- straining
- a limiter is a guy que se le permite pedir limosnas

Page 31

- Pure double morality

- The remedies for love’s mischances → Abortion
- ‘Juzgo que el era otro castrado o una yegua’

24/10/2022

- canterbury tales are majority male oriendetd and male framed

The Miller’s tale - not a mandatory reading

-from solemnity to vulgarity

-from publicness ro privacy
-from marriage to its degradation

- the intorruption of the monk

- emphasis on public
- with miller’s tale we have the opposite of social order
- space of corruption and adultery
- pilgrimage - secret contest, secret ritual
- achieve what the audience is not expecting , you expert the bible for being used for comic
purposes
- the miller is not passing any moral judgment
- the mille’s tale is state satire
- is a biblical fableaux
- The teacher loves the naturalism of the mile’s tale
 - from intellectually to physicality - represented by Nicolas, he is a fake mystic because he said
that he saw jesucristh, he is a scholar, he is turns mystic and becomes rubbish, from
intellectual to purely body disguised
- from the bible to a flabiau -
- from the biblical ark to a tub
- from courtly love to the fenestral buttocks
- from a marital DISORDER to madness - a social disorder, blibical non-sense

The wife’s tale

-Romance: testing the Knight

-She knows that is being judged and start the prolong by given her side of the story, female retaliation
, it is not just a prologue, seems an autobiographical prologue and also an essay with ideologism. It is
a face-to-face, he is there because he knows he is judged and she wants to defend herself→ captatio
venebolentiae.
- Once she has the attention of the reader she talks about marriage. she shahid that they are nothing to
judge his marriages, her experience is an empirical argumentation. He compare herself with abraham ,
male significance.
- He is experienced( empirist ) → biblical interpretation → are the sexual organs only made for
procreation?, defendour of pleasure in medeival times( hedonist) →POSIBLE ESSAY,mostarlas the
positions in el tales, para justificsar en dos o tres lineas .