The Material And The Spiritual In Beowulf And The Millers Tale - Essay Example

Explore the relationship between the material and the spiritual in Beowulf and the Miller’s Tale Introduction Beowulf and the Miller’s Tale provide a graphic insight into the social order of Anglo Saxon England and from a literary historicism perspective have been interpreted as providing an attempt to better understand intellectual history through literature. Leading proponent of the theory Foucault posits that literary historicism provides clues to current association with the world and in this sense the literature of any period can be viewed as indistinguishable from the context in which it is written (Foucault, 1979:222). Beowulf is essential a poem about heroism, where the central protagonist Beowulf overcomes three enemies Grendel, Hrogar and a dragon in battle. Geoffrey Chaucer’s “The Miller’s Tale” is the second part of the Canterbury Tales and narrated by the alcoholic Miller and is a vulgar fable, depicting debauchery in contrast to the heroism underlined in Beowulf. Both Beowulf and the Miller’s Tale have been interpreted as using biblical analogies and allegories and the focus of this paper is to explore the relationship between the material and spiritual in Beowulf and the Miller’s Tale. 2. Beowulf If we firstly consider Beowulf , it is evident that the recurrent themes of war, tragedy and loss and military heroism are pertinent to historic patterns human behaviour whilst simultaneously providing a clear depiction of Anglo Saxon cultural norms. Moreover, French Historian de Certeau argues that “history aims at calming the dead who still haunt the present, and at offering them scriptural tombs” (Certau, 1998). Additionally, Certau highlights that the various themes and use of language in Beowulf convey the notion of inevitability through “labor of death and a labor against death” (Certau, 1998, p.5). This is further reflected in Beowulf by the denial of death and references to fear, loss and death. If we further consider the development of literary historicism, Foucault’s vision propounds that human behaviour is innately driven by motivation for power, which is clearly mirrored in Beowulf (Foucault, 1979, p22). Furthermore, in context of the medieval period within which Beowulf is set, there is clearly a dichotomy between philology, which studies the words and new historicism, which considers the historicism context (Frantzen, 1990, p114). Moreover, Philology posits that to understand people, the literary language must be understood whereas historicism indicates that to comprehend the language, the people must be understood for example the Anglo-Saxon gift culture represented assertion of authority (Frantzen, 1990). A prime example of this is in Beowulf when Hrothgar gives gifts to Beowulf not as payment for services rendered, but as an assertion of authority: “I accept that you are king here and won’t oppose you or your signs”. The use of physical possessions as a sign of power is used to contrast with the overall theme in Beowulf where honour and victory take precedence over material possessions. Additionally, Frantzen argues that the old English texts provide a direct correlative link to the ideas and values of authentic Anglo-Saxon culture and further asserts that: “How the past is received, how aesthetic response shapes the reception of the past, is a process of filtering, of admitting into discussion some aspects of the past and prohibiting others… This figure functions as a gatekeeper, first as the author, and later as the readers who rewrite the text sometimes literally, sometimes figuratively by means of interpretation” (Frantzen, 1990, p.121). Frantzen further argues that it is possible to learn something useful about the past and how current critical practices and methodologies are connected to the social and political contexts within which the discipline has developed over time, which is reinforced by the contrast between the physical and spiritual in Beowulf (1990, p.122). This indicates that new historicism is effectively a tool for highlighting recurrent themes in human behaviour and links to the present. Niles argues that through the interrelationship of the physical and material in Beowulf, Anglo-Saxon England could be considered on one plain as solely a: “figure of speech, one that has lent that concept that it denotes the semblance of solidity thanks to centuries of reiterated use” (1993, p.208). Moreover, he asserts that “Anglo-Saxon England is nothing other than what it has been perceived to be by historically grounded human beings, from the time of the Anglo-Saxons to the present moment” (1993, p.209). In support of this assertion, he outlines the contemporary two tiered approach to analysing Beowulf within the historicist paradigm: “In a manner that has not been seen before, Beowulf will be found to have a relation to the discourses of power of a society whose institutions were very different from our own, and those discourses will be seen to be bound up in the whole text making enterprise…. It one task of old English scholarship will be to analyse how literary works like Beowulf created a culture by which they were created…. Another will be to investigate how, through a large system of education, such works continue to help shape the present day culture, that calls them to mind as past artefacts (Niles 1993, p.209) In stark contrast Eagleton goes much further and emphatically dismisses the significance of Beowulf as being important in considering the relevance to contemporary culture (2005, p.26). In reviewing Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, Eagleton argues that Beowulf is no longer relevant as “we do not believe in heroism, or that the world itself is story-shaped, and we ask of literature a phenomenological inwardness which is of fairly recent historical vintage” (p.26). However, Eagleton’s somewhat cynical view arguably misses the point of the need to consider Beowulf through its own past and relationship to theoretical and cultural postmodern humanities, which is reinforced by the correlation between the physical and material (Frantzen, 1990). Indeed, Frantzen refers to the comments of Robert Jauss, who refers to Beowulf as a “horizon – within the context of the question of the relationship between cultural memory and history of the representation of that always ambiguous but highly contested relationship in what might be called “high art” and the moral dilemmas posed by violent combat” (In Frantzen,1999 p124). The relevance of heroism throughout the past and the “present” Beowulf historicism model is further highlighted by James’ Beowulf studies, which refers to the demarcation of the poem as an expressional mode of idealised historical thinking and psychoanalytical study of social structures, which are equally relevant to the present (James, 1994). Earl specifically refers to the use of the physical and material in the language and relevance of Beowulf thus: “We are ultimately powerless to control history and the strangeness internal to history – its radical ambiguity- is the very blank face of the epic hero himself, who could be all of us and none of us at all, and which invites a meditation on the unconscious themes of our own individual and cultural origins” (James, 1994, p.8). This not only refers to the relevance of Beowulf to the present in its presentation of themes such as war and heroism, Earl goes further to argue that Beowulf from a new historicism perspective effectively relates to psychological theory pertaining to the cultural subconscious and human evolution, which encompasses social, political, ethical and endlessly subjective (James, 1998). Earl also posits that outside of this development history cannot be properly understood. This further delineates the poem as a paradigm of cultural mourning, with the familiar emotions of “love, devotion, obsessive memory, guilt, self mortification, anger, renunciation, and relief” that mourning entails as well as his insistence that the traces of our earliest cultural memories are deeply embedded in the present” (James, 1998, pp44-48)/ Moreover, James’ assertion that the “system of relations – of us to Beowulf, of Beowulf to the Anglo-Saxons, and of the Anglo-Saxons to us – constitutes the meaning of Beowulf” refers to the depiction of denial, fear, hunger and heroism. As such, “Beowulf t reveals and disguises some surprisingly familiar structures of our cultured, Germanic, Anglo-Saxon, English Speaking minds – our antifeminism, for example, our repression of effect, our materialism, and our denial of death (James, 1998, p116). This further underlines the foundation of new historicism that history provides examples of social structures and mentalities that persist recurrently over time, which leads to “stillness” in the present. This further demonstrates how the present relies on the past to define memory in historical understanding. This is further heightened in the theme of war underlying Beowulf and reclamations (James, 1998). In the time of Beowulf the audience related due to the age of terror and war and therefore Beowulf’s advocacy of courage and action in the face of enemies without fear of death and highlighting the importance of the individual can do in the present (James, 1998). Moreover, the blanks in Beowulf and ambiguity in the character further links to the present culture and psyche of the reader. For example “poem shows us the world of the hall from the inside and seems totally indifferent to the rest of the human world outside” (James, 1998, p.116). Furthermore, the “radical blankness” of Beowulf’s character leads to repetition “endlessly in our psychic lives by inviting us to enter a drama of controlled regression and development” (James, 1998, p.152). This ambiguity further lends itself to the complex psychology that is inherently correlated to popular identification with a hero (James, 1998(. Earl refers specifically to the following point that “at the battle of Maldon, Byrhtnoth stumbled into one of those rare moments of lordships’ terrible responsibility, when even in his highly codified world he was actually free to choose between desperate alternatives, to fight, or not to die or not, to commit his men to death or dare to be more valorous and heroic even than the king (James, 1998 p.185). Moreover, heroism is tested against the theme of death and Beowulf embraces fate freely without fear (James, 1998, p195). 3. The Miller’s Tale The narrative context in the Miller’s tale provides a marked contrast to Beowulf where Nicholas tricks the carpenter that a flood of Biblical proportions is coming in order to create a diversion in order that he can have sex with Alison. The reference to the flood as a method to create a diversion utilises the Biblical analogy to underline the contrast the irony between the material and the physical. Alison implores her husband to “help us scape, or we been dede eechoon. I am thy trewe verray wedded wif: Go dere spouse, and help to save oure lif” (Chaucer 332). Alison feigns being the loyal wife in order to clear the way for her personal physical pleasure with Nicholas. This act of disloyalty is narrated through the Miller criticising disloyalty in marriage and Alison’s cruel joke in having Absolon kiss her rear end. In using Alison and Nicholas’ infidelity, the Miller’s Tale operates as an attack on the upper classes. On the one hand the story is narrated through the perspective of a lower class drunk. The crude language used undermines the assumptions associated with social class as Alison and Nicholas are punished for their infidelity. This is highlighted by the crude introduction where the Miller is described as “pale,/ So that unnethe upon his hors he sat, He nolde avalen neither hood ne hat” (Chaucer 321). Additionally, at the outset the Miller is already so drunk that he cannot sit up on his horse and the language utilised highlights his lack of manners. In using the Miller as the narrator, the sordid relationship between Nicholas and Alison undermines their position in society and brings them down to the Miller’s “class” in terms of behaviour. It is arguable that Chaucer purposely uses the narrative of the Miller to attack the class system as the graphic physical description where Absalon “kissed her naked arse full savorly” underlines the contrast between the physical and spiritual. This argument is further underlined if we consider the underlying religious commentary throughout the Miller’s Tale (Miller, 1970). For example, it is arguably no coincidence that Alison’s husband is a carpenter and Nicholas tells John that there will be a massive flood: “Now John”, quod Nicholas, “I wol nat lye”; I have yfounde in myn astrologye, As I have looked in the moone bright, That a Monday next, at quarter nyght, Shal falle a reyne, and that so wilde and wood That half so greet was nevere Noes flood, This world,” he seyde, “in lasse than an hour Shal al be dreynt, so hidous in the shour. Thus shal mankynde drenche, and lese hir lyf” (Chaucer). The forewarning of the flood and lie that the flood will be catastrophic clearly presents an analogy to God saving Noah by warning of the flood. Furthermore, Miller posits’ that Nicholas’ exaggeration of the nature of the flood warning is used by Chaucer to mirror the way in which the spiritual Church leaders manage the Church. It is submitted that the irony of Nicholas in the role of “God” is purposeful not only in underlining the distinction between the physical practice of religion and spiritual; it also serves to undermine the Church in their exploitation of the scriptures to maintain control and influence over people (Miller, 1970). The use of the physical and material also serves to present the hypocrisy of the class system as a microcosm of social realities, hypocrisy and life in Anglo-Saxon England. For example, Absalon is a parish clerk yet desires a physical relationship with Alison: “He kembeth his lokkes brode, and made hym gay; He woweth hire by meenes and brocage, And swoor he wolde been hir owene page; He syngeth, brokkynge as a nyghtyngale; He sente hire pyment, meeth, and spiced ale, And wafres, pipying hoot out of the gleede; And, for she was of town, he profred meede;” (Chaucer) Absalon’s vanity and physical appearance reflects the opulence of the clergy at the time and his pursuit of a married woman, serves again to undermine the spiritual teachings of the Catholic Church, and the reality of physical sexual desire. In conclusion, it is submitted that the themes of loss and suffering clearly dominates Anglo-Saxon literature and thereby highlights Anglo-Saxon cultural norms and beliefs pertaining to loss, fear, death and heroism. Whilst the narrative perspectives in Beowulf and the Miller’s Tale are in marked contrast, the use of the physical and spiritual in both serve to provide a microcosm of life in Anglo Saxon England. In particular, both stories operate to undermine the class system as in Beowulf, honour and victory is valued over wealth and status. In the Miller’s Tale the narrative is cleverly utilised to underline the hypocrisy of the upper classes and institutions wielding power such as the Church. BIBLIOGRAPHY Certeau, Michel de (1988) The Writing of History. New York: Columbia University Press, Chaucer, G. The Miller’s Tale (Canterbury Tales) Hesperus Press. Eagleton, T (2005) Figures of Dissent: Critical Essays. Verso. Foucault, Michel.(1979) Discipline and Punish. Vintage Frantzen, Allen J. (1990) Desire for origins: new language, Old English and teaching the tradition. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press James, E.W. (1994) Thinking about Beowulf. Stanford University Press Jauss, Hans Robert (1982) Toward an Aesthetic of Reception. University of Minnesota Press Liuzza, Roy M. Beowulf: A new verse translation. Ontario: Broadview Press Miller, R. P. (1970). The Miller’s Tale as Complaint. The Chaucer Review, 2nd Edition, Volume 5, State College: Penn State University Press. 1970. 156 Niles, John D. (1997) Introduction: Beowulf, truth and meaning. In A Beowulf handbook, eds, Robert E. Bjork and John D Niles, 1-12. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press. Niles, John D. (1993) Locating Beowulf in Literary History. Exemplaria 5 Read More