Epic Material Research Articles

Diverting Demons: Ritual, Poetic Mockery and the Odysseus-Iros Encounter

This article treats the verbal and physical altercation between the disguised Odysseus and the local beggar Iros at the start of Odyssey 18 and explores the overlapping ritual and generic aspects of the encounter so as to account for many of its otherwise puzzling features. Beginning with the detailed characterization of Iros at the book's start, I demonstrate how the poet assigns to the parasite properties and modes of behavior that have close analogues in later descriptions of pharmakoi and of famine demons expelled from communities in rites that are documented from different parts of the Greek world from the archaic period on; so too the account of Iros' ejection from the house and of his subsequent fate conforms to the patterns observable in these rituals. The second part of the discussion examines the ways in which the beggars' quarrel anticipates the enmities that the Ionian iambographers would construct with those whom they cast as their echthroi and rivals, and suggests that we see in the Homeric scene an early instance of an iambic-style confrontation presented in poetic form for performance at the symposium. The iambographers' own deployment of the scapegoat and famine demon paradigms for the vilification of their targets promotes the overlap between the epic and iambic material. In both portions of the argument, the discussion observes how the several frames informing the episode in Book 18 coincide with and promote the Odyssey's larger themes.

Tennyson's King Arthur and the Violence of Manliness

WITH TENNYSON' S CONTEMPORARIES, ONE OF THE TARGETS FOR lostile criticism of Idylls of the King was his adaptation of the warriorking protagonist portrayed in Malory's Le Darthur. Swinburne mockingly referred to the Morte d' Albert, or Idylls of the Prince Consort and proclaimed that Tennyson had lowered the note and deformed the outline of the Arthurian story, by reducing Arthur to the level of a wittol, Guenevere to the level of a woman of intrigue, and Launcelot to the level of a 'corespondent.' Henry Crabb Robinson thought Tennyson's Arthur was unfit to be an epic-hero and Henry James called him a prig. T. S. Eliot asserted that Tennyson had adapted this great British epic material in Malory's handling hearty, outspoken and magnificent to suitable reading for a girls' school.1 Clearly the gender issue is central to all these comments contemporary readers were dissatisfied with the way Tennyson portrayed Arthur's manhood, a problem of which Tennyson was well aware, and many modern readers either voice concerns similar to those of Swinburne and T. S. Eliot or offer readings of the Idylls which in my view seriously distort Tennyson's attempt to explore gender issues. Tennyson's modern editor and interpreter Christopher Ricks makes no serious attempt to defend Tennyson against the traditional critics who ridicule the Poet Laureate for making Arthur a wimp, something less than a real man.2 On the other hand, more politically attuned critics taking a feminist or gender studies approach either ignore or deal inadequately with the question of Arthur's masculinity.3 After offering a preliminary argument for the appropriateness and value of a masculist approach to Victorian literature in general, I will discuss the issue of Arthur's masculinity and explain why I believe it is central to the meaning of Tennyson's Idylls. In particular, I will focus on the problem of male violence, which in various manifestations dominates the narrative from beginning to end.

TheQuilomboof Palmares: A New Overview of a Maroon State in Seventeenth-Century Brazil

AbstractThis article offers a new perspective on the history of the maroon state of Palmares in Northeastern Brazil. It adds information and interpretation to R. K. Kent's ground-breaking article ‘Palmares: An African State in Brazil’ published in 1965. The present essay gives an historical narrative summary with commentary on the historiography, describing Afro—razilian aspects of the history of Palmares. The purpose is to review and expand upon the historical, linguistic, and cultural context of Palmares and on the sources for the emerging epic material of Zumbi of Palmares.

Structures from the Trivium in the 'Cantar de Mio Cid'

The medieval poem Cantar de Mio Cid is one of the great works of Spanish literature. Its precise date is uncertain, and its author has never been identified. Some scholars believe that it was written by many authors who, over time, adapted earlier material. In this study James Burke considers the authorship of the poem as revealed in key structural components. Placing the Cantar de Mio Cid more in the emerging culture of writing than in the sphere of oral poetry, Burke maintains that the text was produced in a manner typical for the Middle Ages by a writer who followed procedures very specific to the period.Medieval writers were invariably educated in the basic subjects of the trivium: grammatica, rhetorica, and dialectica, taught in the 'middle schools' of the twelfth century. In the process they acquired techniques that enabled them to rewrite pre-existing materials of an authoritative character, emphasizing themes and ideas important for contemporaries.Burke argues that someone rewrote epic material having to do with the Cid in this way. Referring to a device described by the twelfth-century Spanish philosopher Dominicus Gundissalinus as 'the imaginative, poetic syllogism, ' Burke identifies three instances of the device in the Cantar de Mio Cid. They support themes and motifs of awakening, manifestation, and revelation, and of the hero as exemplar.This volume sheds new light on a central work in Spanish literature and on medieval poetry in general.

From Legend to Chronicle: The Treatment of Epic Material in Alphonsine Historiography

From Legend to Chronicle: The Treatment of Epic Material in Alphonsine Historiography

From Legend to Chronicle: The Treatment of Epic Material in Alphonsine Historiography. D. G. Pattison

<i>From Legend to Chronicle: The Treatment of Epic Material in Alphonsine Historiography</i>. D. G. Pattison

D. G. Pattison, "From Chronicle to Legend: The Treatment of Epic Material in Alphonsine Historiography" (Book Review)

D. G. Pattison, "From Chronicle to Legend: The Treatment of Epic Material in Alphonsine Historiography" (Book Review)

John Gardner's "Grendel": Sources and Analogues

To study a prolific contemporary novelist who concurrently modernizes medieval poetry and publishes substantial, significant criticism on Anglo-Saxon and medieval literature invites certain questions about medieval and modem artistry. Whether they deal with the universality of a literary type or the enriched reading that sources and analogues can contribute to a particular text, such questions are especially appropriate for John Gardner's Grendel, an intriguing work very deliberately and overtly relying on earlier literary traditions. A gloss on Grendel might well begin with the liberties Gardner takes with his most obvious source. The plot of Grendel is based on that of the Old English poem Beowulf, though not in an especially straightforward way. The main action of Beowulf breaks into four parts: the Grendel episode, about 1,250 lines including the celebration and entertainment following the mortal wounding of the monster; the subsequent battle with Grendel's mother, about 625 lines including the departure of the victorious Beowulf; the return voyage, about 300 lines; and the dragon fight, about 1,000 lines including Beowulf's funeral. In the original, each major conflict concludes before the next begins, and a fifty-year successful reign by Beowulf separates his fight with the dragon from his conquest of Grendel and his mother. Gardner's novel opens with Grendel ravaging Hrothgar's meadhall and men, and ends immediately after the fight with Beowulf, Grendel's death being imminent: this episode represents only about one-fourth of the Anglo-Saxon poem. Both Grendel's mother and the dragon appear, but Gardner assigns them new functions, as well as departing from the chronology of the original. Gardner's restructuring of the Anglo-Saxon original, which strikingly alters the epic material, points to further literary sources, but the advice of a medieval author, Hugh of St. Victor, should be taken: Do not strike into a lot of by-ways until you know the main

Minorities in Medieval Castilian Literature

Spain in the medieval period was unique among the regions of western Europe in that it numbered among its inhabitants representatives of three great world religions. The aim of the present article is to compare briefly the Christians' attitudes toward the Moors with their attitudes toward the Jews, basing the comparison on Castilian literature prior to 1492. This date is a convenient terminating point, because it was this fateful year that witnessed the expulsion of the Jews as well as the downfall of the last vestige of Muslim political power in the peninsula. Legally, the positions of the Moors and Jews living in Castile were nearly equal. The Siete partidas of Alfonso X almost always speaks of moros e judios together, and the laws governing one group applied to the other. In the seventh partida, laws for Jews and Moors are given in the twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth titulos respectively. Inferiority was imposed on the Jews by laws prohibiting them from holding public office, having Christian servants, intermarrying with Christian women, and especially by the statute requiring them to wear a special garb. On the other hand, they were protected in their religion and were not to be forced to take part in legal proceedings on their Sabbath. The regulations for the Moors can be summarized in the statement that biuir los Moros entre los Christianos, en aquella mesma manera, que diximos en el titulo ante deste, que lo deuen fazer los Judios, guardando su Ley, e non denostando la nuestra (titulo XXV, ley I). The only noticeable difference in the laws for the two groups was that the Jews were allowed to keep their synagogues (although they could not enlarge them or build new ones without the express permission of the king), whereas the Moors were prohibited from having mosques or from publicly carrying on the rites of their faith. The tendency to speak of the Moors and Jews together can be seen in more literary works, especially in the references to the special clothing that they were supposed to wear as a distinguishing feature. L6pez de Ayala, in the Cronica de Enrique II, reported the ordinance passed at the cortes of Toro in 1371, reordering the Jews and Moors to wear a sign on their clothing. About a hundred years later, the Coplas de Mingo Revulgo lamented that neither minority was forced to carry out such rules.1 Several chroniclers speak of the aljamas of the mudejares and Jews, moralists warn equally of the wiles of Mooresses and Jewesses, and courtly poets sometimes mention women of both religions. As is well known, the rabbi and the alfaqui appear one after the other in the Danza de la muerte and receive approximately the same treatment at the hands of the anonymous author.2 References of this nature would lead one to believe that the status of the Jews in Castile was the same as that of the Moors and that, consequently, the attitudes toward one and the other minority were identical, or nearly so. However, this is far from the truth. Even though Islam was a greater threat to Christianity than was Judaism, hatred was more pronounced against the Israelites than against the Saracens. The common people hated the Jews with a ferocity not directed against the Moors, and some of the writers shared their attitude. This can be seen especially in the literature of the last two centuries of the Reconquest. Before this, the Jews do not receive much attention in Castilian literature. The only reference to them in the epic material

Association and Disassociation in Storm's Novellen: A Study on the Meaning of the Frame

It has not escaped the notice of students of Storm's novelistic art that many of his Novellen employ the device known as the “frame,” nor have explanations been lacking as to its purpose. Most attention has not unnaturally been paid to the frames of the stories laid in the comparatively distant past—the so-called “Chroniknovellen” and the Schimmelreiler. The first systematic investigation of the use of the frame by Storm and his contemporaries is the study by Hans Bracher, Rahmen-erzahlung und Verwandtes bei G. Keller, C. F. Meyer und Th. Storm (Leipzig, 1909). This monograph examines the problem chiefly from the standpoint of the kind of frame encountered in these writers and the technical uses to which it is put. The question of the inner necessity of the frame is left largely unanswered, a fact of which Bracher himself is well aware. Georg Baesecke in a review of the book by H. Eichentopf, Th. St.s Erzdhlungskunst—in Zeitschrift f. deut. Philologie, XLI (1909), 520–531—has advanced the interesting theory that the frame is for Storm a means of freeing his hand and his conscience; the ego thereby shoves the responsibility for the truth of the epic material upon a third person. Baesecke arrives at this point of view by proceeding on the assumption that Storm's novelistic art grew out of his lyrical art, as the poet himself indeed asserted, though it has never been satisfactorily explained just what he meant by this dictum. Baesecke implies that in the lyrical production the ego is free to speak in its own right out of actual experience. That part of Thérèse Rockenbach's study which has been available to me, Th. St.s Chroniknovellen (Diss., Braunschweig, 1916), hardly throws new light on the “why” of the Stormian frame, though the author calls attention to interesting parallels between Storm's technique and that of others, especially Brentano, Stifter, and Raabe. Walter Brecht—“Storm und die Geschichte,” Deut. Vierteljahrss.,iii (1925), 444–462—remarks that the difference between Storm's frames and those of other writers lies not so much in the technique itself as in the “Flut von Stim-mung, die in dem meist unausgesprochenen Nebeneinander in Rahmen und Erzählung steigt.” Storm's central concern, Brecht feels, is the “relation between Then and Now.” The gap between the past and the present is nothing less than the gap between life and death, which is itself a “mysterious connection.” In the frame, which is the instrument by means of which Storm “perspectively elongates” the present into the past, this relationship becomes particularly evident. Franz Stuckert, in his excellent article, “Th. St.s novellistische Form”—Germ.-Roman. Monatss., 27. Jhg. (1939), 24–39—seeks the origins of Storm's narrative art in the oral tradition of storytelling and finds that the frame fulfills for the poet an inner need by creating a situation analogous to that of audience and story-teller.

On the Location of Dilmun

. Arrived in Istanbul the seventh of August, and was met by Kraus. After depositing the baggage in my hotel room we went to museum where everything was ready for me to start work. A special room with excellent light has been assigned to me and there I study and copy the literary tablets and fragments which I ask for. Kraus had ready for me the large twelve column tablet inscribed with the Enmerkar poem. In addition he had prepared for me some twenty smaller fragments which he had himself been able to identify as epic. Moreover he placed at my disposal some three hundred still uncatalogued literary fragments. Out of these, after a brief survey of several days, I was able tQ add some additional pieces to the epic material, as well as some well preserved pertinent mythological texts. With this material at my disposal, I began working on the Enmerkar tablet, which will undoubtedly make cuneiform history for the next several decades. It is a practically square tablet (nine inches by nine). But on this relatively limited surface the scribe has succeeded in inscribing some six hundred and twenty-five lines of text, which makes this, from the point of view of content, by all odds the largest literary tablet yet brought to light. (I am not certain however whether this tablet in spite of its size contains the entire Enmerkar poem; I shall perhaps be able to be more definite on this point in my coming report.) Moreover, it enables us to place in their proper positions all the material belonging to this Enmerkar tale which has already been published (cf. Sumerian Mythology, p. 106, note 1). As a result, close to five hundred lines of this poem can now be completely restored. Needless to say that in spite of this relatively excellent condition of the text, its translationl will prove to be no simple matter; it will give cuneiformists something to chew on for many a year. I have now completed transcribing the entire tablet, and have already pencilled in the first five columns. It will take a minimum of three additional weeks to complete the final copy of the entire tablet .

The Saracens in Italian Epic Poetry

The Saracens in Italian popular literature are exotic. They are of French origin and came with the French epic into Italy, where this epic material found a second fatherland. For the Franco-Italian versions which served as a connecting link between the French poems and the court epics of Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto, Ciecco da Ferrara, Tasso and the rest, one may consult the magistral work of Pio Rajna Le fonti dell' Orlando Furioso (Firenze, 1876), the same author's Ricerche intorno ai Reali di Francia (Bologna, 1872), and the Introduction of Johannes Hübscher's edition of “Orlando” in Stengel's Ausgaben und Abhandlungen. No. lx, (Marburg, 1886). The following works may also be profitably consulted: F. Castets, Recherches sur les rapports des chansons de geste et de l‘épopée chevaleresque italienne. (Paris, 1887); Vincenzo Crescini, “Orlando nella chanson de Roland i nei poemi del Bojardo e dell’ Ariosto,” Il Propugnatore, xiii, Pt. 1, 2 (Bologna, 1880).

The Heroic Sophrosyne and the Form of Homer's Poetry

An Epic is not made by piecing together a series of heroic lays, adjusting their discrepancies and making them into a continuous narrative. There is only one thing which can master the perplexed stuff of epic material into unity; and that is, an ability to see in particular human experience some significant symbolism of man's general destiny. We do not appreciate what Homer did for his time, and is still doing for all the world, unless we see the warfare and the adventure as symbols of the primary courage of life. And it is not his morals, but Homer's art that does that for us.—Lascelles Abercrombie, The Epic.I.—The Modesty of Diomed.Pandar has shot his arrow at Menelaus. The truce is broken, and the critics have been fretting for a display of Agamemnon's prowess ever since they heard the promise and incitement of the Lying Dream. Now, at last, they think, Agamemnon will lead the attack, and the story can develope. A king ought not to sleep all night, said the Dream: and now, with the truce broken, and his precious brother wounded, Agamemnon will surely wake up. He does. ‘Then you would not have seen Agamemnon sleeping nor shirking, but very eager to the fight. He left the horses and the chariot … and went on foot …’ To the battle? No, to review his forces.

The Banished Wife's Lament

The company of ladies in Anglo-Saxon poetry is not a large one. If Judith, Elene, and other heroines from foreign lands are left out of consideration, their number is small indeed. This is of course due in large measure to the fact that a relatively small amount of poetry based upon Germanic themes has been preserved. If woman plays a minor part in Beowulf, one of the Waldhere fragments gives a hint that the case may have been otherwise in some of the epic material that has perished. It is doubtful if the dramatic intensity of such figures as Brunnhild or Gudrun in the poetic Edda would have been paralleled in the less impassioned West Germanic verse, but it seems likely that the emotions of women would have interested poets who could depict so graphically the feelings of men like the Wanderer or the Seafarer. And there are, as is well known, illustrations of this interest in the woman's point of view in the Anglo-Saxon lyrics. The most conspicuous of these illustrations is the poem generally known as the Banished Wife's Lament.' Here the whole emphasis is thrown upon the element of love. Oppressed by profound grief, the wife briefly reviews her unhappy career, bewails her present desolate situation, and ends with a cry of despair surprisingly modern in its intensity. The piece is an unusually significant one. Its sustained passion, its well-rounded form, and its vivid portrayal of a dramatic situation give it an important place in Anglo-Saxon poetry. Like so much of the minor verse, however, it is far from being easy of comprehension. There is much in the language which offers difficulty, and the larger questions of the interpretation of the whole, and its possible connection with incidents of heroic saga, are not easily disposed of. The lady has succeeded in throwing over her tale something of the obscurity of her gloomy abode in the forest. As to her present unhappy condition there can be no doubt, but her lamentations give no very clear idea of the series of 10r Complaint. Grein-Wfilker, Klage der Frau, Bibliothek der ags. Poesie, Vol. I, pp. 302 ff.