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Matheliende is published quarterly by the students and faculty of Anglo-Saxon Studies at The University of Georgia.
Matheliende welcomes any and all correspondence and articles. Such material should be addressed to Mr. Alex Bruce, Park Hall, The University of Georgia. Copyright 1994 Alexander M. Bruce
By Alex Bruce
As graduate students, one of our duties as both devotees of medieval literature and teachers of freshman English should be to encourage our young students to take advanced English courses so that the faculty--and the literature--can inspire them to become medieval scholars. Such action helps not only our discipline, but also our chances of being gainfully employed after graduation, for we will be playing our part in maintaining the need for medieval literature courses and teachers.
To do this we can take an active or passive approach. The passive approach is to hope that when freshmen enter our English 101 or 102 courses, something miraculous will happen. We hope that somewhere, deep inside them, a desire to study English literature is born. We hope that some of these freshmen will act on this desire, take second-year English courses, and choose English as their major. We finally hope that some of those English majors will become medievalists.
That's quite a bit of hoping.
Suffice it to say that if we take this passive approach and allow serendipity to take its course, then the odds of producing an ever-increasing number of medievalists are not in our favor.
Yet such a gloomy forecast is based on our passivity, and fortunately we do not have to be so passive. We can, and should, act. As teachers of English 101 or 102, we have the opportunity to share our love of medieval literature with our students in a very human, very personal manner. We have the power to inspire future medieval scholars.
Our task, then, is to make Medieval Studies program more attractive and approachable. We have various methods; we can appeal, philosophically, to our freshmen and tell them that medieval writers were more attuned to the study of the soul than the authors of today. We can express to them that our culture would not be what it is, for good or for ill, without the medieval philosophies which shaped the minds of Europe and, subsequently, America. We can share the beauty of the u-stem nouns.
Or we can show our students that medieval literature is just plain fun to study. Here we have many very attractive options:
Teach them interesting Anglo-Saxon words, like "beorthegu"--a word that has definite relevance to college life!
Show how certain American dialects actually seek to preserve the Old English concept of a distinct second person plural personal pronoun by saying "y'all," "youse guys," "y'uns," etc.
Get them excited about the plots of medieval stories-- summarizing the Miller's Tale is sure to convince them that medieval literature is far from boring.
Read them Old English. Read them Middle English. Let them hear and feel these unfamiliar yet familiar languages and rhythms.
Give them Old English, Middle English, and Modern English texts and let them see for themselves the development of the language.
In 102, give them some Old English poetry.
Appeal to those who love writers like Tolkien, and show how much today's writers depend on medieval literature.
Talk to them about history, of the movements of people, of how much larger and scarier the world must have been 1000 years ago-- and how they would have been different had they existed then.
We must take action and preach our gospel, for if we do not we ignore our responsibilities as scholars and educators. We create the possibility of there being no merit to the Medieval Studies program; our chosen scholarly field will be seen as nothing more than a collection of dusty books buried in the library basement--rarely noticed and never examined. If we leave all to chance then we allow students to leave UGA thinking that Hamlet was written in Old English, or that The Canterbury Tales is a collection of children's stories.
Remember--for some students their only exposure to medieval literature will be what you offer them in your class. Don't sit passively by and waste that opportunity.
Perspectives on the poem "Widsith" have changed dramatically over the last century and a half. Like Beowulf, the late sixth or early seventh century "Widsith" was long considered by critics to be only an historical document void of any artistic merit. Such a consideration is perhaps understandable as the three dominating "thulas," or catalogues, list (by my count in the Chambers text) 38 rulers, 60 tribes, and 35 heroes, most of Germanic origin. The rest of "Widsith" consists only of the poet's introduction and conclusion to the poem, and Widsith's own brief comments before each "thula." Yet in the past 50 years these shorter commentaries--both by the poet and by Widsith himself--have drawn the critics' attention and have led to an awareness of the artistic sophistication of the poem. These varied perspectives on "Widsith" can best be understood by examining the history of the major critical movements.
Early critics such as R. W. Chambers, recognizing that Widsith could not have been a real person (he would have been well over 100 years old would have traveled from Scotland to Egypt), saw the poem as an historical record--which could be checked for authenticity--of ancient Germanic tribes, kings, and heroes. The fact that some tribes were obviously later additions supported this perception; later scribes, wanting to maintain this historical record, added the tribes they considered important to the list. If the poem had any artistic merit, it was that the "thulas" were an example of a scop's mnemonic device and as such provided us with some record of the subject material for countless legends lost to history.
But in the mid-twentieth century scholars began to see the poem in a different light. Notable among these is W. H. French who, in 1945, argued that "Widsith" was an example of a "begging poem"--perhaps not unlike "Deor"--in which the poet asks for patronage as he exhibits his talents. There are certainly several places in which Widsith reminds his audience, the Gothic king Eormanric, of the gifts others have given him:
Mid Thyringum ic waes ond mid Throwendum
ond mid Burgundum, thaer ic beag gethah:
me thaer Guthhere forgeaf glaedlicne maththum
songes to leane; naes thaet saene cyning!
(ll. 64-67; the text is from Chambers's edition, altered
for this presentation)
As well, Widsith's knowledge of subject-material as presented in the "thulas" clearly displays his talents as a storyteller. So convincing was this perspective that in 1966 Norman E. Eliason essentially reaffirmed the position; its dominance continued another 15 years.
However, in 1982, David A. Rollman argued that "Widsith" is "a poem about the powers of poetry itself" (Rollman 432). He contended that the "thulas" suggest that Widsith is the personification of poetry, for only poetry has been known to all kings, has traveled throughout all mankind, and has met all those heroes.
More particularly, Rollman indicates that the first "thula" covers the "didactic function of poetry . . . [which] is the most obvious and straightforward" function (Rollman 434). The "thula" begins with a gnomic statement:
sceal theod[n]a gehwylc theawum lifgan,
eorl aefter othrum ethle raedan,
se the his theodenstol getheon wile!
(ll 11-13)
The rulers who are then listed serve, according to Rollman, as examples for other ambitious men.
In the second "thula" Widsith introduces "more elusive" powers of poetry (Rollman 434). In this "thula" Widsith tells us that "Ic waes mid" at least 60 tribes stretching from Scotland to Egypt. As obviously no one poet could have lived with all these tribes, Rollman proposes that the list comprises a form of riddle. If no person could have been there, then what could have been? His answer is of course "poetry," which presumably existed amongst all those peoples.
Finally, the third "thula" brings up "the most profound and evanescent of poetry's contributions: its ability to endow immortality to its subjects" (Rollman 436). In this "thula" Widsith recites a list of great heroes. In doing so "poetry plays its part in society by seeking out and making a paradigm of exemplary behavior" (Rollman 437).
And, reinforcing the immortality of the heroes of the third "thula," the poem closes by speaking again, in gnomic terms, of poetry's abilities to grant immortality. The wise man who sponsors poetry will have, through poetry, the highest praise "oth thaet eal scaeceth / leoht ond lif somod" (l. 141b-142a).
Yet Rollman, like the other critics, has not met with universal acceptance. Ray Brown, in 1989, argued that we should not see "Widsith" as the personification of poetry. If anything, Widsith must be understood as a poet--not a real poet, to be sure, but the "colorful, exotic, quasi- allegorical figure of a superscop/everyscop who gets gifts worth more than the price of his life, who lives hundreds of years, and who is 'with the Myrgings' in one line and 'against the Myrgings' in the next (ll. 84-85)" (Brown 285).
Brown goes on to argue that "Widsith" may in fact be a "subtle criticism" of the "old Germanic code" (Brown 290). Widsith was in no ways begging Eormanric for a job or payment; Widsith was using his position as a poet and Eormanric's typically Germanic love of honor to force Eormanric to be generous to him. Widsith had sung to Eormanric of the generosity of his previous benefactors; the implicit threat is that should Eormanric not satisfy Widsith, Widsith will immortalize Eormanric in an unkind way, for "if he is not generous, he is not virtuous and is 'saene'" (Brown 290).
As one can see, the critical attitude toward "Widsith" has undergone quite a metamorphosis over the years. Thankfully this work is no longer "studied as an artifact" but is appreciated "as a work of art" (Rollman 431). And this is rightly so, for to see "Widsith" only as an historical document is to diminish the artistic abilities of the Anglo-Saxon poet.
Link to:Text of "Widsith"
By Kirk Appletoft
Note: This is the first in a two-part series on King Alfred the Great. The next will focus on his military and political achievements.
Alfred the Great, considered the first king of England, is known for saving his land from decimation by the invading Danes and thereby giving his countrymen a sense of nationalism. Yet Alfred achieved more than military and political successes during his reign from 871-901; his dedication to the teaching of the liberal arts helped preserve the literary tradition of the Anglo-Saxons.
Alfred's appreciation for education began very early in his life. In 853, at the age of four, Alfred was sent by his father, King Aethelwulf, to Pope Leo IV in Rome for instruction. This instruction, no doubt, focused on religion rather than on the liberal arts. But this trip to Rome, as well as the one Alfred made two years later, certainly helped Alfred recognize the role of the Church in education. Alfred would fully acknowledge this role when he became king.
Alfred's interest in the liberal arts was encouraged by his stepmother Judith, who was the first to pique his interest in reading. Alfred's contemporary biographer, Asser, a bishop from Wales, records that Judith offered a book of Saxon poems to the first of Aethelwulf's four sons who could recite the book to her. To win the book, Alfred, who could not read, had an instructor read the book to him until he had memorized every word. According to Asser, this "desire for wisdom, more than anything else, together with the nobility of his birth, . . . characterized the nature of his noble mind" (Asser 75).
Not until after he became king in 871 did Alfred learn to read and write. Asser, whom Alfred had called to serve in his court, seems to have been responsible for this feat. Asser would copy passages from the Bible for Alfred to study; Alfred would then eagerly translate them into English.
The duties of being the king, however, constantly interrupted Alfred's education. His entire reign was spent in a religious war with the Danes. He believed that the invaders represented punishment from God for the decay of education, and the corresponding lack of understanding of Latin manuscripts and psalms. So, for Alfred, his war became not a matter of the English fighting the Danes; it was the Christians fighting the heathens. This belief was one of the primary reasons for the large number of religious translations and the increasing interest in education during Alfred's reign.
As well, Alfred supported education because he recognized that "a king's raw material and instruments of rule are a well peopled land, and he must have men of prayer, men of war, and men of work . . . [for] without these tools he cannot perform any of the tasks entrusted to him" (Plummer 153). In order to have these tools at his disposal he brought many Latin scholars from the continent to teach at his institutions. He also, even when his war with the Danes was at its height, took time to translate several Latin works on his own, including Pope Gregory the Great's Pastoral Care, Boethius's Consolation of Philosophy and St. Augustine's Soliloquies.
So important to Alfred was the ability to read that he began to demand that other nobles of the land be able to read. Asser recounts Alfred's admonishments to a group of judges who were poorly educated; they were told "either to relinquish immediately [their] offices of worldly power . . . or else to apply [them]selves much more attentively to the pursuit of wisdom." (Asser 110) Needless to say they chose the latter option.
The effect of all of Alfred's educational reforms was that we, more than 1000 years later, have a wealth of Anglo- Saxon prose and poetry to read and study. Without his dedication to learning we would all have been poorer.
"Widsith"--The Poem and the Critics
Brown, Ray. "The Begging Scop and the Generous King in 'Widsith'." Neophilologus 73 (1989): 281-292.
Chambers, R. W. "Widsith": A Study in Old English Heroic Legend. Cambridge: The University Press, 1912.
Eliason, Norman E. "Two Old English Scop Poems." PMLA 81 (1966): 185-192.
French, W. H. "'Widsith' and the Scop." PMLA 60 (1945): 623-630.
Rollman, David A. "'Widsith' as an Anglo-Saxon Defense of Poetry." Neophilologus 66 (1982): 431-439.
Alfred and the Liberal Arts
Asser. Life of King Alfred. In Alfred the Great: Asser's Life of King Alfred and other Contemporary Sources. Trans. with an introduction and notes by Simon Keynes and Michael Lapidge. New York: Penguin Books, 1983.
Bosworth, George F. Alfred the Great: His Life and Times. London: Macmillan and Co., Ltd., 1914.
Loyn, H. R. Alfred the Great. New York: Oxford University Press, 1967.
Plummer, Charles. The Life and Times of Alfred the Great. New York: Haskel House Productions Ltd., 1902.