British Literature - Week 2 - The "abject" in Beowulf

Last week I began a series on the British Literature to 1650 class I taught this spring. We looked at what "monstrous" means, and who is really monstrous in Beowulf. Reading and analyzing literature is not simply an intellectual exercise. It does not end with understanding what the author meant, or how it applied to the culture at the time it was written. All good literature has implications for the time period in which it was written, and the future, including today. Discussing literature, characters' behavior and motivation, sheds a light on why humans act the way they do--including us!

Our class looked closely at "the abject" in relation to Beowulf, but the concept applies to many other works of literature, and our modern-day lives as well. Julia Kristeva, a Bulgarian-French philosopher, literary critic, semiotician, and novelist, posited a theory on "the abject" which relates directly to Beowulf. According to Kristeva, "the abject refers to the human reaction (horror, vomit) to a threatened breakdown in meaning caused by the loss of the distinction between subject and object or between self and other" (Felluga).

Three aspects of the abject as it relates to Beowulf include:
1) the abject person - in the case of Beowulf, Grendel--provokes a horror based on a confused mix of connection and distance. I am like this person, or I could be this person, but I can't stand this person.
2) the process of rejecting the abject person is both individual and collective. Beowulf "rejected" Grendel, and killed him in the process, but everyone in Heorot, from King Hrothgar to the maids, also rejected Grendel.
3) the abject person, the outcast, is rejected because of the eerie and threatening resemblance to the collective group. So Grendel's rejection is based not on how different he is, but on how similar he is to our hero Beowulf.

We covered this concept last week -- the differences between the hero Beowulf, and the monster Grendel, are not as stark as they initially appear.

In class, we delved into a discussion on the Border Wall and immigration. What do people fear from immigrants? From what emotional place does the animosity toward immigrants emerge? President Trump stokes the fires of anger and discontent, but the embers glowed long before he became president. President Trump's mother was born in Scotland, and his grandfather is German. His wife Melania is also an immigrant. Why the vitriol about immigrants?

If we apply the theory of the abject, people fear immigrants because they are similar, not because they are different. We are all immigrants! Only Native Americans did not immigrate to the U.S. All the rest of us can trace our lineage to another country, whether recently or centuries back, whether willing immigrants, or enslaved peoples.

Is it possible the irrational fear of immigrants is a deeper fear of what we were, what we could be, or what we could become. Is the line separating immigrants from citizens so thin we fear if immigrants could cross over to "our" side, we could also be threatened with expulsion?

Next week we will dive into boasting in Beowulf! Join us!


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Work Cited

Felluga, Dino. "Modules on Kristeva: On the Abject." Introductory Guide to Critical Theory. Date of last update, which you can find on the home page. Purdue U. Date you accessed the site. .

British Literature - Week 1 - Beowulf and the "Monstrous"

This is the first blog post in a series on British Literature to 1650-- offered at Hudson County Community College for the first time in spring 2019. I had a blast teaching this course at the North Hudson campus, with a largely Latino student population. Of the 15 students in the class, many major in English, but several major in subjects such as Liberal Arts, Early Childhood Education, and Accounting!

Covering such a vast canon of literature is daunting, requiring difficult choices. First on the list -- Beowulf. I refer not to the Angelina Jolie-as-Grendel's-mother movie version -- but the real Beowulf! We spent two weeks on this first English Epic, written in Old English that reads more like German. Beowulf's setting is current-day Sweden, Denmark, and Germany. Before we began our foray into Beowulf, the class learned the roots of the Old English language. English derives from Anglo-Saxon roots, in Denmark, Norway, and Northern Germany.

Yep - our "English" language has Germanic and Scandinavian roots!

In the first third of the epic, the "hero" Beowulf defeats the "monster" Grendel, thereby saving the Danes, the hall of Heorot, and King Hrothgar. Seems pretty straightforward, right? However, like any truly great literature, the layers of meaning make Beowulf almost the opposite of straightforward.

What constitutes the "monstrous" became an overriding question in our class. Grendel kills the lords in Heorot, so he receives the label "monster." But what differentiates Beowulf and Grendel? Beowulf kills Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. What makes one a monster and the other a hero? My students made a list of characteristics of heroes and monsters:

Heroes -                                                                           Monsters-
Just                                                                                   Blood thirsty
Courageous                                                                      Vengeful
Selfless                                                                             Selfish
Handsome                                                                        Ugly
Instill hope                                                                       Instill fear
Dynamic                                                                          Static
Forgiving                                                                         Merciless

Great list! But wait a minute. Could Beowulf and Grendel's similarities outweigh their differences?  Let's examine what they have in common:

• both outsiders to the great hall of Heorot; 
• both arrive without warning; 
• both fight without weapons; 
• both seek vengeance; 
• both kill;
• both exhibit greed. 

Hmmm - not so dissimilar now!

Beowulf's author applies an Old English word aglæca to both the hero Beowulf and the monster Grendel. Described as a "difficult and much-debated word" in Wiktionary, how could the same word describe both the hero and the monster? The line dividing the "good" hero and the "evil" monster needs evaluation. What possible characteristics could they have in common? Old English scholars define aglæca in a variety of ways, depending on the context: fierce, monster, fiend, hero, fierce warrior, formidable one.

Alexander Bruce, in "Evil Twins? The Role of the Monsters in Beowulf" argues "the [Beowulf] poet was intentionally exploiting the grammatical flexibility and ambiguity of his language to underscore subtly the point that at times we cannot distinguish between man and monster" (Bruce).

Beowulf is the first in a long line of epics with heroes and monsters. This tradition lives on in epics like Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, and even Avengers: Infinity Wars. Consider the character Thanos, described as a "super-villain." Does he more closely resemble Grendel, or Beowulf? Thanos embodies characteristics of both heroes and villains, carrying on the great tradition of complex characters who challenge our basic assumptions about good and evil.

Work Cited

Bruce, Alexander M. "Evil Twins? The Role of the Monsters in Beowulf." Medieval Forum. 10 January 2007. 20 May 2019. .

Historical Fiction - Part II - The Characters

In my last post, I wrote about the importance of a good story in historical fiction. The historical novel I recently finished, My Dear Hamilton, is a stellar example of how to weave history and fiction together to create a good story and believable characters. The authors, Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie, write that "fiction can go where historians rightly fear to tread." Novelists posit characters' motivations, attitudes, and decisions--an interior life that is unknowable where journals and diaries are non-existent.

Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because Fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; Truth isn’t.—Pudd’nhead Wilson’s New Calendar.

Truth is stranger than fiction, as Mark Twain wrote in his brilliant play, Pudd'nhead Wilson, and the true parts of My Dear Hamilton are the most unbelievable, as the authors write, "the most outlandish bits are the true ones... battles, duels... scandals, riots, plagues, and mental illnesses." All these are true.

So most of the events as depicted in My Dear Hamilton are based on historical facts. The characters, especially Eliza, Alexander, and Eliza's sister Angelica, also ring true. We believe their words; we understand their reactions; and we grow to care about them. Well-rounded characters with rich interior lives who make mistakes, change their minds, and sometimes rise to meet the challenges confronting them, appear to us like people we know. They are like the people we are.

Knowing that Alexander Hamilton cheated on his wife with a woman named Maria Reynolds is a fact of history, but depicting the revelation of this betrayal, and following Eliza's reactions, causes the reader to sympathize with Eliza and excoriate Alexander. The reader is allowed to hear Eliza's thoughts when her husband admits to adultery. Alexander keeps talking and asking for forgiveness, but Eliza is off in her own world, wondering if Maria Reynolds is beautiful, wondering what they did together in bed, wondering if he ever really loved her. Eliza does not grant him the forgiveness he seeks, but meets his pleas with silence.

This is fiction--we don't know how Eliza reacted to this news of her husband's infidelity. But it feels real; it has veracity; and we are drawn in to care. Eliza does not come to forgive her husband until they both almost die from yellow fever. That conforms to personal experience as well. I wonder how many reconciliations there were after 9/11. When we are faced with our own mortality, we focus on what's really important, and we want to be close to those we love.

From My Dear Hamilton -- as Eliza decides to forgive her husband:
"But first, I forgave my husband because I was a Christian, because I loved him, and because I must never allow Maria Reynolds to define us" (Dray and Kamoie 342).

One of the most important ingredients in a good historical novel is believable characters we come to love (or hate)! Is this someone I could imagine sitting down with for a cup of tea? If they pass this test, to me they are believable characters and I, too, can predict their moves. I'm either gratified to be right, pleasingly shocked to be surprised, or aghast that the characters I knew could disappoint me. Either way, I feel like I know them, and I want to learn as much as possible about them. I'm hooked!

Historical Fiction - Part I - The Story

I'm reading My Dear Hamilton: A Novel of Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, by Stephanie Dray and Laura Kamoie. Well, devouring, inhaling, and imbibing are better verbs to describe my voracious appetite for this morsel of fiction--an ideal historical novel. I'm nearing the end, so I'm putting off reading it because I don't want to finish the book. You know that place where you slow down to avoid ending the pleasure of reading? That's where I'm at now. So I thought I'd blog about it, instead of finishing the book.

What makes a good historical novel? Why is one novel better than another? I read a lot of novels, probably 2-4 a month. Reading is a way for me to relax, escape, laugh, cry, and revel in the human condition. It's why I love teaching literature. Whether it's Beowulf or Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, when a writer brings to life a character, real or fictional, I want to know all about him or her. And when a writer uses the English language to describe the human condition in curious, creative, and confounding ways, I'm hooked!

A good historical novel does at least three things well:

Tell a good story-
It all comes down to the story. In historical fiction, the basic architecture of the story is set, although there is not always detailed information about historical figures. For instance, my historical novel is about the daughter of Olaudah Equiano, Joanna Vassa. Not much is known about Joanna, so most of my novel is more fictional than historical. But for a character like Eliza Schuyler Hamilton, there are several sources and books to consult.

Like a memoir, a historical novelist must make critical decisions about what to include, and what to exclude. Most people who read My Dear Hamilton will know parts of their story, and Hamilton's untimely demise. So how does a writer keep readers interested when they already know the ending? This is not unlike the challenge Sophocles faced when writing tragedies like Antigone. The audience knew Antigone would die, but how that came about, what clues led to later revelations, how the denouement was revealed, all these factors encompass the plot.

In the Prologue to My Dear Hamilton, Eliza (the novel is in first person from Eliza's perspective-- a brilliant choice) refers to her husband Alexander as, "My husband. My hero. My betrayer." At the outset readers know Eliza will be betrayed. We don't know how (unless we remember the history really well), we don't know when, and we don't know with whom... but an expectation is set up, and we want to read the story to find out the bitter details. The reader is poised to commiserate with Eliza and excoriate Alexander right from the first page. However, I grew to like and admire both of them as I read the book.

The plot is fast-moving, even with some details about battles, political wrangling, friends becoming enemies and enemies becoming friends. The political background is critically important, but the heart of the novel is the love between Eliza and Alexander, their children, parents, and siblings. It's a novel about how to live with a "great" man, and how to be a "great" spouse. And so much more!

I'm going to go back and finish the book now!

In my next post, I'll write about creating believable and lovable characters, and in the final post, about world building.