Paternal Legacy in Early English Literature Dissertation Presented In

Paternal Legacy in Early English Literature Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Erin Marie Szydloski Shaull Graduate Program in English The Ohio State University 2015 Dissertation Committee: Christopher A. Jones, Advisor Leslie Lockett Karen Winstead Copyright by Erin Marie Szydloski Shaull 2015 Abstract This dissertation argues that literature in Old English and early Middle English characterizes legacy-giving as a serious obligation of fatherhood and key paternal role. I contend that the father’s legacy in this cultural context can be understood to include property, heirlooms, wisdom, and kin ties. This project contributes to the emerging study of fatherhood, which has begun to examine fatherhood as a previously under-explored phenomenon that is both a cultural institution and a part of many men’s lived experiences. I examine Anglo-Saxon law-codes, Old English wisdom poetry, Beowulf, and the Middle English texts The Proverbs of Alfred and Layamon’s Brut in order to argue for the cultural importance of this fatherly role. I argue that many of the same cultural markers of Anglo-Saxon paternal legacy continue to be relevant after the Norman Conquest, but that the Norman practice of strict patrilineal primogeniture alters certain aspects of fatherhood. While Old English literature prizes a relationship between father and son that includes an ongoing giving of self on the part of the father, early Middle English literature prefers an ideal father who serves as a prototype for the son, dying just as the son reaches adulthood. ii Acknowledgments This dissertation was made possible by a support network to which I am deeply grateful. First and foremost, I would like to thank my adviser Dr. Christopher A. Jones who has been a formational influence on my dissertation and on my development as a scholar. He has been an invaluable resource, sounding board, and advocate throughout my doctoral program. I would also like to thank Dr. Leslie Lockett and Dr. Karen Winstead, my other committee members, whose feedback has challenged me to sharpen my thinking, researching, and writing skills. I owe a great debt of gratitude to my family. My husband Steven Shaull has been my staunchest supporter and has consistently made my work a priority. My parents Dennis and Catherine Szydloski have always encouraged me to achieve my full potential and have supported the various academic decisions that have led me down the road to an English Ph.D., even when they did not always understand those decisions. My brother David Szydloski has been an eager listener, full of smart questions and warm encouragement. I have also been blessed with a supportive group of in-laws, who have cheered me on through the dissertation process. Finally, I’d like to thank the many friends and colleagues who have provided camaraderie as well as intellectual, emotional, and sometimes logisitical support through iii the doctoral program and the many life events along the way (including, but not limited to, a wedding, multiple moves, and a surgery). Without them, I would be a far less successful, far less stable woman than I am now. iv Vita 2008................................................................B.A. English, Colgate University 2010................................................................M.A. English, The Ohio State University 2009 to 2014 .................................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of English, The Ohio State University Fields of Study Major Field: English v Table of Contents Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………ii Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………iii Vita…………………………………………………………………………………….…..v Table of Contents…………………………………………………………………………vi List of Tables…………………………………………………………………………….vii List of Figures…………………………………………………………………………...viii Introduction…………………………………………………………………………….….1 Chapter 1: Fatherhood in the Law……………………………………………...………..23 Chapter 2: Paternal Wisdom……………………………………………………………..85 Chapter 3: Failed Fatherhood in Beowulf…………………………………………..…..137 Chapter 4: Fatherhood after the Conquest…………………………………………..….191 Appendix A: Families and Feud in Beowulf………………………………………..…..248 Bibliography……………………………………………………………………………250 vi List of Tables Table 1. Interactions between Geats and Swedes………………………………………249 vii List of Figures Figure 1. Hreðlings (Geats)…………………………………………………………….248 Figure 2. Scylfings (Swedes)………………………………………………………..…248 Figure 3. Scyldings (Danes)……………………………………………………………249 viii Introduction This dissertation came about as a response to recent movements in the academic fields that comprise gender studies. In part, it is a response to the current state of one of the ongoing missions of masculinity studies: to examine previously un- or under- examined aspects of men’s experiences. It is also a response to the now well-established study of motherhood: just as feminist criticism gave rise to masculinity studies out of a need to examine gender relationally, the study of motherhood calls for the study of fatherhood in order to examine gendered parenting relationally. Finally, this dissertation responds to the current state of the study of fatherhood, a subfield of masculinity studies. This subfield is still in its early stages, and while there have been some forays into fatherhood in a medieval context, many aspects of medieval fatherhood have yet to be thoroughly explored. Since a study of all aspects of fatherhood for the entire medieval period, even narrowed geographically to England, is far too large for a dissertation, this project seeks to contribute to the current state of scholarship by addressing certain aspects of early medieval English fatherhood as represented in (primarily) literary texts. The dissertation will be focused on the paternal roles of legacy-giving and sharing of self. That is to say, it will focus on ways in which fathers in early medieval English literature give of themselves to their children both during and after their lifetimes, not only in terms 1 of property and titles, but also in more abstract terms, such as wisdom and both family and personal identity. Medieval Masculinities Before proceeding, it will be useful to take stock of the relevant fields of study mentioned above, in order to articulate how this dissertation fits into the scholarly conversation. Masculinity studies started in the late eighties as a response to feminist criticism on the grounds that gender must be studied as relational; that, because the masculine was considered default, it had not been critically explored; and that while scholarship in history and literature had long overlooked women’s experiences and focused on men, that it had focused on a narrow range of powerful men, leaving many men’s experiences unexplored.1 The field of masculinity studies gained ground over the early nineties, and was embraced by scholars of the Middle Ages. 1 Thelma Fenster’s preface to the essay collection Medieval Masculinities (ed. Lees) makes the foundational argument for bringing masculinity studies into the study of the medieval. Regarding the need for masculinity studies—specifically for a study of multiple masculinities—Fenster notes that traditional histories, though the figures they discuss are consistently men, “obliterat[e] men as men” (emphasis Fenster’s) and obscure the diversity of the masculine lived experience (Fenster, “Why Men?,” x). Similar emphases on the importance of studying multiple masculinities and situating masculinity in its varied specific contexts are common in the introductions to monographs and collections on the subject. See Murray, “Introduction,” ix-xi; Hadley, “Introduction,” 2- 5; Karras, From Boys to Men, 1-3; Cullum, “Introduction,” 2-3; Stone, Morality and Masculinity, 15. In his essay on the study of masculinity in the more recent collection What is Masculinity? (ed. Arnold and Brady), John Tosh has called for masculinity studies to return to studies of specific underexplored masculine experiences (he gives the history of colonial emigration and the history of fatherhood as specific areas ripe for such study), arguing that masculinity studies has tended too far toward the theoretical and has lost touch with lived experience (Tosh, “The History of Masculinity,” 22-25). 2 Starting in the mid-nineties, medievalist scholars began to publish work on masculinity. Medieval Masculinities (1994), edited by Clare Lees, was the first of several essay collections on medieval masculinity studies to be published during the nineties. It contained JoAnn McNamara’s influential essay “The Herrenfrage: The Restructuring of the Gender System, 1050-1150,” which espoused the crisis theory, an approach to masculinity that remained popular throughout the nineties, and that looks for historical moments of social upheaval that challenge the contemporary masculine status quo. (In the case of McNamara’s essay, the crisis in question stems from urbanization and an increase in women taking on masculine political roles, both of which challenge the contemporary ideal of warrior masculinity.) The same collection includes Lees’s essay “Men and Beowulf,” which argues for feminist readings of Beowulf to look beyond the female characters in the poem, and scrutinizes the men in the poem as well as the poem’s critical tradition. Other issues that crop up in this collection include embodiment (Bullough, “On Being a Male in the Middle Ages”; Kinney, “The (Dis)Embodied Hero and the Signs of

Load more