M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); Mcmaster University – English and Cultural Studies SCRIPTURAL TYPES and ANGLO-SAXON HEROE

M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies SCRIPTURAL TYPES AND ANGLO-SAXON HEROES M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies REMAKING THE MOULD: SCRIPTURAL TYPES AND ANGLO-SAXON HEROES IN THE DREAM OF THE ROOD, ELENE, AND JUDITH By ERIN KONING, B.A. A Thesis Submitted to the School of Graduate Studies in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts McMaster University © Copyright by Erin Koning, September 2015 M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies McMaster University MASTER OF ARTS (2015) Hamilton, Ontario (English and Cultural Studies) TITLE: Remaking the Mould: Scriptural Types and Anglo-Saxon Heroes in The Dream of the Rood, Elene, and Judith AUTHOR: Erin Koning, B.A. (Redeemer University College) SUPERVISOR: Professor Anne Savage NUMBER OF PAGES: vi, 95 ii M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Lay Abstract: This thesis aims to discuss the process and purposes of “remaking” the Anglo-Saxon hero in three Anglo-Saxon poems: The Dream of the Rood, Elene, and Judith. I examine how the poets blend various monastic and secular influences within Christianized Anglo-Saxon culture in order to establish a new and ideal literary hero, one who often resembles spiritual archetypes such as Christ or the Virgin Mary. I also explore the complex gender dynamics that emerge in these poems, and in particular how the protagonist — the hero or heroine — navigates a diverse range of both masculine and feminine performances in order to succeed. iii M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Abstract: My thesis explores the cultural and gender syncretic processes of Old English literature in three Anglo-Saxon poems: The Dream of the Rood, Elene, and Judith. Throughout my research I attempt to answer the question of syncretism as it is applied to Anglo-Saxon concepts of heroes and heroism in literature. While Old English scholars (including John M. Hill, Hugh Magennis, and Jane Chance) have developed this line of inquiry previously, my work pushes back on several assumptions that hinder their analyses. In particular, I resist the tendency of late 20th- century criticism to dichotomize the Germanic and Christian aspects of the texts, contending that since Latin Christianity was completely indigenized over a hundred years prior to the writing of these poems, it is impossible to discern a pre-Christian set of values and social norms. Instead, I discuss the converging influences of monastic and secular aspects of Anglo-Saxon in relation to the literary hero. I also examine the complex gender dynamics and performances that manifest in these three poems, arguing that the triumphant hero or heroine is able to succeed through a wide- ranging set of both masculine and feminine performances. Here I incorporate a subtle commentary of gender theory — especially Judith Butler’s theory of performativity — to complement my own textual criticism. As this sort of gender syncretism meets with the culturally syncretic writings of the Anglo-Saxon poets, a new and idealized type of hero emerges, one who accomplishes victory through both spiritual and secular, as well and masculine and feminine performances. iv M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Acknowledgements I am deeply grateful for the assistance of my supervisory committee. My thanks go to Dr. Anne Savage, Dr. Cathy Grisé, and Dr. Mary Silcox for their professional support and personal encouragement throughout the writing process. I also wish to thank the other Aaron for his enduring love and longsuffering through all of the joys and tears and last-minute meals. We wrote this together. Ƿæs sy ðam leofan drytne wuldor to widan aldre, þe gesceop wind ond lyfte, roderas ond rume grundas, swylce eac reðe streamas ond swegles dreamas, ðurh his sylfes miltse. v M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Table of Contents Introduction: Old English Literature and the Question of Syncretism 1 Chapter 1: Gendered Representations of the Christ and the Cross in The Dream of the Rood 9 Chapter 2: The Warrior Queen of Cynewulf’s Elene 37 Chapter 3: Judith: The Holy and Heroic 64 Conclusion 91 Works Cited 93 vi M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Introduction: Old English Literature and the Question of Syncretism How do assimilated Christian traditions impact pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon conceptions of the divine, and vice versa? The question of who exactly is doing the assimilating troubled the scholarship surrounding Old English literature until the late twentieth century as medievalists attempted to distinguish between the Latin and Germanic particulars of those texts particularly concerned with religious figures and the hand of God in their narratives. Is it the Latin world that claims the Anglo-Saxon culture for its own, or do the Anglo-Saxon writers remake Roman ecclesiastical ideals in their own image? During the golden age of medieval studies, prompted by Tolkien’s revolutionary criticism of Beowulf in “The Monsters and the Critics,” scholars turned from their treatment of Old English texts as an archaeological dig for historical data and instead began to examine the poetic narratives as artistic works born of a blend of cultures. Early analysts developed complex hypotheses regarding Germanic religious beliefs, narrative structure, and heroic codes as they manifested themselves within the alliterative metre poems, endeavouring to extract these “pagan” elements from the Latinate Christian presence in order to determine the dominant literary influence. Tolkien, for example, argues for a pagan Beowulf with an interpolated dash of Christianity thrown in for good measure; Roberta Frank’s treatment of The Battle of Maldoncounters this contention, as she suggests that Old English heroes “seem ill at ease in a desacralized world” (200). The tug-of-war nature of such criticism has often resulted in a polarized perception of the interaction of secular and monastic dialogues in Old English literature. More recent scholarship, however, asserts the impossibility of knowing pre-Christian Anglo-Saxon texts at all, given that a written body of literature was non-existent before the sixth- 1 M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies century Gregorian mission. What remains of Old English literature is inextricably bound up in the framework of the larger Christian narrative, and so any attempt to reconstruct a purely “pagan” conceptualization of Germanic literature becomes meaningless. This is especially true of those poems rooted in religious or biblical themes, as I will explore in the three chapters of this thesis—but it is also true of the iconic Anglo-Saxon texts that were probably told and re-told around the warm fire of the mead-hall. Even the rugged and rough-hewn worlds of Beowulf and The Battle of Maldon acknowledge a divine presence, the Prime Mover, God the Creator who perpetually and subtly directs the course of events. So the question of assimilation and its agency is less of a “who?” and more of a “how?” The majority of present-day medieval scholars, including Joyce Tally Lionarons, Heidi Estes, and Stacy S. Klein, denounce the assumption that pre-Christian and Christian literary elements antagonize and conflict with one another within a given text; instead, their research acknowledges that the Anglo-Saxon poets, from Cædmon to Cynewulf, necessarily write from a position of cultural syncretism, a unique coming-together of secular and ecclesiastical. Contemporary scholars thus emphasize the inseparable nature of “pre-Christian” and “Christian” narrative traditions in Anglo-Saxon poetry, and how they effectively act upon one another within the body of Old English literature. The problem of vocabulary, however, still persists; even amongst the scholarly texts which I employ in the following chapters, distinctions are made between “Germanic” and “Latin” or “Christian” elements of Anglo-Saxon culture. This is a false dichotomy, since Latin Christianity was thoroughly and completely naturalized by the time that the Anglo-Saxon poets record their first oral or written narratives. The concept of “Germanic heroism” is a particularly problematic creation of 20th-century scholarship — a sort of short-hand, catch-all phrase for a complex construction that needs to be further unpacked. Even attempts to separate the “pre- 2 M.A. Thesis – E. Haayema (Koning); McMaster University – English and Cultural Studies Christian” from the “Christian” in the available texts essentially clutter what we can and do know about the Christianized Anglo-Saxon world through literature with unsubstantiated frameworks and gratuitous theories. Throughout the pages of this thesis, I therefore make a conscious effort to resist this pervasive desire to complete that which is incomplete or to compartmentalize that which is desegregated. The following chapters acknowledge a degree of unknowability in regards to the life and values of Anglo-Saxon England prior to the scribing of the poems I examine. To this end, I resist distinguishing between Latin and Germanic, pre- Christian and Christian; at certain points where clarification is required, however, I do differentiate between “monastic” (institutionally religious) and “secular” (culturally

Load more