Place, Paradise, and Perfection: the Narrative Function Of

BRANDON II, ROBERT RICHARD, Ph.D. Place, Paradise and Perfection: The Narrative Function of Three Middle English Versions of Paradise. (2010) Directed by Dr. Denise Baker, 143 pp. This dissertation explores the concept of paradise as it is used as a physical space within Middle English literature. In examining the narrative function of this space, the fundamental question that it explores is whether the image carries with it any special weight. In exploring this issue, it considers three texts popular in later medieval England: Pearl, The South English Legendary Saint Brendan’s Journey, and The Booke of Ghostlye Grace. Ultimately, it asserts that the inclusion of such an important cultural icon has a profound effect on readers’ interpretation of a text. Because this image carries with it such cultural weight, readers cannot help but carry their understanding of its significance to the text. Whether it is represented as a pristine wilderness, a perfect cityscape, or a union with the divine, paradise by its very definition represents humanity’s attempt to define perfection. Because that which exists in paradise is by definition perfect itself, the image becomes an important tool for critiquing or affirming cultural values and social practices. In examining these three texts, this dissertation asserts that the image plays an important narrative role in each. Because the perfection of this space is nearly universally accepted, the texts make use of its innate social context. By making paradise the locus of action, these texts are able to justify certain ways of seeing and understanding the world, ultimately promoting certain religious, political, or social ideals. PLACE, PARADISE, AND PERFECTION: THE NARRATIVE FUNCTION OF THREE MIDDLE ENGLISH VERSIONS OF PARADISE By Robert Richard Brandon II A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy Greensboro 2010 Approved by Committee Chair APPROVAL PAGE This dissertation has been approved by the following committee of the Faculty of The Graduate School at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Committee Chair: Committee Members: Date of Acceptance by Committee Date of Final Oral Examination ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page LIST OF TABLES ......................................................................................................... iv CHAPTER I. INTRODUCTION: THE NARRATIVE FUNCTION OF SPACE ...................... 1 II. THE EVOLUTION OF PARADISE .................................................................. 10 III. THE LAND ON THE MARGINS: BRENDAN’S VOYAGE TO PARADISE IN THE SOUTH ENGLISH LEGENDARY ............................................................ 43 IV. "AS HITT HADDE BENE OO VOYCE:” MECHTILD OF HACKEBORN’S HEAVENLY VISION...................................................................................... 74 V. SOCIAL SPACES AND HEAVENLY PLACES: THE SOCIAL DIMENSIONS OF PEARL’S HEAVENLY VISION .............................................................. 102 VI. CONCLUSION ................................................................................................ 127 WORKS CITED .......................................................................................................... 132 iii LIST OF TABLES Page Table 1. Narrative Differences between the Navigatio and SEL..................................... 64 iv CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION: THE NARRATIVE FUNCTION OF SPACE The question of what awaits humanity after death has always fascinated the human mind. For obvious reasons, the lure of understanding what happens to people when their time in this world is finished has a powerful hold on theologians, philosophers, and lay-folk alike. Of the images devised to represent the possibilities of life beyond this world, paradise is perhaps the most intriguing. Most major monotheistic religions, and many polytheistic ones, have some concept of a paradise that awaits the just in the next world. Notable examples of such systems include the New Jerusalem of Christian thought, the Elysian Fields of Greek myth, and the Norse tradition of Valhalla. Regardless of the individual manifestation, the draw of an otherworldly paradise is an important part of popular religion, and literary records suggest that the question of where humanity goes after death was especially important to the Christian Church of the Middle Ages. Because the Bible offers few images of heaven and hell, those teasing passages it does provide leave much to the imagination, and early theologians developed a variety of responses to the question of what happens to the elect after death. A survey of church writings suggests that the focus of the earliest inquiries into the subject centered on the nature of the body after death. Theologians such as Irenaeus argued in favor of a perfect physical body that would allow the faithful to enjoy the pleasures of the flesh without sin while others, such as Augustine, envisioned heaven as a purely spiritual place wherein 1 the elect found peace through the experience of God.1 Eventually, as the Augustinian model established dominance, the discussion shifted to other questions about the afterlife, and during the medieval period, one of the most captivating issues was the question of place. A number of competing ideas developed in response to this question, ultimately leading to the creation of a rich and varied tapestry of descriptions of the heavenly landscape. These expressions influenced the period’s literature where we find a complex relationship between the images of paradise and the narratives that include them. Because the authority of the church is often regarded as monolithic during the medieval period, the range of ideas regarding the nature of paradise might be surprising. Equally unexpected is the frequency with which the period’s literature describes the afterlife. Indeed, artistic, literary, and theological representations of heaven and hell were exceedingly popular in the Middle Ages, and the descriptions of physical spaces produced during the period can vary wildly, especially in regards to paradise. Hell, with all of its fascinating torments, seems to have especially captured the popular imagination, and the period's artists and writers produced countless illustrations of hellish vistas. Such works seem to relish the punishments inflicted upon the poor spirits imprisoned there and to contain a certain, if not all encompassing, unity of thinking. Discussion of heaven, on the other hand, seems more confined to the realm of theology, and the period provides fewer artistic representations of paradise. The relative scarcity of descriptions of heaven might be traced to the difficulty of the subject matter, and artists faced with the prospect 1 In Heaven: A History, Lang and McDannell argue that physical representations such as those found in the writings of Irenaeus arose from a desire to reward the saints for the destruction of their physical bodies while spiritual systems suggest an uneasy attitude toward the flesh within the early Christian church (47- 68). 2 of illustrating such spaces most certainly found earthly language poorly equipped to do justice to the supposed perfection of the heavenly landscape. However, this is not to say that literary depictions of paradise do not exist. On the contrary, the art and literature of the period offers exciting glimpses into the medieval concept of heaven, and this dissertation purposes to explore the ways in which three texts of the later Middle Ages describe paradise and the narrative purpose that those images play within those texts. Although spatial examinations of literary works are a relatively new method of critical investigation, the function of place in literature has become an increasingly important avenue of exploration since the English publication of Henri Lefebvre’s The Production of Space in 1990.2 Before the work of such philosophers as Michel Foucault and Lefebvre, discussion of space was primarily a scientific endeavor reserved for mathematicians and architects. However, as scholars began to explore more abstract ideas, the field began to encompass more disparate kinds of study. Lefebvre, in particular, opened up new areas of exploration with his discussion of the social functions of the production and representation of space. He asserts that the social and economic impacts of such representations are essential, and his famous mantra, “social space is a social product,” became the foundation for the work of a number of other critics (26). Lefebvre argues that when mankind manipulates physical space, whether by constructing a cathedral, paving a road, or urbanizing a forest, the act carries certain political and social implication, and when artists employ space in an abstract fashion, they tap into a complex series of social values, ideals, and symbols that inhabitants of the society instinctively 2 Lefebvre’s work was originally published in French in 1974. 3 recognize (35, 75). This is what Lefebvre terms “representational space,” and he asserts that it exists alongside physical bodies, making “symbolic use of its objects” (35). Perhaps the most cited example of his theory at work is his examination of the art and architecture of Renaissance Tuscany. Lefebvre observes that as the ascendant merchant class began to replace the feudal system that dominated the region, the architecture of the area changed in reaction to this social adjustment. As the

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