THE PROBLEM OF REVENGE IN MEDIEVAL LITERATURE: BEOWULF, THE CANTERBURY TALES, AND LJÓSVETNINGA SAGA by Ann Park Lanpher A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree of Ph.D. Graduate Department of English University of Toronto © Copyright by Ann Park Lanpher 2010 The Problem of Revenge in Medieval Literature: Beowulf, The Canterbury Tales, and Ljósvetninga saga Ann Park Lanpher Doctor of Philosophy Department of English University of Toronto 2010 ABSTRACT This dissertation considers the literary treatment of revenge in medieval England and Iceland. Vengeance and feud were an essential part of these cultures; far from the reckless, impulsive action that the word conjures up in modern minds, revenge was considered both a right and a duty and was legislated and regulated by social norms. It was an important tool for obtaining justice and protecting property, family, and reputation. Accordingly, many medieval literary works seem to accept revenge without question. Many, however, evince a great sensitivity to the ambiguities and paradoxes inherent in an act of revenge. In my study, I consider three works that are emblematic of this responsiveness to and indeed, anxiety about revenge. Chapter one focuses on the Old English poem Beowulf; chapter two moves on to discuss Chaucer’s Reeve’s Tale and Tale of Melibee from the Canterbury Tales; and chapter three examines the Old Icelandic family saga, Ljósvetninga saga. I focus in particular on the ii treatment of the avenger in each work. The poet or author of each work acknowledges the perspective of the avenger by allowing him to express his motivations, desires, and justifications for revenge in direct speech. Alongside this acknowledgement, however, is the author’s own reflection on the risks, rewards, and repercussions of the avenger’s intentions and actions. The resulting parallel but divergent narratives highlight the multiplicity of viewpoints found in any act of revenge or feud and reveal a fundamental ambivalence about the value, morality, and necessity of revenge. Each of the works I consider resists easy conclusions about revenge in its own context and remains incredibly current in the way it poses challenging questions about what constitutes injury, punishment, justice, and revenge in our own time. iii Acknowledgements I owe many thanks to many people whose time and support have made this dissertation possible. The first thanks go to my supervisor and committee: Andy Orchard, Toni Healey, Ian McDougall, and Will Robins. Their good humor, encouragement, precision, thoroughness, breadth and depth of knowledge, and probing and challenging questions have pushed me to do better than I imagined I could. I do not think I could have found a more generous and talented group of people to guide me through the process of writing a doctoral thesis, and I am truly grateful to each of them. All errors and infelicities remain my own. To my friends and classmates, especially Dale Barleben, Amelia Defalco, Alysia Kolentsis, Sean Lafferty, Katie Larson, Romi Mikulinsky, and Stephen Yeager. Whether cramming for comps or celebrating their end, commiserating over Latin exams or forgetting about them on the squash court, preparing for conferences or simply sharing a drink at the pub, I enjoyed every moment I spent with these exceptional people. I feel very lucky to have had their fellowship through the highs and lows of graduate school. To Claudia Lanpher, whose willingness to travel to Brooklyn to babysit her grandson allowed me numerous hours of worry-free work at the library in the later stages of writing. I could not have finished several chapters without her help. To Mark Lanpher, whose own work ethic and intellectual curiosity inspire me, and whose patience and love never fail. And finally, to my mom and dad, who made my education their first priority and provided me with incredible opportunities. They never questioned the decisions I made as I pursued this degree, only supporting me in whatever ways they could and always letting me know how proud they are of me. I owe them much more than these few words of gratitude can express. iv Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………………………...…….1 Chapter One Duty and Desire: Beowulf as Narrator and Avenger……………………………….……….46 Chapter Two Victim or Villain: The Choice of the Avenger in The Reeve’s Tale and The Tale of Melibee…………………..78 Chapter Three Writing Wrongs: Author as Avenger in Ljósvetninga saga………………………………..125 Epilogue…………………………………………………………………………………….171 Appendices…………………………………………………………………………………174 Bibliography………………………………………………………………………………..182 v List of Appendices 1. Definitions of Feud…………………………………………………………………...…174 2. Genealogical Tables Beowulf…………………………………………………………….……………….178 Ljósvetninga saga……..……………………………………………………………180 vi Introduction ‘Revenge is not a peculiarly medieval phenomenon.’1 The desire to return an injury or insult, to pay back, to even the score, and thus, to gain justice for oneself is a basic human impulse. The history of western literature reflects this fact: in works as diverse as the Iliad and the Odyssey of ancient Greece; Hamlet, The Spanish Tragedy, Titus Andronicus and other revenge dramas of early modern England; and nineteenth-century novels such as Wuthering Heights or The Scarlet Letter, revenge is an essential theme. In the Merchant of Venice, Shylock underscores the universality and automaticity of the will to revenge when he says: I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions; fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, heal’d by the same means, warm’d and cool’d by the same winter and summer, as a Christian is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? If you tickle us, do we not laugh? If you poison us, do we not die? And if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? (III.i.58–67)2 The same rationale lies behind the motto on Montresor’s family arms in Poe’s short story ‘The Cask of Amontillado,’ ‘Nemo me impune lacessit [No one provokes me with impunity],’3 and even behind Captain Ahab’s outrageous claim in Moby Dick, ‘I’d strike the sun if it insulted me’4—namely, that a wrong must be redressed in order to restore the 1 Peter Sawyer, ‘The Bloodfeud in Fact and Fiction,’ Tradition og historieskrivning, ed. Kirsten Hastrup and Preben Meulengracht Sørensen (Aarhus: Aarhus universitetsforlag, 1987): 27–38 at 31. 2 The Riverside Shakespeare, vol. 1, ed. G. Blakemore Evans (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1974), 268. Anne Pippin Burnett writes that the desire for revenge ‘is more universal perhaps than aggression itself, which is why Shylock can boast of it as a mark of humanity. .’ Revenge in Attic and Later Tragedy, Sather Classical Lectures, vol. 62 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998), 1. 3 Edgar Allan Poe, The Cask of Amontillado in Edgar Allan Poe: The Complete Stories (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1992), 883. ‘Nemo me impune lacessit’ is likely more well known as the national motto of Scotland. 4 Herman Melville, Moby Dick, or The Whale (New York: Hendricks House, 1952), 162. 1 2 balance that existed previously and to repair ‘the broken outline of self suffered in an . attack.’5 Medieval literature is no exception when it comes to a preoccupation with the theme of revenge, and one need not look far to find numerous striking examples of vengeance desired and taken, both human and divine. Thoughts of revenge are what inspire the men in the Old English Battle of Maldon to continue fighting despite losing odds; one after another they declare their intentions to avenge their fallen lord, Byrhtnoth, no matter the cost: Ic ãæt gehate ãæt ic heonon nelle fleon fotes trym, ac wille furñor gan, wrecan on gewinne mine winedrihten. (246–248)6 I vow that I will not flee the space of one foot from here, but will go further to avenge in battle my friendly lord. Ne mæg na wandian se ãe wrecan ãenceñ frean on folce, ne for feore murnan. (258–259) Never may he waver, he who intends to avenge his lord on that people, nor care at all for life. In the Latin Waltharius, what finally engages a reluctant Hagen in the battle against his best friend and foster brother, Walter, is the desire to avenge his sister’s son: Cetera fors tulerim, si vel unus dolor abesset. Unice enim carum rutilum blandum pretiosum carpsisti florem mucronis falce tenellum. Haec res est, pactum qua irritasti prior almum, iccircoque gazam cupio pro foedere nullam. Sitne tibi soli virtus, volo discere in armis, deque tuis manibus caedem perquiro nepotis. En aut oppeto sive aliquid memorabile faxo. (1272–1279)7 Perhaps I might have endured the others, if one grief were absent. For you plucked the only beloved, rosy, charming, precious, tender flower with the hook of your sword. This is the act by which you first 5 Burnett, 2. 6 D.G. Scragg, ed., The Battle of Maldon (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1981), 65. 7 Dennis M. Kratz, ed. and trans., Waltharius and Ruodlieb (New York: Garland Publishers, 1984), 61–62. 3 upset our favorable pact, and therefore I desire no royal treasure as treaty. Is there bravery in you alone, I want to learn in arms, and from your hands I seek the death of my nephew. Look, either I will die or I will do something memorable. In Malory’s Morte Darthur, Gawain seeks revenge on Lancelot for the deaths of his brothers, Gareth and Gaheris. Gawain once swore that he would ‘never be against sir Lancelot for one day’s deed,’8 but his fury is relentless. He demands of King Arthur: . now I shall make you a promise which I shall hold by my knighthood, that from this day forward I shall never fail sir Lancelot until that one of us have slain that other.