The Roots of Poetry

So we're supposed to look into the origins of the poem...hmmmm where should I look? I know! In my Medieval History textbook?! That is definitely the coolest thing about this week’s blog topic. For the past three weeks, in my medieval class we've been touching on poetry from circa the 6th Century and I've been meaning to post on a poem mentioned in my history text, but I've been so pre-occupied with other stuff. Here are some of my thoughts on the poem we had to read for class this week, followed by a poem that I found thanks to my medieval history class.

- In the footnotes of the Caedmon's Hymn that we were to read for class, there is mention of a guy named Bede who is one of the main religious guys during the late 6th century (I think…going off memory here). He was responsible for the creation of a major piece of historical work The Ecclesiastical History of the English People, which contains valuable information about the religious movement in England around this time. His work would we revered for centuries after his death as evidence of the religious pretensions existent during that time period.

- Bede goes on to make a comment that I thought worth retyping despite being in the Norton's footnotes: "It is impossible to make a literal translation, no matter how well written, of poetry into another language without losing some of the beauty and dignity." That quote defiantly summarizes why there is such difficulty in understanding certain historical poems, or grasping why it is considered such a brilliant piece of work! Important things such as: contextual meaning, meter, rhyme scheme and alliteration (to name a few) are totally lost once translated from the mother tongue. This is a tragedy in terms of preserving the original poetry but despite losing those precious elements we are able to analyze and appreciate the poetry of a period where not much literature, save for religious and legal documents was made.

- So in my history readings I've come across the title of a poem, The Wanderer. I loked up the poem and proceed to read it and have provided some analysis on it below.

The poem’s main focus is on the relationship between a vassal and a lord. A brief history lesson on that relationship: a vassal was often a young warrior who would pledge his allegiance (i.e. his sword) to one lord in return for land, money, food, gifts, or a combination of all of those things. Often a lord would have more than one vassal, so in essence he would have a small army of men bound to fight with him. This relationship was based upon mutual trust and could be broken by either party at anytime or upon the death of either member. The Wanderer in particular deals with the emotions and outcome of a vassal that has lost his lord and fellow warriors in battle and is now alone. I won't re-type the entire poem below, but will focus on what I thought were important, or interesting parts of the poem.

The poem itself is in the form of an elegy which is a poem of mourning in the form of a meditation so that the poet can articulate his feelings. This type of poem is as old as grief itself with no exact time of creation. The poem comes from the Anglo-Saxon world where poetry was shared in the community and was closely related to songs. This poem was probably passed down for a number of generations before being written down. The person that wrote it was probably not the actual author, similar to how the Iliad was finally written down by Homer but he did not create the story.

The Wanderer
from The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology, ed. and trans. Kevin Crossley-Holland. Oxford University Press, 1982.

I have no doubt
that it is a noble habit for a man to bind fast all his heart’s feelings,
guard his thoughts, whatever he is thinking.
The weary in spirit cannot withstand fate,
A troubled mind finds no relief.

From these lines, we can gather that the speaker is keeping his feelings close to his heart because he feels that it is what he should do. However, he seems a bit uncertain about this ‘noble habit’ and in fact he doesn’t really keep his feelings to himself as the poem continues to unfold. Those who are not strong willed will not be able to carry on with their life. The speaker must in fact remain strong of heart so that he can continue his life despite the loss of his lord and fellow warriors. When difficult things bear heavy on a person’s mind they aren’t able to find peace. We can see this from the speaker’s long lament on his feelings and emotions surrounding his loss.

I left this place in wretchedness,
Ploughed the icy waves with winter in my heart

The use of a number of winter type words in this metaphor is excellent in terms of both imagery and empathy for the speaker. “Wretchedness” refers to how one feels during the cold days of the season. “Ploughed” pushing with difficulty the heavy snow that has fallen to cover the earth. "Icy waves" the frigidness that courses though the frozen world. “Winter in my heart” there is no love left in his heart because the cold has frozen it solid.

The wine-hall crumble, lords lie dead,
Deprived of joy, all the proud followers
Have fallen by the wall: battle carried off some

I thought this passage was interesting because of the internal rhyme scheme that can be found in the lines. The underlined words all rhyme and then descend down the page on a diagonal, having the appearance of stairs. Alluding perhaps to how the speaker must climb down from his former high perch of honor beside the lord and descend into the chaotic world.

Where has the horse gone? Where the man? Where the giver of gold?
Where is the feasting-place? And where the pleasures of the hall?

These series of questions are known as ubi sunt. Translated into ‘where are…’ and are used to lament the loss of certain aspects of importance to the poem’s speaker. This was commonly used within the recounting of stories or poems through oral tradition. These questions provide the speaker with the chilling answers that those things are gone.

The underlined words are known as kennings, or two word metaphors. These were also commonly used within oral Anglo-Saxon poetry. Here the reference is to the mead-hall, which was a place within the lord’s castle that the vassals could go to and hang out, eat, drink, and be marry. The other common examples of these within the poem are: “treasure-giver and gold-friend”, both meaning the vassal’s lord.

Here possession are fleeting, here friends are fleeting,
Here man is fleeting, here kinsman is fleeting
The whole world becomes a wilderness.

This passage instills a feeling of loneliness due to the repetition of fleeting. The word itself seems almost like a use of onomatopoeia, words that sound like they mean. You can just hear those things leaving the speaker slowly so that he is left with nothing but himself and the savage land he is to call home.

sv

Welcome to the Iliad!

While I was leafing through the Norton on some of my breaks today, I found a poem that hopefully will help engage us in the reading of the Iliad!

Helen
By: H.D. (Hilda Doolittle)

All Greece hates
the still eyes in the white face,
the luster as of olives
where she stands,
And the white hands.

All Greece reviles
the wan face when she smiles,
hating it deeper still
when it grows wan and white,
remembering past enchantments
and past ills.

Greece sees unmoved,
God's daughter, born of love,
the beauty of cool feet
and slenderest knees,
could love indeed the maid,
only is she were laid,
white ash amid funeral cypresses.

The note provided beside her name in the title states: The beautiful wife of the Greek leader Menelaus; given to the Trojan prince Paris by Aphrodite, se was blamed for the Trojan War, waged to regain her.

A second note is provided beside God’s daughter which states: Helen was said to be the daughter of Zeus, ruler of the gods and Leda, a mortal women.

So in essence Helen was a drop dead gorgeous woman who was stolen from her powerful and prideful husband for some young punk. Now that the background info out of the way let’s move on to breaking down the poem a little bit…

In the first stanza:

All Greece hates = they hate Helen because she is the cause of the long war
Still eyes = diverting attention from herself and trying to appear humble
White = purity and virtue
Olives = reference to Greece
Hands = perhaps a reference to her innocence in the matter. Relating back to the Bible with Pontius Pilot washing his hands of Christ and not wanting to be held responsible for the outcome.

In the second stanza:
Revile = despises
Wan = pale or sickly
Enchantments = how Greece was charmed by Helen’s beauty
Past ills = how Helen wronged Greece (ie. Going to live in Troy!)
~ Interestingly enough wan is used twice in the same stanza which is why I provided my two interpretations of the word’s meaning. The first ‘wan’ I think is meant to mean a pale face cause from bearing witness to all the fighting and dying of the War. The second ‘wan’ would be in a sickly sense from both all the death and the anger of the Greek people, which would wreck havoc on Helen’s health and emotions.

In the third stanza:
Unmoved = the Greeks don’t want to see any change in Helen, in terms of personality or beauty since she was taken.
God’s daughter = the child of an immortal who is supposed to be blessed with luck and the love of the other gods. Unfortunately the opposite seems to be true for Helen.
Cypresses = a tree who’s branches are often used to indicate mourning
~ The last three lines of the poem are indicating that Greece could only love Helen again if she were dead and they were mourning her.

Hopefully this will help others to understand Helen’s place in the epic…’cause she really is important to the darn thing!

sv