#anglo-saxon literature

[sparrownotes]

There’s no country I can call my own. But I’ve learned to grow strong by being still. I know if I fail I’ll be broken, and all that’s part of me will be torn from me.

Let me find my place among the stones, and be held.

“All My Life’s a Struggle with Water and Wind” from The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems In Translation (tr. Lawrence Raab)

[nicholasandriani]

Discover the Heartbreaking Tale of The Wanderer - Reviewing An Anglo-Saxon Elegiac Masterpiece That Will Leave You Breathless! Including Considerations from Japan.

Greetings, dear audience! As a comparativist of medieval comp lit and researcher of storytelling methods, I am excited to take you on a journey through one of the most poignant and moving pieces of English literature – The Wanderer. The Wanderer is an elegy, a poetic lament for the loss of a loved one or for a bygone era. It is a powerful and emotive reflection on the transience of human life…

[atrumvox]

Grendel is one of the most mysterious and terrifying figures in Anglo-Saxon literature, renowned for his crucial role in the epic poem "Beowulf." His story, characteristics, and narrative impact create an enduring shadow of terror and wonder that has captivated readers for centuries.

Origins and Characteristics of Grendel

Grendel is more than just a monster; he is a manifestation of pure evil, a creature cursed by his lineage. Descended from Cain, the first murderer in the Bible, Grendel is condemned to a life of exile and suffering, marked by a divine curse. This biblical origin not only condemns him to a life of isolation but also makes him a symbol of inherent sin and damnation. Grendel is described as a giant, monstrous being with superhuman strength and a deformed, terrifying appearance. His invulnerability to human weapons adds a supernatural element to his figure, making him appear invincible and even more menacing.

Imagine a dark night, the silence broken only by the sound of the wind and rustling leaves. Suddenly, from the murky marshes, Grendel emerges, driven by an unquenchable rage. Each step he takes towards Heorot, the grand mead hall of King Hrothgar, is a prelude to terror and destruction. Grendel is not just a physical monster but also a tangible representation of human fears and anxieties. His thirst for blood and hunger for human flesh make him a constant threat, a presence that cannot be ignored.

Grendel's Role in "Beowulf"

Grendel is the primary antagonist in the first part of "Beowulf," and his presence puts King Hrothgar’s kingdom to the test. Every night, the monster attacks Heorot, killing and devouring Hrothgar's warriors. This cycle of terror and death continues until Beowulf, a young Geatish hero, arrives to rid the kingdom of Grendel's curse.

The battle between Beowulf and Grendel is one of the most epic moments in the poem. Beowulf, aware of the monster’s invulnerability to weapons, decides to confront Grendel with his bare hands. It’s a raw and fierce struggle, where Beowulf's extraordinary strength clashes with Grendel's brutality. In the climax of the fight, Beowulf manages to tear off Grendel’s arm, inflicting a mortal wound. Grendel flees to his lair, where he succumbs to his injuries. This victory not only saves Hrothgar’s kingdom but also solidifies Beowulf’s reputation as a great hero.

Conclusion

Grendel is a complex and fascinating figure who embodies evil and fear in ancient Anglo-Saxon literature. His biblical origins, terrifying characteristics, and crucial role in the poem "Beowulf" make him an unforgettable character. Grendel represents the eternal struggle between good and evil, light and darkness, and the courage needed to face and overcome one's deepest fears. In this epic battle, Beowulf does not merely defeat a physical monster but also triumphs over the inner shadows that threaten the human soul.

[inkliinng]

My weekend reading plans.

[tamburnbindery]

Getting everything ready for launch next week! Check out the preview page, give it a follow, pass it around!

[kukekakuningaskris]

i bring you my medieval recreation of the crash fic (thanks to the bayeux tapestry website thingy)

[knyyghts]

“A Saxon storm.”

[driftingoffthegrid]

everyone wants to talk about sex; no one wants to discuss the development of arthurian legend :/

[keyplaid]

One afternoon, during free period, they caught Daniel alone near the sports field, far from the watchful eyes of any teachers or prefects. Victor, Liam, and their group surrounded him, cutting off any chance of escape. Daniel’s eyes darted around nervously as he realized he was trapped.

“Hey, Muller,” Victor called, his voice oozing false friendliness. “We’ve been meaning to have a little chat with you. Heard you’ve been telling people we’re ‘bullies.’ That true?”

“N-no, I swear I didn’t say anything!” Daniel stammered, his voice quaking with fear. He took a step back, but Liam was there, blocking his path.

“Too late for that now, crybaby,” Liam sneered, cracking his knuckles. “We just want to make sure you learn a little respect.”

Victor moved behind Daniel with a predatory grin. In one swift motion, he grabbed the waistband of Daniel’s briefs through his trousers. Daniel froze, his breath hitching in his throat. Victor yanked upward sharply, lifting Daniel almost off the ground.

“Let’s see how much you like this, you little rat!” Victor hissed, pulling harder. The waistband shot up, the elastic straining as it dug deep into Daniel’s skin, causing him to yelp in pain. Unlike Simon, Daniel couldn’t hold back. He let out a strangled cry, his hands flailing as he tried desperately to relieve the pressure.

“Yes! That’s it, cry for us!” Liam taunted, his eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Give us a good show, Muller!”

Daniel’s face contorted in agony as Victor continued to pull, the waistband of his underwear stretching higher and higher, the fabric bunching painfully between his legs. He let out another sob, tears welling in his eyes as the pain became unbearable.

“Please, stop!” he begged, his voice cracking. “It hurts! Please, I’ll do anything!”

Victor laughed, yanking the waistband even higher. “Hear that, boys? He’ll do anything! Maybe we should make him run around like this. What do you think, Liam?”

“Definitely!” Liam laughed, his voice cruel. “Let’s see him waddle like a duck!”

They pushed Daniel forward, his briefs still wedged high and tight, forcing him to stumble awkwardly. The boys laughed uproariously as Daniel, his face a mask of humiliation and pain, tried to walk, his legs awkwardly bent, the fabric cutting into him with every step.

“Quack, quack, little duckling!” Pieter shouted, doubling over with laughter. “Maybe you can fly away from us now!”

Daniel’s sobs grew louder as he tripped, falling to his knees, his hands clawing at his waistband, desperately trying to pull it down. His cries echoed across the empty field, mixing with the seniors’ cruel laughter.

“Look at him!” Liam sneered, his voice filled with glee. “Crying like a little baby. Maybe we should give him a pacifier next time!”

Victor finally released the waistband, letting it snap back against Daniel’s back. Daniel collapsed on the ground, curling up into a ball, his body wracked with sobs. The seniors stood over him, looking down with a mix of amusement and disdain.

“Pathetic,” Victor muttered, shaking his head. “If you ever say a word about us again, it’ll be worse than this. Got it?”

Daniel could only nod, his body trembling, his face streaked with tears.

“Good. Now get out of here.” Victor kicked lightly at Daniel’s side, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to humiliate. “And don’t let us catch you alone again.”

As Daniel scrambled to his feet and ran, his sobs still audible, the boys laughed, high-fiving each other. Unlike with Simon, they had gotten exactly what they wanted—complete and utter submission, the kind that would haunt Daniel for the rest of his time at Dunwood.

For the seniors, it was just another game, another victory. But for Daniel, it was a nightmare that would replay in his mind over and over again.

[amurder-ofcrows]

guess who's getting to write his british literature midterm on why mary wollstonecraft's "a vindication of the rights of women" should be on the syllabus???

[arda-marred]

Tolkien challenged existing attitudes to the poem in a 1953 paper, “Ofermod”, published with his verse drama The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm’s Son in Essays and Studies. “The Battle of Maldon” tells how Beorhtnoth, an Anglo-Saxon leader, led his men in a doomed defence against a Viking attack. The Vikings were on a tidal island in the river; but crucially Beorhtnoth decided to let this marauding force across a causeway (pictured above). Battle was joined, and the English were slaughtered. The poem seems to celebrate what has been called “Northern courage”, a spirit of dogged bravery even in the face of certain defeat. But the poet also describes Beorhtnoth’s decision as the product of ofermod, the meaning of which isn’t entirely clear. Tolkien argued that the Old English word means not simply “daring” but “overmastering pride”. This could be taken to reverse the sentiment of the poem, turning it into a critique of an irresponsible act of leadership. Stuart, whose book The Keys of Middle-earth (written with Elizabeth Solopova) provides a guide to Tolkien’s medieval sources, has been looking at Tolkien’s manuscript notes on the poem, from when he was an undergraduate onwards. And it turns out that Tolkien breathed not a word of criticism of Beorhtnoth for many years – not until around the start of the Second World War. This, Stuart suggests, undermines any supposition that Tolkien’s view of “The Battle of Maldon”, as expressed in his “Ofermod” essay, indicated a “lions led by donkeys” attitude shaped by First World War experiences. I’d agree that Tolkien’s view of the Great War military leaders wasn’t as black-and-white as all that. But I’d certainly argue that his trench experiences gave him some reason to feel very ambivalent about the leaders. As I said at the end of Stuart’s talk, there is the case of one company commander in Tolkien’s battalion who led a company on a night raid that overshot its goal – so when the sun rose, they were sitting ducks for the German machine-gunners and for the British artillery (unaware of their position), and most of the men were wiped out. This fatally over-extended advance by a military leader seems echoed in quite a few incidents in Middle-earth, including the charge by Théoden at the Battle of the Pelennor Fields. Tolkien’s writing displays a range of attitudes to the different incidents – implying, I think, that he felt deeply ambivalent about such acts of courage from leaders responsible for others’ lives. In a talk which also covered a number of other interesting points from the manuscripts at the Bodleian Library, Stuart cautioned against looking to Tolkien’s life or to contemporary events to explain the change in Tolkien’s views on “The Battle of Maldon”. The Second World War itself could have led to a shift in Tolkien’s view – perhaps because he saw ofermod at its worst in Hitler. And as I pointed out, his later view might have been coloured by the fact that two of his sons were in the forces, and facing mortal danger, whereas Tolkien himself had to sit on the sidelines powerlessly. However, Stuart‘s point was not about the creative writer but the rigorous scholar. As he said in a later email exchange, whatever Tolkien felt about the military leadership of 1914-18 (a debatable question), “he was entirely at liberty to overlay these views onto scenes or characters in his fiction, of course, and did so I believe; but he was too great a scholar to allow his own personal feelings and experiences in the 20th century to colour his views of the tenth.” That’s a persuasive argument.

[sparrownotes]

“The Wanderer” from The Word Exchange: Anglo-Saxon Poems In Translation (tr. Greg Delanty)

[my-own-lilypad]

"Hers is an extraordinary case of a woman of central importance in history, whose role was deliberately omitted from the main contemporary source ..."

Michael Wood on Queen Aethelflaed

In Search of the Dark Ages

[tamburnbindery]

Coming in January 2024 Beowulf: An Illuminated Wonder Tale presents a new experience of the Anglo-Saxon epic, fully illuminated in the Insular style of the Book of Kells and Lindisfarne Gospels, featuring bilingual facing pages with modern English and original Old English (West Saxon). With reward tiers like original illumination prints, handcrafted leather-bound editions, Saxon hoard treasures, and a full companion course with Old English readings and Insular art lessons to illuminate and bind your own book, make sure you don't miss out! Sign up here for notification when the project goes live.

[catsconflictscopicsandchamomile]

Serious Post For Once. MAJOR trigger warning for some fully-mask-off discussions of (mostly my own internal) racism, generally Actually Talking Abt Real Shit For Once.

ok, so..hm

I don't have the energy to try to write this academically rn so I'm just going to word-vomit it out.

I am really having....Feelings... about the characters of Grendel and Grendel's Mother, specifically re: race and BIPOC identities.

I personally am white as the driven snow (though Jewish, whatever that counts for in 2023. still 'wtf' abt all that personally).

I have been putting my heart and soul into a story centering modern/reincarnated versions of Grendel and Grendel's Mother for about three years now. they are some form of shapeshifter, usually take animalistic/monstrous/hybrid forms, often eat humans, and are canonically descended from Cain (kinda. its complicated but basically they are). they are also both EXTREMELY white.

I'd actually made this choice with an intentional eye on race, way back when this story started outgrowing its roots as a supernatural fanfiction (please dont ask). no longer limited to spn's Genuinely Concerningly White Actor Pool, I had to really look at these characters re: race and decide what I was doing going forward. At the time, I was already looking into Maria Dahvana Headley's "The Mere Wife", and its centering of race both intrigued and really repelled me. At first, the (lbr) graphic depictions of how this story's Grendel's nonwhiteness informs the violence against him shocked me in the way I think they were "supposed" to, and made me really take a step back and reconsider the entire narrative of Beowulf (though to b clear I was already pro-Grendel's side of things at this point) in terms of how closely it matched more modern treatments of BIPOC and specifically young men.

...and then I went "wait. isn't Maria Dahvana Headley white???"

after a LOT of research failed to provide any contradicting evidence, my self-reflection and serious though turned to genuine strong disgust. It felt, and still feels, VERY weird that a white woman with (afaik) white kids wrote a lot of the sentiments in this novel. if you've read it, you know the ones that I mean.

I attempted to research racial themes re: Grendel further and ended up in a rabbit hole about Cain, Ham, Mormons & Bigfoot (seriously.) and all of this, along with some other research, eventually led to the following conclusions:

narratives placing Grendel and His Mother as victims of racialized violence/heroic or sympathetic figures in a racially- and/or socially-conscious work are both amazing and necessary

not if they're written by white people. there's probably some exceptions but honestly that's just weird and makes my hair stand up(derogatory).

I am White People. I should not try to do this.

given the association (certain modern media almost bafflingly aside) between Cain/Ham and justifications for SLAVERY, I, a white author, should not only NOT make these characters BIPOC, but should lean pretty damn hard into their whiteness- it's not "reclaiming" exactly, it's like... "reclaiming"(derogatory)(ironic)

given the current political movements around Viking Shit, and SPECIFICALLY pseudopagan, christian-based anglo-saxon warrior male social orders, the figures of Grendel & His Mother can and maybe even SHOULD serve as symbols of active and violent resistance from within the communities (White As Shit) that the current alt-right claims to represent.

given ALL of that, the best way for me to write these characters is how I'm currently writing them- very white, very monstrous, would probably state their race as "fae" if asked and "white" and/or "european" if specified for human racial terms, explicitly monstrous, symbolic of both (my own) queer/disabled/neurodivergent rage, feeling of incompatibility with most/all friend groups or communities, as well as a larger theme of a "KILL ALL VIKINGS" fantasy enabled by them being Big Scary Creature Beasts.

However... its been a few years. I've been drowing myself in Anglo-Saxon Everything but fully ignoring racial and diversity issues, a huge part of this admittedly being irl stressors in my life that, shall we say, EXTREMELY reduced my capacity for basic empathy & Current Events Awareness to a degree that I'm only starting to repair. as part of this repair, I'm really questioning this. I've read some super fascinating stuff about Grendel & race recently, and yet.

...and yet

I can't shake the feeling that

as a white author, making this a race-centric narrative isn't just not my job/not my turft, its actually kinda pretty racist

however, refusing to write these characters for that reason then involves (at least internally) saying that "this kind of archetype" is ONLY "meant" to be written by BIPOC ppl, because "they're the only ones who really Get The Experience", and HOO BOY. THAT IS RACIST. that is me doing a great big racism right there.

...so what do I do? I really love my take on these characters. I've grown really attached to them. It seems like everything is actually pretty well in order for me in terms of why I made the choices I did- I've looked at the other things I could have done with these themes and they're Extremely Problematic At Best...

but I can't shake the feeling that I'm still missing something, fucking up somehow.

I'd genuinely welcome discussion on this, I'm not going to be offended or defensive about ANYTHING, legit if you want to tear this whole post apart via critique re: art or just my own biases, please do. I'm just trying to figure this shit out.

and possibly overthinking it. that is also definitely a possiblity.

*to be clear I don't hate or dislike Headley. I just don't GET her. I'm not sure WHAT to think.

[knyyghts]

“A Lady poseth in the dress of her husband, Knight.”

From “Knights and His Ladies: A Study” by Samuel Berkshire, 1978