ALIENATION, MOURNING, AND MELANCHOLIA IN ELIOT’S “PRELUDES” AND “PRUFROCK”

Two of the most fundamental and universal issues of existence and ontology concern the relationships of individuals with their own Selves and those they have with other human beings. Upon entering a new and unprecedented age – an age of profound skepticism and cynicism – the modernists encountered challenges of a new front; with the façades and pretenses of the humanistic ideals of previous ages having fallen apart, there remained an anxiety of facing the emptiness of the human “Being”. There is a fear that humanity has become as cold and empty as the concrete buildings that surround it. The individual’s alienation from one’s Self and from human fellowship are themes that T.S. Eliot explores in “Preludes” and “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”. In “Preludes”, the speaker presents the people of his (or her) city to be unaware of their alienation from their sense of humanity. Being conscious of such an alienation, he, as an observer, is in turn depicted to be in a state of mourning. The speaker in “Prufrock”, to a more personal degree, is shown to be aware of his own alienation from the world, and such a self-awareness manifests itself through his state of melancholia.

Sigmund Freud’s work on Mourning and Melancholia (1917)[1] distinguishes for us the differences between the two terms. “Mourning,” Freud writes, “is regularly the reaction to the loss of a loved person, or to the loss of some abstraction which has taken the place of one.”[2] In melancholia, “one cannot see clearly what it is that has been lost, and it is all the more reasonable to suppose that the patient cannot consciously perceive what he has lost either.”[3] “In mourning,” Freud puts in another way, “it is the world which has become poor and empty; in melancholia it is the ego itself.”[4] It appears, then, that mourning according to Freud is a condition whereby an individual is in a position of being inside looking out, and in melancholia the individual is outside looking in. The mourning subject is thus in a state of extrospection, and the melancholic subject in a state of introspection[5].

In the “Preludes”, we are presented with a speaker and his/her omniscient observations. The first two movements however do not immediately indicate the presence of an interactive speaker – a first-person narrator in particular – as they seem to be fragmentary descriptions of city life by a third-person, uninvolved narrator. In fact, it is not until the third movement that the pronoun “you” is mentioned, and the possibility of the Preludes being a dramatic monologue, when taken as a whole, comes into play. But the “I” that appears in IV.10 and the idea that the “I” is interacting with “these images” (IV.11) contextualise the previous passages. They become the speaker’s very observations of the city, its atmosphere, and its people.

And what does the speaker observe? He notes the presence of “burnt-out ends of smoky days” (I.4), “withered leaves” (I.7), “vacant lots” (I.8), “broken blinds” (I.10), and a “lonely cab-horse” (I.12). The adjectives attached to the speaker’s descriptions mark a sense of absence, decay, and isolation that pervades throughout the city. If we take the descriptions further as Symbolistic[6] imageries, they become indicative of the internal emptiness of the city’s inhabitants. Indeed, when the speaker begins to observe the “you” of the third movement, he/ she draws the readers (to whom “you” is possibly referring), and consequently the whole of humanity, into the city space and the poem’s artistic frame. What we have then is a totalising and omniscient observation of modern humanity by the poem’s speaker.

The modern human being here is alienated from its sense of humanity. We see a soul “trampled by insistent feet / At four and five and six o’clock” (IV.3-4), unnoticed by people during the business of rush hours. The human Soul, far from being sublime, is “constituted” by a “thousand sordid images” (III.5,4). The only feeling beings are the personifications of evening and morning in the first and second movements. Termed by Montgomery as “collectives”[7], the entities of evening and morning are the only ones conscious of the sceneries in the respective movements, collecting “the small world of each consciousness.”[8] Such an observation of modern humanity’s condition draws the speaker into a state of mourning. He “clings” to “fancies that are curled around these images” (IV.10-11) – his observations – in an attempt to hold onto “the notion of some infinitely gentle / Infinitely suffering thing” (IV.12-13). This “thing” is the lost sense of humanity of the speaker’s community: the city for him has become “poor and empty”[9] – and so have its residents. The speaker is unable to redeem this lost and fragile “thing,” and thus ironically comforts himself with the idea that “the worlds revolve like ancient women / Gathering fuel in vacant lots” (IV.15-16). The courses of human actions are as vain and absurd as the attempts to gather fuel in empty spaces.

In “Prufrock,” the speaker is conscious of his own alienation from the world. Prufrock’s state of alienation is immediately set up in the poem through the epigraph from Guido da Montefeltro, wherein he implies that Dante will not be able to return to the human world. Juxtaposed into the poem, the epigraph subsequently reflects Prufrock’s own isolation from the human world. “Do I dare / Disturb the universe?” (45-46)[10] Prufrock asks. Indeed, he is a character hesitant to impose the footprints of his essence – his actions – upon the universe. He frequently repeats the question “Do I dare?” and asks moreover with the same frequency, “How should I presume?” He opts to remain as an observer, unnoticed, as he is in “the room” where “women come and go / Talking of Michelangelo” (13-14). Prufrock adds that he “should have been a pair of ragged claws / Scuttling across the floors of silent seas,” (73-74) marking his extreme displacement from human society. Here he is not only non-human (he is depicted through the synecdoche as something like a crab) but he is more importantly situated far away from the business of the modern city, scuttling unnoticeably in the still waters. He sees the “mermaids singing,” but they sing “each to each” (124). He understands his complete exclusion, and simply says, “I do not think that they will sing to me” (125). He settles on being one who merely observes them, seeing the mermaids “riding seaward on the waves” (126). Prufrock’s isolation and exclusion put him in the position of an unnoticed observer, but eventually he becomes seemingly comfortable with it.

Nevertheless, Prufrock’s alienation and isolation drive him into melancholia, a condition characterised by “an extraordinary diminution in his self-regard, an impoverishment of his ego on a grand scale”[11]. He knows that he is “no prophet” and such a fact is “no great matter” (83). He describes himself as a man of high class, possessing a “morning coat” (42) and a “necktie rich and modest” (43), but after having “seen the eternal Footman hold [his] coat, and snicker” (85) – an image of Death awaiting – is made afraid of Death’s insubordination; the illusion of security his class offers him no longer seems to him believable. Prufrock also admits that he is “not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be” (111), but he quickly moves into further diminishing his status to “an attendant lord” (112) and eventually to “the Fool” (119). Ultimately all the walls that Prufrock raises to protect his ego break down, and all that is left is someone who, despite his sophistication, fails to break through the boundaries of the “formulated phrase,” and who, consequently, becomes himself formulated, paralyzed and unable to do anything about his isolation.

What we have then in “Preludes” and “Prufrock” are characters who deal, directly or indirectly, with alienation, but who ultimately are unable to do anything about it. They enter a state of mourning or melancholia, but their conditions prove to be paralyzing. Being in such dispositions, they position themselves to be mere observers of the alienation of others or the isolation of themselves. They deprive themselves of fruitful human interactions, but perhaps in invoking the readers in their use of the word “you,” they are seeking companionship with and, ultimately, empathy from the readers.

 

[1] Taken from The Standard Edition of the Complete Psychological Works of Sigmund Freud, Volue XIV (1914-1916): On the History of the Psycho-Analytic Movement, Papers on Metapsychology and Other Works, 237-258.

[2] p.243

[3] p. 245

[4] p. 246

[5] And indeed, Freud remarks that “the disturbance of self-regard is absent in mourning” (p.244) as mourning does not concern the ego as much as melancholia.

[6] For a brief overview of the Symbolist movement, see Sam Phillips,. …isms: Understanding Modern Art. (New York: Universe Publishing, 2012), 18-19.

[7] Marion Montgomery, “Memory and Desire in Eliot’s ‘Preludes’ in South Atlantic Bulletin, Vol. 38, No. 2 (South Atlantic Modern Language Association, 1973), 63.

[8] Ibid.

[9] Freud, 246.

[10] All references to “Prufrock” taken from T.S. Eliot, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” in The Longman Anthology of British Literature, eds. David Damrosch and Kevin J.H. Dettmar (Pearson Education, Inc., 2010), 2287-2291.

[11] Freud, 246.

WRITING AND EXISTENCE IN MARTIN AMIS’ MONEY

Martin Amis opens Money with the following inscription: “This is a suicide note. By the time you lay it aside…John Self will no longer exist. Or at any rate that’s the idea. You can never tell, though, with suicide notes, can you?” With such a statement, Amis immediately puts into perspective the idea of death – but it is an idea that is subsequently superimposed with doubt. “Will John Self die?” the reader may ask. Or to be more specific: “Will John Self cease to exist?” In a novel that contains John Self’s past-tense narrative of what to him is his ever-dynamic present, his neverending “now”, these are questions that the readers are supposed to keep in mind upon reading the beginning all the way to the novel’s ending. Indeed, Money, as a suicide note, depicts John Self’s retrospective attempt to establish, through the reader, an existence that will survive his future inexistence. The novel, in this light, captures the totality of John Self’s essence as he writes and narrates events of his life to the readers. Jean-Paul Sartre’s work, Why Write?, and Peter Brooks’ work on Freud’s Masterplot will help us further understand and explain John Self’s search for such an existence.

Brooks states that “ultimately…the passion that animates us as readers of narrative is the passion for (of) meaning”, which passion “appears to be finally a desire for the end” (1162). This end, for Brooks as it was for Freud, is death. It is the final stroke of death that gives completion and meaning to the life that precedes it. “All narration is obituary in that life acquires definable meaning only at, and through, death”, says Brooks, connecting literary narratives with life and death (1163). As such, literary narratives are rendered incomplete, fragmentary, and meaningless without their appointed endings. Brooks points out that beginnings “presuppose the end” (1163),  and readers, upon reading a narrative’s beginning, assume a desire for its end. Amis taps on this expectation of death and endings, and the meaning which these bear with them, when he marks Money as a suicide note and announces, however ambiguously, John Self’s future inexistence.

Money thus becomes what Sartre would call an “appeal” by the writer to his/ her readers. In the preface to Why Write, Richter explains: “We who know that the physical world we animate with our perceptions will go on darkly after we are gone must write to make something that will survive us” (660). According to Sartre, the process of writing stems from a writer’s need to remain essential in a future wherein he no longer exists. In writing, the writer “meets everywhere only his knowledge, his will, his plans, in short, himself” (Sartre 663). The writer leaves an implant of his/her essence in the written word – a legacy that survives the writer even when he/she is gone. Ultimately, Sartre explains: “Since the creation [the written work] can find its fulfillment only in reading, since the artist must entrust to another the job of carrying out what he has begun, since it is only through the consciousness of the reader that he can regard himself as essential to his work, all literary work is an appeal” (665). “To write”, Sartre concludes, “is to have recourse to the consciousness of others in order to make one’s self be recognized as essential to the totality of being; it is to wish to live this essentiality by means of interposed persons” (670). Thus, in writing –a process that appeals to the reader’s sense of freedom to read –  the writer relays his/her being through the reader and the reader’s process of reading, and with this process of reading, the existence of the writer lives on.

 

The writer in the artistic frame of Money is John Self. The novel is an account of John Self’s experiences, conversations, and other such interactions that help readers construct a view of his character. Self’s is the main authoritative voice in the novel, and it is primarily through his own recapitulation of his own actions and conversations where we may form opinions about him. There is very little informative self-reflection and there are only very few instances where Martin Amis breaks the artistic frame to explain the dramatic ironies that concern John Self. What we have, then, is a first- person past-tense narration of Self’s experiences. In this perspective, moreover, John Self may be seen as writing in retrospect, with an end in mind even from the beginning of the novel.

The end of the novel contains the narrative of Self’s near-death experience, and the end of John Self’s narrative expresses the extra-narrative note of Martin Amis whereby “John Self will no longer exist”. Such an ending affects the overall tone of Self’s narrative. His narration thus ceases to be a mere retelling of events in his life, but, with the threat of inexistence and nothingness in the novel’s Beyond looming over his existence as a charcter, becomes an appeal. The narrative becomes Self’s appeal for a connection with the readers through his writing. In fact, Amis notes: “To whom is the note addressed? To Martina, to Fielding, to Vera, to Alec, to Selina, to Barry – to John Self? No. It is meant for you out there, the dear, the gentle”. Self’s writing, in turn, becomes a space wherein he can write out the essence of his character, so that he no longer remains simply as a voice, but becomes a being whose essence and experiences are imprinted in what he writes. The novel itself, the “note”, becomes John Self. Amis states that “usually the note is the thing. You complete it, and then resume your time travel. It is the note and not the life that is cancelled out. Or the other way round. Or death. You never can tell, though, can you, with suicide notes”. In our case for the novel, the note is not canelled out: the note becomes the life.

 

As he comes closer to disappearance in the novel, John Self begins to exist not in the past, but in the present, a time between the past and what Richter calls the “as-yet-nonexistent future” (659), the future that will be John Self’s void of inexistence. Self tells the readers: “You know, during that time of pills and booze, during that time of suicide, my entire future flashed through my head. And guess what. It was all a drag! My past at least was – what? It was…rich. And now my life has lost its form. Now my life is only present, more present, continuous present” (392). Here, Self’s present becomes in tune with that of his readers – supposing that they have read his story thus far –  marking the fulfillment of their unity through reading, an achievement which in turn grants security in Self’s existence. With the survival of his existence secured through the process of writing and reading, John Self accordingly “signs off” (392). He says further, “I’m closer to you, I hope, than he’ll ever be” (392). Though the answer to whom “he” might be remains vague, it may be postulated that he is the Self of the past. The Self of the present indeed is closer to the reader than the Self living in the past.

John Self is a memorable character – though not necessarily the most likeable one. But it is also his unique character that draws the reader along through the novel. In this way, his carnivalesque character helps him in his case to find essentiality in his future inexistence by making the readers at least interested enough to see him through the narrative’s end, and, having such an end, give meaning and completion to the life retold in the novel. The novel is John Self’s life, and in the act of opening the book and reading its contents, the readers in their freedom breathe life into its words and pages, giving John Self a voice, a character, and ,ultimately, an existence.

 

 

 

WORKS CITED:

 

Amis, Martin. Money. Vintage, 2005

 

Brooks, Peters. Freud’s Masterplot. The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary                   Trends, ed. David H. Richter, 1161-1171. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2007.

 

Sartre, Jean-Paul. Why Write? The Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends,               ed. David H. Richter, 659-672. Boston: Bedford/ St. Martin’s, 2007.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

DUSK AND THE UNCANNY IN CONRAD’S HEART OF DARKNESS

The dichotomy of Light and Darkness is noticeably prevalent and all-encompassing in Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, so much so that the symbolisms and meanings of this antithetical pair may seem at times to fall into ambiguity or to get muddled into complicated significations. Yet the novel remains comfortable with such a situation. Its themes thrive on ambivalence and a tone of seeming uncertainty. What at first glance appears to be a scene of incertitude for characters can turn out to be, after an uncovering of many complex layers, a moment of revelation, self-awareness, or existential understanding. In Conrad’s Heart of Darkness, the gulf between Light and Darkness – the gulf that harbours the uncanny, the gulf that represents Dusk – is depicted as a zone wherein Marlow experiences self-realisation and enlightenment.

There is in Heart of Darkness a gap in the dichotomy of Light and Darkness. This gap is magnified and made observable by the distinct contrast in the representative figures of Light and Darkness, and indeed they are portrayed to be almost archetypal. Kurtz is said to be “claimed” by “powers of darkness” (1989). The darkness embodied in Kurtz is universalised as Marlow describes the last moments of his life: “The brown current ran swiftly out of the heart of darkness, bearing us down towards the sea…and Kurtz’s life was running swiftly too, ebbing, ebbing out of his heart into the sea of inexorable time” (2003). The juxtaposition of these sentences parallels Kurtz’s heart with the “heart of darkness” that is found everywhere from the centre of the wilderness to which the phrase alludes, to the River Thames which it threatens to encompass. Kurtz’s position as a figure that embodies darkness is further solidified when he is described in his deathbed as not being able to see the “light…within a foot of his eyes” (2004). Indeed, his stare “could not see the flame of the candle, but was wide enough to embrace the whole universe, piercing enough to penetrate all the hearts that beat in the darkness” (2005). The irony of this description is in Kurtz’s inability to see light no matter how wide or universal his stare is. All he is able to see is darkness, and that darkness resides within him.

Inasmuch as Kurtz is unable to see the light, the Intended is ignorant of – if not unable to comprehend – the darkness in Kurtz. She is portrayed as an archetype of light and of what is beautiful, pure, and innocent. Marlow describes her thus: “She struck me as beautiful—I mean she had a beautiful expression. I know that the sunlight can be made to lie too, yet one felt that no manipulation of light and pose could have conveyed the delicate shade of truthfulness upon those features” (2007). She has “a pale head”, “fair hair”, a “pale visage”, and a “pure brow” (2007). All these fair and beautiful external features set her up in contrast with the darkness within Kurtz. However, her innocence, her “unextinguishable light of belief and love” (2008), is thought by Marlow to be incapable of understanding or bearing the reality of Kurtz’s darkness. He says that, for her, it would be “too dark altogether” (2010). He thus implies that there is a necessary separation between the dealings of Light and Darkness.

Following Marlow’s logic for separation, it would seem that the Darkness and Light that Kurtz and his Intended signify respectively have between them an unbridgeable gulf. And yet the novel complicates this distinction. Dusk, a time that rests between the bright and dark hours of the day, is depicted in the beginning of the novel with poignancy: “And at last, in its curved and imperceptible fall, the sun sank low, and from glowing white changed to a dull red without rays and without heat, as if about to go out suddenly, stricken to death by the touch of that gloom brooding over a crowd of men” (1955). It is in the light of this setting sun where the Nellie’s crew go through a contemplative and aesthetic experience: “We looked at the venerable stream not in the vivid flush of a short day that comes and departs for ever, but in the august light of abiding memories” (1955). It is also in the climate of this setting wherein Marlow’s narrative is unfolded: not in the brilliance of midday nor in the darkness of midnight, but in the dying light of dusk.

Dusk is the gulf between Light and Darkness, and this gulf may be equated to the realm of the uncanny, the realm of Freud’s Unheimlich. Indeed, insofar as Freud’s concept of the Unheimlich breaks down the binary boundaries between its own essence and that of the Heimlich, so does the concept and imagery of dusk break down the dichotomy of Light and Darkness. This area of the uncanny in the novel breaks down oppositions in such a way that there is certainty to be found in uncertainty and realisation in ambiguity. The gulf of the uncanny, the gap symbolised by dusk, is a dialectical realm wherein the ethos of Marlow’s character attains an understanding of its existence and that of the world and people around him. The culmination of Marlow’s experience, being a character situated symbolically in such a realm, is described by himself as such: “It seemed somehow to throw a kind of light on everything about me—and into my thoughts. It was sombre enough too—and pitiful—not extraordinary in any way—not very clear either. No, not very clear. And yet it seemed to throw a kind of light” (1958). In his experiences are fragments of self-realisation, revelations, and understandings, not least of which is his understanding of Kurtz’s darkness and his Intended’s sparkle of sublimity. Marlow also explains to his fellow seamen that “it seems to me I am trying to tell you a dream…No, it is impossible; it is impossible to convey the life-sensation of any given epoch of one’s existence” (1973). His contemplations and philosophies, unclear to himself at first, are constantly deconstructed and reconstructed in the course of his journey and his narrative.

Marlow is subsequently elevated into a state of enlightenment. He becomes representative of the individual who beholds the Truth and escapes the Platonic Cave, but who also consequently becomes alienated from his company. By the end of the novel he is said to have “ceased, and sat apart, indistinct and silent, in the pose of a meditating Buddha” (2010). And indeed he has already recognised his isolation in the artistic frame when he states, “We live, as we dream—alone” (1973). Yet this alienation, this dream-like uncanny state of retrospection, allows Marlow to observe and understand the universal darkness while remaining apart from it. He thereby becomes the didactic Individual, a signifier of the Particular marked especially by his contrast with the nameless Others, his fellow seafarers, to whom he shares his profound reflections on Truth and the human soul. In this perspective he is not alone. His life, as in his dream-like narration, is recounted with company. Together, they journey through the river of experience and past memories, with the threat of the looming darkness making their quiet solidarity all the more poignant.

 

Bibliography:

Conrad, Joseph. Heart of Darkness. The Longman Anthology of British Literature, ed.by K. J.H. Dettmar, Pearson Education, 2010. pp.1949-2010.

Beowulf and the Aristotelian Tragic Hero

In this paper I argue that the titular character of Beowulf is, in accordance with Aristotle’s perspective, a tragic hero. I will apply Aristotle’s ideas from the Poetics into the plot and characterisation of Beowulf. I will first look into the definition of a tragedy in Chapter 6, and proceed to examine the idea of the tragic hero in Chapter 13. Therefrom I will work with the overall plot and structure of Beowulf, then direct my attention specifically towards the character Beowulf. My essay and criticism draw ideas from the works of J.R.R. Tolkien, Robert Emmett Finnegan, Seamus Heaney, Arthur Brodeur, Frederick Klaeber, et al. I will also take to consideration the culture and ideals of the Anglo-Saxon audience to which the author of Beowulf wrote, observing how they might identify with the hero and the circumstances that affect him.

In setting the ground for us to expound on Aristotle’s idea of a tragic hero, it is of chief import to know and understand first the definition of a tragedy. Aristotle explains the essence of a tragedy in Chapter 6 of his Poetics:

Tragedy is…an imitation of a noble and complete action, having the proper magnitude; it employs language that has been artistically enhanced by each of the kinds of linguistic adornment, applied separately in the various parts of the play; it is presented in dramatic, not narrative form, and achieves, through the representation of pitiable and fearful incidents, the catharsis of such pitiable and fearful incidents.

…In addition to the arguments already given, the most important factors by means of which tragedy exerts an influence on the soul are the parts of the plot, the reversal and recognition[1].

In Chapter 13, we have the definition of a tragic hero, defined thus: “This would be a person who is neither perfect in virtue and justice, nor one who falls into misfortune through vice and depravity; but rather, one who succumbs through some miscalculation”. We are then equipped with the proper elements of tragedy: the catharsis, reversal, recognition, and suffering – and the hero who succumbs because of Hamartia.

Trying to incorporate Aristotelian ideas into Beowulf presents us with a minor, solvable problem. It is uncertain whether the author of Beowulf, whoever he may be, had any knowledge of Aristotle’s Poetics. Although he was most likely a cleric (O’Donohue 11), knowledgeable in Latin[2], possessing “a considerable learning in native lays and traditions” (Tolkien, Monsters and the Critics 26-27), and thus was a learned man. In any case, there is no evidence in the text that he was interested in purposely trying to assimilate Aristotelian ideals into his work. This does not mean, however, that they are not present in Beowulf. Rather, being elegiac in tone, we can find it rife with elements of a tragedy.

How, then, is Beowulf a tragedy? As an “imitation of a noble and complete action, having the proper magnitude”, the story depicts the actions of King Hrothgar, Ruler of the Danes, descendant of the Shieldings[3], and, more importantly, those of Beowulf, Géata dryhten, Ruler of the Geats (l. 2576). In style, it is written in Old English alliterative verse, abounding with kennings such as hron-ráde (10) and different names for mythological creatures such as eotenas, ylfe, orcneas, gígantas (112-113); “a product of thought and deep emotion” (Tolkien, Monsters and the Critics 20). Beowulf, moreover, depicts plenty of pitiable and fearful events (and the catharses of such) regarding the Danish and Geatish people.

We hear first of the desolation caused by Grendel’s gúð-cræft (127). What had started as a celebration of God’s creation actually brought about the attention of Grendel:

…sé þe in þrýstrum bád,

þæt hé dógora gehwám    dréam gehýrde

hlúdne in healle (87-89).

Grendel’s “powers of destruction were plain” (Heaney 127) “as dawn brightened” (Heaney 126). Thus we are presented with the story’s first example of peripeteia, anagnorisis, and consequently of suffering. Hrothgar himself admits to believing

…þæt ic mé ænigne

under swegles begong                  gesacan ne tealde.

Hwæt mé þæs on éple                  edwenden cwóm

gyrn æfter gomne,                        seoþðan Grendel wearð,

eald-gewinna,                               ingenga mín (1772-1774).

Herein comes Beowulf, our tragic hero; and along with him, the audiences’ realisation of what is meant to be a foreknown beleaguering of Hrothgar’s hall by Grendel. Hrothgar and Heorot do not appear only in Beowulf, but in a few other sources as well, most noteworthy of which is Widsith. R.W. Chambers remarks: “The chief value of the references to Heorot in Widsith lies in their correcting the impressions which we get from Beowulf” (79). By this he meant that “the poet meant Beowulf to stand out in contrast to the masters of Heorot, a house of heroes second to none in all northern story, but tainted by incest and the murder of kin[4]” (84).

We are thus given a very ironic picture of Heorot, which is furthermore intensified with the introduction of Unferth in the story. Unferth, whose name means Unpeace or Quarrel (Tolkien, Beowulf 209), is guilty of sifjaslit[5], the murder of kinsmen. “Þéah ðú þínum bróðrum tó banan wurde, / héafod-mægum” (587-588). And yet he is one of Hrothgar’s trusted men, his þyle.Being accused of sifjaslit was not something to be taken lightly in Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian societies. The death of the beloved god Baldr was caused by the betrayal of Loki, his kin. This triggered the events which would eventually lead to Ragnarök.

The same grievous offence is charged against Grendel’s clan, where God himself made them outcasts and set a curse upon their kin (ll. 107-114). It comes as no surprise, then, that a monster representative of kin-slaying would lay waste to a tribe whose roots are tainted with the same sin. Only a hero endowed with módgan mægnes, Metodes hyldo (670) would reasonably be able to defeat Grendel. The only reason why Beowulf won the battle, as the poet puts it, was because God’s favour was upon him – Beowulf’s might was a gift from God:

…hwæþre hé gemunde                 mægnes strenge,

gim-fæste gife,                             ðe him God scealde,

ond him tó An-waldan                 áre gelýfde,

frófre ond fultum (1270-1273).

It is the same favour that grants Beowulf victory in his battle against Grendel’s mother. Hrunting, Unferth’s sword, offers him no offensive nor defensive prowess against her. As Robert Emmett Finnegan puts it, “the defenses Beowulf’s society affords him against the evils of the mere are insufficient for victory….Even so, the poet attributes the hero’s ultimate salvation to God” (49). Beowulf himself exclaims:

Ic þæt unsófte                  ealdre gedíge,

wigge under wætere,       weorc genéþde

earfoðlíceæ                       ætrihte wæs

gúð getwæfed,                 nymðe mec God scylde (1555-1558).

And so Beowulf lives many years thereafter to become king of the Geats, where we “find the young proud Beowulf so much like Hrothgar so soon as the Link or Interlude of his return home is over (Tolkien, Beowulf 312). But it is in his rule here as king of the Geats where we will see his final and tragic encounter with the dragon.

Upon hearing about the dragon, Beowulf became “restless hastening toward death: the fate very nigh indeed that was to assail that aged one, to attack the guarded soul within and sunder life from body – not for long thereafter was the spirit of the prince in flesh entrammelled” (Tolkien, Beowulf 84). He had erstwhile not known how he would die (Tolkien, Beowulf 102), and so he “disdained with a host and mighty army to go against that creature flying far abroad. For himself he did not fear the contest, nor account as anything the valour of the serpent, nor his might and courage” (Tolkien, Beowulf 81-82). Too late does he realise that “the defences he brings against the beast are essentially those of his society, and are therefore essentially flawed” (Finnegan, 54).

Moreover, the blessing of God, which was present in Beowulf’s battle against Grendel and his mother, is alarmingly absent in his fight against the dragon. It may well be that it was not the “Almighty’s will” (Heaney 192). Or it may be wyrd that goes ever as it must (Tolkien, Beowulf, 243)[6].

Where, then, can we find Beowulf’s hamartia? “Is Beowulf’s decision to fight the dragon imprudent?”… “Wiglaf criticises Beowulf’s retaliation, and the retainers, Wiglaf testifies, tried to dissuade Beowulf from the attack” (Gwara 243). “Should the hero have accepted help?” (Gwara 267) Perhaps he should have, as Hrothgar would have advised (1771-1784). Had he more retainers with him when he fought the dragon, the outcome would of course be vastly different. However, the poet comments: “Appointed was it that the prince proven of old should find now the end of his fleeting days, of life in this world” (Tolkien, Beowulf 81). Finnegan explains his situation:

…as the hero becomes increasingly entrammeled in the meshes of the society of which he is a part, the victory becomes harder, as in the struggle with Grendel’s mother, until it finally becomes impossible. With the failure of the best of men of his time to overcome the dragon, the society which he as king represents is judged and found wanting (54).

Beowulf’s pagan society is ultimately found defenceless without the help of God. As the poet has lamented in lines 183-186:

Wa bíð þæm ðe sceal

þurh slíðe níð                    sáwle bescúfan

in fýres fæþm,                  frófre ne wénan,

wihte gewendan!

A more positive yet similar expression may be found in the last lines of The Wanderer:

Wel bið þam þe him are seceð,

Frofre to fæder on heofonum,     þærus eal seo fæstnung stondeð.

Beowulf as a Northern hero trusted in his own might, not in God’s power – nor could he, for he knew not God. Thus to be simply himself, the ideal hero, would yet be lacking, and the ideals and the values which he represents, though noble, are “found wanting”. And though this be so, the poet deals with the characters with reverence, and not with condemnation, as he epitaphs Beowulf with

manna mildust      ond mon-ðwærust,

leodum líðost       one lof-geornost (3181-3182).

[1] In Chapter 11 of the Poetics, Aristotle furthermore says, “these are the two parts of the plot, reversal and recognition, and there is also a third part, suffering”; a statement which we will add to his definition.

[2] See Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, p. 162

[3] The Shieldings (Skjöldungs) themselves are descended from the Norse god Odin (Sturluson, Prose Edda 7).

[4] “Equally with the poet of Widsith, the poet of Beowulf cannot mention Hrothulf and Hrothgar together without foreboding evil” (Chambers 83).

[5] See Snorri Sturlusson’s “Gylfaginning”, Chapter 51.

[6] Gæð á wyrd swá hío scel (l. 455)

Works cited:

 

Chambers, R.W. Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend. Cambridge: University Press, 1912. Print.

Finnegan, Robert Emmett. Beowulf at the Mere (and elsewhere). Winnipeg: University of  Manitoba Press, 1978. Print.

Gwara, Scott. Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008.

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.

O’Donohue, Heather. English Poetry and Old Norse Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2014. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London:         Harper Collins Publishers, 2014. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien.   London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers, 1983. Print.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Consulted:

1979. and E. Keary. The Heroes of Asgard. New York: Mayflower Books, 1979. Print.

Anlezark, Daniel. Myths, Legends, and Heroes. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

Print.

Bloom, Harold. Bloom’s Modern Critical Interpretations: Beowulf, Updated Edition. New             York: Infobase Publishing, 2007.

Brodeur, Arthur. The Art of Beowulf. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.    Print.

—. The Prose Edda. New York: American Scandinavian Foundation, 1916. Print.

Byock, Jesse. The Prose Edda. London: Penguin Books, 2005. Print.

Chambers, R.W. Widsith: A Study in Old English Heroic Legend. Cambridge: University Press, 1912. Print.

Crossley- Holland, Kevin. The Anglo-Saxon World: An Anthology. Oxford: Oxford

University Press, 2009. Print.

Dougherty, Martin. Vikings. London: Amber Books, 2013. Print.

Earl, James. Thinking About Beowulf. California: Stanford University Press, 1994. Print.

Finnegan, Robert Emmett. Beowulf at the Mere (and elsewhere). Winnipeg: University of  Manitoba Press, 1978. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Simpson, and Alfred David. The Norton Anthology of English           Literature. 2 vols. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1962-2013. Print.

Gwara, Scott. Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Leiden: Koninklijke Brill NV, 2008.

Hall, John. A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916.          Print.

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.

Jones, Gwyn. Kings Beasts and Heroes. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1972. Print.

Jónsson, Guðni. Fornaldar Sögur Norðurlanda. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðjan Edda, 1950. Print.

Jónsson, Finnur. Sæmundar-Edda. Reykjavík: Prentsmiðja D. Östlunds, 1905. Print.

Jónsson, Guðni. Edda Snorra Sturlusonar. Reykjavík: Prentfell, 1949. Print.

Klaeber, Frederick. Beowulf. Toronto: University of Toronot Press, 2008. Print.

Larrington, Carolyne. The Poetic Edda. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008. Print.

Mitchell, Bruce. An Invitation to Old English and Anglo-Saxon England. Oxford: Blackwell          Publishers, 1995. Print.

Mitchell, B. and Robinson, F. A Guide to Old English. Chichester: John Wiley & Sons Ltd,           2012. Print.

New International Version. Caloocan: Image Builders Services and Publishing Foundation,           1984. Print.

O’Donohue, Heather. English Poetry and Old Norse Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2014. Print.

Portnoy, Phyllis. The Remnant: Essays on a Theme in Old English Verse. London: Runetree         Press, 2005. Print.

Stitt, J. Michael. Beowulf and the Bear’s Son. New York: Garland Publishing, 1992. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London:         Harper Collins Publishers, 2014. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien.   London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers, 1983. Print.

Tripp, Raymond P. Jr. More about the Fight with the Dragon. Lanham: University Press of            America, 1983. Print.

Zoega, Geir. A Concise Dictionary of Old Icelandic. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990.        Print.

SUMMER READS FOR THE TOLKIEN ENTHUSIAST

Introducing the ‘Book of Ages’: The Prologue

In olden times where there yet ruled enchanted,

Praise-worthy, noble rulers – kings and queens

Of glorious kingdoms; where knights fought wars ever

‘Gainst foes relentless, beasts e’er despising;

Where when the damsel called afar distressed,

The prince in quick advancement to her goes,

Amidst vast dangers rescuing with valiance;

Much simpler was the world where th’atmosphere

Of every detail of it surreal felt,

Where strife amongst the groups of men occasioned

Without great frequency, and grief a moment

But fleetly passing through the halls of time –

In these forgotten times there rose heroes

Whose deeds are echoed still in poems and songs,

Through many winters, summers thence unchanged.

These heroes and their like today live on,

Though of their lives and chivalry no tales

Nor runes are told, save here where lion-hearted

And dauntless tasks are chronicled with wonder.

Photo taken from: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/nejron/nejron1210/nejron121000015/15645279-medieval-knights-on-grey-background.jpg