Englysshe hoe Ich luvve thee... (or, why medieval literature?)

Medieval Book from Cluny

Once I've somehow gotten past the labyrinthine question of "why on earth would you want a holy grail?" the next question is usually "you want to get a holy grail in WHAT????" (if you have any visualization skills, imagine shocked and befuddled expression, including protruding eyes, raised eyebrows, and the general impression that the speaker is desperately trying to remember the name of a good psychiatrist so I can be committed to the nearest mental "rest" facility poste haste).



I don't blame them. Honestly I don't. After all, there aren't that many subjects more obscure than medieval English literature*. There are several languages that a medieval lit scholar must know (and most are dead languages with no modern usefulness, such as Latin, and Occitan French, and Anglo-Saxon, and for Arthurian scholars like myself, medieval Welsh - a language barely spoken in its modern form, barring Welsh-speaking television and numerous signs proclaiming that you have entered Cymru when you cross the river Severn bridge in the UK, let alone how it was spoken and written approximately 1000-700 years ago), we are interested in why an anonymous poet who may or may not have written a collection of four poems found together in a manuscript** used a literary device called alliteration while still rhyming the bob and wheel of the poetic stanzas (compared to other poets who did one or the other), and was there really an alliterative revival in the fourteenth century, or are all the alliterative poems between Anglo-Saxon England and the fourteenth century just lost to decay, rot, and the plague? And speaking of the plague, how did that affect the creation of literature, and what did the medieval public even think literature was? Very important questions to the medieval literature scholar (those, and of course, many more, including many questions about Margery Kempe, a noted female religious hysteric, Chaucer, who could possibly be termed as the "Delirious" and "Raw" period Eddie Murphy of the fourteenth century (for a post-modern take on Chaucer, see Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog - which is definitely what he would sound like if he ever was exposed to the blogging phenomenon...), his not quite as famous friend Gower, and various questions and probes regarding William Langland and the numerous versions he wrote of Piers Plowman***. So yes, we're an odd bunch, and not many people care about what we do (although, there are enough medievalists in the world to rate some spectacularly large conferences, especially the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo).

Image from Nero Cotton A.x manuscript

There also appears to be some misconception that medieval scholars abhor anything modern, i.e. we walk with a little furry animal on our shoulder and would rather live in a hut in the woods cooking a stew in a large iron pot over an open fire than in a house with all modern amenities (such as a really good stove, central air and heat, and a super refrigerator that also makes ice cubes and is smart enough to not turn your vegetables into ice and your butter into mush), and have bumper stickers on the back of our cars claiming that we would "rather be jousting." This is not true (although it may be about the bumper stickers. I haven't really checked). Most of the medievalists I know of (not many, I am the first to admit, but a few) are highly computer literate, enjoy modern comforts as much as the next person (perhaps more. After staring at manuscripts all day, there is nothing more satisfying than a warm house, some mac and cheese, and blasting several million aliens/monsters/cyborgs out of existence on your computer), and do not live in the middle of the woods.


So, in short, I, as an aspiring medievalist, do not wish to renounce all things modern. I love my new laptop, could not live without my food processor (why chop onions by hand when you can just bang them in there and see them get chopped up mechanically?), I love going to the movies, I can't wait to get the latest techie gadget (currently the iPad and the iPhone), I'm quite enamored of human, civil, and female rights, and am extremely fond of pop-culture icons such as The Simpsons, American Dad, not to mention House M.D. (Hugh Laurie rules). So the fact that I ardently wish to study and research medieval literature (and all other things medieval, such as history, art, religion, philosophy, Latin, and perhaps the odd Alchemical treatise here and there, just to keep things interesting), and enjoy going to see Shakespeare performed at the restored Globe (they have very modern toilets, you know!), does not mean that I wish to live in the middle ages. In fact, I'd rather not. The Church would have a field day with me. A Jewish Female Scholar (and a quarter Irish to boot - the English would have had a lovely time torturing me...)?? Thanks, but no thanks. And yet... I love reading about the middle ages, and reading the literature written, exploring the intricacies of the social order, the chivalric code, Elanor of Aquitaine's Court of Love, and of course, everything Arthur related, from seventh century Wales to Malory. It's just one of those things.

My literary interests aren't limited to medieval literature, obviously. If there is a god, I name him Shakespeare, if there is a Goddess, I name her Austen. I've lately developed (due to the subject GRE, taken in April) a serious crush on Coleridge, Keats, and Byron. My honors thesis centered around Anglo-Welsh children's literature (all written after the seventh decade of the twentieth century). And I honestly believe that Neal Stephenson and Michael Chabon are the greatest modern writers actively publishing today (of course, I neglected to mention many other notable contemporary writers, including my two all-time favorites, Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, whose work makes me laugh out loud and dream exquisite dreams at night).  But for some odd, inexplicable, ineffable reason, digging into texts such as Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Malory's Morte Darthur just... makes me happy. I get excited about learning stuff like Latin, Paleography, and History of the Book. And there is a room in the National Gallery in London that I just love sitting in, which is filled with medieval paintings of the Madonna with Child. I can sit there all day****.

So I suppose that the final answer to the pop-eyed and dropped jaw question is - I want to find a holy grail in medieval literature because that is what I'm most passionate about*****. And if pursuing a holy grail (which requires quite a lot of passion in the first place), you may as well go for what really makes for a When Harry met Sally Katz's Diner moment (only for real). After all, the amount of work and dedication is gruelingly mountainous (about the size of 3-6 Everests), the pitfalls are numerous (especially Fire Swamp sand pits lurking around every corner), and the stipends are minuscule (peanut-size comes to mind). You had better be doing exactly what you love the most. For me - it's medieval lit (with a pinch of Early Modern for spice).

Next time - I swear it will be an entry about revising the statement of purpose. Really. Unless I get distracted by a plundering barbarian Horde (a surprisingly likely occurrence in 21st Century Israel).



*Although obscure doesn't mean unimportant and insignificant, mind you!
** This is, of course, the Gawain Poet, or the Pearl Poet as some know him, who is assumed to have written Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Pearl, Patience, and Cleanliness, four poems which were found bound together in the Cotton Nero A.x manuscript. Just FYI.
*** writing a manuscript in the middle ages appears to have been work that consumed you for your entire life. Chaucer never quite managed to finish The Canterbury Tales, croaking before all the pilgrims managed to tell their tales, and Langland seems to have revised Piers Plowman various times during his life, never quite being satisfied with the results. Authors and their perfectionism be blasted!
**** Seriously I can. One time I even did. I sat in that room for 5 hours soaking up the Madonna vibes and writing in my journal.
***** This includes, of course, how medieval literature can still be relevant today.