Friday Poetry Blogging: Because Everyone Else is Doing It.

And I needed an excuse to put this delightful little poem up in a post.


The Naughty Preposition - Morris Bishop

I lately lost a preposition:
It hid, I thought, beneath my chair.
And angrily I cried: 'Perdition!
Up from out of in under there!'

Correctness is my vade mecum,
And straggling phrases I abhor;
And yet I wondered: 'What should he come
Up from out of in under for?'

Meanwhile, Back in the Modern Era ...

Chris over at Mixing Memory, a modern man whom I adore, corrects the latest media reports on a study regarding "Motivated Reasoning" (a.k.a. resistance to ideas and even facts that conflict with our strongly-held beliefs) in a two-part series. These posts are a nice introduction to this one aspect of cognitive science, and it's never a bad idea for those of us who study and teach to be aware of how and why our own prejudices -- and those of our students -- work. Someday I'll tell you all about some crazy and embarrassing stuff I thought to make facts fit with my beliefs. We've all done it, and now thanks to better living through the blogosphere, we can know why. He's also done a little work on the Do Whiny Kids Become Conservatives? study. Good stuff there, kids, and even pretty colored brain pictures in the first two posts.

Aeonsomnia at Evil Li-Brul Overlord has published the contact information for people to donate to Help Out The Oglala Sioux Tribe, whose president has announced that she will open a Planned Parenthood clinic on tribal lands,i.e., lands not subject to South Dakota's new compulsory pregnancy laws.

Via Dr. Virago at Quod She, the Geoffrey Chaucer Hath a Blog blog is now selling T-shirts. They're too funny and I want one!

And now for something completely different: Ill-advised Giant-blog baiting.
After months and months of jumping up and down in the comments section of Michael Berube's blog like the big geek on the side, I finally got the blogger himself to respond to one of my comments. Now, I think this is because I told Dr. V on him, and he got a-skeered she would go all medieval on his butt -- like she might be compelled to spank him with a Riverside Chaucer or something.* Dr. V disagrees, averring that Berube isn't a-skeered of anybody, and says it was my persistence and the fact that I said something funny. (Finally. After multiple efforts. *sigh*) Since I'm really not that funny, I'm sticking with the a-skeered story. Whatever the cause, I've stopped being a side-order of easily-ignored geek for a minute, and that's always good. Of course now I can't comment over there until this post is off the main page. Ah, well, nobody ever said the mix of cowardice and brazenness would make life easy.



*Image of medievalist going medieval through text spankery shamelessly appropriated from Chris, again of Mixing Memory fame.

Medieval Women I Adore - Installment 4: Hrotswitha von Gandersheim

"The Strong Voice"

Hrotswitha von Gandersheim lived from c. 935 CE to c. 1000 CE, and was a canoness at the Benedictine abbey in Gandersheim (Saxony). As a canoness, Hrotswitha didn't take a vow of poverty, and had freedom of movement not allowed to nuns. This freedom of movement, and freedom from poverty, allowed Hrotswitha to access the best of both secular and religious life in the city. Hrotswitha was fully educated in the 7 liberal arts at the abbey, and it is very clear from her writing that she had access to all the standards of classical learning available at the time. She credits her education to the nun Rikkardis, and credits her abbess, Gerberga II (Otto II's niece), with encouraging and even commissioning her writing. We're not sure of Hrotswitha's age when she entered the convent at Gandersheim, but we do know that she came from a noble family; Gandersheim accepted only noblewomen. We also know that Hrotswitha enjoyed a friendship with the emperor Otto II and his Byzantine wife Theophano, and that the princess Sophia was sent to Gandersheim to be educated.

Hrotswitha is the first European woman that we know of to have written literary works. She's also the first European person since the "Fall of Rome" (scare quotes courtesy of my unwillingness to say that the Roman empire ever really fell) to have united Christian subject matter with pagan dramatic structures to create Christian drama that didn't totally suck. She was a one-woman Renaissance, you might say. Hrotswitha tells us in her prefaces to her works that she was appalled by the study and performance of pagan drama and comedy for a few reasons, not the least of which was the lascivious and fundamentally misogynist depiction of women in these dramas. So, in creating her own literary works, she centered on the power and value of women with regard to a Christian society. She was also -- I'm sure-- responding to misogyny in the Church itself, as the tenth century was a time when the newly solidified Roman Church was trying particularly hard to discredit and silence women through depictions of women as naturally wicked and hypersexual.

The first few works Hrotswitha wrote were not plays, but Christian legends that drew heavily from Byzantine hagiographical models. Her Maria and De Ascensio Domini portray Mary as the prototype for Christian feminine strength as Hrotswitha sees it. Mary is a strong and virtuous woman who will not yield to improperly invoked masculine authority. In Gongolfus, the holy man's wife is just as lewd and prideful as any other church figure would draw her, and God punishes her for her pride by having her fart every time she attempts to speak. Not exactly pro-woman, but it does give the power of silencing the wicked to God, rather than man. Pelagius (not the heretic, he was earlier) is the depiction of a contemporary Galician martyr who died in Spain under the rule of Abd ar-Rahman III. What interests me in this Life is the sexual nature of Pelagius' persecution (she writes ar-Rahman as a pederast), and the fact that the strength she credits Pelagius with changes from masculine strength in volunteering to be a hostage for his defeated father (she got that wrong, it was his uncle) to a stereotypically feminine and virginal refusal to comply with male authority and over-reaching male sexuality. Theophilis is a very early Faust myth, in which the protagonist pledges his soul to the devil for assistance in righting a wrong done to him, but is saved by the Virgin Mary after purifying himself.

In the six plays she wrote to replace the six plays of Terence, entitled Gallicanus, Dulcitus, Calimachus, Abraham, Pafnutius, and Sapientia, she centers on the virtue of chastity, but defines virginity as a lack of intent and desire. So, although God does intervene on behalf of women who are about to be raped, women who have been raped and forced prostitutes may still consider themselves virgins because they never willingly engaged in sinful acts. It is male hypersexuality against which women must defend themselves in these plays, and God's intervention makes good fun of the lascivious men who would harm virgins. (Dulcitius, for example, becomes confused through God's intervention and "rapes" the pots and pans in his kitchen.) Yes, this is a short paragraph, but I know more about hagiography than Christian plays.

For you history types (Hi!), she wrote two histories as well, one Gesta Ottonis I, imperatoris, in which she describes the life of Otto I, but also sort of flips historiographical interests in her writing of his life. She largely disregards battles (always so interesting to history-writers of her time) and writes at length about the queens who were generally disregarded by medieval historiographers. Her second history is a chronicle of her abbey at Gandersheim, Primordia coenobii Gandesheimensis, in which she depicts the work of the women involved in the founding and development of the abbey as central, and the men's work as secondary. This is probably a natural development of the place being a women's house, but most medieval history would have fussed on and on about the local bishop, and ignored the women.

My love for this woman comes not only from her desire to defend the role of women in Christianity at such an early stage, but from her absolute refusal to feign idiocy. In fact, she considers her intellect a gift from God that she is required to use. Doesn't get better than that in the tenth century, folks. "He has given me the ability to learn -- I am a teachable creature -- yet of myself I should know nothing. He has given me a perspicacious mind, but one that lies fallow and idle when it is not cultivated. That my natural gifts may not be made void by negligence I have been at pains, whenever I have been able to pick up some threads and scraps torn from the old mantle of philosophy, to weave them into the stuff of my own book."

__________
Fact-checking and assorted date thievery:
Prodigal Daughter Project & Literary Encyclopedia
Image thievery: Ann Marie Olson

Opinions, however, are mine. Unless they're silly, then it's somebody else's fault entirely.

Blogging Medievalists Planning the Seige of K'zoo

Ancrene Wiseass and Dr. Virago are planning The First Annual Kalamazoo Bloggers' Guild Meeting at "the Zoo" Conference this year. If you're interested in joining the fun, please stop by one of their sites and leave a comment. Even if you can't attend, but know Kalamazoo well, and have a suggestion for a good Guild-hall location, I'm sure they'd be happy to know about it.

I'm still uncommitted for this years' Conference because I'm mid-scramble for Latin study funds, and surprisingly few people are willing to fund the study of dead languages. Imagine that!
However, if I can possibly pull it off financially, I will be attending (if only to face the music for busting people's chops this week).

Update: I told Prof. Nokes over at Unlocked Wordhoard that I would display my TTLB status as soon as it changed into something less disgusting. Well, now that I'm a creature with feet, I've done just that.

Heo Explains it All - 1

There are a number of questions that have come up in response to my recent -- and not so recent -- posts. I will attempt to answer as many of those questions as I can in this post.

Recent Posts:

1) Are you interested in the literary or historical value to be found in texts?
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: I consider literature part of a cultural conversation that also includes history, philosophy, language, science and art. I have yet to find a piece of literature that doesn't respond to its cultural surroundings while simultaneously trying to influence the direction the larger conversation will take in the future. What the work says, and how it goes about saying it can be interesting, but it is generally much more interesting if the surrounding conditions are taken into account.

2) Do you think the value of a literary work inheres in the author or his/her product?
Short answer: Yes.
Longer answer: Again, I see literature as part of a conversation. One group incessantly flapping their jowls at all the other groups makes for one hell of a boring conversation, even if the jowl-flapping is fairly melodious. The artificial divisions in culture over the years have assigned all people to certain 'spheres.' We have then decided that the ways in which those assigned to the top of this pyramid scheme expressed their thoughts and beliefs were superior to the expressions of those in lower strata. That's just silly.

3) Don't you think that assessing an author's value based on his or her gender is 'identity politics?'
Short answer: Yes, and I love that phrase.

For my longer answer, I will now provide you with the Sparknotes version of identity politics as it has played out in literature over the centuries:

Tradition: Anybody who is not one of "us" can't speak because they have nothing worthwhile to say!
Resistance: We do so have worthwhile stuff to say, and we've brought proof.
Tradition: (peruses proof) Well, you don't express yourself like we do, so nobody should worry about your stuff.
Resistance: Fine, then we'll say this stuff your way. (leaves to alter text, returns)Here! We've now adopted your silly rules in saying what we think. We've even quoted various authors you like to support our thoughts.
Tradition: (peruses altered texts, gets angry) It's wrong for you to pretend to be like your betters. Ergo, we will now legislate against your speech in the laws of religion and the state, and we'll at least shame you in public for speaking.
Resistance: We're going to use your authors and your logic to prove that you're a batch of nincompoops for trying that.
Tradition: That's subversion! We can kill you for that.
Resistance: There's no way you'd kill over something like that, you value reason too much.

(Massacres ensue, inconvenient knowledge is destroyed or hidden)

Tradition: Anybody who's not one of "us" can't speak because we have no evidence that they have ever said anything worthwhile!
Resistance: You know what? Bite me! You've been cooking the books, and we can prove it. We have strong evidence that people from our groups have had interesting, insightful, and important things to say all along, and we demand that their voices be heard.
Tradition: You know, assigning value to speech based on gender, color, or class is 'identity politics.' It's just bad policy to decide whether you'll study the speech of others based on their gender, color or class.
Resistance: You don't say? Unfortunately, we now have to attempt to repair as much of the damage you've done in DOING JUST THAT as is humanly possible.
Tradition: It's only 80% about us! We feel wronged, cheated, oppressed!
Resistance: I'm sure you do, but it's not all about you anymore.

Not-so-recent posts:

Question: Why are you mean to anti-feminists? Answer: They totally started it.

Question: If you want to be equal to men, why don't you just go out and do the work necessary to be equal to men? Answer: First of all, which men are you talking about? For me to be equal to some men, I'd have to shrink an inch, give back a couple of degrees, and erase the memory of several hundred books I've read. That's a lot of work, and I have no intention of doing it. If we're talking about men I'd like to share equal status with, I am doing that work.

Question: Don't you think it's unfair and self-defeating to blame an amorphous patriarchy for oppression? Answer: When oppression is systematized, I think it's very reasonable to blame the system for that oppression. I don't think it's self-defeating in any way to notice that a system of oppression exists, and fight to end it.

Question: Don't you think feminism deepens the divide between men and women? Answer: Nope. Unless, of course, we're talking about men who can only feel manly if the women around them pretend to be morons. I don't mind being divided from those guys, they suck!

Medieval Women I Adore - Installment 3: Hilda of Whitby

Back in the Merry Old England of the 7th century, we find Hilda, abbess of Whitby (c.614-c.680 CE). Hilda was the daughter of Hereric of Deira(here-foreign army & ric - leader), the nephew of King Edwin of Northumbria. Hilda's father died (with a little help from his friends) when she was a child, and she went to live with Edwin. She was probably converted by Paulinus along with Edwin, c.627 CE. Edwin's conversion is documented in Bede's Ecclesiastical History, as is much of Hilda's later success as an abbess.

Hilda's sister, Hereswith, became a nun at the abbey of Chelles in Gaul some time after marrying Ethelhere of East Anglia. I don't know why Hereswith left her husband, or how he felt about it, but many married folks at this time did enter convents.[Updated info: Hereswith was a new widow, and I'm a dork for not checking on that more carefully.] In 647, Hilda wanted to follow her sister to Gaul, but was recalled to Northumbria by Bishop Aidan (now St. Aidan) of Lindesfarne. Aidan gave Hilda land to start her own monastery at Wear, and later appointed her abbess of the convent at Hartlepool.

Edwin was slain in battle with Penda of Mercia and Cadwallan of Gwynedd in 633 CE, and there continued to be much wrangling for power over Northumbria for several decades. Eventually, Oswiu managed to become king of a united Northumbria, and in his gratitude to God for this victory dedicated his daughter Aelfflaed to the church under the supervision of Hilda, her second cousin. Oswiu had been a rather naughty boy during the fight for power, and granted land to the church to clear his conscience. On some of this land, Hilda built the most famous of her monasteries, a double-house at Whitby (then Streoneshall) in 657 CE.

Hilda's Monastery at Whitby quickly became very famous as a seat of learning, producing five bishops during Hilda's reign. Royals and holy men would often travel to Whitby, sometimes from great distances, to seek Hilda's advice. The famous poet Caedmon was presented to Hilda when his gift became clear, and she convinced him to enter the monastery (Bede again).

At this abbey, under Hilda's supervision, Oswiu called a synod in 664 to decide whether the churches in England would follow Roman or Irish rites. (The dating of easter and tonsure were at issue.) Hilda, raised in the Irish tradition brought to northern England by Aidan, her first patron, disagreed with the decision in favor of Roman rites. However, to promote peace in her country, and among her fellow Christians, decided to observe and promote the Roman rites. Her respected position in the church did much to convince other Irish-Catholic abbeys to adopt Roman Easter dates, and roman-style monastic tonsure and dress.

Hilda's Prayer:

O God, whose blessed Son became poor that we through his poverty might be rich: deliver us from an inordinate love of this world, that, following the example of thy servant Hilda, we may serve thee with singleness of heart, and attain to the riches of the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
O God of peace, by whose grace the abbess Hilda was endowed with gifts of justice, prudence, and strength to rule as a wise mother over the nuns and monks of her household, and to become a trusted and reconciling friend to leaders of the Church: Give us the grace to respect and love our fellow Christians with whom we disagree, that our common life may be enriched and thy gracious will be done, through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.

Why Medieval Women Writers Belong in the Canon

Dr. Richard Scott Nokes over at Unlocked Wordhoard was kind enough to send his readers over here to read my post on Aethelflaed. I am thankful to him for that, and for linking to me quite early in my blogging experience.

He also voiced an opinion in that post that I've heard quite often, and almost always from male medievalists. That opinion being that he gets angry about some medieval women writers whose works are in the canon merely because they're women(he feels), and not based on quality of the writing itself. He offered the name of one medieval woman writer he despises, and one he admires as examples. To be clear: I'm certain he doesn't wish to expunge women from the medieval canon, but gets frustrated with writing he considers unworthy of canon status. (I've already said that I wish the Austrians could have taken care of our little Papa problem, so I do comprehend annoyance with "bad writers" one must read.)

I was, at first, a little astonished that any mention of medieval women writers (pro or con) would come up in a post about a medieval woman warrior. There were warrior poets in the medieval period, but Aethelflaed doesn't qualify. So, that was weird. I have a feeling my "Medieval Women I Adore" series title triggered a pet peeve of his, which then caused him to comment in a way that triggered a pet peeve of mine. As I always say, "Þæs ofereode, þisses swa maeg." People look at me funny when I say that, but I still say it at least a few times a week. (Got it from Deor. It means "That has gone by, so may this.")

I'm going to go out on a limb and say that Professor Nokes and I probably have different definitions of what should qualify for canonical writing. He likely considers "beautiful writing" the qualification that should matter most when making these choices. He's probably expressing the frustration of trying to know about, and teach about, a full millenium's worth of literature from at least the whole of one continent (but maybe two or three). Tough, sometimes painful, choices must be made in creating a syllabus when that much time and space have to be covered. I understand that, and I sympathize, but I don't agree that the way to make more room for medieval writing in the hearts of our students is to further narrow their view of what medieval writing was. As frustrating as it is trying to wrangle the highlights of a millenium into 14 or 15 weeks, we really have very limited corpera to work from.

But I promised an argument in defense of medieval women writers with this post title, and I should get down to it. There are a number of reasons I consider women writers of the medieval period necessary to any study of the literature, regardless of their ability to write "beautifully."
The most important is my desire for as much information as I can get from the age, and differing voices may give me that information. Just as I want to know if somebody digs up an Arabian coin in Liecestershire, I want to know what the nuns/princesses/queens thought about politics, and religion, and their lives. I want to know how they expressed themselves. I lament the loss of lower-class and pagan writing from the period because that lack leaves hated blind spots in my information. I'm happy to know that Hlewagastir Holtingar made that golden drinking horn, and used alliteration in marking it. I would be thrilled to have evidence of a peasant farmer writing a song to sing to his children at night. Even if the song were pure crap, it would contain some evidence of what a peasant farmer thought about -- or wanted his children to think about -- and how he expressed himself. I think we would all benefit from knowing a little something about the context of the medieval citizens' lives, and the more of their words we can come by, the better our understanding will be.

We also need to realize that we come to texts as readers with our own social contexts in place, and our own expectations about what's "good" or "interesting" writing. I don't mind revealing that I read Homer for the first time thinking "If this idiot describes one more fighter as 'like a wolf,' or a 'lion, or a 'bear,' I'm pitching this damned book into the fireplace." As a (then)twentieth-century young woman, I didn't appreciate repetitive imagery. Does Homer not deserve a place in the canon? I'm not a great fan of euphuistic writing either. Must Lyly go? I find the 'midwife' comment at the end of Donne's "To his Mistress Going to Bed" takes a poem that was getting very sexy and makes it just plain gross. Should that work be stricken? Obviously I'm not arguing for the removal of these works, but I am saying that we cannot be so quick to say what we find "good" is the marker for what we should study.

For the past several centuries, we have been trained as readers to accept certain aspects of literature as "good," and "interesting," precisely because of what has been let in the canon before we ever got here. And, before we got here, what was let in the canon was almost always literature of the men, by the men, and for the men. So, when we read the mystical writing of Julian of Norwich or Hildegard von Bingen, we think "This is different, it doesn't follow the rules of good writing as I've been taught them. It must be poorly written." I suppose this experience is heightened when women writers write only about women's experiences. We don't want the view from the wall(Mauerschau), we want the "action." Who cares what happens at home, at the village market, or in one's mind? The important stuff happens on the battlefield, at the place of business, or in the church. We've been taught to believe that, just as we've been taught to believe that iambic pentameter is superior to ballad verses. The Greeks and Romans considered comedy far inferior to tragedy, but Aristophanes holds a dearer place in my heart than Aeschylus, and I enjoy Apuleius much more than Tacitus. That doesn't mean that the men I enjoy should be privileged in the canon. I'm a smart-ass, and I like reading fellow smart-asses. I also like reading fellow women. Find me a woman who wrote smart-assed alliterative verse, and I'll carry her work with me until I die. I don't expect everyone to do the same. Our canon of "great literature" has to include comedy and tragedy, prose and poetry, and men and women, but not everybody has to love everything equally. Unfortunately, as teachers, we all have to teach some stuff we hate sometimes. I have even taught !#$%^&* Hemingway and !#$% Salinger. Do you think I enjoyed that? I say thee, nay!

I grant that this attitude of mine doesn't help narrow stuff down so that it fits neatly into a syllabus, but literature across a millenium won't ever fit neatly. As long as we're dealing with students who will only take one or two courses in medieval literature, we have to make choices. We also have to know why we're making those choices, and what inclusion or exclusion really means. I may hate/revile/loathe certain works, but I'm neither a man nor a prince, nor was meant to be. The work doesn't speak to me, but it does speak to some of my students and it does tell one tiny bit of the greater story. I owe my students that piece of the story, even if I do drink a little more heavily for a week or two as I teach it.

And, finally, an anecdote I can't resist sharing:
One day at my undergraduate institution, a professor argued to me that certain women writers shouldn't be studied because really good literature speaks to the human experience in it's entirety, not just to one gender. He even offered examples of women who had written "well," and should be studied more. I'll never forget the expression on his face when I feigned epic upset at having to eliminate all those volumes of battle poetry produced at a time when only men wrote and fought from my reading list. All the political writing that centered on the upper classes had to go, too. My God, I said, even The Sorrows of Young Werther is no good because it is all about a man in love, women will never be men in love. The argument ended there.

[Update: In response to Professor Nokes' take on this post, I've added a bolded phrase in front of my (already present) assertion that PROFESSOR NOKES DOES NOT FEEL ALL WOMEN WRITERS SHOULD BE HELD OUT OF THE CANON. This post is a defense of those women whose works he WOULD, if he had his druthers, eliminate. It is also a call for us all to think about why we make certain value judgements about literature. ]