[lit-ideas] Re: Beowulf: The Implicature of Masculinity
- From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sun, 25 Nov 2007 14:54:15 EST
Andreas:
>Has anyone seen the other version "Beowulf & >Grendel" (2005) (w. Gerard
Butler)? Comparison?
Nay, but it's selling in supermarkets for $20 and got me confused thinking
it was the _new_ release.
Anyway, there is a short reference to "Beowulf & Grendel" in the Wikipedia
article for "Beowulf the Movie". The author goes on to say that there was a
_reason_ at least for the making of _that_ film, which the author does not
find
in the _present_ realease.
"A bad reason, but at least it was a reason", he philosophically puts it.
For this critic, the bad reason behind "Beowulf and Grendel" was to let
Grendel _have_ a voice, and a viewpoint. Which he apparently would be denied
of
in the present release.
Wager considers essays for a collection. I thought the Open Court titles
were one-author books rather than collections of essays, but I welcome both.
My point about masculinity still holds. Reading the review in Wikipedia I
come with an interesting interpretation which I just failed -- I needed my
coffee fix yeterday I guess: Beowulf is supposed to be the FATHER of the
'worm'
(or dragon) -- Hence the 'family resemblance' of the worm and Ray Winstone. It
totally escaped me. In any case, it provides some food for thought for the
masculinity thesis, since Beowulf would not be _barren_ (or sonless, or
without a phallus) but he would have one that he would kill and who would kill
him
(eventually, out of the mortal wound).
Another reference in the Wikipedia article is to a 'beefed-up' Beowulf,
which I think was interesting to read, since I lack some of the American
jargon,
and I suppose 'beef-up' is how we want to describe the visual of Beowulf.
_That_ only should provide food (for thought, etc.) for any account of the
issue
of 'masculinities' in Beowulf.
I'm reading about the things. Obviously I want to consider the hero-figure
(of Beowulf) vis a vis ACHILLES and AENEAS -- both being like foundational
myths for their respective nations. There are some coincidences and some
contrasts.
Similarities may include something I was always puzzled with. I never felt
"Beowulf" to be _English_ or an English hero in that, famously, the poem sings
of older days and it's Geats, and continental. But reading the dual-edition
of Beowulf (where 'dual' is ironic) I see that "Anglo-Saxon audiences need
not be sung of Anglo-Saxon heroes only. They were pretty familiar with a
common
Germanic heritage."
This connects with the fact that, say, a Lacedaemonian may identify with
Achilles's Myrmidons, even while they would be singing 'different tribes'.
Aeneas is altogether different in that is was more artificially created (by
Virgil).
Wager says, "don't assume malice". Apparently, the amanuensis for "Beowulf",
as Bede himself -- and I have him in my 2-volume Loeb -- were pretty
familiar with Virgil and Homer -- particularly the former. So, 'malicia' would
be
the term to represent Grendel, while Beowulf would represent 'fortitudo
cupidissima'.
The Wikipedia essay says that the film is 'prurient' and anachronistically
sexed up with Angelina Jolie showing her 'lines of beauty'. She says she was
amused to play this lizard thing, "since I have kids", she said metaphorically.
I was disappointed to learn that R. Winstone says in an interview that he
never cared to read the poem. He says that in self-praise ("I was told the
poem
is boring and shows the hero as uni-dimensional, while I provided 11
dimensions for him."). So there.
Malkovich, of all people -- he plays the 'gay' witch -- is the more
knowledgeable as he says he would recite the Old English stanzas from Beowulf
at high
school. Which makes me wonder what high-school that was. I understand
high-schoolers recite Aenneis (if not Ilias), but Beowulf -- he says it was
'an Old
English class'. Could _well_ have been though.
I'm trying to 'read' into some love affairs -- of the dissident type -- in
the romance. Example, The King (Hopkins) is especially upset that his
'sidekick' was killed, and it is _this_ grief that motivates Beowulf to engage
in his
second fight against Evil. It reminded me of Achilles and Patroclus,
although we have a displacement here where it's not an affection felt by
Beowulf
that moves him to action but one he must feel out of 'blind loyalty'.
The other affair may have to do with Beowulf's own sidekick, who fights with
him 'till the end'. This was something that Tacitus admired in the Germans
when he tried to compare their virtues and contrast them with the vices of the
Romans.
The introduction to the bilingual Beowulf quotes from Lilla's story in
Baeda, as an example of this kind of loyalty of the 'brotherly love'.
There is also the theme -- for Tolkien, in "The monster and his critics", a
basic one -- between AGE and YOUTH, or Youth and Age, if you prefer. This
articulates in the film quite a bit.
One of my favourite scenes in "Beowulf" is indeed the 'swimming contest' --
I note that the OE version does not use 'swim' which I found confusing. This
is done -- the OED version runs -- by Beowulf and his mate (cannot find his
name in the poem!) as a 'joke' they would do as 'boys' ("For we were boys
then", Beowulf says). I looked for 'boy' in the OE and find 'cniht', i.e.
knight.
In any case, it reminded me of the Greek athletic contests which were not
really directed towards a martial art per se although they were preparations
for it.
Eventually, Beowulf is said to have _lost_ that swimming contest, which is
just as well. As it did not count as 'war' or 'serious business'.
I tried a google search for 'Beowulf' and 'masculinity' or 'masculinities',
and come up with an essay by a female author (them are the best in Men's
Studies) "Beowulf and men", in a book titled, "Mediaeval Masculinities", which
I
should perhaps get.
There is also an online reference to the _lack_ of masculinity in the role
of the King, which does not me interest me bunches.
------- I relate all this to the Hist. of Eng. Lit. at large. The poem
"Beowulf" was NOT well known and cannot compare to Ilias and Aeneas. Indeed,
the
intro reads, there's no contemporary (i.e. 700 A. D.) reference to Beowulf
other than in "Beowulf".
However, with the fashion of Anglo-Saxon Antiquities and Anglo-Saxon
"Studies" in the Victorian age, it became pretty central, and I can imagine a
few
English men and boys identifying with the hero, and becoming Beowulf's guild.
The Heathen references are not many -- and indeed the very many Xian
references almost made me vomit (worse of all, Malkovich holding a cross). I
mean,
this is supposed to be _pagan_! I read in the intro to the bilingual edition
that most of the archetype at play here may be traced back to THOR and his
fight against monsters -- and I can think of similar episodes in Gk. mythology
with Apollo and the Python, or Theseus and the Minotaur.
The visuality of Beowulf's final fight with the Dragon looked like St.
George to me. But realising now that he was killing his son adds some interest
to
it.
The construal would be that the evil (Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the
Dragon, especially the latter) spring only from the hero's own nature. Which I
think is a good interpretation.
As the intro of the bilingual edition reads, "This is after all a heroic
poem", and a hero _can_ display 'hybris'. The excesses of Beowulf are not very
obvious here -- but his 'lack of prudence' in fighting for the worm himself --
knowing that he would perhaps die -- and leaving his country in doom may be
one.
Geary commented, "It was fun wearing the 3D-glasses".
Cheers,
J. L.
Society for the Reconsideration of Things
Refs: "Intentional ambiguities" in Beowulf, MLA.
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