How do I know all this? It's because I'm a student -- albeit a new student -- of medieval literature. I've always loved it, but it's really been over the last few years that it's grabbed and held my attention. There's something so mysterious, so ethereal about it, that I cannot help but be drawn to it. So one of the classes I'm taking this quarter is -- yay! -- a medieval lit class. We're studying Chaucer (of course), but we're also studying Chretien de Troyes, and William Langland, and my favorite, the Pearl-poet, the man who wrote Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
I have, I have to admit, a fascination with Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. So much so that I've thought and brooded over this book and its place in the pantheon of medieval literature probably far too much. I plan on writing at least my master's thesis on it, and very possibly, if it furnishes enough material, my dissertation (all this is, of course, assuming I will be accepted to graduate school. God help me if I'm not). Let me elaborate a little bit. It sounds as though I've just come across SGGK. I haven't. It's been firmly entrenched in my mind since last spring quarter, when I was first introduced to the concept of "community" and medieval literature (that was a class I took on medieval communities, which was also fascinating). I began to have this idea, which I won't explicate here, because it still needs working out, and the idea has grown and developed and become its own little person, and is now begging to be written out.
There's this paper that I've been writing for -- literally -- a year now. It was born during that class I mentioned, and also coincided with the beginning of the end of my marriage and my last job. That is to say, it did not "get born" at an auspicious time. Since then, however, it has been written -- and rewritten -- and rewritten -- and rewritten -- so many times that I'm not even sure I could tell you what the original idea was. (Yes, I could! I compulsively keep every scrap of digital paper that marks the trajectory of one idea to the next, simply because I can't always tell when an idea I discarded in the past might become valuable in the future. Hey, it's digital. It's not like I have scraps of paper lying around my house (although I do). So I'm sure I could fairly easily lay my hands on that first sketch I drew of the burgeoning idea.) At any rate, I have to submit this paper by the end of this spring quarter (so, by June), and to be honest, I'm terrified. I know what the professor expects of it -- what else would YOU expect of a paper that's been in the writing for a year? -- and I'm not sure my paper will deliver. There's so much to say! I'm terrible at trying to narrow down what it is I'm going to say, too. But finish the paper I will, come hell or high water, and I'll just cross my fingers that it isn't too jumbled from its millions of rewritings that it makes sense -- and more than that, that it's a good paper.
Anyway, what was I talking about? Oh, yes, the Middle English audio files. Why was I searching for them? Because the professor of this class I'm taking this quarter (who is, incidentally, the professor with whom I took the class last spring quarter, and who is waiting -- ever so patiently and kindly -- for my paper) has asked us to read to him 15 lines of Middle English. I've chosen SGGK, because it's more interesting dialectically (I think) than Chaucer, and so I was searching for some samples. I came across a few, the first one I mentioned at the Norton site, and then this one here, at a site from Arizona State University (another school to which I'm applying). I've decided to go with the passage read in the first (which is the first 19 lines of the poem), for two reasons: firstly, because I think the first 19 lines are among the coolest in the entirety of the poem; and secondly, because they were read by Marie Borroff, who's a sort of hero of mine, and listening to her voice was absolutely thrilling (yes, second reason might be sort of lame, but see first reason). Following are the first 19 lines, the original Middle English in parenthesis:
Since the siege and assault was ceased at Troy, (Siþen þe sege and þe assaut watz sesed at Troye,)
The walls breached and burnt down to brands and ashes, (Þe borȝ brittened and brent to brondez and askez,)
The knight that had knotted the nets of deceit (Þe tulk þat þe trammes of tresoun þer wroȝt)
Was impeached for his perfidy, proven most true, (Watz tried for his tricherie,þe trewest on erthe)
It was high-born Aeneas and his haughty race (Hit watz Ennias þe athel, and his highe kynde,)
That since prevailed over provinces, and proudly reigned (Þat siþen depreced prouinces, and patrounes bicome)
Over well-nigh all the wealth of the West Isles. (Welneȝe of al þe wele in þe west iles.)
Great Romulus to Rome repairs in haste; (Fro riche Romulus to Rome ricchis hym swyþe,)
With boast and with bravery builds he that city (With gret bobbaunce þat burȝe he biges vpon fyrst,)
And names it with his own name, that it now bears. (And neuenes hit his aune nome, as hit now hat;)
Ticius to Tuscany, and towers raises. (Tirius to Tuskan and teldes bigynnes,)
Langobard in Lombardy lays out homes, (Langaberde in Lumbardie lyftes vp homes,)
And far over the French Sea, Felix Brutus (And fer ouer þe French flod Felix Brutus)
On many broad hills and high Britain he sets, (On mony bonkkes ful brode he)
most fair,(wyth wynne,)
Where war and wrack and wonder (Where werre and and wonder)
By shifts have sojourned there, (Bi syþez wont þerinne,)
And bliss by turns with blunder, (And oft boþe blysse and blunder)
In that land's lot had share. (Ful skete hatz skyfted synne.)
Isn't that gorgeous? It's the founding of Britain, from Aeneas to Brutus . . . I love the last four lines, and I especially love them in Middle English. (As a note, by the way, the Middle English is from the Gordon edition, and the translation is from the Norton critical edition, translated by Marie Borroff.)
There's magic in those lines, in those words, and that can't be denied. It's why I'm so infatuated with medieval literature. I'm sure that Keats, when he wrote of his "fairylands forlorn", was thinking of the magic in all the words that had come before him. What a heritage of gorgeousness there is in the English language! As a writer, I can only despair of ever doing it even the smallest bit of justice. As a reader, I love it unconstrainedly.
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