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Live-blogging Kalamazoo: Sat 10:00 Session 386 -- Medieval Literature and Celtic Studies: Parallels,
(Sponsor: Charrette Project 2)
Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Welsh Verse -- Sarah Zeiser, Harvard Univ.
Looks at language choice and language mixture in the context of the multi-lingual society of Norman Wales and how it reflects the state and philosophy of education. Just for example, allusions and quotations in verse indicate the classic texts available and the level of familiarity with them. Topics of verse also provide a window on the geographic scope of the intellectual community in Wales at the time, indicating things like study abroad and travel patterns. The choice of Welsh rather than Latin as the medium of verse, even in the context of monastery schools, is important evidence for the integration of native and "scholarly" poetic traditions, and the respect in which the vernacular was held for literary purposes. Overt commentary on how it was important to translate key texts into the common language to make them more accessible, as well as on the difficulties and mechanics of translation. More than in other contemporary scholarly cultures, Latin doesn't seem to have been treated as the default language of composition but rather was used for particular purposes.
A Mission Reinterpreted: The Changing Christian Identity of the British Isles as Reflected in the Lives of an Irish Saint -- Diane Peters Auslander, Lehman College and Graduate Center, CUNY
An analysis of four texts of a saint's life for a woman known variously as Darerca, Moninna, and Modwenna. Her Irish nickname Moninna seems to have been the one that travelled abroad to evolve into Modwenna when her biography -- and to some extent the details of her life -- were transferred there around the 12th century.
Possible echoes of traditional Irish sovreignty-ladies in an episode about the transfer of power in a convent where a young woman is magically transformed into an old woman in order to avoid attracting male attention and to become an "anti-maiden" reversing the usual sovreignty-lady transformation when united with the true king (in this case, Christ?). But when the biography was taken up by English writers, they felt they needed to "mine the treasures out of a confused mess" and transformed events of the story. For example, rather than Modwenna dying in Scotland (as in the original) there is an added incident that "explains" why her relics ended up (as claimed) in England, involving a mixed group of English and Scots carrying her bier with God disappearing the Scots. There's also the addition of an epic battle between Irish and Scots with the English standing by as the reasonable peacemakers. *hmph* Overall, the changes illustrate the uses of cultural appropriation to express shifting social and political dynamics between ethnic groups.
"Cywydd y Llafurwr" and Responses to Lollardy in Wales -- Kassandra Conley, Harvard Univ.
English and Welsh literature of the 14th c. needs to be viewed as a potential conversation. Iolo Goch as an example of a poet combining traditional bardic poetry with active contemporary political awareness and interests. For example, his Cywydd y Llafurwr (poem of the laborer) represents a reaction to pro- and anti-Lollard literature coming out of England. Some not-entirely-supported attempts to connect CyL specifically to the influence of Langland's Piers Plowman. The poem idealizes the working man but operates in the context of classical learning and references and thereby positions manual labor as part of learned culture and therefore, in a roundabout way, undermining the motivations for peasant rebellion.
She's the One They Call "Dr. Feelgood": "Noble Surgeons," Sexuality, and the Celtic Tradition in Malory -- Jennifer Boulanger, Southern Methodist Univ.
Explores the themes of noblewomen as healers in Malory's Tristan. (Since this is a point-by-point exploration of the story arc, any sumary is going to be either very long and detailed or very short.)
Medieval Literature and Modern Celtic Culture: The High Road and the Low Road -- William Calin, Univ. of Florida
Uses of the past in modern Celtic literatures, specifically Breton in this case. Exploration of an example of the "sea journey" motif. Uses and abuses of ethnic/cultural stereotyping both by majority cultures in othering minority cultures and by the minority cultures in either claiming of subverting the stereotypes. (Note: the semi-post-modern terminology here is creeping in from me as a means of summary, it wasn't in the paper itself.) Ok, that was what he called the "high road". Now for the "low road" he's evidently going to completely dish on the use of Celtic motifs by modern Wicca groups based on a brief exposure with one group at some conference or other. And here we go making fun of people we know nothing about based on a single incident with a very small number of people. Ah, and for some balance (since the previous riff was aiming almost exclusively at female expressions) he's going to dish on Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Hey -- here's our big scholarly revelation: modern pop culture re-uses and cherry-picks historic motifs for their own creative purposes. Second big scholarly revelation: any pop culture category can be made to look ridiculous by careful cherry-picking of extreme examples. Third big scholarly revelation: such cherry-picking can make great entertainment to an early-morning audience of academics, but entertainment isn't the same thing as careful analysis and synthesis. There's a lot of fascinating analysis to be done by looking at pop culture uses of Celtic historic motifs, but nothing resembling it occurred here. Cheap laughs do not equal knowledge or understanding.
Latin and the Vernacular in Medieval Welsh Verse -- Sarah Zeiser, Harvard Univ.
Looks at language choice and language mixture in the context of the multi-lingual society of Norman Wales and how it reflects the state and philosophy of education. Just for example, allusions and quotations in verse indicate the classic texts available and the level of familiarity with them. Topics of verse also provide a window on the geographic scope of the intellectual community in Wales at the time, indicating things like study abroad and travel patterns. The choice of Welsh rather than Latin as the medium of verse, even in the context of monastery schools, is important evidence for the integration of native and "scholarly" poetic traditions, and the respect in which the vernacular was held for literary purposes. Overt commentary on how it was important to translate key texts into the common language to make them more accessible, as well as on the difficulties and mechanics of translation. More than in other contemporary scholarly cultures, Latin doesn't seem to have been treated as the default language of composition but rather was used for particular purposes.
A Mission Reinterpreted: The Changing Christian Identity of the British Isles as Reflected in the Lives of an Irish Saint -- Diane Peters Auslander, Lehman College and Graduate Center, CUNY
An analysis of four texts of a saint's life for a woman known variously as Darerca, Moninna, and Modwenna. Her Irish nickname Moninna seems to have been the one that travelled abroad to evolve into Modwenna when her biography -- and to some extent the details of her life -- were transferred there around the 12th century.
Possible echoes of traditional Irish sovreignty-ladies in an episode about the transfer of power in a convent where a young woman is magically transformed into an old woman in order to avoid attracting male attention and to become an "anti-maiden" reversing the usual sovreignty-lady transformation when united with the true king (in this case, Christ?). But when the biography was taken up by English writers, they felt they needed to "mine the treasures out of a confused mess" and transformed events of the story. For example, rather than Modwenna dying in Scotland (as in the original) there is an added incident that "explains" why her relics ended up (as claimed) in England, involving a mixed group of English and Scots carrying her bier with God disappearing the Scots. There's also the addition of an epic battle between Irish and Scots with the English standing by as the reasonable peacemakers. *hmph* Overall, the changes illustrate the uses of cultural appropriation to express shifting social and political dynamics between ethnic groups.
"Cywydd y Llafurwr" and Responses to Lollardy in Wales -- Kassandra Conley, Harvard Univ.
English and Welsh literature of the 14th c. needs to be viewed as a potential conversation. Iolo Goch as an example of a poet combining traditional bardic poetry with active contemporary political awareness and interests. For example, his Cywydd y Llafurwr (poem of the laborer) represents a reaction to pro- and anti-Lollard literature coming out of England. Some not-entirely-supported attempts to connect CyL specifically to the influence of Langland's Piers Plowman. The poem idealizes the working man but operates in the context of classical learning and references and thereby positions manual labor as part of learned culture and therefore, in a roundabout way, undermining the motivations for peasant rebellion.
She's the One They Call "Dr. Feelgood": "Noble Surgeons," Sexuality, and the Celtic Tradition in Malory -- Jennifer Boulanger, Southern Methodist Univ.
Explores the themes of noblewomen as healers in Malory's Tristan. (Since this is a point-by-point exploration of the story arc, any sumary is going to be either very long and detailed or very short.)
Medieval Literature and Modern Celtic Culture: The High Road and the Low Road -- William Calin, Univ. of Florida
Uses of the past in modern Celtic literatures, specifically Breton in this case. Exploration of an example of the "sea journey" motif. Uses and abuses of ethnic/cultural stereotyping both by majority cultures in othering minority cultures and by the minority cultures in either claiming of subverting the stereotypes. (Note: the semi-post-modern terminology here is creeping in from me as a means of summary, it wasn't in the paper itself.) Ok, that was what he called the "high road". Now for the "low road" he's evidently going to completely dish on the use of Celtic motifs by modern Wicca groups based on a brief exposure with one group at some conference or other. And here we go making fun of people we know nothing about based on a single incident with a very small number of people. Ah, and for some balance (since the previous riff was aiming almost exclusively at female expressions) he's going to dish on Holy Blood, Holy Grail. Hey -- here's our big scholarly revelation: modern pop culture re-uses and cherry-picks historic motifs for their own creative purposes. Second big scholarly revelation: any pop culture category can be made to look ridiculous by careful cherry-picking of extreme examples. Third big scholarly revelation: such cherry-picking can make great entertainment to an early-morning audience of academics, but entertainment isn't the same thing as careful analysis and synthesis. There's a lot of fascinating analysis to be done by looking at pop culture uses of Celtic historic motifs, but nothing resembling it occurred here. Cheap laughs do not equal knowledge or understanding.