tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post2940551346987478085..comments2024-03-10T20:46:19.274-04:00Comments on In the Middle: Absent BeowulfCord J. Whitakerhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06224143153295429986noreply@blogger.comBlogger9125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-47170662280099698152007-08-30T08:48:00.000-04:002007-08-30T08:48:00.000-04:00Eileen and Karl: I like your acronyms--they both s...Eileen and Karl: I like your acronyms--they both strike at a sort of humor but do something deeper to point to aspects of BABEL's existence. I also like Karl's idea of letting everyone have her/his own version of what BABEL stands for. Once I started letting my mind roam about what BABEL <I>could</I> stand for as an acronym, and what BABEL <I>does</I> stands for in mission, I came up with this:<BR/>Bemusing Borders, Enriching Listeners.bwhawkhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17909010609907741198noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-61557421145901109692007-08-30T07:30:00.000-04:002007-08-30T07:30:00.000-04:00I love it, Karl, and yes, in true BABEL fashion, i...I love it, Karl, and yes, in true BABEL fashion, it would be fun to have multiple [even personal] acronyms, or as Larry Swain suggests, just leave it alone: all fitting for the slightly organized chaos of the group.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-37551369846551009962007-08-29T18:28:00.000-04:002007-08-29T18:28:00.000-04:00Gee--isn't anyone going to comment on my BABEL acr...<I>Gee--isn't anyone going to comment on my BABEL acronym?</I><BR/><BR/>Okay, I'll shoot, and write more later (especially in response to Jeffrey's summer-reading question. I'm having trouble remembering what I read, so <I>tomorrow</I>).<BR/><BR/>Being Babel, why not let's all have our own acronym, or no acronym at all?<BR/><BR/>Here's mine:<BR/><BR/>beware all besotted echt-longingsKarl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-63191928878387172502007-08-29T18:08:00.000-04:002007-08-29T18:08:00.000-04:00Gee--isn't anyone going to comment on my BABEL acr...Gee--isn't anyone going to comment on my BABEL acronym?Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-44137701798740672832007-08-29T18:07:00.000-04:002007-08-29T18:07:00.000-04:00The question of Beowulf's fictionality [surplus or...The question of Beowulf's fictionality [surplus or lack thereof] has obsessed me for a long time and could even be said to have first drawn me to the study of the poem to begin with. My first paper ever presented at Kalamazoo in 1995 was titled, "What is Seized: Beowulf as Cultural Memory," and was a [feeble grad-student] attempt to untangle the threads of so-called "historia" and "fabula" intertwined in the poem, mainly vis-a-vis models of kingship/lordship. The last chapter of my dissertation, "The Time of Beowulf Is Infinite in Every Direction" was a more sophisticated [albeit still crude to my eyes today, 6 years later] attempt to address this same issue, this time with Walter Benjamin and Dominick LaCapra in hand [in relation to the representation of traumatic history in art]. I honestly do not think there is a real, historical Beowulf that the poem's hero is based upon and I truly believe the original audience[s] would have understood him as a mainly mythical or historical wish-fulfillment-type character, but I believe also that everything he does in the poem speaks directly to certain political and historical "problems" that were very real at the time of the poem's ecriture, and the creation of Beowulf *as a fictional character* was partly an attempt, I think, to "work through" what are typically the unresolved historical traumas that inhere in all times in history, past and present. Does this make sense? Janet Thormann's essay in "The Postmodern Beowulf" ["Beowulf and the Enjoyment of Violence"] speaks directly to this as well, from the perspective of Lacan's Imaginary and Symbolic orders, as well as from the perspective of Anglo-Saxon history [via the law codes] when it was "transitioning" from tribal to more regnal-type administrative structures.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-68465842185283556302007-08-29T18:04:00.000-04:002007-08-29T18:04:00.000-04:00HMMM, does BABEL need to be an acronym? I kinda l...HMMM, does BABEL need to be an acronym? I kinda like it just being BABEL and all capitalized....to stand so to speak in a postive way as a beacon and a movement and not have to cave in to being acronym because that's what's expected etc......<BR/><BR/>An interesting Fragments essay might be seeing how Murtaugh's reading of Beowulf might or might not hold up to reading Arthur....hint hinttheswainhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05919025515524894537noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-28581651069062290912007-08-29T15:17:00.000-04:002007-08-29T15:17:00.000-04:00Sounds wonderful and I look forward to reading the...Sounds wonderful and I look forward to reading the whole thing.<BR/><BR/>Interesting how Beowulf had to be rescued from mere pop culture by Tolkien, and seems to us now to be so very different from Superman (a hero who had to be rescued from mere pop culture by Eco). It's easy to lose sight of the fact that both these figures needed some heroic scholarly intervention to make them acceptable to think with.<BR/><BR/>Eileen, is Beowulf clearly fictional? I've never thought of him in those terms, and wouldn't have thought to separate hime (for example) from Ingeld.Jeffrey Cohenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17346504393740520542noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-55114012672666304212007-08-29T10:40:00.000-04:002007-08-29T10:40:00.000-04:00Thanks for noting that 1938 should be 1939, Karl--...Thanks for noting that 1938 should be 1939, Karl--I can fix that before we go to final press. As to your point regarding Murtaugh's idea of the "seamlessness" of legend and history--with regard to "Beowulf," anyway, as he analyzes it more particularly in the more full essay--Murtaugh would likely agree with everything you say here re: Arthur legends, but he is looking ta a poem which purposefully incorporates supposedly "real" and "verifiable" [in historical records] persons, such as an Ingeld or Hygelac, with someone clearly fictional: Beowulf, in such a manner that appears "natural" and "seamless," yet at the same time, history does not "consume" a Beowulf in the same way it "consumes" a Hygelac. Does this make more sense? In some cases, as you rightly point out, certain legends do *explode* or push aside so-called "histories," while in other instances, "legend" and "history" are indistinguishable from each other. An essay that deals directly with this issue vis-a-vis the Arthur legends is Myra Seaman's and John Green's "Sacrificing Fiction and the Quest for the [Real] King Arthur," which will be appearing in BABEL's Palgrave volume this coming December.Eileen Joyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13756965845120441308noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-21165575.post-20072345819240697632007-08-29T08:46:00.000-04:002007-08-29T08:46:00.000-04:00Eco makes an interesting distinction between the h...<I>Eco makes an interesting distinction between the heroes of cultural legend—Hercules or Theseus or Roland, for example—and the heroes of popular culture like Superman whose invention can be documented (and registered with the patent office).</I><BR/><BR/>I wonder if Daniel Murtaugh is around? My first comment isn't so much a comment as it is nitpickyness: shouldn't 1938 be 1939? Strikes me that Superman's intervention, if they're on the Polish border, should have occurred on Sept 1 1939.<BR/><BR/>I love how Murtaugh's essay ends up, at least as it's presented here. At the same time, I wonder about the "seamlessness" of this summary: "This, of course, is why legend fits seamlessly into history and is sometimes indistinguishable from it." I wonder because of Arthur, whose conquests--almost to Rome--force aside or explode from beneath another history, one of Celtic collapse and humiliation. It also smothers Bede's history (I know there are cites for this, but I don't have them available), making the English past as impossible as a harmonized version of the 4 Gospel narratives.<BR/><BR/>Galfridian history doesn't fit seamlessly into anything except itself, or, rather, into anything but the present. Its place in the present, its use for the present, confounds the notion of inherited prehistory and legend. The present has discovered its legends to cover up a past while forming--to bring in and mix up still further Benjamin's peculiar metaphor--a graspable constellation for a present otherwise unmoored from what it needs to secure its very present desire. In so doing, it presents an unknown (because not yet invented) past as if it were already known. <BR/><BR/>But of course in conjuring that legend, the past becomes available for other presents. And that's a whole 'nother issue.<BR/><BR/>None of this of course prevents Murtaugh's reading of Beowulf, legend, and history.Karl Steelhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03353370018006849747noreply@blogger.com