A Spooky Day to You: A Transvestite Monastic Zombie, a Singing Corpse, and other tales? of woe

by KARL STEEL

Important conversations on what we do as literary critics continue below, but as today's Halloween, we ought to take some time to scare ourselves. Here are a few of my favorite spooky medieval tales. I've occasionally mentioned the medieval story of the transvestite zombie (a variation of the Marina legend?):

The evil one envied a religious man who applied himself assiduously to hospitality along with his other pious works. Dreaming up a novel sort of malice, the evil one occupied the corpse of an unfortunate woman who had died without confession and viaticum. Dressed as a man, he entered the monk's cell, and accepted for an annual wage the necessary service of receiving guests. For a while he showed himself diligent, quick, and ready, seeking an opportunity to upset him with the malign sting of carnal desires.

But divine loving-kindness was ahead of his cunning. A holy bishop endowed with a prophetic spirit arrived to visit his parishes. Observing the hired servant at work, he perceived the hidden intent of the evil spirit. In private he anxiously asked his host who he was and where he came from. When the monk responded openly and unsuspectingly, the priest began to ask whether he ever saw him enter the oratory or participate in the divine mysteries. He answered that, when he himself arose for vigils, the man remained asleep outside with the rest of the seculars, but beyond this he had noticed nothing. The bishop called the man, and commanded him by authority of the divine name and of his episcopal office to tell who he was, what he was called, and why he came. But, gnashing his teeth and melting away, he replied, 'Truly, is what concerns you so well finished--or neglected--that you have to come to inquire about my affairs, which are none of your business? If you had delayed your prying visit a few days, I would have gotten what I came for.'

But, O great power of the divine name, and episcopal authority, so effective against us! At the bishop's command this creation of diabolical fraud vanished, and the corpse fell into dust and dry bones.

(from Geoffrey of Auxerre, On the Apocalypse, from a series of reanimation, golem, and fairy stories, all seemingly inspired by his horror at women priests)

And here's another:

A demon singer walks among us!

Cesarius tellis of a clark that som tyme had a swete voyce, to so mekull that men at hard hym syng thoght that it was a grete delite to here hym. So on a day a religious man happend to here hym harpe, and onone as he harde hym he sayd in this maner of wyse; "This voyce & this melodie is not of a man bod, rather of the devull." And all men mervayld of this at he said, & evyn furthwith he co[n]iuryd hym; & the fend onone went his way, & lefte the bodie as a dead, dry caryon; & so thai mott wit at it was a dry caryon.

And here's the Latin from Caesarius of Heisterbach: I have to say I much prefer "cadavere mox corruente ac foetente" to "lefte the bodie as a dead, dry caryon," not only because it's more repulsive, but also because it reminds me of "And alle the blee of his body was blakke as þe moldes / As roten as þe rottok þat rises in powdere" from the Middle English St. Erkenwald)

De clerico cuius corpus diabolus loco animae vegetabat.Clericus quidam tam egregiam et tam dulcem vocem habebat, ut audier illam deliciae reputarentur. Die quadam vir quidam religiosus superveniens, et cytharae illius dulcedinem aure percipiens, ait, 'Vox ista hominis non est, sed diaboli.' Cunctis vero admirantibus daemonem adiuravit, et exivit, cadavere mox corruente ac foetente. Et intellexerunt omnes idem corpus a daemone diu fuisse ludificantum.

Festive Friday: Your Summer Reading

by J J Cohen

In May it seems that summer will stretch languidly to the crack o' doom, that long days and warm nights will bring book after book to some poolside paradise where the mojitos never run dry. Then I awaken from that dream and realize that I am giving a lecture I need to obsess over, or have an essay past due, and the next thing I know I'm up to my neck in Anglo-Norman lapidaries. Not the guilty pleasure, alcohol accompanied reading I had in mind back in May.

Of course it could be worse: I could be swallowed and excreted by a fox.

As I'm packing for Maine, I am dithering over which of my unfinished volumes of light summer reading will accompany me on the trip. Behold an image of the bottom of my night table, on which you will find stacked the following aestival fluff, along with the page number I've reached so far:

1. Edward P. Jones, All Aunt Hagar's Children (p. 347)
2. Christopher Paolini, Eragon (Alex's signed edition, which he begged me to read, p. 393)
3. Geraldine Brooks, People of the Book (p. 294)
4. Toni Morrison, A Mercy (p. 3)
5. Jhumpa Lahiri, Unaccustomed Earth (p. 0)
6. Harry Turtledove, The Gladiator: A Tale of Crosstime Traffic (another Alex insistence, p. 0)
   
7. Markus Zusak, The Book Thief (p. 0)
8. Michael Chabon, Maps and Legends (p. 15)
9. Marcel Proust, Swann's Way (p. 132)
   

Since Proust was my big summer project, I suppose I'd better lug that one. The problem is that it makes me very hungry for dainty cookies at inopportune times.

So how about you: what non-scholarly books have you read this summer ... or attempted to read? What are your favorites? What didn't you like?

Festive Friday: Spout a Gnome

by J J Cohen

It's Friday. Your neurons are not firing with the precision they possessed earlier in the week. Your "To Do" list hovers at the same number of items that clogged Monday. That essay which is two weeks past deadline is moving towards three. Your fez needs cleaning.

We know how you feel. But we also want to say: snap out of it! Stop loving yourself so much! Why is it always about you, you, you?

For this Festive Friday, we invite you to spout a gnome. No, not "a legendary creature resembling a tiny old man." Keep that kind of gnome to yourself. By gnome we mean "a short pithy saying expressing a general truth": we're talking wise, not wizened. A kind of Old English-y gnome. Given that aphorisms tend to be highly conventional, we propose the following rule for its articulation: your gnostic utterance must follow the formula "Medieval Studies needs less X and more Y." Example: "Medieval Studies needs less Charlotte Allen and more Tiny Shriner."* You may then follow up with another maxim that is sillier. Mine: "A Tiny Shriner belongs on a bar stool, old and proud of his martini." Got it? And bonus points if you can identify the actual medieval proverb that I warped to create that last one.

Oh, and you are not allowed to think too much before you spout your gnomes. They must spout quickly or they must not spout at all.

*a scholar of proverbial utterances would know that this formulation equates to "Medieval Studies needs less delight in policing its enjoyments, and more creativity in its enjoyment."

Festive Friday: Our Next Logo?

Today the peace symbol turns fifty. Happy birthday, peace symbol!

Attentive reader that you are, you will have noticed that this very symbol forms an important part of our In the Middle logo: the visual pax vobiscum is superimposed over a cloudless earth, where it suggests an askew medieval T-O map (conveniently placed to the right for readers who prefer bludgeoning over suggestiveness with their symbols).

Today's festive Friday question, to which we encourage all readers to respond: if we were to redesign our somewhat dated logo (I believe that I cobbled it together -- in Microsoft Word!! -- more than a year ago), what words and/or image would you suggest to capture the spirit of this blog? Please post your comments below ... and if you'd like to try your hand at a new logo for us, feel free to email an image file to me [jeffreyjeromecohen@gmail] and I'll place it up for you. No LOL Cats, please (though LOL wombats are possibly acceptable).

Festive Friday: Warning Signs

Nothing here today, folks: a smallish ice storm keeps me trapped at home with smallish offspring. But if you are bored, check out this nifty site .... and email me your clever signs [jeffreyjeromecohen [at] gmail [dot] com] . I'll post them as the day progresses.








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from Dan Kline:

from Eileen:


from Liza:


from MKH:


from Dr Virago:


from Chaucer:



from Karl:



from Adam Roberts:

from Alun Salt:

Festive Friday: Pedagogy Gone Wrong!

Prof. de Breeze recently had a post about making a Pedagogical Hail Mary Pass: seeing that the instructional ship is listing like an iceberg-impaled Titanic, yet nonetheless rescuing the classroom from its looming demise (often through this thing called "innovation"). But what about those days when, despite your best intentions, the ship sinks to its chilly grave all the same? What if you are the iceberg?

Early in my teaching career at GW, I was assigned to teach "Survey of British Literature I" at an ungodly hour, so early I could only imagine that my students would be going to bed after the class. At the time the university required all students to take a literature course before they graduated, so many of those spending 75 minutes twice a week in my classroom had no particular interest in being seated there. I knew that, so I decided to be creative: they would be mine! They would all become English majors! I dreamed up all kinds of song and dance routines to engage my captive audience. Because this story unfolds in the days before multimedia classrooms -- I'm not even sure the internet had been invented, and I'm fairly certain I was riding an elderly donkey to class each morning -- I did not have the option of DVDs and PowerPoint and YouTube.

Inventive Me came up with a GREAT idea for teaching Beowulf. I began the class by turning off the lights and inviting the students to gather at the front of the room. I lit a tall red candle, and we formed a circle around the dancing flame. I then opened my Klaeber and read in Old English the incursion of Grendel into Heorot -- those amazing lines in which the god-cursed demon stalks with the rising mist from the moors, not knowing that Beowulf awaits within the gleaming hall. I somehow thought that all of us, huddled around the fire in the dark and listening to a narrative that implants itself as much in your body as it does your soul, would be transported back in time to a dangerous and small world, to a circle of light bounded by fears of death and engulfment.

As it turns out, my dramatic reading was interrupted every thirty seconds or so by students arriving late. As each new opening of the door and bewildered look on a young face broke what little mood I had established -- as each visage registered What the hell is going on here? Why is the room so dark? Who is that crazy professor with the anemic candle, and why is he chanting gibberish? -- well, as each intrusion ensured that no time travel would in fact take place, I realized that I was the perpetrator of pedagogy gone wrong.

My class never recovered from the day of the candle. Oh, don't get me wrong: according to my evaluations my students liked me and the class well enough. But they would never really talk to me from that day onwards, and always sat as far back in the classroom as possible.

What about you? Have you ever tried something innovative in the classroom, only to find that your pedagogy had gone horribly wrong?

Festive Friday: Best Dressed Medievalist

As the weary week comes to its enervated end, ITM jolts its readers back to vitality with yet another installment of our "At-last-this-won't-make-my brain-hurt" series called Festive Friday. Today we turn to the professorial sartorial.

A recent article by the pseudonymous Thomas H. Benton in the Chronicle of Higher Education explored the effect that dressing formally has upon pedagogy and relations with colleagues. The piece brought this blog to my attention as well. Although your four co-bloggers cannot be found in the pages of glossy fashion magazines, we'd like to think that none of us are frumps. Still, when it comes to combining splendid style with all things medieval, I am going to have to look beyond ITM to announce these nominations for Best Dressed Medievalist. And the nominees are:

• The dapper David Wallace. When I as a graduate student first met him -- just before a paper he was about to deliver -- he was slumped in a throne-like chair, clad in a leather jacket that exuded academic cool. Whenever I've seen him since, he has been dressed to announce his couture cognizance.
  
• The elegant Sarah Beckwith. Au courant eyewear, à la mode coiffure, and conference garb from Vogue: only Bonnie Wheeler plays in this league.
  

Medievalists, contrary to popular representations, are not a tweedy bunch. And your nominations for Best Dressed?

Festive Friday: The Road Not Taken, Thank Goodness

It may seem that Karl, Mary Kate, Eileen and I have been medievalists from the very womb, but I assure you that is not so. Contrary to the myth that has been circulating, I did not conjugate my first Latin verb until post partum. Attentive readers will have learned already that Karl coulda been a rock star and that Eileen had a career in gardening. I think each would have been excellent at each had they stayed with the job. In fact, in the category of vice versa, I'm certain Eileen would make a fabulous rock star, and Karl probably has a green thumb. Today's question, though, is what job have you held in the past for which you are now grateful that it did not quite work out as a career?

My most inglorious position was probably as a sales clerk at a shabby discount store, where I placed landscape supplies on rusty shelves. Later in life I realized that this store kept its prices so low by fencing items that had been stolen in bulk from delivery trucks. The workstudy job that got me through college was as sorter of slides with various diseases of the skin smeared across them -- a job that I assured myself was at least a little more fun than that of a friend, who harvested corneas from cadavers. Today, a little bit of me is still grateful not to be the person who separates the actinic keratosis from the scleroderma, or who places pilfered Weed-B-Gone on retail shelves. How about you?

Festive Friday: Medievalist Pet Names

I attended graduate school with an aspiring medievalist who dubbed her terrier Ecgtheow (nickname: The Edge). My first non-childhood pet was a beagle we adopted from a shelter. He'd been discovered dumpster diving behind a Howard Johnson's, and was christened Roscoe by his rescuers. Although we were tempted to name him after the location of the shelter (that would be Peabody), my spouse and I decided upon Duncan Roscoe Gromit.

Our current dog, a dachshund-beagle mix with the ponderous title Scooby Oolong Cohen, has no medieval affiliations ... unless, say, Duke William of Normandy had an Uncle Scooby who has not yet surfaced in the archival records (if he does, we know that a friend named Shaggy will be discovered soon after. Both were probably incarcerated for shenanigans involving illicit substances like, um, hemlock or belladonna or something). My son has a spiny-tailed lizard named Spike, also not medieval, not even in a Mock Medieval way. Blue Tail is still deceased. The most recent addition to our menagerie: a tadpole on the brink of metamorphosis. Since s/he belongs to both children, they have been kerfuffling over what to call the little thing. At this point the small amphibian will likely be bear the enormous name of Feänor Santa Worm. Can you guess who is responsible for each segment?

I hope Eileen won't mind if I reveal that she named her new dog Mr. Sparkles. What about you, readers? Have you given your animal companions medieval-leaning names?

(image credits: here and here)