Comments on: Pulp Beowulf

By: Heraclitean Fire » Probably not one for purists

Heraclitean Fire » Probably not one for purists — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 13:53:17 +0000

[...] my recent rant about what epic poetry isn’t, I feel I ought to share the fact that Dante’s Inferno is [...]

By: Sherry Chandler

Sherry Chandler — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 12:07:56 +0000

[...] But back to the point: we not only lose magazines, we also lose the language and the culture from which the poetry was generated, as Harry has pointed out in his recent discussion of Beowulf. [...]

By: Harry

Harry — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 23:14:43 +0000

it’s just another misguided attempt at making the US less frightened of the arts

To be fair, I don’t think this is specifically USian thing; I’ve certainly seen at least one British journalist make much the same comparison.

I agree though, anyone who does pick up Beowulf or the Odyssey or Canterbury Tales in the hope of finding blockbustery entertainment is only going to be disappointed anyway. Or confused.

By: Jill

Jill — Mon, 08 Dec 2008 20:05:25 +0000

The blockbuster/epic comparison is one I heard used in pretty much every Lit class I ever had. Along with all the points you make about how dumb it is, I think it ends up screwing with the kids in class who've read a Stephen King or Tom Clancy book and are suddenly being encouraged to view Chaucer from the same perspective. So if the intended audience isn't lit nerds who know better, and it isn't the "I hate to read" crowd, it's just another misguided attempt at making the US less frightened of the arts. Good luck. There continues to be a fuss in Seattle over that story you linked to. I think this is the latest.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 17:30:45 +0000

Of course there are examples of something like pulp fiction that survive from the middle ages — the kinds of romances that Chaucer parodies in the Tale of Sir Thopas. And clearly Chaucer was doing something much more sophisticated and subtle and nuanced than that. I think he’s clearly a highly literary writer, what he would call a bookish man, although the bookishness varies somewhat from tale to tale.

Part of the problem with the comparison is that the whole concept of mass-market literature tends to fall down when you’re dealing with a society where books are hugely expensive and relatively few people are literate. So I don’t think ‘blockbuster’ would be a very good comparison anyway. But I said ‘maybe kinda sorta’ because I don’t know if he would have been regarded as a difficult writer by his original readership, and I don’t quite know what audience he had in mind. I suppose a comparison might be Dickens: clearly a sophisticated writer with a lot going on in his novels, but he was hugely popular in his own time.

I still think it’s basically a silly thing to say, mind you.

By: poppysmatus

poppysmatus — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 16:57:33 +0000

There is far too much ironic reserve in _The Canterbury Tales_ for an uninformed audience to appreciate. Chaucer wrote–and performed–for the elite of his era. I believe Terry Jones’ study of the Knight is pretty close to the truth of the matter–just that Chaucer was not quite so cynical about him. But ALL of the characters are just that little bit too much over the edge into caricature and absurdity to be pop entertainment. Much of delight is in seeing all their rhetorical tricks to win you over to their viewpoints. In grad school I tried to trace a 16th C. “plagiarized” pamphlet of the “Man of Law’s Tale/ Faithful Custance” through dozens of sources and had to give up. It was a redaction and simplification, obviously intended for a much wider audience than Chaucer’s.

By: Harry

Harry — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 11:45:51 +0000

If the film is as ridiculous as the poster

Well, I haven’t actually seen it, but I believe it has a love interest between Grendel’s mother (Angelina Jolie) and Beowulf, so I think it probably is.

Although at university I did go to a lecture that gave a feminist interpretation of the fight between Beowulf and Grendel’s mother which, among other things, linked the melting of his sword when he stabbed her to a detumescing penis, so…

I don’t actually have problem with that kind of Hollywood silliness, although it would be nice if the filmmakers cheerfully admitted they were taking huge liberties with the source, instead of somehow pretending they are helping modern audiences to connect with the original work as an act of high-minded cultural generosity.

And I don’t dislike blockbuster movies in general or Bruce Willis in particular, I just think the blockbuster movie/epic poem comparison is so inapt as to be actually misleading.

By: Rebecca Clayton

Rebecca Clayton — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:12:15 +0000

So you don’t interpret Die Hard With a Vengence as intending, with no middle flight to soar and justify the ways of God to man?

Well said. I’d also like to point out that I haven’t heard anyone say “Jesus wept” in this manner since I was very young.

Thanks.

By: Sherry Chandler

Sherry Chandler — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 20:04:46 +0000

If the film is as ridiculous as the poster, I’m glad I didn’t go near it. But then I’m old.