English professor digs into âplayful and weirdâ medieval texts and explains how modern communication is medieval
Medieval literature is a treasure trove of weird linguistic surprises that defy classification and explanation, and Âé¶ččÙÍű English ProfessorÌę delights in these linguistic curiosities, even if she canât quite explain why theyâre all there.
Beechy says these surprises exist in secular and religious texts in part because of the oral tradition of English, which in the 10th century âwas something that was palpable, almost material.â
When this oral tradition and the robust practice of religious poetry fused, âAnglo-Saxons saw the Word [the Bible] glitter.â
Feats of oralityâfrom Homerâs epic poetry to the recited laws of Icelandârelied on âencod[ing] important documents into a form that [was] memorable,â Beechy says.
This strategy of oral cultures becomes unnecessary in literate societies. ÌęHowever, upon converting to Christianity and acquiring written language, the Anglo-Saxons still had an impulse to âcodeâ everything from literature to law.
These encodings resulted in surprisingly playful and poetic texts, such as the Dialogue of Solomon and Saturn, a poem written by Christian monks in the 10th century. In this poem, the pagan god Saturn asks King Solomon to prove that the Pater Noster [Lordâs Prayer] is powerful.
Instead of responding in an expected orthodox way, âSolomon creates an acrostic with the Lordâs Prayer: every letter needed to spell out the prayer comes to life in the text, doing battle with the devil and beating him up. Itâs almost like a cartoon sequence,â Beechy says. Ìę
Language is a thing we donât have full control over, that we donât use [entirely] consciously. We may think we control it, but we donât.â
These seemingly out-of-place metaphors led previous scholars to dismiss the poem as childish and ridiculous.
But Beechy says this is a quintessential example of how the Anglo-Saxons adopted Christianity and the written word in a âresidually oral way,â applying their oral understanding of language to the religion.
âIn Christianity, Christ himself is the Word,â Beechy says. In this poem, the words of the Lordâs Prayer derive their power from being spoken by Christ, the Word.
Because âChrist is the wordâŠhe exists in each of the letters of the Lordâs Prayerâ and the letters of the prayer become âpersonified superheroesâ with both a physical and a Christ-like power.
The British monks in the 10th century, influenced by oral tradition, wrote this poem to examine what it meant that their new religion, and god was a word.
âThey were actually taking parts of scripture and playing with those words, and trying to think through how these enigmatic, strange things could be true,â Beechy says.
Medieval English texts also include mystifying mistakes and irregularities.
Mistakes in Christian texts were especially dangerous, Beechy says, because, as a religion of the Book, grammar could be a matter of Heaven or Hell, salvation or damnation.
Since religious understanding relied on scriptures, which were encoded versions of Godâs truth, the religious authorities believed they could only learn Godâs will by accurately deciphering sentences from scripture.
âIf you were off track or wrong on a point of doctrine, you were leading to heresy and hell,â Beechy says.
Because of the weightiness acquired by language, small, authoritative, and often heavy-handed in-crowds developed in medieval European monasteries. Ìę
Perhaps it was this intense pressure and the seriousness of grammar that led these somber groups to frequently dissolve into âeruptions of [word] play and playful irreverence.â These instances fly in the face of the stereotypes of the Middle Ages: old-fashioned, orthodox, and boring, Beechy says.
The often-anonymous or pseudonymous results of their playful irreverence included riddles, forgeries, and fake grammars or language rulebooks.
These jokes, including forged travelogues by nonexistent saints, may have been a way for monks to âlet off steam and just have fun,â Beechy says.
Parodies and jokes were often assimilated into somber religious texts until it became impossible to tell âwhat was real and what written in jest.â This mixing of narratives, Beechy says, is a continuation of the malleable oral tradition.
All these complex layers perplex scholars, but Beechy relishes even these mysteries. Unlike academics who have long ignored material they could not make sense of, she says, âI donât think we should just extract the serious stuff and think the crazy stuff doesnât matter.â
This acceptance and embrace of the organic, uncontrollable and surprising quality of language characterizes Beechyâs work as a scholar and professor.
âLanguage is a thing we donât have full control over, that we donât use [entirely] consciously,â she says. âWe may think we control it, but we donât.â
Instead of presenting English as dead, prescriptive, or rule-based, Beechy teaches English grammar âas having a living anatomy.â
Students participate enthusiastically in her interactive Old English classes, where grammar is âreally alive.â
It is here that students begin to understand âwhy English has a crazy structure. This makes them the opposite of snobs, because language is something every single person owns,â she says.
Beechy says academics see society as again becoming âmedievalâ in the way it produces texts and art through the Internet.
In the Middle Ages, oral knowledge was an âephemeral, fluid, transitory thing,â and the knowledge of the monks was also fluid, compiled collaboratively.
The idea of a living body of knowledge endured until the invention of the printing press. From then on, the idea of literature has existed as something closed and fixed in a final form.
But now that technology has again made literature âfluid, malleable, editable, weâre closing a historical parenthesis,â Beechy says.
And despite concerns about loosening academic and editorial standards, she says the ability to collaborate in real time is very exciting.
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