We tend to see these epic heroes as larger than life, but I think one of the things about this course and most epics in general is the attempt they make to help us identify with the hero. Take Tolkien’s Lord of the Ringsas an example (it’s called Tolkiengirl, people. What do you expect?) He offers us many examples of the good king/bad king dynamic in the story with Theoden, Aragorn, and Denethor (even though he’s not really a king), and the differences are very interesting. By the idea we were going with in class, Theoden would be an example as a good king becuase he tries to aviod fighting the orks in order to protect his people. Without him, there would still be someone to rule, but he (or she) wouldn’t be nearly as experienced as Theoden in all matters of state. Or would he (or she)? We have to remember, here, that Theoden has been ruling in name only for many years under the yoke of Saruman, so that Eomer and, more, Eowyn have had to bear the day-to-day responsibilities of ruling the kingdom, such as taking care of Theodred, the King’s son, when he is brought back wounded. Does it make Theoden less of a good king, then, if he won’t fight and he has a capable ruler whom the people trust to leave behind?

      Denethor, in the text, is supposed to be the “bad” ruler, and, don’t get me wrong, I hate the man. But, in terms of Beowulf, he also does what, if Beowulf had been a “good” king, he would have done by staying behind and not seeking a battle with the obviously superior forces of Mordor. But that doesn’t necessarily make him a good ruler. First, he scolds his son form returning to the city from Osgiliath and leaving that fortress open to the Enemy, even though they were severely outnumbered and many died. This then encourages his son to take his troop on a suicide mission where all but Dentehor’s son are killed, and Denethor’s son badly wounded. As if that weren’t bad enough, he then takes his son, whom he thinks is dead, and tries to cremate him, lashing out at any who try to stop him. He also ignores the advice of Gandalf, one of the Wise, and tries to deny the return of the King, Aragorn, to his rightful throne. Now does that sound like a good king to you?

     Then we have the example in the story of the “good” king, the shining hero. And he does the same thing that Beowulf does in going out to fight an obviously superior force. But where Beowulf did it for his own pride, Aragorn is doing it for the good of all Middle-earth. This is what truly makes him a good king. Beowulf doesn’t seem to understand this type of sacrifice. The other character who (in theory) will one day rule, Boromir, perhaps offers us the best echo of Beowulf. He wants to take the Ring, which is evil, to Gondoe to use it as a weapon, though he is constantly told that it cannot be safely weilded. In fact, the more people tell him that, the more it seems like he wants to prove them wrong. He constantly harbors a desire for the Ring, which makes him the most vulnerable of the Company to its influence. Eventually it overcomes him and he tries to steal it, ending in his own death. Contrast him with his brother, Faramir, who is given the same opportunity to take control of the Ring but doesn’t desire to. In the end, of course, it is he who takes over his father’s position as Steward. But the Stewards no longer rule. Aragorn has been crowned and now the Stewards become advisors only, which Faramir seems okay with. Beowulf wouldn’t be.

      On the other hand, it makes me wonder if Swift is saying that the Lilliputians would find the things that we take seriously and go to war over, like religion, ridiculous. Maybe even Swift finds the things we take seriously ridiculous. After all, some of the wars we’ve had have been based on suppositions that, while to us serious, may not be to others. But what kind of threat is breaking the egg on one side or the other? I mean, why does it even matter? Is it an ideological thing? That is, does it have to do with the theory that, if you don’t think like us, or don’t act like us, then you pose a threat to society because you provide a different way that people might like better? This, after all, was the whole premise of the Inquisition.

      Even then, though, that type of thought I can understand being dangerous, because it was questioning the Bible, the ultimate authority of the land. And I guess, in a way, breaking the egg on the big side instead of the small side, or vice versa, undermines the authority of the Emperor. I guess it just bothers me because I can’t imagine going to war over how you break an egg. And this isn’t a regular sized egg to us, right? I mean, it’s a Lilliputian version, so it’s not like it’s gigantic to them and could threten their livelihood. I understand that swift is trying to show how miniscule and unimportant things that we take seriously in the larger world are. It’s just unsettling the way he chooses to do it.

     I didn’t know that Beowulf was given Hrothgar’s kingdom when Hrothgar died. I don’t actually think that happened in the book. But it did in the movie. Hrothgar named Beowulf his successor for ridding them of Grendel “and Grendel’s mother”, even though he hasn’t really killed Grendel’s mother and Hrothgar seems to know that. Then he goes and jumps off a ledge and commits suicide. Wait… what? He doesn’t commit suicide in the story! But he does here. And apparently, killing Grendel’s mother is synonymous with sleeping with her, which, though it brings up some interesting parallels, doesn’t really happen in the poem, either. But then, everyone sleeps with her in the movie. After all, she is Angelina Jolie. Apparently, that’s how Grendel came about. Hrothgar slept with Angelina Jolie and Grendel was his son. Oops. So when Beowulf goes to kill Grendel’s mother, she demands a son of him instead, to replace Grendel. And what does he do? He gives it to her! Yep, the dragon is Beowulf’s son. Great, right? As if that weren’t enough, to kill him, Beowulf has to cut off his own arm (which disturbingly echoes the scene where he tears Grendel’s arm off in the door) and reach in an squeeze the dragon’s heart. Oh, also? Hrothgar had killed a dragon at the beginning, that’s why he’s king. The dragon’s name? Fafnir, the dragon that Siegfried kills in the Nibelungenlied. So, that’s Beowulf the movie. And Beowulf’s second in command, Wiglaf, also seems like he is going to sleep with Angelina Jolie at the end of the movie, after, of course, he takes Beowulf’s now-vacant throne (he died, ironically, in a fall from the rafters also).

      The 3D aspect of the movie made it cool, so it looked like we were going to be peirced by sharp objects at various points during the movie. The gore looked very fake, and it was very prominant. The semi-animation of the characters was… interesting. Some of them simply looked like slightly animated  versions of the actors (Angelina Jolie was one of these), while some looked like they were directly out of animated movies. Robin Wright Penn looked exactly like Princess Fiona from the Shrek movies. Oh, and let’s not forget, one of the only things that the director kept true to the story was that Beowulf fought each battle nude. And this is “America’s #1 movie”?

      If I hadn’t read the poem, then I may actually have liked the movie, but the discrepencies were a little too many and too much for me. I thought that they made it much too over the top, and this coming from someone who loves the Lord of the Rings series. But I’m sure other people will like it. I don’t think it was written for people like me.

      On page 1901 in the Norton, for example, Even says, “Sweet is the breath of morn, her rising sweet” (l. 641), and later, in lines 646 and 647, “and sweet the coming on/ Of grateful evening mild”. These don’t seem to be referring to the same “sweet” that is used to describe Eve. That sense of the word is used later in the speech, when she tells Adam that “nor walk of moon,/ Or glittering starlight without thee is sweet” (l. 655-6). So what does “sweet” really mean? How can it speak to the inmost being of something when that something is insensate?

      Perhaps, in this sense, it means that it penetrates to the inmost being of the observer and not the observed. This then, creates a problem with the description of Eve as “sweet”. Who is she being percieved as sweet by? Adam? The audience? Spenser himself? There are other sections where he inserts himself into the poem, so why not here, too? What, then, does this do for our perception of Eve? Does it make us notice ourselves more as readers while we read? Maybe I’m just reading way too much into one word that could very well mean something completely different in both cases. Then again, that’s my job as an English major, isn’t it? Anyway, it’s interesting food for thought.

                  Everyone knows Arthur as the legendary king of Camelot who fought off Morgan le Fay (who happens to be his sister whom he slept with) and his (illegitimate incestuous) son Mordred under the tutalage of Merlin. Everyone also knows that he was cuckolded by his best friend Lancelot. But in Gawain we see a very different Arthur. The Green Knight goes so far as to call him and all his knights cowards: “What, is this Arthur’s house… /whose fame is so fair in realms far and wide? /Where is now your arrogance and your awesome deeds, /your valor and your victories and your vaunting swords?” (ll.309-312). It then goes on to describe Arthur’s aggrieved state to hear this and his attempt to take the Knight’s challenge, which Gawain then intercepts and does himself.

                              In class, people asked why the brave and gallant Arthur that we hear about in those various Arthurian tales would let a knight, even one so valued as Gawain, take his place, especially when the conflict was bound to end in Gawaain’s death, as it seems it will at this point. I think, and I may have a romanticized version of this, that Arthur was doing what was best for his people. As callous as it sounds, there were other knights, though perhaps not so brave, but only one Arthur; only one whom the Sword chose as fit to rule Camelot. What would have happened to the kingdom if Arthur had died? Similarly, didn’t we just condemn Beowulf for failing his people by taking on a task he knew he would die during and doing do? Theoden does the same, leaving Eowyn in charge as he rides to war at Pellanor. Then Eowyn does it, too. Why, then, do we villify Arthur for taking a more moderate course? Is it because he and Beowulf have the same status as heroes? That’s true, but the values of a hero are different in the two socities. Anglo-Saxon culture considered you more heroic the more glory you recieved in battle; courtly tradition has some of that, but it also has an aspect to it of chivalry and the good, honorable dealings with women. I just don’t think that we can condemn one man for not exercizing prudence or thinking of his kingdom and then turn around and attack another for doing what we just advocted, despite, or perhaps becuase of, their different cultures.

                    However, it is not Unferth’s reaction here that interests me so much as his reaction when Beowulf must go to fight Grendel’s mother. Unferth lends Beowulf his sword, and some of the description bears repeating here: “And another item lent by Unferth at that moment of need was of no small importance: the brehon handed him a hilted weapon, a rare and ancient sword named Hrunting, The iron blade with its ill-boding patterns had been tempered in blood. It had never failed the hand of anyone who hefted it in batle, anyone who had fought and faced the worst in the gap of danger” (ll. 1455-1464). It is clearly a beautiful sword, and one that has done wonders for those who have used, if the description is any indication. Yet in the true time of need, when Beowulf weilds it against Grendel’s mother, it fails and shatters. Why? Is it a need to have the combat more fairly? That argument doesn’t really stand, though, because he does use a sword to dispatch her, albeit one from her own stock. And what are we to make of the fact that it is Unferth’s sword that was borrowed? Is it simply the first character on hand, or was there a deeper meaning to it?

                           I do think that the poet made it Unferth’s sword for a reason. However, whether that reason is because Unferth was making up for his lack of faith earlier, or whether he doesn’t think that even this sword, that “had never failed the hand of anyone who hefted it in battle”, will help Beowulf against the demon-mother, I’m not entirely sure. I do think that it says a lot about Unferth’s character, though, in the fact that a) this sword has never failed anyone, and presumably won’t fail this time, yet he doesn’t go and fight Grendel’s mother or Grendel himself with it and b) that he is willing to lend out the thing that protects his life (in theory) and yet he won’t accompany it. I may be reading far too much into this, but I feel that there is more to it than was explained. Otherwise, why not use Hrothgar’s sword? Or one of his companion’s, which would probably be more familiar to him than the weapon of another culture?

A Study of the Similarities between Germanic Asgard and Tolkien’s Valinor

            “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.” This seemingly random statement in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic The Hobbit, actually points to Tolkien’s tendency throughout all of his work, which I discuss in this paper, though with a much narrower scope. This trend is that, for much of his mythology, he drew ideas from Norse mythology and then adapted each to fit his story. The quote above refers to Smaug, the dragon in The Hobbit who lives in the old dwarf city of
Esgorath, hoarding the treasure that he stole from the dwarves. This situation bears a striking resemblance to one in the Norse epic The Nibelungalied, where the dragon Fafnir has stolen a hoard of gold from the Nibelungs and is hoarding it until Siegfried slays him. This example shows only one of the many ways that Tolkien uses Norse mythology to enhance his own mythology for
England. Some others include: basing his character of Gandalf Greyheme on the Norse god of runes, battle, and other things; many of the dwarf names in the hobbit are drawn from Norse mythology (i.e. Fili, Bifur, Bofur, Nili, Dwalin, etc.); Middle Earth is the place where humans dwell in Tolkien, while in Norse mythology, it is Midgard; there are elves in both, dwarves in both; the dwarves live underground and are metal workers in both; the Ring of Power in Tolkien’s book is very similar to the cursed ring of the dwarf Alberich in Norse mythology; the Valar and Ainur are the gods of Tolkien’s world, while the Vanir and Aesir are the two sets of gods in Norse mythology; Aegir, the Norse god of the sea, is very similar to Ulmo, Tolkien’s god of the sea; and the home of the gods in Tolkien’s world, Valinor, shares many of the qualities of the home of the gods in Norse mythology, Asgard. It is this last that this paper studies, since it was the first one I noticed in class this semester. It is also a comparison that has not had the same attention as some of the other comparisons, such as the one between Gandalf and Odin. By drawing this information from a mythology based in the same region, as opposed to drawing it from Greek or Roman mythology, makes the mythology he creates more authentic.

            Asgard is described by H.R. Ellis-Davidson as containing “many wonderful halls, in which the gods dwelt” (28). Kevin Crossley-Holland gives a more detailed description: “a mighty stronghold, a place of green plains and shining palaces high over Midgard” (6). The World-Tree, Yggdrasil, which extends even above Asgard, has a root in each of the three realms of Norse mythology. In Asgard, “Yggdrasil… had a sacred spring at its foot” (ED 191). Also, one of the halls in Asgard is
Valhalla, “hall of the slain, where [Odin] offered hospitality to all those who fell in battle” (28). The descriptions are sparse, but there many mentions of golden and silver halls, which are where the gods make their homes.

            Tolkien, on the other hand, provides very lengthy descriptions the home of his gods, Valinor: “Behind the walls of the Pelori the Valar established their domain in that region which is called Valinor; and there were their houses, their gardens, and their towers. In that guarded land the Valar gathered great store of light and all the fairest things that were saved from ruin; and many others they yet made anew…” (T 25). This description could be applied to Asgard also, except for the first eight words. They were both beautiful, both bathed in gold and light, and both were where the gods made their home. In Valinor, there was, or rather were, things that resembled Yggdrasil as well. Tolkien writes, “…upon the mound there came forth two slender shoots, and silence was over all the world in that hour… the saplings grew and became fair and tall, and came to flower; and thus awoke in the world the Two Trees of Valinor”. These trees, Telperion and Laurelin by name, each had dew drop from its leaves constantly; Telperion’s dew was silver, and Laurelin’s gold. Tolkien continues, “… the light that was spilled from the trees endured long, ere it was taken up into the airs or sank down into the earth; and the dews of Telperion and the rain that fell from Laurelin Varda hoarded in great vats like shining lakes” (T 26-7). As for the hall similar to Valhalla, Mandos, the god of the dead, has his halls (which are named after him), where the “dying… are gathered” (29) and which Tolkien tells us are “vast and strong, and… built in the west to theland of
Aman” (41). The similarities between the two realms are not enough to say that the two are exactly alike, however, they are enough to make it safe to assume that Tolkien based Valinor on Asgard, and then tweaked it a bit to make it unique to his mythology.

            His intention for this mythology was to create a mythology for
England and the English people, which is possibly why the Hobbits of the Shire use cockney English words like “coney” in their speech. Thus it was important for Tolkien to draw on myths that came out of that country, and, when that did not prove extensive enough, that region so that he could create a truer picture that the English would easily identify with. The fact that Tolkien also created his fourteen languages by basing them and their linguistic elements on ancient northern languages, such as Old Norse and Old English, helps support this theory. Nor is Tolkien the only author to draw on Norse tradition for inspiration. Two of the more popular young adult authors, J.K. Rowling of the Harry Potter series and Gary Paolini of the Inheritance series (Eragon, Eldest), drew names for their characters and places from Norse mythology. In Harry Potter, the werewolf that fights with Voldemort is named Fenris Greyback, which is appropriate, as Fenrir was the giant wolf son of Loki. In Eragon, Paolini names two of the sons of a miller are Albriech and Baldor, names of a dwarf and a god, respectively, and one of the mountain palaces is named Utgard. The fact that these names and ideas are being used more and more implys that the Norse myths are regaining popularity, at least in the science fiction world. Who knows, perhaps some day they will make their way into other forms of liberty as well.

Works Cited

Crossley-Holland, Kevin. The Norse Myths.
New York: Pantheon Books, 1980.

Ellis-Davidson, H.R. Gods and Myths of
Northern Europe.
London, England: Penguin

Books, 1964.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Silmarillion. Ed. Christopher Tolkien.
New York: Houghton Mifflin

            Company, 2004.

Donne on Women, Love, and “Damp”

            In our modern times, people are always looking towards the future. They read horoscopes to see how their month is going to be, seek out fortune tellers to find out if they are ever going to fall in love, or get their palms read to determine how long they will live. During all of this, they forget more and more about the past. Yet it is from the past that mankind receives the most wondrous thoughts that pave the way for new ideas. In his poem, “The Damp”, John Donne reintroduces Germanic traditions to the seventeenth century, while at the same time coupling it with ideas of his own time, including the power that women possess in certain situations. This shows that while much can be learned from the past, it is important to take that knowledge a step further, and open the door to expand upon this knowledge; only in this way can society advance.

            The beginning of the poem is clearly modern in the picture it presents of the medical and postmortem procedures involved. The seventeenth century saw the emergence of new discoveries in the field of science, and one of these new trends was, when one had no idea what was responsible for a person’s death, it was now acceptable to dissect the corpse in order to further knowledge of the human anatomy. Therefore, when Donne writes, “And my friends’ curiosity/ Will have me cut up to survey each part,” he is explaining a procedure that, until this point, had been deemed the “desecration” of a corpse (Norton 42-43). Now it was something specifically to promote learning, which was quickly emerging as an obsession with many in those times.

            The remaining two stanzas, however, draw the reader back into the world of the Germanic tribes of old, particularly the “Goth” and “Vandal” races. He writes that the woman who Donne addresses should “First kill the enormous giant”. In Germanic mythology, one of the worlds attached to Yggdrasil, the World Tree, was called Jotunheim, and in it lived all the giants that had survived the great flood. These had an ongoing war with the great gods of the Germanic pantheon, and often, the gods could not achieve their ends without the death of some giant or other. Germanic mythology also explains that, at the end of all things, Ragnorak, the giants will revolt against the gods and the entire world will be destroyed, with only a few of the gods and a man and woman, who had hidden in Yggdrasil, would survive. This man and woman would then become the founders of the human race. The giants, however, would be decimated in the battle at Ragnorak. It is interesting, then, that Donne makes a point of referring to killing a giant, therefore equating himself and his love both with those who will defeat the giants at Ragnorak, and those who will survive that battle, thereby implying that they will found a race of people together.

            This fact helps promote the underlying textual content, which is a plea from a man to a woman, asking her to forget her modesty and have a sexual relationship with him. The names of the giants and enchantresses, “Disdain” and “Honor”, “Constancy” and “Secretness” respectively, tell the reader that the woman is denying her lover on account of her honor and regarding the thought of the act itself with disdain, and that the man is reassuring her that no one will know by promoting his own constancy and his ability to keep a secret. This interpretation then allows one to take certain words in the text of the poem as having a different meaning than perhaps one would immediately associate with them. The second stanza, for instance, starts, “Poor victories! But if you dare be brave, / And pleasure in your conquest have”. As this thought comes in the same stanza as the mention of the “Goth” and “Vandal”, it is easy to assume that “pleasure in your conquest have” refers to a comparison with the Germanic tribes, who valued conquest and war so highly that it was considered dishonorable to die in any way other than battle, so that some people even committed suicide rather than die of old age. The same is also true of another line in that stanza, “…your own arts and triumphs over men”. However, it is unclear if Donne meant to refer to these Germanic tribes here. Instead, the last line of the poem, “Naked you’ve odds enough of any man,” implies that the speaker is referring to “arts”, “conquest”, and “triumphs over men” that the woman experiences in bed.

            This is an interesting view, especially when coupled with the examination of the Germanic peoples and their belief system. Women were not generally thought of on equal terms with men in the seventeenth century. The education offered to men was not offered to women because it was thought that too much information would damage the female mind. Germanic tribes, in contrast, seemed to hold women in high regard in certain aspects of life. The Valkyries of Germanic and Norse mythologies were assistants of the god Odin, who brought those who died in battle to him at
Valhalla. Also, many of the important deities that we know about were goddesses, such as Freya and Frigga, Odin’s wife. They were mainly trusted in matters regarding to love and childbirth, as is the case in Donne’s poem. He writes that the woman will have “triumphs over men” and calls her love of him a “conquest”. This battle metaphor for love recalls the Valkyries, but more significantly points out that the woman will be the one who leads the way in their love making. It will be her decision whether or not to love him, and the whole of this poem is the speaker trying to convince the woman to put aside her misgivings and to take him as her lover.   

            This being said, the reader can now fully consider the implications of the title and its use in the poem. When a reader today refers to something being damp, it means that whatever he or she is discussing is “slightly wet or moist”, and usually dark. With the implicit connotation of the text, the word “damp” implies the state of a woman ready to accept a lover. However, the Norton edition presents different definitions that may have been the common meaning of the word in Donne’s time, which read, “A poisonous exhalation or vapor; also, depression or dejection” (42 nt. 3.). When one considers the context without the layer of sexual innuendo, these definitions seem to fit as well. “A sudden damp of love/ Will through all their senses move,” implies, if you use the first meaning, that love is a poisonous fume. This interpretation points out a different tone in the speaker than the others do. It almost makes the speaker sound bitter about a love rejected or given to another, especially when one considers the next two lines, “And work on them as me, and so prefer/ Your murder to the name of massacre”. The speaker here tells the audience that he has been murdered by her denying him her bed, and says that other men, his friends, will also be affected by her beauty and, in the end, her rejection in the same way, thus compounding murder upon murder, until at last the deaths earn the name of massacre.

            Donne is not the first author to equate love with a battlefield, or the bedroom with the sight of the most important battle of all. What Donne does do that is unique in men of his time is that he gives the control of these affairs over to the woman, making it seem as if she can achieve the same sense of fulfillment that he can. He calls himself “mere man”, implying that he is no match for a woman’s charms. By looking back to Germanic mythology, specifically the Valkyries, he enhances his image of the warrior woman leading the battle, and does so in such a way as to exploit the ancient traditions of his own race as opposed to that of the Greeks or Romans. As time and innovation move forward, Donne tells his audience that it is always important to look back to their own origins for support and influence.

Themes and Tropes in “The Knight of the Cart”

            The human species in general, and some males of this species in particular, are known for being “arrogant” and “full of themselves”; in other words, they are known for having relatively big egos. Apparently, even in the twelfth century, the male ego was not a foreign concept. But which type is more painful to the male ego: a humiliation so profound that one could be mocked about it for ages, or emasculation? Chretien de Troyes would have his audience believe that emasculation is the greater of these two evils. In his Arthurian Romance “The Knight of the Cart”,
Troyes discusses each of these two in detail, and while one of the victims must deal with the humiliation for a time, the other dies because of his pride.

            The hero of the story, Lancelot du Lac, is on a quest to rescue Queen Guinevere from the hands of a man who ambushed her and her escort while they were traveling. On the way there, Lancelot’s horse dies and, upon seeing a cart full of criminals (similar to the tumbrels used to convey prisoners to the guillotine in the French Revolution) pass by, he “…hesitated but two steps before climbing in” (213). This was, of course, the logical decision because he could reach the queen much faster in the cart than by walking. However, he was sorely used by everyone he came in contact with, since the purpose of the cart was to convey criminals to their prisons or executions. One of the women he meets in passing summarizes the feeling of the entire countryside when she says of Lancelot, “…won’t the news of his disgrace in the cart be known to all? He certainly should want to be killed, for he’s better off dead than living. Henceforth his life is shamed, scorned, and wretched” (214). Thus was his deed seen by all who had beheld him in the cart?

            Guinevere, too, makes Lancelot suffer humiliation in relation to the cart, but of a different nature. When he defeats Meleagant and rescues the queen, she will not deign to speak with or even see him. She tells King Bademagu, while Lancelot is present, that “…He cannot please me, sire. I have not interest in seeing him” (256). She also adds, again addressing the king, “I shall always deny that I feel any gratitude towards him” (ibid.). Even after Lancelot has risked so much for her, she speaks about him in his presence, which shows a great amount of condensation towards the one a person is speaking about, without deigning to direct her conversation towards him. This, she later reveals, is because, “By delaying for two steps, [he] showed [his] great unwillingness to climb into it” (262). By this she means that he showed his unwillingness to rescue her in the face of the humiliation he would bear because of it.

            Despite all the trouble this cart causes Lancelot in all of his affairs, Meleagant had more trouble with proving his mettle against Lancelot. De Troyes even describes Meleagant as someone “…who did not think himself at all inferior to [Lancelot]” (247). Yet each time the two meet in battle at Bademagu’s castle, Lancelot pushes Meleagant so far towards defeat that his father, the king, must separate the two and beg Lancelot to spare his son, pressing for peace between the two. This creates a great humiliation for Meleagant, who believes it a slight to his masculinity that his father must step in and save him, not once but twice. So, as a way of getting revenge on Lancelot, he challenges him to a fight, of which one of the conditions is that it must take place a year from the time of the challenge, to take place at King Arthur’s court. Then he locks Lancelot in a giant tower with no exits or entrances. This tower reasserts his dominance over Lancelot and recovers his masculinity in two ways. First, he intends to keep Lancelot locked in the tower indefinitely, preventing him from meeting Meleagant in combat at King Arthur’s court and revealing him a coward in front of all his friends. This will make Meleagant the braver and better of the two, while at the same time emasculating Lancelot, since no knight should be a coward. Secondly, the tower itself is a phallic symbol, at once emasculating Lancelot (since he is trapped inside) and proving the dominance of Meleagant (since he is keeping Lancelot there against his will.

            Lancelot later escapes and kills Meleagant, whose goal of emasculating Lancelot was defeated at the end. What is interesting about the entire story, however, is that both of Meleagant’s attempts to regain his masculinity were frauds: the tower had no entrance and no exit, so Meleagant didn’t have to do any work to keep Lancelot there, and his plan to have Lancelot considered a coward at Arthur’s court would only have worked (if Lancelot hadn’t escaped) because he had Lancelot locked up. So really, he never did regain his masculinity; he remains emasculate until he dies, while Lancelot’s humiliation lasts only as long as it takes people to redeem him in their eyes because of all the good things he has done. Therefore, de Troyes seems to convince his audience that emasculation is worse than humiliation, no matter how long it lasts.

            By Chaucer’s time, Christianity had begun to permeate the religious spectrum, thereby canceling out all other forms of religion for most practitioners. There were even different forms of Christianity emerging, as the early Calvinists, Catholics, and those who disagreed with both entered the stage. However, the pagan religions have not been forgotten, even today. Therefore it is no surprise that Chaucer should mention precepts and gods of these religions, and even have some of his characters practice it. We see this last especially in his great tragic love poem Troilus and Criseyde, which is set during the Trojan War, making the choice of religion fairly simple. It is even excusable for Chaucer to make references to both pagan and Christian religions, as he does at the end of Troilus and Criseyde, where he implores his readers to accept the Christian religion and love Jesus, as he is the best man there is. What is not expected, and what makes Chaucer’s earlier work The House of Fame so ambiguous, is the inconsistency it presents by referring to both Christian and pagan religions, invoking the one and living in the other. While this occasionally happens in other writings, where the characters invoke the pagan religion by phrases like “Oh, Jupiter” or “Great Zeus”, the pagan religion is always invoked while the Christian religion serves as the reality. In House of Fame, however, Chaucer disrupts this usual conceit by inverting it, making the pagan religion be the one of reality and the Christian religion the one invoked. By doing this, he calls into question all the typical religious beliefs and makes the readers seriously question where they stand in the religious spectrum. The readers of his day will have seen this more acutely since the pagan religions were not that distant to them as they are to us. Nonetheless, this method does invite questions regarding our own religious convictions, thus inviting literary criticism even today.

             In the second book of House of Fame, Chaucer the narrator is being carried by an eagle to the House of Fame, though he doesn’t know that. This eagle tells us that he is “dwellynge with the god of thonder, / Which that men call Jupiter” (l. 608-9). By telling us this, Chaucer establishes the pagan religion in which Jupiter is the King of Olympus and the ruler over all mortality as the dominant religion in the story. He continues to assert this throughout the section by using primarily active verbs when referring to the pagan gods. For example, in lines 586 and 587, Chaucer as narrator asks, “Wher Joves wol me stellyfye,/ Or what thing may this sygnifye?” While “stellyfye” is not a common verb, it is, nevertheless, active: Jupiter will eventually “stellyfye” the narrator, or will turn his shape into a constellation. Then, in line 597, we see this again where “Jove sys not thereabout”. “Sys” is an active verb, like “stellyfye”. The eagle itself comes at the behest of Jupiter, who “hath [him] sent/ to [Chaucer” (ll.612-13). In addition, Chaucer “hast served [him] so ententfly”, that he also serves “his blynde nevew Cupido, And faire Venus also” (l. 616-18). Thus even the narrator establishes the pagan religion as the one he follows by serving it and making it real.

            However, he does not, unlike other narrators, invoke these gods when making oaths. Instead, he has his characters swear by “God” and “Seynte Marye” as exclamations. For instance, in lines 573 and 574, the eagle carrying Chaucer exclaims, “Seynte Marye, / Thou are noyous for to carye!” This exclamation by Saint Mary is a common enough practice in the Christian religion, but would have been unknown in pagan days. A few lines later, similarly, the eagle says, “God help me,” which is, again, common today, but for an eagle in the service of Jove seems a bit odd (576). In line 584 and 585, again, Chaucer thinks, “O God…that madst kynde, / Shal I noon other weyes dye?” This could be a serious question posed to the “God… that madst kynde”, which in this context would be Jupiter. However, it could also be a rhetorical question to anyone, asked out of consternation and frustration. Finally, in line 625, he requests that “God me blesse”, but he doesn’t say that God actually blesses him, instead preferring an indirect question, creating an uncertainty.

            This pattern seems to be maintained throughout the House of Fame, establishing a focus on the uncertainty of religion in the minds of his readers. By inverting the common practice, he not only draws attention to that inversion, but also makes the reader wonder which he is upholding. The oaths and “God bless me” phrases our so common in today’s society that we tend to overlook them. In Chaucer’s case, it seems as though he overemphasized them a little bit to point out the failings of pagan religion, even if those failings only relate to their use in language. Thus the Christian religion emerges as the better religion, even in the smallest examples.