Have you ever been to a museum looking at the old portraits which stare at your from the black background? Then you would probably get the feeling I get after reading medieval literature. I am going to write about something very subjective: strength and weaknesses of the medieval literature: from Dante to Cervantes.
In order not to be too tedious, I want to talk only about Dante, Beowulf, Sir Gawain, the Black Death, some knights of Chaucer’s tales, and Don Quixote. And in order to simplify this study even more, I would divide them into “pure knights” and “epic heroes”.
First, let me speak about Dante, Beowulf, and the Black Death. I think that those are one of the most outstanding epic heroes of the medieval times.
So, when we look at Dante and his decent into Inferno, Purgatory and finally to Paradise, we cannot escape but see Dante’s humanity. He faints all the time. He faints at the second circle:
“…I fainted as if I have met my death” (Line 141, circle 2, Inferno).
He faints at the ninth as he sees Dis a place for sowers of discord:
“…I grew faint and frozen then I cannot write it, all words fall short of what it was.” (lines 23, 24, circle 9, Inferno)
He started fainting since he got by the ferry to the gates of Inferno. That makes Dante very humane and realistic hero. All methods are incorporated to emphasize the horrors of hell, which Dante wanted to warn his friends and enemies about. Dante, unlike Beowulf is more like Daniel, the prophet who also fainted when he saw visions of God:
“…And I Daniel fainted, and was sick certain days; afterward I rose up, and did the king’s business; and I was astonished at the vision, but none understood it.
“(Dan. 8:27)
The same happened to him on other visions also (Dan 10:29). By quoting that I want to say that even heroes faint sometime, and Dante’s fainting adds more realism to his “Divine Comedy”. Some people say, that poetic fantasy of Dante is so strong that many naive contemporaries thought the author of “Divine Comedy” to be a person who really traveled to hell, and attributed his duskiness of skin to hell’s flames (Foreign Literature, 2002). Be as it may, Dante’s reason for writing this comedy seems to be noble, he wants to warn his contemporaries on the terrors of God’s judgment to come.
If we rewind the time around three or even five centuries back, we are going to find another epic hero who glorified the nation of Geats, namely: Beowulf. Beowulf is different from Dante. Beowulf doesn’t faint. Beowulf knows how to handle the sword.
He is faithful to Hrothgar and he is stronger than other warriors. He can fight Grendel barehanded, the monster of Kain’s descent. He has got superstrong right arm power, which helps him both to scare, disarm and mortally wound Grendel:
“Beowulf has thirty men’s hest of grasp in the gripe of his hand, the bold-in-battle. (Ch 6, Beowulf).
After killing Grendel, Beowulf sat panting afterwards, but didn’t faint. This case together with his victory in swimming contest against Brecca and fighting sea monsters adds to Beowulf some magical, unbelievable powers, like that of the Gilgamesh. So the emphasis is on extraordinary ability, on something to be admired and to be boasted about. And Beowulf likes boasting and fame more than he values his life. For the honor of Hrothgar and Aeschere (one of the best warriors of Hrothgar’s army) he puts himself on a dangerous quest to kill Grendel’s mother.
After he accomplishes that, he becomes the king of the Heorot. Though he dies in his final battle with the dragon, he is nevertheless glorified and mourned by his people who say that:
“…he was among this world’s kings the mildest, the gentlest, the kindsest to his people and the most eager for eternal fame.”
I would mention Beowulf’s longing for fame as the foremost quality out of the four mentioned. Beowulf could easily serve as a prototype of all the knights with their code of chivalry.
Lastly among epics I want to mention the arch-enemy of mankind – the Black Death as it is described by Boccaccio in his “Decameron”. Boccaccio states that setting of death, or Bubonic Plague in Florence is significant:
“…without this review of the past it would not be in my power to shew how the matters, of which you will hereafter read, came to pass.”
And in the introduction he explains that the plague itself is the reason why 7 ladies and 3 men are gathered as brigata escaping the horrors of the plague in the suburbs of Florence. Imagine, while death sweeps the city, young people are entertaining themselves with stories ridiculing Catholic church. For instance: Evil man Sepeletto elevates himself from wretches to a saint at confession to a priest. Lady Jancofiore from the Dioneo’s story (Day8, story 10) learns the lesson that
“what goes around, comes around.” being deceived herself after she deceived Salabaetto.
But however noble the desire of the company was – The Death still reigned for 3 years at Florence. It appeared to be stronger than Dante and his comedy, stronger than Beowulf, more fierce and merciless than the furious dragon himself. None could match it. I think that partly it was the presence of death itself the true reason for Dante’s fainting at Inferno, and the shadow of death in the person of Beowulf, which made our Scyld to “sit panting” after tearing off Grendel’s hand. Death was that strong antagonist, which made all the ancient heroes pale in insignificance and fear. It seems more than a dragon – an unbeatable force of the universe. And who can conquer it?
Alas, there comes the truth! When people got back to the sources of truth, to the Holy Scriptures, they understood that the only way to defeat death was through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The truth about Christ’s resurrection power dawns on medieval people through sermons in Latin and in some simple plays of medieval theatre. Here is the example:
A. Knock on the door.
B. “Whom seek ye?”
A. “Jesus of Nazareth.”
B. “He is not here, he is risen.”
But as people were not only dark, uneducated and superstitious in those days, they also looked up to some ideals which were crystallized in the persons of knights with their respective code of chivalry. They would pledge allegiance to their lords and vowed to keep truth, honor, loyalty, courage, compassion and chastity.
With these I want to move to the next part, which speaks solely about the medieval knights – their strengths and their weaknesses.
Perhaps “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” emphasizes the courage and chastity of the King Arthur’s court. Gawain valiantly meets the challenge of Green Knight and comes almost intact from the sever test for chastity. Many brave knights followed his example. For instance: Arcite and Palamon. Those 2 knights are presented to us by Geoffrey Chaucer in the Knight’s Tale (Canterbury Tales). Both of them fall in love with lady Emily while in a prison cell. Both of them are ready to die for her. It would be proper to add that both of the characters’ love is a “courtly love” and that is a big thing for any knight to endure. In different times they both manage to escape the prison and meet each other at the forest where they honestly fight for the hand of Emily.
King Thesius stops their madness and suggests a better way to solve this conflict by arranging even a bigger slaughter – a hundred against a hundred men on each of the combatants’ side to win the affection of Emily. Both knights pray to their patron-gods or goddesses. All gods offer protection. After all they are responsible for the outcome of the battle. Emily complains to her goddess that she wants to remain pure and unmarried but her request is denied by goddess Diana. During the jousting tournament Arcite almost wins the contest, but gods are not satisfied with the outcome and make Arcite’s horse to stumble and fall on its rider. Arcite tragically dies from received wounds. After the funerals Polomon marries Emily fulfilling the will of gods. This is a sad story indeed.
So as I already mentioned chivalry and courtly love were among the main features of the knights of Chaucer’s days. That certainly rises above the immortality which reigned in the society of those days. We are bound to praise them for that. However compared with Apostolic Christianity knights were at best heathens dressed in “humanistic garb”. In Chaucer’s tales knights are very much romanticized and idealized. Very soon the coming new type of middle class citizens would expel knights from the arena of the medieval society and they will no longer be popular. Cervantes would teach us more about that.
And, yes, finally I want to finish the story about the knights with the portrait of Don Quixote – a sarcastic caricature on the medieval novels about knights, written by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. I won’t try to retell the story in details. It is very well known for all people of arts. I agree with Vladimir Nabokov, that:
“…Don Quixote puts a great shadow on sensitive posterity by its created hero, whose life can continue without the help of the book itself.” (Introduction, Lectures on Don Quixote, 2002)
The person of Ingenious Hidalgo of La Mancha is so much controversial, that it stirs up people minds even up to the present day. Some take him as a half-crazy rural nobleman, who being seduced by romantic knight-novels, plunges himself to the sea of adventures. Others seem to deify his life to the point of making him one of the greatest heroes of all times, and the book itself the greatest novel ever written. I do not agree with that, but there are some good lessons which I learned from Don Quixote (as well as from Dante, Beowulf, Sir Gawain, Arcite and Polomon.)
What I liked most about the character of Ingenuous Hidalgo was his mixture of wisdom and foolishness, the cheerful colors in which he is presented. I liked the enthusiasm and determination with which a fifty year old man can find and pursue his vision. I also admired his courage in battles: against riders, against, riders and shepherds, against travelers as well as mechanisms like windmills, watermills or a flying horse. I also liked the imagination and intuition of the author himself, who though being inconsistent in many parts of the story still manages to keep the readers attention and breed sympathy to both Quixote and Sancho. Those characters come up and seem to live independently of the book itself. His play on the differences, contrasts of people, styles is I think comparable to the magical realism of Garcia Marquez. Both of them spoke and wrote Spanish, maybe that is in their blood.
On the other hand I liked Beowulf for his determination to finish the task to the end. He didn’t stop half way through though it cost him dearly. I liked Dante for scaring simple folks to death and bending them more towards a godly lifestyle. I wasn’t too much impressed by the Canterbury Tales, though, but the death of Don Quixote almost moved me to tears. My heart was touched with the difficulties poor “knight of the sorrowful countenance” had to endure. I agree with Vladimir Nabokov, that there is more than the Spanish sarcasm there; there is some cruelty which is hard to explain. I just could not laugh on reading how Don Quixote was beaten, ridiculed, hanged by the wrist for a couple of hours. I hate violence.
The thing I loved most about the character of the protagonist of this Spanish novel is his ability to survive all the temptations and die not just as a loser, but as the man who though regretted his ideals, but still kept his faith. He thanks God in the end. That sets him apart from all other knights and epic heroes.
In my opinion Don Quixote and Death are two of the strongest protagonists in the Medieval literature. Death conquers all, but I hope that our brave “Knight of the Lions” can conquer together with Christ it if he believes in God. I know it sounds absurd, but from all the candidates Hidalgo of La Mancha seems to me most likely to sing that song of victory in Heaven:
“O, Death – where is thy sting?
O Grave, where is thy victory?”
Reference list:
Mack, Maynard. The Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. New York:
W.W. Norton and Company, 1987.
The Holy Bible. Duncanville, USA:
World Wide Printing, 2001.
Kolesnikova, N., Semenova N. Foreign Literature. Kaunas:
“Shviesa”, 2002
Nabokov, V. Lectures on Don Quixote. Moscow:
Nezavisymaja Gazeta, with Harcourt, Inc, 2002
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