Sunday, January 31, 2010

Kathleen Davis, Periodization and Sovereignty...

I recently finished Kathleen Davis's, Periodization and Sovereignty: How Ideas of Feudalism and Secularization Govern Politics of Time (Philadelphia: U of Pennsylvania P, 2008), so I offer the follow review of it here.

Essentially, Davis offers an exploration of the relationship between medieval and modern--conceptions of the divide, historiography, medievalisms, and, at the heart of it all, what it means to characterize the Middle Ages from a historical lens. At the center of her argument, Davis questions our understandings of a "post-medieval" era, examining the category of post-medieval itself (although she does not explicitly call it this) and calling for a dissolution of periodizing narratives. More specifically, Davis's analysis revolves around a "matrix of terms" interrelated and relevant to the issues of politics and periodization: "medieval," "modern," "periodization," "sovereignty," "feudalism," and "secularization." Examining past historical work, she identifies a problematic binary system between medieval/modern and feudalism/secularization--and she seeks to break down this approach.

In chapters 1 and 2, Davis establishes the development of "feudalism" in sixteenth- to eighteenth-century legal rhetoric, especially in relation to ideas of imperial sovereignty and colonialism. By examining these developments, she seeks to establish direct links between categorical period divides (medieval/modern) and issues of political imperialism. She is particularly concerned with the retrospective creation of "feudal law" used to both support and oppose notions of sovereignty in the sixteenth through eighteenth centuries. In this historiographical survey, she also questions what, in her introduction, she approaches as "medievalism at the heart of the theoretical enterprise of modernity" (8). Thus many of her concepts of the "feudal origin story" and historiography could be well applied to other aspects of understanding retrospective approaches to the medieval (or medievalism)--for instance, ideas of "'forgetting' and 'rediscovery'" (60), "retrospective desire," and the "space of transition out of a feudal past" (74).

Moving away from the historiographical development of feudalism, chapters 3 and 4 deal more directly with temporality and periodization. In chapter 3, Davis provides the historiographical and theoretical framework for her own ideas: the background of debates on time and periodization in relation to politics. This chapter especially questions theories that "disrupted a clean-cut medieval/modern, sacred vs. secular divide" (78), and deals with the "anachronism" of epochal theories (91). The main issue with this chapter, however, is a problem of implicit argument, as Davis does not explicitly contribute her own voice to the debates. Instead, she offers an overview of previous theories and their implications upon periodization--but rarely interacts with these theories by providing her own amplifications. Her framework, however, allows for stepping into these debates as her book certainly does in its own implicit manner.

Chapter 4 may be read as the culmination of Davis's book, in that it draws on the theoretical framework of questioning periodization and systematic binaries like medieval/modern, religious/secular, theological/political through examining the historical work of the Venerable Bede. This, in my view, is the most productive chapter of the book: Davis uses a medieval figure in order to demonstrate the problems in our modern assumptions. Bede's history stands in stark opposition to the historiographies of sixteenth- to eighteenth-century legists already discussed in chapters 1 and 2. Rather than examining modern historians looking back on the medieval era, Davis examines the ways in which Bede's history inherently breaks down our assumptions about the medieval. She thus displays Bede as both a historian and temporal theoretician: his works both produce and work against tensions of periodization to create a systematic "link... [of] the incarnation [i.e. of Jesus] with political time" (104). Davis demonstrates that Bede's work opposes a medieval/modern, religious/secular conception of history, in that he synthesizes "multiple temporal schemes that coordinate" these seemingly disparate notions (112). Davis also juxtaposes Bede with a reflection ("more meditation than argument" [103]) on Amitav Ghosh's In an Antique Land. Unfortunately, these links are not as clearly drawn as they could be, and Davis's thoughts on Ghosh are not nearly as helpful as those on Bede.

As may be apparent from what I have outlined, Davis's book offers a highly theoretical historiographical overview rather than a practical application of her arguments. This is not to disparage Davis, however, as this monograph is an intelligent, ambitious, reflective, and beneficial approach to history. There is much in this book that can help to undo our assumptions about the medieval and the modern--if, indeed, we may even approach these two as separate or categorically different. Her main call remains a strong and relevant one for all of us working in history touching on the medieval: "as soon as we begin to pluralize the 'medieval' in any meaningful way, we begin to undermine the condition of possibility of the periodizing operation" (5). It is this pluralization that she seeks to establish, and that should be taken up. This may be where future scholarship will benefit most from the approaches developed in Periodization and Sovereignty, as Davis's theoretical outlook certainly calls for extending these issues into other explorations. For example, there are surely other sources and authors--throughout history--to be analyzed (in ways similar to Davis's discussion of Bede) in to argue for the "death" of periodizing historical narratives.

Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Is It Tuesday? Then Here's Some Norse...

[Originally begun on Tuesday, but not completed until Wednesday morning.]

Much of my work this semester means translating Old English and Old Norse texts--two things I find fun and inspiring for digging into philology, language, and their workings. This proves a good thing for sparking my MLT reflections.

This week, I present my translation of a passage from Snorri Sturluson's prologue to his Edda,[1] in which he discusses the world, its properties, and how the first people perceived them. Snorri has a good reputation for his historical understanding of things--even Scandinavian mythological stories--and in his prologue, he presents a broad sweep of world history, starting with biblical stories of the Creation of the world, the Flood, and the growth and spread of clans. After describing some of the properties of the earth, he reports the following (3, lines 28-33):

They explained rocks and stones to signify [mean] teeth and bones of living creatures. From this they understood thus that the earth was alive and had life in some way [lit: with some type], and they knew that she [the earth] was very old in age and mighty in nature. She [the earth] feeds all living creatures and she owns for herself all that has died. For that reason [lit: sake] they gave to her a name and traced their lineage [lit: counted/told their clans] to her.

A few issues fascinate me here. First, and foremost is the relationship between signifier and explanation--that is, the explanation that Snorri gives for primitive interpretations and understandings of the world as alive. The key phrases here are þýddu ("explained"), á móti ("to signify/mean"), skilðu ("understood"), and vissu ("knew")--all notions of cognitive abilities associated with perception, interpretation, and knowledge. Thus the perceived objects of the "Bjǫrg ok steina" ("rocks and stones") become interpreted as "tǫnnum ok beinum" (teeth and bones").

Second, from his perspective as a historian--and, importantly, a Christian who knows the "truth"--Snorri allows for a set of interpretive misunderstandings that give rise to the pagan mentalities of a living world-creature and, in turn, a cosmic, goddess-like (hon, "she") figure that is incorporated into the mythological narratives later recounted in the Gylfaginning part of the Edda. To Snorri, the "truth" of world history shows through in his account of biblical narratives; yet, the historical narrative also portrays how human fallibility has distorted perceptions of the world.

Wrapped up in Snorri's account is the centrality of key issues such as cognitive perception, signification, interpretation, and knowledge--all embedded in the very language at work in this passage. Even beyond these cognitive issues, however, is a deeper issue: the actions of those who perceive based on their interpretation of reality: both the interpretation by primitive humans of rocks and stones as parts of a living being and Snorri's interpretation (from a perceived standpoint of holding the Christian "truth") of historical developments underlying the narratives of pagan Scandinavian religion.


[1] Translations based on Edda: Prologue and Gylfaginning, ed. Anthony Faulkes, 2nd. ed. (London: Viking Society for Norther Research, 2005), cited by page and line numbers.

Saturday, January 23, 2010

More on Old & New Testament Apocrypha & Pseduepigrapha...

Because of my previous post about a reading plan for Old and New Testament apocrypha and pseudepigrapha, a lively discussion has begun over at the blog Haligweorc. There, Derek has posted great thoughts on the subject--its history, background, and (because of his training in both areas) a well-wrought approach from the dual-perspectives of biblical and medieval studies. For anyone wanting to explore the issue, his post offers a welcome starting point.

Friday, January 22, 2010

Old and New Testament Apocrypha & Pseudepigrapha Reading List...

In the future, I'm hoping to do an independent study on apocrypha and pseudepigrapha from a biblical studies perspective (rather then my previous work in the medieval approaches), looking at both Jewish and Christian works--what are known as Old and New Testament apocrypha and pseudepigrapha. I'm hoping the study would be a synthesis of approaches, including work on the primary literature, historical backgrounds, as well as critical development and historiography of the field.

Toward thinking about the study and my aims, I've compiled a sort of reading list to start thinking about the study. It's not a bibliography proper, since it's not comprehensive and includes only items I would plan to read in my study--leading, no doubt, to more readings and focused research. It is a sort of hybrid list, however, in that it includes the most prominent volumes of primary literature in translation, several book-length studies, one multi-volume series prominent in modern approaches to New Testament history & theology (by Wright), some article studies, a few reference works, a few bibliographies, and two websites for online resources. The list mainly caters to my own desires and vision of the study: what I have not yet read, what I need to re-read, and what I would like to look at more specifically. Also, the primary sources are only listed in translation, and my study would certainly lead to looking at some of these in original language editions (the Latin works, mainly).

I've included the reading list below, and I'm hoping for feedback on it--especially from people in the know about studies in the Bible, apocrypha, pseudepigrapha, and Hellenistic/early Christian literature. What are your thoughts? What glaring deficiencies are there, and how can they be remedied? Is there anything on here that could be left off? What questions, comments, and suggestions does this list present?

Primary Works (Translations)

Charlesworth, James H., ed., Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 2 vols. (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1983-85).

Hennecke, Edgar, and Wilhelm Schneemelcher, ed., New Testament Apocrypha, trans. R. McL. Wilson, revised ed., 2 vols. (Louisville: Westminster/John Knox P, 1991).

Robinson, James M., ed., The Nag Hammadi Library in English, 3rd ed. (New York: HarperCollins, 1988).

Vermes, Geza, The Complete Dead Sea Scrolls in English (New York: Penguin, 1997).

Studies: Books

Alter, Robert, and Frank Kermode, The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge: Harvard UP, 1987).

Brown, Raymond E., Joseph A. Fitzmyer, and Roland E. Murphy, ed., The New Jerome Biblical Commentary (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1990).

Cartlidge, David A., and J. Keith Elliott, Art and the Christian Apocrypha (New York: Routledge, 2001).

Charlesworth, James H., Authentic Apocrypha: False and Genuine Christian Apocrypha, The Dead Sea Scrolls and Christian Origins Library 2 (North Richland Hills, TX: BIBAL P, 1998).

---, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha and the New Testament: Prolegomena for the Study of Christian Origins, Society for New Testament Studies 54 (Cambridge: Cambride UP, 1985).

Collins, John J., ed., Apocalypse: The Morphology of a Genre, Semeia 14 (Missoula, MT: Scholars P, 1979).

Helyer, Larry R., Exploring Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period: A Guide for New Testament Students (Downers Grove, IL: IVP, 2002).

Johnson, Sara Raup, Historical Fictions and Hellenistic Jewish Identity: Third Maccabees in Its Cultural Context (Berkeley: U of California P, 2004).

Levine, Amy-Jill, with Maria Mayo Robbins, ed., A Feminist Companion to the New Testament Apocrypha, Feminist Companion to the New Testament and Early Christian Writings 11 (New York: T&T Clark, 2006).

Metzger, Bruce M., The New Testament: Its Background, Growth, and Content, 3rd. ed. (Nashville, TN: Abingdon P, 2003).

Stone, Michael E., ed., Jewish Writings of the Second Temple Period: Apocrypha, Pseudepigrapha, Qumran Sectarian Writings, Philo Josephus, Compendia Rerum Iudaicarum ad Novum Testamentum 2 (Assen: Fortress P, 1984).

VanderKam, James C., and William Adler, The Jewish Apocalyptic Heritage in Early Christianity, Compendia Rerum Iudicarum ad Novum Testamentum 4 (Assen: Fortress P, 1996).

Wright, N. T., Jesus and the Victory of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 2 (Minneapolis: Fortress P, 1996).

---, The New Testament and the People of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 1 (Minneapolis: Fortress P, 1992).

---, The Resurrection of the Son of God, Christian Origins and the Question of God 3 (Minneapolis: Fortress P, 2003).

Studies: Articles

Aland, Kurt, “The Problem of Anonymity and Pseudonymity in Christian Literature of the First Two Centuries,” Journal of Theological Studies 12 (1961): 39-49.

Baldwin, Joyce G., “Is There Pseudonymity in the Old Testament?” Themelios 4 (1978): 6-12.

DiTommaso, Lorenzo, “A Report on Pseudepigrapha Research Since Charlesworth’s Old Testament Pseudepigrapha,” Journal for the Study of the Pseudepigrapha 12.2 (2001), 179-207.

Gero, Stephen, “Apocryphal Gospels: A Survey of Textual and Literary Problems,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Part II: Principat, vol. 25.5 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988), pp. 3969-96.

Guthrie, Donald, “The Development of the Idea of Canonical Pseudepigrapha in New Testament Criticism,” Vox Evangelica 1 (1962), 43-59.

Kraft, Robert, “The Pseudepigrapha in Christianity,” in Tracing the Threads: Studies in the Vitality of Jewish Pseudepigrapha, ed. John C. Reeves (Atlanta, 1994), 55-86.

Metzger, Bruce M., “Literary Forgeries and Canonical Pseudepigrapha,” Journal of Biblical Literature 91 (1972), 3-24.

Momigliano, Arnaldo, “Biblical Studies and Classical Studies: Simple Reflections About Historical Method,” Biblical Archaeologist 45 (1982), 224-8.

Bibliographies

Charlesworth, James H., “Research on the New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha,” in Aufstieg und Niedergang der römischen Welt, Part II: Principat, vol. 25.5 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 1988), 3919-68.

---, with P. Dykers, and M. J. H. Charlesworth, The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research, with a Supplement, Septuagint and Cognate Studies Series 7S (Chico, CA: Scholars P, 1981).

---, and James R. Mueller, The New Testament Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha: A Guide to Publications, with Excurses on Apocalypses, ATLA Bibliography Series 17 (Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow P, 1987).

DiTommaso, Lorenzo, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part I),” Currents in Biblical Research 5 (2007), 235-286.

---, “Apocalypses and Apocalypticism in Antiquity (Part II),” Currents in Biblical Research 5 (2007), 367-432.

Online Resources

Early Christian Apocrypha, Emory University Pitts Theological Library, http://guides.theology.library.emory.edu/eca.

Online Critical Pseudepigrapha, ed. David M. Miller, Ken M. Penner, and Ian W. Scott, http://www.purl.org/net/ocp.

Wednesday, January 20, 2010

New Semester...

I'm still alive, despite my lack of posts in the second half of last semester. And now the new semester has begun.

I'm taking 3 seminars this semester, all of which look and feel exciting so far:
Old English Exeter Book
Old Norse Eddas
Topics in Medieval History: Power

For the latter, I've already read Kathleen Davis's book, Periodization and Sovereignty: How Ideas of Feudalism and Secularization Govern Politics of Time, and hope to post a review in the next few days. For history, we'll be reading about a book a week (all recent publications), so as the semester continues, I hope to post reviews.

I'm also teaching English composition again, Writing through Literature, and have focused it on Tolkien's non-Middle-Earth/LOTR works. So we'll be reading "On Fairy Stories," Roverandom, Farmer Giles of Ham, and Smith of Wotton Major, with a few other random bits tossed in. Looking forward to teaching it. More to follow.

Friday, October 30, 2009

More on the Staffordshire Hoard and Psalm 67:2...

This is just a quick update on the ideas I posted here. Earlier this week, I received an email from Dr. Jane Roberts that provides a bit more contextual understanding of the Life of Guthlac and psalm usage. In the email, Roberts observes: "Felix is using the Evagrian life of Anthony in structuring the demonic attacks and that the psalm is often used by Anthony to repel demons." I would like at some point to compare the two accounts (I've been reading some of the Lives of Anthony in a seminar on early monasticism this semester), and no doubt this avenue would allow for some further insights.

I'm happy for the information, and hopefully this information will help as I (and we, the community of Anglo-Saxonists) continue to formulate an understanding of the context for the Staffordshire Hoard.

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Capgrave on Dialect in the Life of S. Katherine...

Sorry for any obvious loose ends, but I wanted to not miss another week of MLT. I'm finding that posting my seminar responses is a good idea, though--and I'm hoping that readers find some kernel of illumination in them.

Throughout The Life of Saint Katherine,[1] John Capgrave--like many fourteenth- and fifteenth-century Middle English authors--is self-consciously concerned about language. This is perhaps most apparent in his narrative about the origins and composition of his Life in the Prologue. This is, of course, a strong component of the humorous story of a priest attempting to eat a previous version of the Life (lines 85-112). Yet, throughout the Prologue, a number of other elements emerge that support Christopher Cannon’s assertion that “Place is therefore often an important shaping fact in the production of every Middle English text”[2]--as Capgrave particularly reveals his concerns about linguistic connections and geography.

Capgrave essentially offers two accounts of the source for his Life. The first, more chronologically proximate to his own time, is about a priest who spent “his lyve / To seke [Katherine’s] life yerys thyrtene and fyve” (48-49), and then “mad [the] lyff in Englysch tunge ful well” (57). The second account hearkens back to the ultimate source of the narrative, that of Athanasius’ “lyfe eke of this same mayde” (134). Surrounding of these two versions, however, Capgrave constructs a convoluted genealogy for his own Life, all of which is highly conscious of the linguistic complexity in the story’s transmission. Underlying this matter, we may turn to Cannon’s observations that Middle English texts contain their own complicated linguistic bases because “texts were mobile, sometimes traversing great distances before they were copied.”[3] While Cannon here describes the Middle English linguistic variations in scribal copying, we may apply this issue of transmission more broadly to include all of the shifts in language in storytelling across texts in the late Middle Ages. Capgrave himself, in fact, seems self-consciously aware of the travel of texts geographically and linguistically. For example, in recounting the transmission of Athanasius’ Life, Capgrave reveals that “on Arrek dyd it new i-sowe, / For owt of Grew [Greek] he hath it fyrst runge, / This holy lyff, into Latyne tunge” (173-75). Here Capgrave is especially concerned with the knowledge of this Life in the West, in the universal tongue of Latin.

The most deep-seated and self-conscious concerns about language, however, manifest throughout the Prologue in Capgrave’s continual reference to the priest seeking and translating the Life into English. The first indication of these matters is in Capgrave’s reference to the story’s roots “up in Grece” (51), where the priest finds it. Furthermore, linguistic transmission is complicated by the writing of this Life into English, a task at which the priest is not particularly successful: “And that he mad it is ful hard ther-too, / Ryth for straungenesse of his derk langage” (61-62; “derk langage” is again used for description in line 209). After all, “Dialctical variety in Middle English was often so great, ...that, despite an underlying unity of grammatical structure and a largely common vocabulary, there were indeed problems of mutual intelligibility between speakers from different regions.”[4] Again, toward the end of the Prologue, Capgrave returns to this problem in mentioning that “Of the west cuntré it semeth that he was / Be his maner speech and be his style” (225-26)--a suggestion that not only situates this text geographically in England but also works as an implicit judgment on the priest’s western dialect. Further solidifying the linguistic judgment made here, readers must remember Capgrave’s earlier judgments about this translation’s “derk langage” (62, 209).

All of these linguistic concerns finally culminate in the final three stanzas of the Prologue. In these stanzas, Capgrave turns to his own work, relating that “Aftyr him [the priest] nexte I take upon me / To translate this story and set it more pleyne” (232-33). Again, the judgment of the previous English version of the Life is implicit. After invoking the help of God for writing such a holy work (236-37), Capgrave identifies himself. Yet, this identification is not in name but in geographical origin: “If ye wyll wete what I am, / My cuntré is Northfolke, of the town of Lynne” (239-40). The verbal parallel of “cuntré” between the identities of the priest and Capgrave allows for the poet to both separate himself from his predecessor (and, of course, his western dialect) and establish his own identity; subsequently, Capgrave also linguistically authorizes his own Life as a worthy English translation.


[1] Ed. Karen A. Winstead (Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, 1999).

[2] Middle English Literature (Cambridge: Polity P, 2008), 106. Cannon’s chapter titled “Place” (105-49) provides a valuable discussion of English linguistic geography and Middle English texts central to my views in this essay.

[3] Middle English Literature, 107.

[4] Cannon, Middle English Literature, 105; for a humorous but poignant example, see Cannon’s example from Caxton’s 1490 prologue to the Eneydos, in which merchant travelers encounter problems in asking for eggs (106).