Epic poetry and the moral imagination
This fall I’ve been teaching a
course on Medieval Epic Poetry, a continuation of the Ancient Epic course I
taught last spring, in which we read Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey and Vergil’s
Aeneid, poems that are all deeply grounded in a pagan worldview but which
nonetheless examine human nature, and particularly human excellence, in such an
authentic way that they continue to speak profoundly to readers in our own day.
Still, the pagan world that produced those works valued things that sometimes
run counter to Christian values, so their heroes may seem strange and
not entirely admirable to a modern Christian. Nonetheless, all the poems we read in
the Medieval Epic course are written by Christian poets who have, to one extent
or another, appropriated the epic tradition and made it their own.
What does it mean to be a hero?
Achilles was famous for his godlike rage. |
Beowulf: A Christian gloss on pagan heroism
Beowulf's final heroic act proved to be disastrous vainglory. |
In this final regard, however,
Beowulf falls short – he is not a Christian, after all, and his insistence that
he fight the dragon on his own is a not humble self-sacrifice, but a magnificently heroic gesture of vainglory. Although he defeats his foe, he gets himself killed in the process, thus leaving his people undefended. Left without a king, they are doomed to be
destroyed by hostile neighbors, who have nothing to fear in the absence of a
powerful king. The Beowulf poet reminds his reader of this sad consequence at
the end of the poem and thereby manages to pay homage to a great Danish hero only
to expose the weakness of a culture that exalts vainglory over truly selfless
heroism – such a culture, the poem suggests, bears within itself the seeds of its own destruction.
Sir Gawain: Moral courage and Christian humility
Sir Gawain humbled by his foe |
This is a message that also haunts the
Arthurian literary tradition, as we saw in the second work we read this
semester, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. This poem was written by a Christian
poet, for a Christian audience, and its hero is himself a Christian, Gawain the
nephew of King Arthur. Many elements of pagan mythology – in this case, Celtic –
are also to be found in this poem, but they are found in the antagonist, not
the protagonist, and Sir Gawain manages to come out of the conflict a victor,
albeit a flawed one. Yet here the hero acknowledges his flaw, is humbled by it,
and willingly returns to King Arthur’s court penitentially wearing a badge of
shame, which will always remind him of his ignoble behavior.
However, the noble lords and ladies of Arthur’s court do not recognize the penitential reminder of the green sash that marks Gawain’s shame; instead, they admire it as a trophy of victory and even decide to wear a similar sash, much as football fans may sport "fan gear" bearing the number of their favorite linebacker. In the discrepancy between Gawain's shame and humility and the admiration of Arthur's court, the poet indicates the vainglory of the court and signals the difference between nobility of birth and nobility of character, and foreshadows the ultimate downfall of Arthur’s realm, which is narrated in other Arthurian romances.
However, the noble lords and ladies of Arthur’s court do not recognize the penitential reminder of the green sash that marks Gawain’s shame; instead, they admire it as a trophy of victory and even decide to wear a similar sash, much as football fans may sport "fan gear" bearing the number of their favorite linebacker. In the discrepancy between Gawain's shame and humility and the admiration of Arthur's court, the poet indicates the vainglory of the court and signals the difference between nobility of birth and nobility of character, and foreshadows the ultimate downfall of Arthur’s realm, which is narrated in other Arthurian romances.
Is heroism dead?
He may be strong, but he's no Hercules |
In many ways, our contemporary
culture has much more in common with the ancient pagan worldview than the
medieval Christian one; modern folk are more likely to admire the battle rage
of Achilles or the self-serving cleverness of Odysseus than the humility of Gawain. Yet it is remarkable that, if you were
to ask ordinary people to name a defining characteristic of the
hero, most would say that a hero must be self-sacrificing. They might cite a firefighter who risks his life returning to a burning building to rescue a cat,
or a bystander who tries to save a woman from a mugger. To this extent then,
the Christian concept of the hero as one who risks his own life to save the
weak and the innocent has made a lasting impression on the modern imagination.
Unfortunately, too many popular “heroes” resemble degraded versions of Achilles
or Odysseus, excelling at one (perhaps inconsequential) thing, while presenting poor examples as human beings – professional athletes who break records in their sports but live
lives of disgusting excess and moral depravity, celebrities who shamelessly parade
their vile lifestyles before the public eye, wealthy executives who make
millions even when they destroy the businesses they run, and so on. These decadent “heroes” risk nothing but
expect to have everything, and they infect the popular imagination like a
virulent social disease.
Perhaps it is no wonder that the
study of the epic tradition continues to thrive in Christian environments – “classical”
Christian academies, homeschool curricula, Catholic liberal arts colleges, etc.
What was, for thousands of years, mainstream culture has been abandoned by the
modern world, leaving a great impoverishment of the modern moral imagination.
But this continues to thrive in what is now the Christian counter-culture, among
those who still aspire, themselves and their children, to live lives that transcend
the degraded mundane existence that is the “new normal.” Anyone depressed or
disgusted by our toxic contemporary culture, anyone who aspires to be a member
of the new moral counter-culture, could do much worse than to pick up one of
the great works of the epic literary tradition and catch a glimpse of true
heroism.
©2012 Lisa A. Nicholas
I wish I could take your class, Lisa! I haven't read Beowulf yet, but I just acquired a copy from my cloistered brother's castoffs. Maybe it's time to open it.
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Faith-based education, Carmelite spirituality.