Renovating the Blog!

I haven't written on this blog in two years.  That's a long time, but I'm excited to be back!  A lot has changed in life, so the blog is changing too.

When I first began this blog, it was for an undergraduate class assignment.  I love Renaissance literature and adaptation theory/studies, so looking at the two together was a great project.  But now, I'm hoping to expand the scope of my blog.  While I'd still like some posts to focus on adaptations (film or stage) of literary works, the main theme of this blog is going to shift to all things literature.  In addition to reviewing movie and stage adaptations, I'll be writing some book reviews and posts on various authors, genres, themes, etc.

I'm hoping you'll stick with me as we go through this blog renovation!  Stay tuned for all things literary!

Much love,

Julie Anne

Dear BBC.... Well this is Awkward

Rantings of an English Major:

Dear BBC,

I have to say... I never thought we would have this talk.  Largely, I'm a fan of your work.  In fact, I would say that with the one exception I am about to examine, I've never seen a production of yours which I didn't like. However, every so often there is some detail in a movie, major or minor, which really throws off the whole show.  And I finally found one of your productions with an irksome flaw.

In a Shakespeare film too... for shame!  I am speaking about the 1981 version of Antony and Cleopatra.  For the era, excellent filmography.  Caesar was phenomenal.  Octavia was, for her minor part, well played.  Antony displayed a good balance of joviality and soberness.  But that Cleopatra!  Come on, BBC,  you can't mess up Cleopatra!  She's like the most iconic female in pre-Christian history!

Vivien Leigh, you classy Queen of the Nile!

 Now, you may feel that you had a pretty good little Egyptian queen going on there... but I beg to differ.  Given, she  was about as over-the-top dramatic as I'd expect to see in that particular play.  But what's with the makeup and costuming?  It just killed half of the character.  Her hair was some boring mousy brown and she was wearing a far-too-Westernized dress.  She didn't look Egyptian at all.  If before watching the movie I had seen still shots of Cleopatra, Charmian (who also looked nothing like an Egyptian), and Octavia, I would have had no idea which one was which.  I think, unless I miss my mark, you should be able to tell a Roman Caesar's sister apart from an Egyptian queen.

And she looks old too.

However, I'm willing to cut you a little slack because this film is now 30 years old... but one more thing.  I'm pretty sure that even as far back as 1981, it was widely accepted that not everyone in the world had a British accent.  It's like Helen McCrory in Masterpiece Theatre's Anne Karenina: if both Scarlett Johansson and I can fake Russian accents, so can an actress as talented as McCrory.  Likewise, I'm sure you could find some way to make your Romans and Egyptians sound different than modern English speakers.

Sorry for getting on your case, just thought you should know.

Sincerely,

Julie Anne

The Middle Ages: A Little Black Humor About the Black Plague

What do you get when you combine Chaucer's sense of humor, the Black Plague, and British cinema?  Well, I'm not sure exactly what you would get, but I'm pretty sure it would come close to Monty Python & The Quest for the Holy Grail.  This movie, a personal favorite of mine, is a great example of Medieval humor and history with a Post-Modern spin.  Now, I wouldn't endorse Monty Python as the most accurate historical authority around, but it doesn't do a half-bad job of portraying some Medieval events... with the addition of a little black humor of course.

One of my favorite parts of this movie is the scene where the government official collects all the bodies of people killed by the plague.  This is particularly interesting because the plague was not explicitly spoken about by all writers.  However, plague influence can certainly be seen in the works of Chaucer, Petrarch, and others.  But I think that Monty Python does a great job of portraying much of the moral corruption that took place as a result of the plague.  The following conversation for Monty Python shows this:

 

As a result of the Black Plague, many people began to wonder what they had done wrong, why God was punishing them with all the death.  Self-mutilation became popular as a result, especially among highly religious people.  People would try to express their unworthiness to God and show their understandings of Christ's suffering by whipping and beating themselves.  People hurting themselves... how could Monty Python leave that untouched?  The answer is that they couldn't.  The monks in The Quest for the Holy Grail walk around beating themselves with boards while chanting religious texts.  Click for the self-flagellating monks:

Although I don't recommend self-flagellation, if you really have a desire to try out some Medieval practices to feel closer to the authors and characters as you read, Monty Python is happy to teach you how to become like the monks.  It's an extra on the Monty Python DVD.  If I had the video, I'd post it.  But check it out.  It's a kick!

Happy reading.

The Norton Anthology of English Literature.  Ed. Stephen Greenblatt.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.  29-100.  Print.

A Knight's Tale- Chaucer's Lost Story?

Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales have had no small showing in modern media, especially popular in mini-series form.  Chaucer probably started writing The Canterbury Tales in 1386, smack-dab in the middle of England’s High Middle Ages.  Because of Chaucer’s evident literary skill, and the extensiveness of his work at a time generally regarded as having less of a showing for great literature, Chaucer’s works have remained canonical for almost 650 years.  Despite its greatness, however, Chaucer’s Canterbury collection was never fully finished.  Only 22 of the original 120 planned stories were completed.  Nonetheless, Chaucer’s influence can be seen throughout modern pop-culture, though the poet himself is rarely shown. 

Geoffrey Chaucer

Paul Bettany playing Chaucer in A Knight’s Tale, alongside Heath Ledger, is probably one of my favorite movie characters of all time (who doesn’t love a rogue Paul Bettany?).  However, I wouldn’t put too much credit into the legitimacy of the pieces of Chaucer’s personal life depicted in the movie.  Though he does write about gambling in The Canterbury Tales, there is no proof that Chaucer was a gambler.  Nonetheless, Paul Bettany’s characterization of Chaucer definitely brings both a nice dose of comic relief as well as acknowledgement of the era’s most popular literature.  It may also help that Paul Bettany is vastly more attractive than the real Geoffrey Chaucer… just saying.

Here’s a clip from A Knight’s Tale showing Chaucer’s entrance into the movie:

The significance of The Canterbury Tales ties in here too, I promise.  I’m not writing a whole post on Paul Bettany.  Certain elements in A Knight’s Tale are highly reflective of Chaucer’s works.  Just look at the movie’s title- it looks as though it could have come straight out of The Canterbury Tales.  Who knows, maybe someone found a lost Canterbury Tales story and turned it into a movie.  Probably not, but it is a fun idea to kick around.

In addition, the characters in A Knight’s Tale are, like those in The Canterbury Tales, on a sort of pilgrimage.  William, Wat, Roland, and Kate are on their own pilgrimages back to London, a home they had left behind.  Although they aren’t on a spiritual pilgrimage, the theme does match rather nicely.  More importantly, Chaucer, acting as William’s herald in the jousting competitions, seems to indirectly narrate much of the story, as if that Chaucer were drawing inspiration from the movie to place in his Canterbury Tales.

The most evident reflection of The Canterbury Tales in A Knight’s Tale is the exchanging of stories between the pilgrims.  After all, that was the whole story line of The Canterbury Tales, a group of pilgrims introducing themselves through stories.  We see this most strongly in A Knight’s Tale when the four pilgrims exchange the stories of their pasts in order to aid William in composing a letter to his love interest, Jocelyn.  Chaucer sits quietly in the corner scribbling their contributions into letter form, almost as if writing The Canterbury Tales.

Here’s the clip of the letter being written:

Now, I’ll end with a little irony.  A knight did actually appear in Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  His story was even recorded as “The Knight’s Tale,” (sound awfully familiar, doesn’t it?).  But the ironic part is that this character was the least ideal of all of Chaucer’s character.  Although the knight was a good man, he represented what Chaucer saw as a dying age of chivalry, a man living in the past.  Yet, in A Knight’s Tale, the knights are still celebrated and honored.  So maybe Chaucer didn’t write the movie’s plot after all…

Happy Reading!

Chaucer, Geoffrey.  The Canterbury Tales.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature.  Ed. Stephen Greenblatt.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.  29-100.  Print.

Beowulf: A Hobbit's Story

It is the earliest form of English literature that we have.  Written somewhere between the eighth and tenth century A.D., Beowulf is a staggering epic about early-Christian, Germanic peoples.  Because this epic is written in Old English, which is almost unrecognizable to most readers, it has been translated into a number of more modern English dialects (Beowulf 29-30).

In plot, Beowulf may seem familiar to some.  Readers who enjoy Tolkien books, most especially The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings, will note a number of similarities between the ancient epic poem and these modern literary hits.  Some things that may appear especially familiar to readers are the presence of man-eating beasts, magical weapons, and gluttonous dragons.  These parallels are especially easy to see because Tolkien himself was a Beowulf scholar and it is widely accepted that this text influenced the author’s novel sensations.  This post will focus on the three above-listed similarities between Beowulf and Tolkien’s The Hobbit.

The first parallel that can be drawn between Beowulf and The Hobbit is the appearance of intelligent, man-eating monsters.  The beginning of the Beowulf epic describes the troubles of the Danish people as they are being violently tormented by a beast named Grendel.  Every night, Grendel attacks the guards of the city’s social center and eats a number of the men.  Grendel, and later his mother as well, are similar to the trolls in Tolkien’s The Hobbit.  The trolls capture a group of dwarves and spend the night arguing about in what way they should cook the dwarves.  As both Grendel and the trolls are intelligent beings, it is especially grotesque that they resort to such violent killing of other intelligent, human and human-like life forms.  These beings represent societal violence in the world.

The next similarity between these two works is in the form of magical weapons.  In Beowulf, two swords are used which surpass the quality of regular swords.  The first is the sword found by Beowulf in Grendel’s lair which he uses to kill the mother of Grendel.  Because of the sword’s enormous size and ancient craftsmanship, only Beowulf is strong enough to wield it effectively and therefore the only person capable of killing Grendel’s mother.  The second ancient blade mentioned in Beowulf is the sword belonging to Wiglaf, who would take Beowulf’s place after his death.  Although Wiglaf does not use his sword to slay any invincible creatures, his sword seems to instill in Wiglaf extra courage as he rallies the soldiers to Beowulf’s aid as he fights the dragon.  In Tolkien’s The Hobbit, Bilbo’s sword Sting exhibits the magical quality of glowing any time goblins are near, providing a warning for its holder.  All three swords bestowed upon their carriers a sort of advantage against their enemies.

The final, and perhaps most obvious of the parallels between Tolkien’s work and Beowulf is the appearance of a greedy dragon.  Both Beowulf’s dragon and Tolkien’s Smog are intelligent, but not human-like, and therefore do not exhibit the same sort of horrifying violence so apparent in the instances of the trolls and Grendel.  Both Beowulf’s dragon and Smog live in mountains guarding their treasure troves.  They both have a sense for the amount of treasure they have and are immediately aware of anything that has been taken by a thief.  Both dragons also seem to have a love for burning villages.  In addition, both the dragon in Beowulf and Smog bring the culminating calamities upon the characters of each story.  Finally, although Beowulf’s dragon and Smog seem invincible, both have fatal flaws which lead to their final demises.  The dragons stand-in for the theme of greed and self-indulgence of mankind.

It is apparent, through a close look at Beowulf and Tolkien’s The Hobbit that a number of themes are carried from that ancient text into our modern pop-culture.  Grendel and the trolls, the magical swords, and the two dragons are just a few examples of the similarities between these two stories.  They are ways in which ancient literature has made it into the main stream entertainment of today’s world.

Beowulf Translation:

Beowulf.  The Norton Anthology of English Literature.  Ed. Stephen Greenblatt.  New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006.  29-100.  Print.