Author: Meaghan Mullins

Imagine you’re a knight living in 16th century the British Isles. Lots of ale and mead, shiny armor and sword, and a cushy noble status that provides you with great respect from all those around you. Sounds pretty good, right? Well aside from the fact that you would be drinking alcohol out of necessity for lack of clean drinking water, that status was earned through life-long training followed by long campaigns filled with periods of hunger and exhaustion. That armor is starting to look a little heavy, isn’t it? But all that aside, one of the most important things you need to understand about being a knight is what chivalry means in medieval society. And no, it’s not just jousting and helping young maidens across large puddles to avoid getting their skirts wet. Chivalry wasn’t just a thing you acted out, it was a principle you had to immerse yourself in, an ideal you had to gain through experiences, through trials, and tribulations. This idea of chivalry is what allows us to understand the genre of medieval romances.

One such romance is The Squire of Low Degree. With this piece, as with many others of the era, it might be easy for modern readers to fall into the trap of analyzing the protagonist with on our modern notions of what chivalry was in medieval England, which if we are being honest are mostly informed by Hollywood movies, bedtime stories, and the like. The idea of chivalry was necessary in a time where instability and death ran rampant. It held people to a greater standard, especially with regard to the power (both physically and societally) that these men held. In Phillip M. Taylor’s book, Munitions of the Mind, he quotes historian Johan Huizinga in saying that chivalry was “‘the strongest of all the ethical conceptions which dominated the mind and heart’ of late medieval man”(Taylor, 67). In short, chivalry was something that these knights developed over a lifetime of experiences. This is possibly why medieval romances focus so heavily on the epic-style narrative which sees the main character going through unexpected trials which shape his character and evolve him into the hero that deserves a happy ending.

While The Squire of Low Degree is shorter than many epic-style poems of the time and therefore does not have the classic romantic structure wherein the plot contains “side-quests” with multiple villains, which allow the protagonist to strengthen their moral principles, in addition to the main quest aka the goal of the knight in shining armor to slay the dragon and marry the princess if you will. However, the squire as well as the princess in the story must go through a similarly long journey in order to find their happily ever after. They must both endure time apart (seven years to be precise) and dangerous betrayals. The squire is betrayed multiple times by the steward who tries to spoil his romance with the princess by reporting it to the king and again when he physically attacks him. The princess is betrayed by her father in a sense as he makes her believe that the squire is dead for those seven years. Honestly, if I had been mourning over the wrong dead body and keeping it in my bedroom for seven years and my own father never told me, I might be shocked enough to faint, too! All in all, we see from this poem and from others of its kind, that chivalry was a party of medieval life that allowed society to function in a time of plagues and starvation.

Citations:

Philip M. Taylor. “The Chivalric Code.” Munitions of the Mind, Manchester University Press, 2013, p. 67–72.

This poem is a classic example of a chivalric romance from the Medieval era. A man aspires to become worthy of the object of the princess he loves, however, what sets this apart from a child’s bedtime story is the social, emotional, and personal obstacles that the protagonist must overcome. As is common with Medieval romances, the white knight figure must prove himself, but what modern audiences often fail to recognize, is not that the protagonist must prove their Wirth in order to deserve love, what they are actually being asked to do, is to begin a journey of self-discovery and personal development. The narrative style dictates, that the protagonist must change in some way either. From a modern perspective, it may seem as if this plot is superficial and that it is wrong for a man to have to prove himself rather than being loved for who he is, but that is not the medieval perspective as the goal of the heroic journey is not to gain affection, but conversely to discover oneself in the process of encountering strange and challenging things.

Another aspect of this poem that is hard to overlook is the presence of the natural world in the poem. The poet goes on and on about the garden that the squire retires to when he is feeling sad about his position and inability to be with his love. In this way, nature is treated as a respite. However, it is not just a garden, it is an escape from the pressures of society. The garden is a place where each bird, whether a “swalowe”, “larke”, or “sparowe”, contributes to the ambiance (bird song) and each tree, whether a “cyresse”, “sykamoure”, or “fygge-tre”, contributes to the visual beauty of the overall atmosphere (Copeland). If we compare this garden to the outside world we see how in nature, but not in the strict hierarchical society of medieval England, each creature under the sun has something valuable to contribute, even if they are not the same and equal.
something to contribute. This then represents the theme that runs throughout the poem that a virtuous person, despite a lack of funds or noble status, can achieve their goals. The story then becomes less about deserving good things, but that chivalric actions and mindsets will win out over villainy (even when that villain is richer and has a higher position in society).

“The Squire of Low Degree.” Edited by Eric Cooper and William Copeland, Robbins Library Digital Projects, University of Rochester, 2005, d.lib.rochester.edu/teams/text/kooper-sentimental-and-humorous-romances-squire-of-low-degree.

The Medieval Romance, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, was published in the 14th century. Over six hundred years later, the film The Green Knight starring Dev Patel was released in 2021.
The movie has many differences in plot and tone. Not only does it add characters and extra storylines, it even changes the ending.
In the original text, the setting is told as a merry celebration in King Arthur’s court in Camelot. Arthur himself is described as so merry he was almost like a child. Guinevere is described in a similarly cheerful manner, as beautiful and finely dressed. While the movie still begins in Camelot, the colors and dull and cold, and Arthur, as well as Guinevere, look tired and old. Additionally, there is an added introductory scene that introduces Gawain instead of having him enter the story after the other nobles. We also see eerie scenes of Gawain’s mother practicing pagan ceremonies with her daughters in conjunction with the arrival of the Green Knight (in the original text, this is performed by Gawain’s aunt).
As the plot continues forwards, the catalyst of the plot remains the same: a Green Knight enters the court (although in the film he is literally made of green flora, and the sounds of his movements are replaced by the sounds of trees creaking and branches snapping) and challenges the boldest knight in the company to a game wherein the knight may strike a blow against the green figure and in one year’s time, that knight must find the Green Knight to be dealt a blow of equal strength and placement on their body. And as in the original tale, Gawain volunteers to play the mysterious knight’s game, severing the Green Knight’s head completely from his body, whereupon the Green Knight picks up his head, unharmed, and reminds Gawain of the deal before leaving while cackling.
However, things diverge from the original text when a year passes and Gawain must travel to meet the Green Knight. The film adds in one or two more quests that Gawain must go through before finding the Green Knight. Only the last is mentioned in the book, wherein Gawain stays with a man in his castle and receives food in exchange for anything he is able to receive in the manor. However, in the original text, it is revealed that the Green Knight is the same man who took him in, but he was made to look like the Green Knight by Morgan le Faye in order to trick the entire court at Camelot. The Green knight feigns two blows, but Gawain is eventually given a nick on his neck and sent on his way instead of having his head cut off. Even though he feels shame, he still returns to Camelot and his fellow knights support him. However, in the film adaptation, Gawain meets with the Green Knight and he is the one who flinches twice before accepting his fate. Before his death, he sees what could be if he runs away from the ax he faces. However, he decides that he is finally ready to die. Then the Green Knight congratulates him and tells him that he is an honorable knight. Then the Green Knight raises his ax and aims for Gawain’s neck. But then the screen cuts to black as we hear the sound of the ax landing and this ends the film without confirming or denying whether Gawain lived or died.
The themes of honor that pervade the original text are present in the film adaptation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, but the 2021 version has a twist to its view of honor. Gawain is constantly questioning himself in this version and is far from the knight in shining armor that the original Sir Gawain was. This Gawain sleeps with prostitutes, runs from danger, and can be selfish to the point of ruining other people’s lives. Thus, it makes sense that these two versions of the same character have two different endings. Even with these different endings, these films both contain commentary on aspects of their contemporary societies. So, despite all these changes, I still believe that the 2021 film encompasses the style and structure of English Medieval romances quite well as the knightly protagonist struggles through trials of the mind and body to achieve some form of understanding or growth.

“Sir Gawain and the Green Knight – York University.” Translated by W.A. Neilson, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, York University, 1999, www.yorku.ca/inpar/sggk_neilson.pdf.

The Green Knight. Directed by David Lowery, Ley Line Entertainment, Bron Creative, Wild Atlantic Pictures, Sailor Bear, 2021.

Slavery by definition entails that the self unwillingly belongs to someone else. Toni Morrison demonstrates how that lack of ownership over one’s self impacts the psyche of more than just those who experienced it. Throughout her novel Beloved, Morrison weaves the traumatic disruption that slavery causes into the thoughts of her characters. She uses the way in which they long for belonging and possession of other things to display the initial and inherited trauma of slavery.
In the first third of Beloved, we learn about the complicated relationship between the characters and the past life that the older generation experienced at the Sweet Home plantation. When Paul D first arrives at 124, Sethe is thrown back in time to Sweet Home in Kentucky. Instead of remembering the plantation for what it was, a horrific institution of human captivity, she remembers it with a sense of nostalgia and beauty. She admits that “although there was not a leaf on that farm that did not make her want to scream, it rolled itself out before her in shameless beauty”(Morrison, 7). Trauma develops when the brain is unable to release the feelings of fear associated with an event. Thus, every time the brain recalls the memory, it assumes the same mode of fear and sends the body into a state of fear. Rather than put herself through those emotions again, Sethe’s brain has been so scared that it will not allow her to return to that mindset, rather it creates a filter over her memories so that they do not register as those same ones that scar so much of her life.

Neither Sethe nor Paul D belonged to themselves when they were at Sweet Home, so they are forever searching for a feeling of belonging. This is why they are so eager to have sex when they interact for the first time in years. They want to belong to one another in the biblical sense because they were robbed of belonging to themselves for so long. However, it is not just those who lived on the Sweet Home plantation who struggle to belong and to own in a world that has owned them. Denver never lived on the Sweet Home plantation, and yet she is caught in the life that resulted from it. She is haunted by ghosts in the literal and figurative sense. Because all those around her did not belong to themselves, they do not belong to her and she has developed a need for what she lacks. When her mother and Paul D reunite, she instantly feels distant from them because “they were a twosome, saying ‘Your daddy’ and ‘Sweet Home’ in a way that made it clear both belonged to them and not to her” (Morrison, 15). Then later when Beloved appears at 124, Denver feels a “love and breakneck possessiveness that charged her” (Morrison, 64). When someone knew and without a past interacts with Denver, she jumps on the opportunity to fill that void of belonging and to possess her. All of these possessions slowly turn bitter, as Paul D continues to remind Sethe of her enslavement and as Denver starts to question Beloved for possibly choking her mother. These possessions are not enough to replace the bitterness of their enslaved past which still haunts them all.

There are so many ways we can play with the idea of wind through language – can comment on the state of life with the phrase “winds of change” or we can set the tone of an entire work of literature by telling our readers that it was “a dark and stormy night” where winds blew the roofs off houses. There is literary fun to be had with the idea of wind because it is tangible and powerful, yet ever-changing and invisible. These characteristics of wind can then be applied to what they represent such as the overwhelming experience of love or the inevitable promise of death. In my reading of the Michael Fields collection of poems Underneath the Bough, I observed how the authors play with the motif of wind or air in many different circumstances to convey concepts that are also above human control but have a great effect on life.

I think that this interest in the air as a concept can be seen in Michael Feilds’ interest in higher powers and how we are ruled by them or how we interact with them. This is especially apparent in their fascination with the Greek Gods of old, especially with Zeus as he was king of the gods and the god of thunder (you can’t have a thunderstorm without the winds that push the cloud formations). Whenever “wind” is named, it is a force that moves others, not the force that is controlled by anyone. For example in A girl on page 51, there is a single line pertaining to “wind” which may seem insignificant “Like aspen-leaflets trembling in the wind” (Fields 51). Then again on page 53 when the wind “takes the crest of my waves resurgent”(Fields 53). This is not just flowery imagery meant to transport you to lovely settings, it connects these poems to the whole of the collection through its attitude towards wind and how it has power over everything.

I was intrigued by the poem on page 51, There comes a change in her breath because it does not speak of powerful winds which chill the bones or knock down trees, but of one person’s breath and how it represents their being. In the greater context of this wind motif, this describes how the wind within ourselves, our breath, acts as our own power which is only a small part of the higher power of worldly winds. As they write in this poem “Her life! Her breath!” as if to say that they are one and the same. Air is a force that makes flowers’ “petals backward curled” and on which “fragrance” is carried (Field 52, 54). Much like love and life, it can be cruel and kind. There are many other poems in this series such as Daybreak and A valley of oak-trees that deal with air and what it carries, both healing and trauma, so its presence cannot be ignored in this series nor the significance of its power. Wind and air in their many forms are used to convey large ideas because they are just as large, but perhaps better understood by all humans who live on this earth.

“Love’s wings are wonderous swift/When hanging feathers lift./Why hath Love wings,/Great pinions strong of curve?/His wild desires to serve;/To swoop on the prey,/And bear it away,/Love hath wings.”(12)

This stanza from page 12 of Beneath the Bough hooked me into the rest of the poem. The personification of Love and its possession of wings conveys the complex nature of love instead of perfect, idealized love. Love having wings might draw to mind images of blissful couples or Cupid (or Eros as they refer to him throughout the book) flying around shooting love arrows. This initial idea concludes that love only brings joy, but Michael Field (aka Bradley and Cooper) uses that personification to explore the other side of love as well. Field develops a fuller view of the emotions of love and their implications for lovers.

If Love’s wings are “wonderous swift,” it can easily overtake anyone who tries to escape it (12). This conjures up images of Love attacking helpless targets. In this case, lovers have no control and Love is far more dangerous. When Field describes Love as a bird of prey, with its mighty wings that are “strong of curve,” it once again shifts the view of Love as a wonderful feeling that people can experience to an overwhelming force that you cannot escape or be free of by choice (12).

The line “his wild desires to serve” is particularly interesting to me because it goes a step further from taking agency away from those who love possesses and takes agency away from Love itself — he is slave to his own desires (12). This version of love starts to sound increasingly more like brainwashing and imprisonment and less like passion and commitment. As love “swoops” down and snatches up its victims, it takes them “away” (12). Like an eagle that swoops down to catch a mouse, the intent is clear: the prey will be taken away from life i.e., itself. It then follows that the state of love takes a person away from themselves. They are so captivated by what they feel that they are pulled from their own being. Field turns an idiom about love on its head with these contrasting descriptions and defies common conceptions of love.

This first stanza sets the tone for the rest of the page. Essentially, after the first stanza, you know that winged Love is not what it seems. Love may lift you above the clouds, but it might also drop you to your death. The rest of the verse shows that these aspects of love affect everyone indiscriminately which speaks to the nature of the poem overall. There is no line that says, “I loved Jack, but he broke my heart.” Instead, Love lifts the “forlorn”, but it is quick to “scorn” them as well (12). It takes away the personal details to explore the personal experience that is so uniquely human. The ups and downs of love affect us all, even if it may seem different for each. In my readings, I observed that the dynamic, multifaceted descriptions of Love in this poem contribute to that message.