Monday, June 01, 2009

TimesOnline on Beowulf

I wanted to ignore this, since it is so stupid, but e-mail is full of people upset over it. Times television critic has this to say about Beowulf and those who study it:
Most people have only read Beowulf because they were forced to under threat of being made to do manual labour for the rest of their lives, after being sent down from university. It is by convention and degree syllabus the starting block for English literature, albeit that it is written in a defunct Germanic language about a Swede who goes to Denmark. Only a few hobbity university bods can speak it, and having learnt Nordic Elvish they speak little else and share a particular accent that sounds like something from The Lord of the Rings or the Muppets. They wear odd clothes, usually involving a great deal of leather, hoodies, amulets on thongs and a lot of buckles. Beowulf should be spoken out loud — indeed, it should be bellowed, otherwise the people trying to get out of the room won’t hear it.

Now, really this is so colossally stupid I really don't know why we have to respond to it. There's no law that says you have to like Beowulf, but "a few hobbity university bods" can speak Old English? As one of the few Anglo-Saxonists I know who actually looks a little hobbity, I think I'm safe in saying that we're no more hobbity than the general population (unfortunately, to my way of thinking). And then we "speak little else?" Ummmm ... who the heck out there speaks Old English conversationally at all? Our clothes involve "a great deal of leather, hoodies, amulets on thongs and a lot of buckles?" So, basically this dude thinks that an Old English class looks just like a Ren Faire?

Folks, some things are so tremendously idiotic that it's just too tiresome to respond. Was the article supposed to be funny? I can't really tell. Ever wonder why TV is a wasteland? It's because guys like this are given the mantle of "critic" and are published.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to return to my habits of speaking Nordic Elvish while wearing my leather thong -- you know, the one with the big buckle in the front.

2 comments:

  1. Most people have only read Beowulf because they were forced to under threat of being made to do manual labour for the rest of their lives, after being sent down from university.Most people have only learned math or science for the same reason, so I guess we should toss around those stereotypes too: pocket-protectors, Buddy Holly glasses clumsily repaired with tape, bow-ties or suspenders (or both), RPN calculators, fluency in binary and hexadecimal, etc., etc. There's nothing wrong with manual labor, but neither is there anything wrong with prefering to avoid it. If being judged by dolts is the price for it, well, I can live with that. :)

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  2. The professor who taught me Beowulf looked more like Siegfried than a hobbit. My Chaucer professor, on the other hand...

    That said, I do think that among all the unnecessary snark the writer does have a point. It isn't the duty of television to advance the art of poetry. They are different media and thus need to be approached differently. One can adapt poetry to the medium, which as you have noted has yet to be done excellently for Beowulf.

    Each medium has its own limitations. Minus the snark, that doesn't sound too shocking. It also doesn't get people talking about the article.

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