The Spoils of Neo-Babylon: Widening the Lens of Empire and Re-Centering Modernity in Cleanness
0
조회
0
다운로드
0
인용
0
참고문헌
키워드
초록
Whereas some scholars argue that the medieval West saw Babylon as a cultural backwater with monstrous roots, the poet of the fourteenth-century Middle English poem Cleanness privileges the Neo-Babylonian Empire as it develops its historico-ethical agenda. Cleanness, an alliterative homily designed to promote ethical behavior by dwelling on filthy acts, is fundamentally divided into three exempla. The poet distances the third exemplum from the opening stories of the Flood and Sodom, by marking a clear transition from the misty and archaic world of Genesis to a more recognizably historical Neo-Babylonian setting for Belshazzar’s Feast. Whereas some scholars see a continuous parade of exempla equally censorious of unclean sinners, I argue that the final exemplum of the poem, by being both recognizably historical and geographically complex, makes Neo-Babylon the setting for the poem’s most salient study of human ethics. The geographical richness and historical verisimilitude that characterize the Neo-Babylon of Cleanness can also be seen by the poet’s use of a multi-ethnic Trojan War and diaspora to frame Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Cleanness-Poet’s realistic depiction of Neo-Babylonian history strikingly situates the poem’s key ethical lesson in a non-Western setting. To portray the poem’s ultimate ethical test as a choice between being like Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar, the poet makes use of the tropes of the “righteous heathen” and the “homo sacer” to transform Nebuchadnezzar into a remarkable protagonist whose suffering can instruct audiences in clean behavior.
Abstract
Whereas some scholars argue that the medieval West saw Babylon as a cultural backwater with monstrous roots, the poet of the fourteenth-century Middle English poem Cleanness privileges the Neo-Babylonian Empire as it develops its historico-ethical agenda. Cleanness, an alliterative homily designed to promote ethical behavior by dwelling on filthy acts, is fundamentally divided into three exempla. The poet distances the third exemplum from the opening stories of the Flood and Sodom, by marking a clear transition from the misty and archaic world of Genesis to a more recognizably historical Neo-Babylonian setting for Belshazzar’s Feast. Whereas some scholars see a continuous parade of exempla equally censorious of unclean sinners, I argue that the final exemplum of the poem, by being both recognizably historical and geographically complex, makes Neo-Babylon the setting for the poem’s most salient study of human ethics. The geographical richness and historical verisimilitude that characterize the Neo-Babylon of Cleanness can also be seen by the poet’s use of a multi-ethnic Trojan War and diaspora to frame Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. The Cleanness-Poet’s realistic depiction of Neo-Babylonian history strikingly situates the poem’s key ethical lesson in a non-Western setting. To portray the poem’s ultimate ethical test as a choice between being like Nebuchadnezzar or Belshazzar, the poet makes use of the tropes of the “righteous heathen” and the “homo sacer” to transform Nebuchadnezzar into a remarkable protagonist whose suffering can instruct audiences in clean behavior.
참고문헌 (38)
- Abu-Lughod, Janet L., "Before European Hegemony: The World System A.D 1250-1350" (1989), Oxford UP
- Agamben, Giorgio, "Homo Sacer: Sovereign Power and Bare Life" (1998), Stanford UP
- Andrew, Malcolm, "The Poems of the Pearl Manuscript: Pearl, Cleanness, Patience, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" (2007), U of Exeter P
- Avalos, Hector, "Nebuchadnezzar’s Affliction: New Mesopotamian Parallels for Daniel 4", Journal of Biblical Literature, 133(3), pp.497~507 (2014)
- Bahr, Arthur, "Finding the Forms of Cleanness", Studies in Philology, 110(3), pp.459~481 (2013)
- Birenbaum, Maija, "Communal Purity and Jewish ‘Filthe’ in Cleanness", Philological Quarterly, 91(3), pp.339~359 (2012)
- Briant, Pierre, "From Cyrus to Alexander: A History of the Persian Empire" (2002), Pennsylvania State UP
- Bryce, Trevor, "The Trojans and Their Neighbors" (2006), Routledge
- Coley, David, "Remembering Lot’s Wife", Lot’s Wife Remembering: Trauma, Witness, and Representation in Cleanness, 2012, pp.24(4), 342~363
- Doob, Penelope B. R., "Nebuchadnezzar’s Children: Conventions of Madness in Middle English Literature" (1974), Yale UP
- Edwards, A.S.G., "A Companion to the ‘Gawain’-Poet", pp.197~219 (1997), D.S. Brewer
- Eph‘al, Israel, "Nebuchadnezzar the Warrior: Remarks on His Military Achievements", IEJ, 53, pp.178~191 (2003)
- Fantalkin, Alexander, "In Defense of Nebuchadnezzar II the Warrior", Altorientalische Forschungen, 44(2), pp.201~208 (2017)
- Federico, Sylvia, "New Troy: Fantasies of Empire in the Late Middle Ages" (2003), U of Minnesota P
- Finch, Casey, "The Complete Works of the Pearl Poet" (1993), U of California P
- Gollancz, Israel, "Cleanness : An Alliterative Tripartite Poem on the Deluge, the Destruction of Sodom, and the Death of Belshazzar, by the Poet of ‘Pearl.’ Vol. 1. Select Early English Poems" (1921), Oxford UP
- Grady, Frank, "Representing Righteous Heathens in Late Medieval England" (2005), Palgrave Macmillan
- Hamilton, Ruth E., "Repeating Narrative and Anachrony in Cleanness", Style, 20(2), pp.182~188 (1986)
- Khanmohamadi, Shirin, "In Light of Another’s Word: European Ethnography in the Middle Ages" (2013), U of Pennsylvania P
- Lundbom, Jack, "Builders of Ancient Babylon: Nabopolassar and Nebuchadnezzar II", Interpretation, 71(2), pp.154~166 (2017)
- MacDougall, Hugh, "Racial Myth in English History: Trojans, Teutons, and Anglo-Saxons" (1982), UP of New England
- McColly, William, "Style and Structure in the Middle English Poem Cleanness", Computers and the Humanities, 21(3), pp.169~176 (1987)
- Morse, Charlotte C., "The Image of the Vessel in Cleanness", University of Toronto Quarterly, 49(3), pp.202~226 (1971)
- Michael D. Coogan, "The New Oxford Annotated Bible" (1989), Oxford UP
- Oakden, J. P., "Alliterative Poetry in Middle English: A Survey of the Traditions" (1935), Manchester UP
- Potkay, Monica Brzezinski, "Conscience and Covenant: The Sermon Structure of Cleanness", Journal of English and Germanic Philology, 89(2), pp.166~180 (1990)
- Putter, Ad, "‘Sir Gawain and the Green Knight’ and French Arthurian Romance" (1995), Clarendon Press
- Radner, Karen, "A Short History of Babylon" (2020), Bloomsbury
- Reading, Amity, "‘The Ende of Alle Kyne Flesch’: Ritual Sacrifice and Feasting in Cleanness", Exemplaria, 21(3), pp.274~295 (2009)
- Saggs, H. W. F., "Babylonians" (2000), U of California P
- Scheil, Andrew, "Babylon under Western Eyes: A Study of Allusion and Myth" (2016), U of Toronto P
- Schiff, Randy P., "Reterritorialized Ritual: Classist Violence in Yvain and Ywain and Gawain", Texas Studies in Literature and Language, 56(3), pp.227~258 (2014)
- Schiff, Randy P., "Unstable Kinship: Trojanness, Treason, and Community in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight", College Literature, 40(2), pp.81~102 (2013)
- Seymour, Michael, "Babylon", pp.170~178 (2008), Oxford UP
- Smelik, Klaas A.D., "My Servant Nebuchadnezzar: The Use of the Epithet ‘My Servant’ for the Babylonian King Nebuchadnezzar in the Book of Jeremiah", Vetus Testamentum, 64(1), pp.109~134 (2014)
- Stanbury, Sarah, "Seeing the ‘Gawain’-Poet: Description and Acts of Perception" (1991), U of Pennsylvania P
- Taylor, Jonathan, "Babylon", pp.66~73 (2008), Oxford UP
- Turville-Petre, Thorlac, "Imagining a Medieval English Nation", pp.340~346 (2003), U of Minnesota P