Since the Medieval conference I went to a couple weeks ago I have been VERY slowly working through J.R.R. Tolkien's The Tolkien Reader. It is a collection of several of his essays and various works like "On Fairy Stories," "Farmer Giles of Ham," and "The Adventures of Tom Bombadil."
The first part is on The Homecoming of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's son, which is a story about the Battle of Maldon in 991 A.D. between the Danes and Beorthtnoth the Duke of Essex. The original poem oddly is telling the story of a defeat, and seems to be particularly noting the fialures of the leader, the over proud, Beorhtnoth.
Tolkien delves in the use of the word "Ofermod" in his short essay that follows his translation. At the conference I went to one of the speakers mentiond this word and its connection to the idea of being "overminded" or as he put it "overproud." I think overmindedness is supposed to lead to pride...
Tolkien notes that "Ofermod" is actually more like "high-spirit" which I think is a little more in line with "overmindedness" than "overproud"
Tolkien seems to be saying that it was this overly excessive concept of a hero -- being a hero even when it was stupid and actually hurt your men -- that was what brought the downfall of so many medieval heroes, like Beorhtnoth. A true hero was one who DID NOT put his men and country at risk for their personal search for glory. A true hero was the underling, the man with no reason to fight other than love for his lord.
No comments:
Post a Comment