MM Sept 3

Andrew T. Bretton, with notes for 9/3/10.
Following a brief quiz over comprehension and understanding of the last chapter of Beowulf, as well as the essays regarding the epic poem by Jane Chance and Thomas D. Hill, Professor Mathur led the class into a look at just how valuable argumentative essays can be as well as what influence they can hold on a reader. The first key point she made was over the merits of the essays themselves as criticisms; this point demonstrated that a strong essay makes a good point, but a stronger one does so with regard to criticisms. In a world of biased opinions, it is very important to consider that any issue has two sides, often conflicting, and that a thorough understanding of such can install great merit into one's paper. She also mentioned that it is well to consider looking for a standing community based on the analysis and arguments regarding a topic of importance, and to look at what they are generally holding to be true or false for them. She argues that they may hold many existing ideas and that a good essay can either play on these ideas, add or take away from them, and even draw connections to them. This was quite a bit of information, and as our class was soon to find out, we had only been introduced to the tip of an iceberg's worth of information regarding coming up with a thesis, strengthening it, and working it into our up-coming first paper.

After a word or two about the value of citing sources in a paper, our class moved onto the essays in which our quiz was based on to look at them in greater depth, and our class participated in contributing their own thoughts to the analysis of these argumentative works. The first essay we discussed was Jane Chance's “The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem with Grendel's Mother,” which discussed the overlooked, yet objectionable, significance of this monster in the book. In it, Ms. Chance argues that while women of that culture were supposed to be peaceful and loving, Grendel's mother inverts these values and since Grendel and the Dragon also represent such negative flaws she fits right well in the story as a personified lesson in “Christian vices.” Our classmates spoke out and pointed out the comparisons between this monster to the other women of the story, who take great pain to justify the value of harboring only love and leaving fighting to the men (which was deemed appropriate at the time), which seem to take place right before the mother's harsh and vicious actions. She was compared to the men of the story as being less strong and not as threatening in battle, but more horrifying as a surprising monster. All in all, Ms. Chance's essay proved a valuable companion to the story of Beowulf in that it reminded us to look at the mentality of the people in that time; in our day and country, women have just as many rights as men and so vengeful mothers may not be as shocking to us. For the Anglo-Saxons, this was not the case and so this character had more value than one would originally hold.

The next essay discussed was Thomas D. Hill's, “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf.” He argues that “most comparable early medieval epic texts are either...militarily Christian...or unapologetically pagan...Beowulf is neither” (197-8). Our class explored the balance of these two beliefs in the story and came to several conclusions. One student added that it must have been difficult for those people to just accept the abrupt introduction of the Christian faith over the more traditional emphasis of honor through lineage, which served to make the account of the mindsets in Beowulf to be historically questionable. Another classmate added that many medieval texts overlooked the merits of pagan history and figures, insinuating that even Christian mistakes had more of a spotlight than pagan heroes did. It was also mentioned that Christian writers would mostly resort to conveniently making a story take place after a people's conversion to Christian faith. Thus, the nature of Beowulf is unique in that it was truly a one of a kind story for its time since it, as Professor Mathur put it, “champions Christianity, while (being) receptive to the pagan culture.”

We ended the class with a note on essay structure and organization, with regards to other enhancing features. A good essay is organized, from beginning to end, with an introduction (in which the last sentence is typically the thesis itself), several paragraphs over key points, and a powerful conclusion. Professor Mathur reminded the class that such a good essay also incorporated a healthy serving of quotations, each with a clear mention of summary, analysis, and its significance to the essay at hand. Like sources, quotations reinforce your point of view and strengthen your thesis. Before leaving, we were each handed an example essay in which many flaws were evident. The point of this exercise was to summarize all the merits of good essay writing that were previously discussed, and the class took little time addressing the numerous problems of the essay, such as its lack of focus, grammatical review, and open-minded nature. After this we were free to go, with wishes to think of our own thesis topics over the weekend and be prepared for the upcoming writing workshop and thesis meetings that would come later in the week.