John P. Hermann

Last updated

John Patrick ("Pat") Hermann (born 17 April 1947) is an American academic who specializes in Old English poetry; he is an emeritus professor [1] at the University of Alabama. He is the author of Allegories of War: Language and Violence in Old English Poetry (1989), and an early proponent of the application of postmodern critical theory to Old English poetry, especially allegorical poems, to investigate the "intersection of spirituality and violence". The book was marked as a "turning-point in criticism of Old English poetry". [2] Hermann is also a well-known critic of the Greek system at the University of Alabama, described by one journal as leading a "one-man crusade...to abolish what he calls an 'apartheid greek system'". [3]

Contents

Biography

Hermann is a 1973 graduate of the University of Illinois, and became professor of Old English language and literature at the University of Alabama in 1974, where he spent his entire academic career. With his colleague John Burke he edited a volume on Geoffrey Chaucer, the proceedings of a 1977 conference held at the University of Alabama (Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry, 1981), [4] [5] [6] and he wrote a monograph on spiritual warfare in religious Old English poetry (Allegories of War: Language and Violence in Old English Poetry, 1989). A former track athlete, he was an adjunct track coach for the university. [2]

Hermann is also a well-known, longtime critic of the university's Greek system, [7] [8] which has drawn national attention for its long history of de facto segregation. [9] Hermann considers the Greek system as profiting from "taxpayer-supported segregation". [10] In 1991, he headed one of the committees charged with establishing an accreditation system for the university's fraternities and sororities; the new guidelines charged the organizations with helping to strive toward a more diverse campus, though Hermann's committee had called for stronger language: "white Greek chapters must admit black and international members and vice versa". [11] By 2001, however, The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education concluded that the guidelines had achieved nothing, and that not a single black student had ever been accepted by a white fraternity or sorority (there had been "a few white members" in black fraternities, it noted). Hermann, disappointed by what he perceived as inaction on the part of university president Andrew Sorensen, was prepared to go to court in a civil suit, and called on the university that they demand that white Greek organizations "accept a black member or be told to leave the university grounds" (the article noted that the Greek houses occupy university-owned land, which they rented for $100 per year—an annual "fair market rental value" for the real estate would add up to $600,000). [3] In 2002, he supported black student Melody Twilley in her attempt to join a white sorority (he did so in 1996 already, for two black students who in the end decided not to rush [9] ); she was twice denied and drew national attention for her efforts: "'She's bright, she's attractive, she's a member of the upper class,' Hermann says. In other words, someone whose exclusion could only be explained by race", wrote Jason Zengerle of The New Republic . [10] Twilley was rejected by all fifteen sororities she applied to, to the dismay of Dean E. Culpepper Clark; Hermann commented, "Most students here are not racist at all...but now we're going to be seen as a racial disaster area". [12]

Allegories of War

Allegories of War was Hermann's doctoral dissertation, and chapters of it were published as articles before the book was published by the University of Michigan Press in 1989. Taking the concept of psychomachia, "literature based on the premise of personified abstractions in combat", [13] as a starting point, Hermann traces the reception of the Psychomachia by Prudentius and other allegorical texts in Old English literature, examining the influence of the tradition of spiritual warfare in various religious texts. The second part of the book subverts the traditional allegoresis as a standard method in Old English studies, and investigates how "spiritual violence...is complicitous with social violence" [13] in such texts as Elene , Andreas , and Judith . Psychoanalysis and postmodern theory (including the work of Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacan) are combined to bear on literary texts and the history that produced them. In Judith, for instance, Hermann reads the decapitation of Holofernes not just as a symbolic castration but also allegorically, as Christian abnegation of the self, but also tropologically, as signifying the disciplining of especially sexual desire within a group, a notion he relates to the poem's monastic provenance. [14] Hermann's critique of "previous allegorical approaches" is still cited in Old English studies. [15]

In addition, Hermann takes aim at the reigning methods in Old English scholarship of the time, especially exegesis and the New Criticism, by examining the "sublation", his translation of the Hegelian term Aufhebung , the "subsuming of one term in a binary pair (devil/church, foreign evil/soldier of Christ) by the other in an operation that both negates and conserves the former (suppressed) concept". One of the goals of his analysis is to uncover the literal violence sublated in the poetic accounts of spiritual warfare: [16] "in Hermann's view, traditional exegetical and formalist readings have had the effect of obscuring a real (and reprehensible) commitment to violence and terror as instruments of forced cultural conversion in the early Middle Ages". [17] This critical stance was taken within the profession as evidence that "the armies of modern critical theory stand at the gates of one of the last bastions of traditional philological discourse", in a book whose "discursive content is explicitly intended to serve a larger purpose—the dismantling of an established philological tradition which rests on the ideological alliance of modern exegesis and New Criticism". [17]

The book received very mixed reviews. Joseph Harris, in a review for Speculum , was not convinced by its supposed "efforts at a high-level Marxist historical analysis" and thought its deconstructionist theme "least satisfactory". [18] Martin Irvine, in the South Atlantic Review , called it "an important contribution to current discussions of theory and method in Old English studies", to be read "profitably alongside other recent studies on Old English literature and critical practices by scholars such as Gillian Overing and Allen Frantzen". [16]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Allegory</span> Literary device

As a literary device or artistic form, an allegory is a narrative or visual representation in which a character, place, or event can be interpreted to represent a meaning with moral or political significance. Authors have used allegory throughout history in all forms of art to illustrate or convey complex ideas and concepts in ways that are comprehensible or striking to its viewers, readers, or listeners.

Philology is the study of language in oral and written historical sources. It is the intersection of textual criticism, literary criticism, history, and linguistics with strong ties to etymology. Philology is also defined as the study of literary texts and oral and written records, the establishment of their authenticity and their original form, and the determination of their meaning. A person who pursues this kind of study is known as a philologist. In older usage, especially British, philology is more general, covering comparative and historical linguistics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Courtly love</span> Medieval European literary conception of love

Courtly love was a medieval European literary conception of love that emphasized nobility and chivalry. Medieval literature is filled with examples of knights setting out on adventures and performing various deeds or services for ladies because of their "courtly love". This kind of love was originally a literary fiction created for the entertainment of the nobility, but as time passed, these ideas about love spread to popular culture and attracted a larger literate audience. In the high Middle Ages, a "game of love" developed around these ideas as a set of social practices. "Loving nobly" was considered to be an enriching and improving practice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Gower</span> English writer and poet (c.1330–1408)

John Gower was an English poet, a contemporary of William Langland and the Pearl Poet, and a personal friend of Geoffrey Chaucer. He is remembered primarily for three major works—the Mirour de l'Omme, Vox Clamantis, and Confessio Amantis—three long poems written in French, Latin, and English respectively, which are united by common moral and political themes.

<i>Roman de la Rose</i> Medieval French poem

Le Roman de la Rose is a medieval poem written in Old French and presented as an allegorical dream vision. As poetry, The Romance of the Rose is a notable instance of courtly literature, purporting to provide a "mirror of love" in which the whole art of romantic love is disclosed. Its two authors conceived it as a psychological allegory; throughout the Lover's quest, the word Rose is used both as the name of the titular lady and as an abstract symbol of female sexuality. The names of the other characters function both as personal names and as metonyms illustrating the different factors that lead to and constitute a love affair. Its long-lasting influence is evident in the number of surviving manuscripts of the work, in the many translations and imitations it inspired, and in the praise and controversy it inspired.

<i>The Romaunt of the Rose</i> First English translation of "Le Roman de la rose" By Geoffrey Chaucer

The Romaunt of the Rose is a partial translation into Middle English of the French allegorical poem, Le Roman de la Rose. Originally believed to be the work of Chaucer, the Romaunt inspired controversy among 19th-century scholars when parts of the text were found to differ in style from Chaucer's other works. Also the text was found to contain three distinct fragments of translation. Together, the fragments—A, B, and C—provide a translation of approximately one-third of Le Roman.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Francis James Child</span> American folklorist (1825–1896)

Francis James Child was an American scholar, educator, and folklorist, best known today for his collection of English and Scottish ballads now known as the Child Ballads. Child was Boylston professor of rhetoric and oratory at Harvard University, where he produced influential editions of English poetry. In 1876 he was named Harvard's first Professor of English, a position which allowed him to focus on academic research. It was during this time that he began work on the Child Ballads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Medieval literature</span> Literary works of the Middle Ages

Medieval literature is a broad subject, encompassing essentially all written works available in Europe and beyond during the Middle Ages. The literature of this time was composed of religious writings as well as secular works. Just as in modern literature, it is a complex and rich field of study, from the utterly sacred to the exuberantly profane, touching all points in between. Works of literature are often grouped by place of origin, language, and genre.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">University of Alabama</span> Public university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, US

The University of Alabama is a public research university in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, United States. Established in 1820 and opened to students in 1831, the University of Alabama is the oldest and largest of the public universities in Alabama as well as the University of Alabama System. It is classified among "R1: Doctoral Universities – Very high research activity".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ambrogio Lorenzetti</span> Italian painter (1290–1348)

Ambrogio Lorenzetti was an Italian painter of the Sienese school. He was active from approximately 1317 to 1348. He painted The Allegory of Good and Bad Government in the Sala dei Nove in Siena's Palazzo Pubblico. His elder brother was the painter Pietro Lorenzetti.

In Christian tradition, the seven heavenly virtues combine the four cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, temperance, and fortitude with the three theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Albert Stanburrough Cook</span> American philologist

Albert Stanburrough Cook was an American philologist, literary critic, and scholar of Old English. He has been called "the single most powerful American Anglo-Saxonist of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries."

Nicholas Bozon, or Nicole Bozon, was an Anglo-Norman writer and Franciscan friar who spent most of his life in the East Midlands and East Anglia. He was a prolific author in prose and verse, and composed a number of hagiographies of women saints, reworkings of fables, and allegories.

<i>Exodus</i> (poem)

Exodus is the title given to an Old English alliterative poem in the 10th century Junius manuscript. Exodus is not a paraphrase of the biblical book, but rather a re-telling of the story of the Israelites' flight from Egyptian captivity and the Crossing of the Red Sea in the manner of a "heroic epic", much like Old English poems Andreas, Judith, or even Beowulf. It is one of the densest, most allusive and complex poems in Old English, and is the focus of much critical debate.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Influence of Italian humanism on Chaucer</span>

Contact between Geoffrey Chaucer and the Italian humanists Petrarch or Boccaccio has been proposed by scholars for centuries. More recent scholarship tends to discount these earlier speculations because of lack of evidence. As Leonard Koff remarks, the story of their meeting is "a 'tydying' worthy of Chaucer himself".

Richard Firth Green is a Canadian scholar who specializes in Middle English literature. He is an Academy Professor of English (Emeritus) at Ohio State University and the author of three monographs on the social life, law, and literature of the late Middle English period.

Laura Howes is an American scholar of Middle English literature. She is the author of Chaucer's Gardens and the Language of Convention (1998) and the editor, with Marie Borroff, of the Norton Critical Edition of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (2010). Howes received her B.A. from Cornell University and her M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University, and is Professor of English at the University of Tennessee.

John Matthews Manly was an American professor of English literature and philology at the University of Chicago. Manly specialized in the study of the works of William Shakespeare and Geoffrey Chaucer. His eight-volume work, The Text of the Canterbury Tales (1940), written in collaboration with his former student Edith Rickert, has been cited as a definitive study of Chaucer's works.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Kaske</span> American medieval literature professor (1921–1989)

Robert Earl Kaske was an American professor of medieval literature. He spent most of his career at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, where he was the Avalon Foundation Professor in the Humanities, and where he founded one of the preeminent medieval studies graduate programs in North America. His published output included lengthy interpretations of Beowulf, and of poems and passages by Dante and Chaucer, and frequently constituted leading studies. Kaske particularly enjoyed solving cruxes, with articles on problematic passages in works such as Pearl, Piers Plowman, the Divine Comedy, "The Husband's Message", "The Descent into Hell", and Beowulf.

Eleanor Prescott Hammond (1866–1933) was an American scholar of English literature, particularly Chaucer studies. She was born in Worcester, Massachusetts, which she left to study at the University of Leipzig. She then studied at Oxford under Arthur Sampson Napier, earning her B.A. in 1894. She obtained a Ph.D. at the University of Chicago in 1898, then taught there in the English department before leaving to become a schoolteacher and independent scholar. She also taught at Wellesley College. She never married, and died in Boston in 1933.

References

  1. ↑ "Catalog 10: College of Arts and Sciences". University of Alabama . Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  2. 1 2 "Professor finds link in athletics, academics". Tuscaloosa News . 29 October 1989. p. D4. Retrieved 12 September 2013.
  3. 1 2 "The University of Alabama: Where Racial Segregation Remains a Way of Life". The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education . 32 (32): 22–24. 2001. doi:10.2307/2678750. JSTOR   2678750.
  4. ↑ Fyler, John M. (1986). "Rev. of Hermann and Burke, Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry". The Yearbook of English Studies . 16: 230–31. doi:10.2307/3507782. JSTOR   3507782.
  5. ↑ Fowler, David C. (1984). "Additions to the Golden Mountain: Four Recent Books on Chaucer". Modern Philology . 81 (4): 407–14. doi:10.1086/391329. JSTOR   437055. S2CID   162541296.
  6. ↑ Bishop, Ian (1984). "Rev. of Hermann and Burke, Signs and Symbols in Chaucer's Poetry". The Review of English Studies . ns 35 (139): 357–59. doi:10.1093/res/XXXV.139.357. JSTOR   515777.
  7. ↑ Reeves, Steve (7 November 2001). "Officials say racial incident wouldn't happen at UA". Tuscaloosa News . Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  8. ↑ Torbenson, Craig L. (2009). "Praising God and Maintaining Tradition: Religious Diversity within College Fraternities and Sororities". In Craig LaRon Torbenson, Gregory Parks (ed.). Brothers and Sisters: Diversity in College Fraternities and Sororities. Associated University Presse. pp. 210–36. ISBN   9780838641941.
  9. 1 2 Gose, Ben (5 December 1997). "U. of Alabama Studies Why Its Fraternities and Sororities Remain Segregated by Race". The Chronicle of Higher Education . Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  10. 1 2 Zengerle, Jason (4 February 2002). "Sorority Row". The New Republic . Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  11. ↑ "Campus Life: Alabama; Integration Is at Hand For Fraternity System". The New York Times . 25 August 1991. Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  12. ↑ Gettleman, Jeffrey (10 September 2001). "Sorority System In No Rush to Integrate". Los Angeles Times . Retrieved 16 September 2013.
  13. 1 2 Hermann, Allegories 5.
  14. ↑ Godfrey, Mary Flavia (1993). "Beowulf and Judith: Thematizing Decapitation in Old English Poetry". Texas Studies in Literature and Language . 35 (1): 1–43. JSTOR   40754998.
  15. ↑ Heckman, Christina M. (2009). "Things in Doubt: Inventio, Dialectic, and Jewish Secrets in Cynewulf's Elene". Journal of English and Germanic Philology . 108 (4): 449–80. doi:10.1353/egp.0.0072. JSTOR   20722771. S2CID   170675629.
  16. 1 2 Irvine, Martin (1991). "Rev. of Hermann, Allegories of War". South Atlantic Review . 56 (2): 127–29. doi:10.2307/3199964. JSTOR   3199964.
  17. 1 2 Boren, James L. (1992). "Rev. of Hermann, Allegories of War and Parks, Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative". Journal of English and Germanic Philology . 91 (1): 120–23. JSTOR   27710622.
  18. ↑ Harris, Joseph (1992). "Rev. of Hermann, Allegories of War". Speculum . 67 (4): 983–86. doi:10.2307/2863508. JSTOR   2863508.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.