Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. "Myriad with Difference": Alterity and Identity in Old French and Russian Epic Sara Isabella James Baltimore, MD B.A., Goucher College, 1991 M.A., New York University, 1992 A Dissertation presented to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Virginia in Candidacy for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of French University of Virginia May 1997 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DM! Number: 9738794 UMI Microform 9738794 Copyright 1997, by UMI Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. UMI 300 North Zeeb Road Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Abstract The existence of epic poetry in so many and such varied cultures indicates its importance not only as entertainment, but also as a channel of communal standards and ideals. Traditionally, studies of epic have sought to illuminate a nation's heroic models through analysis of the genre's most praiseworthy characters, usually male, Christian warriors. Yet such an approach ignores the vast number of characters in epic who do not fall into that category. These characters can be called Others, since they differentiate themselves in many ways from the hero, who is understood to be the ideal. My study seeks not only to show how many and varied the characters in epic are, but also to suggest new terms that acknowledge such diversity. Epic representation of the Other must be varied, since if the heroes generally conform to a model, then all those who do not conform must greatly outnumber the paragons. Studies of non-heroes in epic have focused on, for example, Saracens or women. It is not any one group of Others that interests me, but rather the mental phenomenon of alterity, and the range of characters who illustrate it. Yet it is this broad range that also poses considerable problems of categorization. In literary and historical studies, the term "marginal" has too often been applied to persons or groups, fictitious or real, who were excluded. Yet such a blanket term does not Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. take into account the various reasons for exclusion, and ensuing degrees of Otherness. Meanwhile, in anthropology and folklore, the terms "marginal" and "liminal" have been used interchangeably, to denote persons in a transitional stage. I have sought to redefine terms such as "marginal" and "liminal" in order to make clearer the distinctions between types of Others, whose criteria of exclusion or difference vary greatly. Each chapter thus discusses one type of Other, and proposes several representative examples for each type; however, I do not suggest that my typology is definitive. The categories I propose should be taken as proof that the epic Other cannot be stereotyped and simplified, and as an invitation to further reflection and research. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Table of Contents Introduction 1 Chapter 1: Alterity and Identity 8 Chapter 2: Liminal by Nature 3 3 Chapter 3: Liminal by Gender 65 Chapter 4: Marginals 99 Chapter 5: Transgression and Transition 131 Conclusion 192 Bibliography 196 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Introduction The epic as a genre is associated with men and their wars. From Antiquity to the songs now sung in the former Yugoslavia, epic usually deals with conflicts between different peoples, often of different religions. Sometimes the epic presents a nation's armies as victorious, sometimes as glorious in martyred defeat. Whatever the outcome of a battle commemorated in verse, one thing is certain: there are more meanings to an epic poem than the literal one. The poem's significance extends beyond the historical or mimetic. Indeed, the more obvious it is than many epic traditions are mythical or highly inventive, the likelier it is that the genre's appeal and function lie elsewhere. The potential for problems of cultural identity, in relation to another, potentially hostile culture, abound in any work dealing with conflicts between two peoples. To begin with, "Border culture includes a deep fear, the fear of being seen/caught/asked for identification" (Hicks 40) . The presence of borders, and of neighboring cultures, makes the need to identify and label even more immediate; the closer the potential enemy, the greater the need to differentiate between oneself and others. Border culture produces epic: it is common in regions that are prone to border disputes and skirmishes, as in Africa and the former Yugoslavia, which still has a rich oral epic culture. The sense of identity is Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. heightened through repetition of these oral narratives which reinforce cultural values and sense of self. It is my argument that a major function of epic is to define a culture's identity. This argument is certainly not new: critics of both Old French and Russian epic (the traditions I will study here) have dealt with the issue of exactly how these poems represent or reflect "national character" since the early nineteenth century, when epic studies first began. According to Tillyard, "What most makes the epic kind is a communal or choric quality. The epic writer must express the feelings of a large group of people living in or near his own time" (144) . What I propose to do differently is to study the same topic— how epic shows us a people constructing its collective identity— by turning the material inside out. Instead of looking to the epic heroes, and the cultural ideals they embody, I will examine epic characters who are not heroes. If the heroes of epic are valorous, loyal, noble Christian men, then all those who are cowardly, treacherous, non-noble, Saracen, or female, as well as any combination of these, are non-heroes. The hero embodies a collective cultural mentality and set of ideals, which I shall refer to as the Self. Opposed to the Self is the Other. And the Other, in supplying a constant, varied source of types such as the traitor, the pagan, the sorcerer, or the woman, also supplies a source of Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. information about what falls within or outside of cultural boundaries. The representation of alterity in epic is one of tremendous variety, since it must include so many characters. The culture producing the epic produces its own criteria of belonging, through describing its ideals and those of cultures or beings outside its borders— cultures and beings who clearly do not belong. I will group these beings, who are Other, according to different types of Otherness. This does not mean that a certain type is more "Other" than a previously mentioned type, or that the former possesses a greater degree of generic Otherness, which is stable' in definition and only changes in quantity. The very definition of Otherness changes and grows as we encounter and analyze all the different types of Other that exist in epic. These characters are too "myriad in difference" to be assigned scores on an invariable alterity scale. Each chapter will discuss the characters that I group within a certain kind of alterity: supernatural liminality; gender-based liminality; marginality; and Others who shift their status. Since each kind of alterity has its own criteria and properties, the last chapter, on the status- shifters, will assess the complexity of characters who can change the quality of their difference in such a way as to affect their belonging or exclusion. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Alterity is not simply a vague notion, but a crucial factor in epic; the variety of Otherness that I have been talking about is not simply an array of interesting characters, but a complex, highly structured system that must exist as a counterexample to the highly structured system of the collective who describes the Other. It is a language, or code, of belonging and exclusion, and the genre that uses this code in every single one of its poems is responsible for fashioning and reaffirming boundaries of inclusion and rejection. Alterity is not a static concept. It is a mental phenomenon, bound up with cultural ideas; as these ideas change, so do definitions of Otherness. The category of characters who are Other are a large group; this group grows in size and variety as a result of cultural contact. The more a culture knows, or thinks it knows, about outside cultures, the more it must create new divisions and criteria of belonging and exclusion. The variety of characters I am including in this study is tremendous: male and female, Christian and Saracen, powerful and weak, human, super-human or non-human, of all ethnicities and social classes. I will not attempt to analyze any one of these groups in great depth, since that would affect the proportion of this study, which seeks simply to demonstrate the variety of representations of alterity in epic. To study any one group at length would also reproduce Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.