ACADEMIC ENGLISH (33) / MANAGING A PROJECT

What associations do you have with a sea or an ocean?

Do you know any pieces of literature which deal with these motifs? What connotations do they have?

Brave sailors who sailed distant seas
In ages, crossing Neptune’s realm
Sweet treasure’s call, their minds, it pleased
Through surging waves, they took the helm.

With sextants held neath silver stars
They plied swift currents in the breeze
And sailed their ships to islands far
Past harbor lights and port cities.

For what rich treasures spurred their quests
For gold or silver, were they sent
With wanderlust that never rests
To ends of earth they gladly went.

But give me treasure that is real
The chance to write some poetry
On swirling waves, this heart will heal
And feel the freedom of the sea.

Don’t want to stay here anymore
And drown in my uncertainties
I’d rather hear the ocean’s roar
And see Gibraltar’s majesty.

And know that I shall join someday
Those ancient mariners of yore
And reach that land so far away
Elysium’s enchanted shore.

https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-freedom-of-the-sea/

The Journey as an Opportunity

The sea is full of literal and symbolic paradoxes. It can bring hope and life, but also can create fear and destruction; it is a realm of possibility and potential, but equally a place of limitation and interruption. Our thoughts regarding the sea range beyond the interpretation of the body of water itself. In fact, what the sea gives us is the freedom to project our own thoughts into and onto this immense space. The sea gives us time to think about ourselves in terms of where we have been, where we are now, and where we might be going. We can journey across the sea, or we can travel mentally, guided and reassured by its ceaseless rhythm of tides and waves in which each moment is individual, yet part of some greater cycle or scheme. The Old English kenning “hronrad,” extracted from Beowulf above, emphasizes this sense of journeying and potential as our gaze is directed away from the present moment toward the “outlying coasts” and the lands beyond.

The importance of the sea as a symbol in medieval literature is discussed in a seminal study by Sebastian Sobecki and defined as a “mythopoetic agent,” or a shifting symbol, which is used in secular, religious, and philosophical writings for a variety of purposes. 3 More generally, James Bloom has identified the imaginary sea voyage in literature as a “hybrid between outright fantasy and authentic seaman’s yarns.”4 In other words, the sea has great imaginative potential. It can allow individuals to journey to exciting far-away places (and return home safely); it also encourages a comparison between source and destination, and, as such, the journey becomes psychological and, often, didactic. This chapter will explore this hypothesis in relation to medieval romances, specifically Middle English romances. Beyond its literal function in these narratives of journeying and questing, the sea in romances also makes us acutely aware of people’s origins, where they are currently residing, and where they might (or should) be going in the future. As this chapter will argue, the sea in medieval romance is inherently connected to memory, a faculty which depends upon the creation and recollection of events, thoughts, and ideas over time. Before looking at romances themselves, it is perhaps useful to consider the connection between the sea and memory in some earlier medieval literature which, less obviously, aligns literal and mental journeys across a vast open space, for example in the Old English elegies The Wanderer and The Seafarer. The importance of the sea as a symbol in these poems has been discussed extensively, as in both works the exile is carried over the waves and far away from home.5 The speaker in The Wanderer laments that the “solitary man,” weary, “ has had to stir by hand / The ice cold sea along the waterways.”6 The exile in The Seafarer is in a similar state of distress on the waves and compares his fortune to those who continue to reside, comfortably, on land. He, in contrast, spent “winter on the ice-cold sea [. . .] hung round by icicles.”7 Although apparently going nowhere, both speakers allude to the possibilities of journeying, and this awareness points toward the subtle sense of movement that is created beneath the surface of each poem and hints at the somewhat abrupt, spiritual awakening regarding the transience of earthly materiality, the inescapability of fate, and the reward of heavenly glory after the sufferings of this life. The sea, although initially exacerbating loneliness and hardship, actually does seem to be moving the speakers along toward this eventual realization. For example, in The Seafarer, the narrator exclaims, And yet the heart’s desires Incite me now that I myself should go On towering seas among the salt waves’ play.8 The sea is a barrier to happiness, but it also creates a tempting atmosphere of potential. This space can be tamed (or even timed), and paths can be created across it in the mind. In The Seafarer, especially, these routes become visible to the speaker, just below the surface, as the poem uses a variation of the “whale road” kenning with “hwælweg” and also “flōdwegas” (“sea-paths”).9 The sea gives the speakers of these two poems the time and the opportunity to take views of their lives thus far, recollect all they have lost, and then use this knowledge to guide them toward the future. They end each poem with a greater awareness of themselves and life, in general, than they had at the start; however, the initial suffering was crucial. They needed to step beyond the temporal divides between past, present, and future, and to do this, the poets used the fluidity and opportunity of the sea journey. Memorial Movements and Romance Journeys Influential work by Mary Carruthers has emphasized the ways medieval concepts of memory were based on principles of order and division which, therefore, allowed for the effective recollection of memories easily and accurately.10 However, the medieval concept of memoria also emphasized a fluidity between past, present, and future as memories could be used to predict future events.11 Moreover, memories could be adapted to fit with current situations, so creativity was seen as an essential part of the memorial process. The sea, as a space in a romance, divides separate episodes or events and thus offers just such an invitation for memory work, connecting disparate aspects of the narrative or journey to create a unified whole. The process, and its association with journeying, can be explained best with reference to Aristotelian theories of memorial movement, that is to say, the transition of thoughts (memories) from the past to the present time. For Aristotle, memory was a receptacle for prior sensations imaginatively transformed into images and the process by which these images could be retrieved when needed. It is the re-collection from places and the subsequent remembering of the images which constitute the art of memoria. 12 Aristotle argues, “[E]xercises preserve the memory by repeated reminding.”13 This is the art of recollection itself—a sequential process moving from the present moment, backward in time, toward the appropriate memory image, and which is constantly being rehearsed throughout a life or a narrative. Aristotle defines the mental journey between images as follows: “For to recall is the internal presence of a moving potential; and this, as has been stated, must be understood in the way that the person is moved by himself and by the movements he has.”14 Movement is emphasized (“κινοῦσαν,” “κινήσεων,” “κινηθῆναι”), and the semantics range from emotional movement to actual, physical re-location. The memorial images, linked between present and past, should be sufficiently vivid or emotive to “move” the individual, while we also “move” into our memorial places from the present. Creativity also is emphasized with the secondary meaning of κινειν being “to originate, author, or create.” Aristotle advocates the use of places for these memorial images by arguing, “Now, a starting point must be taken. This is why people sometimes seem to recollect from ‘places.’”15 These places also reinforce memory’s dependence upon temporality. During the memorial journeys, we cannot fail to acknowledge the different temporal plane of the past in comparison to that of the present. Aristotle expands upon this idea to comment, “But the most important point is that one must cognise time, either with an exact measure or indeterminately.”16 A person must remain aware of the origin of the memorial image—the past which, despite resembling the context of the present, never will be totally identical with a current situation. So what do these complex Aristotelian theories of memory have to do with the sea in medieval literature and, specifically, medieval romances?

What the sea offers in romances is a sense of distance and a paradoxical compression of both distance and time. This sense is important because romances, as episodic narratives, rely on the characters’ (and the audience’s) ability to compare and contrast episodes during the course of a particular tale. The tales show people who have become distanced from their homes, their families, and even their past identities. Such distance must never be too vast, and the motif of the sea journey offers a perfect way to underline the passage of time and the sense of distance, and to compress this space to facilitate memory work. When medieval-romance characters embark on a journey, they experience life aboard the vessel in the present tense, yet they are made aware of their origins (the past) and their destinations (the future). In other words, to use Aristotle’s terminology, memories of past events are moved or carried throughout the narrative and are used to interpret and give meaning to a current situation. Moreover, in the best spirit of memorial creativity, memories can be taken into future situations and used as guides for subsequent behavior. The sea acts as a barrier and a vast space to cross, but it is an opportunity for memorial movements—time has passed, certainly, but the past never can be forgotten as it is the unforgettable and immovable starting-point of the journey. (…)

https://www.cambridgescholars.com/resources/pdfs/978-1-5275-1961-9-sample.pdf

The purpose of this project is to introduce both the idea of inner freedom characteristic for the Western culture and some interpretation of the western „Wisdom Literature“ reaching back to the Middle Ages and never losing its up-to-datedness.

It should help to gain more understanding for life principles underlying the Western civilisation, bearing in mind that the modern times deprived of traditional values and principles cause disorientation and alienation.

It should also make it clear that the Western world has its own sources of wisdom and it is not necessary to turn to other cultures to look for inspiration and help, which is also counterproductive due to the lack of compatibility with one´s own cultural identity.

It should additionally encourage to look for culturally compatible and serious wisdom literature instead of reaching for unhelpful and superficial self-help books, mental training methods , so called „positive thinking“ philosophies typical for „New Age“, spiritual techniques originating from other, often exotic and primitive cultures or esoteric trends.