Before:For years—at least since John Block Friedman’s 1981 book The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought and Jeffrey J. Cohen’s debut on the scene in the early 1990s—monster theory has been overwhelmingly concerned with reading monsters as marginal figures that demarcate the cultures that create them. Freddy Krueger, Frankenstein’s monster, the Giant of Mount St Michel, the Grendelkin, or Polyphemus mark the boundaries of what is and is not possible. Perhaps more importantly, they serve as outer boundaries of what an individual can or cannot think, speak, or do. [1] In short, they have usually been read as “the primary vehicle for the representation of Otherness in the Middle Ages”; [2] in fact, on this there is a rare and surprisingly widespread consensus.
This widespread consensus, however, has made for an awkward moment in monster theory. Such agreement has left many unsure as to how we should proceed, and some have focused their attentions on other projects. Indeed, conversations with fellow members of the BABEL Working Group such as Cohen, Eileen Joy, and Karl Steel have shown that while monsters are still a source of discussion, scholarly interest in them is beginning to wane in favor of attendant issues (hybridity, sexuality, medieval concepts of the human, etc.). As many who were once heavily involved in monster theory have foreseen, academic agreement quickly becomes academic stagnation. Thus, what was once the study of characters who could petrify with fear is itself in danger of sinking into the swamp and becoming petrified by consensus.
What have not been agreed upon—or even hotly debated—are the functions of monsters as boundary figures. We may agree that as symbols of the Other they demarcate, and we may even agree (though to a lesser extent) on how they go about doing so. But to my knowledge no serious, sustained interrogation has been performed on their function as means of community-formation. Boundary figures by their very nature create an inside and outside. As the Lacanian imago immediately introduces the structural possibility of self/not self, so too does the monster introduce the structural possibility of us/them. [3] This interpretation denies any positivist model for definition, and it is the basis on which Hayden White forms his idea of “ostensive self-definition by negation.” [4] He argues that cultures are largely unable to create an overall definition of what they are and so point to a thing that they are not. Following White’s theory of how the concept of “wildness” served to define “human” or “civilized,” we may read monsters as boundary figures that aid in the creation of a culture’s (negative) definition—of defining what it is by demarcating what it is not. [5]
[1] For limits on thought, see Jeffrey J. Cohen’s “The Limits of Knowing: Monsters and the Regulation of Medieval Poplar Culture.” Medieval Folklore 3 (1994): 1-37. For limits on speech, see David Williams’ Deformed Discourse: The Function of the Monster in Mediaeval Thought and Literature. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1996. For limits on action, see John Block Friedman’s The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2000.
[2] The Use of Monsters and the Middle Ages.” SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 2 (1992): 47-69. p. 49 (Emphasis mine).
On this consensus, see also: Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror (New York: Routledge, 1990); Albrecht Classen, “Medieval Answers to the Strange World Outside: Foreigners and the Foreign as Cultural Challenges and Catalysts,” in Demons: Mediators Between This World and the Other, eds. Ruth Petzoldt and Paul Neubauer (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1998); Edward J. Ingebretsen, “Monster-Making: A Politics of Persuasion.” Journal of American Culture 21.2 (1998): 25-34; and Franco Moretti, “Dialectic of Fear,” in Signs Taken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms, trans. Susan Fischer, David Forgacs, and David Miller. (London: Verso, 1988).
[3] Lacan associates this self/Other split that occurs during the mirror stage with Freud’s Innenwelt and Umwelt. See Lacan’s “The Mirror Stage” in Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1977.
[4] Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978. pp. 151-52.
[5] US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart produced a lasting example of ostensive negative definition in 1964. Admitting that he could not define pornography, he then stated “I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that” (Jacobellis v. Ohio. 378 U.S. 184. Supreme Ct. of the US. 22 June 1964).
After:
Back in 1936, the venerable J.R.R. Tolkien urged Anglo-Saxonists to rethink their approach to Beowulf. Up to this point the poem had been considered a useful historical document and a poor poem, but Tolkien thought that—in order to understand the poem as a poem we ought to examine its monsters. They were not, as so many had previously thought, “an inexplicable blunder of taste”; instead, he argued they were “essential, fundamentally allied to the underlying ideas of the poem.” [1] And so began the genealogy of monster theory in medieval literature.Over the years the approaches and theories have changed, mostly in step with overall academic trends. In 1936 Tolkien thought study of Beowulf’s monsters would lead to an understanding of its literary merits and its generic placement. Currently, medieval monster theorists are more concerned with analyzing monsters as marginal, boundary figures. The general (but not total) shift in approach may have moved from a formalist and structuralist bent to post-structuralism and cultural criticism, but the focus of the approach has never wavered. Monsters.
Monsters—be they medieval creations like the Grendelkin or Chretien de Troyes’ Harpin, or their more contemporary brethren like Dracula or Freddy Kreuger—may be characterized by a single tenet: monsters are what they are (ontologically, functionally, culturally) because they do not play by physical or cultural rules. [2] That notion is acultural, ahistorical, but what is wholly dependent on specifics of culture and history is how monsters break these rules. Beowulf’s Grendel and Bram Stoker’s Dracula are not the same in their goals or their methods, but their transgressions still adhere to the dual categories. Grendel has glowing eyes, is as large as thirty men and has steel-like claws; Dracula is (un)dead and can turn into a bat. Grendel will not or cannot speak, is inimical to the weapons and armor so important to the humans of the poem, and creates a perverse mockery of the feast hall by making men the meal; Dracula drains the Life Force from his victims and unleashes female sexuality in a way that threatens the Victorian sensibilities of Seward, Holmwood, and Van Helsing.
Each transgression (whether it be Grendel feasting on human flesh or Dracula turning into a bat) necessarily marks a boundary, for without a line there is no crossing, no transgression. For Jeffrey Jerome Cohen—and the other medieval monster theorists who largely follow his lead—the boundary is imagined by the creator(s) of the monster. It is through their nightmares that these people and their cultures tell us about themselves. It is through their monsters that they tell us what they believe should not be possible, what they believe one should not think, speak, or do. [3] In short, monsters really do the job to which they are etymologically linked: they point out and show the line between “us” and “them,” this side and the Other side. [4] Such a function was as true for the Victorian era as it was for our era of examination, the Middle Ages. It has lead Cohen to pronounce monsters “the primary vehicle for the representation of Otherness in the Middle Ages,” a statement on which there is widespread consensus. [5]
This consensus deals with a functional analysis of monsters. Gone are the days of trying to identify Grendel or Harpin ontologically; what they actually were is of less interest than analysis of what they do in texts and the effects of those actions on a broader, extratextual scale. We may agree that as boundary figures, monsters symbolize the Other they demarcate, conjuring the specter of its existence event as they attempt to dissuade serious consideration of it. Such a reading of monsters is nothing new and relies heavily on the Lacanian theory of the imago introducing the structural possibility of the Other as a integral part of identity formation. [6] The notion that monsters work to construct what cultural critic Hayden White calls “ostensive self definition by negation” has gained traction over the years, and most monster theorists have accepted—to varying degrees—the premise that communities, largely unable to craft a positivist model, point to examples of what they are not in order to create a definition of what they are. [7] For White, examples of medieval wildmen served to define what authors meant by “civilized,” “us,” or even “human.” This theory is easily extended to monsters to explain their function in the creation of a specific community’s (negative) definition by providing didactic exempla of what is not a part of that community.
[1] “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Proceedings of the British Academy 22 (1936): 245-95. p. 261.
[2] Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. “Monster Culture (Seven Theses).” Monster Theory: Reading Culture. Ed. Jeffrey Jerome Cohen. (Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1996), 6.
[3] For limits on thought, see Jeffrey J. Cohen’s “The Limits of Knowing: Monsters and the Regulation of Medieval Poplar Culture.” Medieval Folklore 3 (1994): 1-37. For limits on speech, see David Williams’ Deformed Discourse: The Function of the Monster in Mediaeval Thought and Literature. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1996. For limits on action, see John Block Friedman’s The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art and Thought. Syracuse: Syracuse UP, 2000.
[4] The Latin monstro means to “show” or “point out” and is the root of the Modern English “demonstrate.”
[5] The Use of Monsters and the Middle Ages.” SELIM: Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature 2 (1992): 47-69. p. 49 (Emphasis mine).
On this consensus, see also: Noël Carroll, The Philosophy of Horror (New York: Routledge, 1990); Albrecht Classen, “Medieval Answers to the Strange World Outside: Foreigners and the Foreign as Cultural Challenges and Catalysts,” in Demons: Mediators Between This World and the Other, eds. Ruth Petzoldt and Paul Neubauer (Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 1998); Edward J. Ingebretsen, “Monster-Making: A Politics of Persuasion.” Journal of American Culture 21.2 (1998): 25-34; and Franco Moretti, “Dialectic of Fear,” in Signs Taken for Wonders: Essays in the Sociology of Literary Forms, trans. Susan Fischer, David Forgacs, and David Miller. (London: Verso, 1988).
[6] Lacan associates this self/Other split that occurs during the mirror stage with Freud’s Innenwelt and Umwelt. See Lacan’s “The Mirror Stage” in Ecrits: A Selection. Trans. Alan Sheridan. New York: Norton, 1977.
[7] Tropics of Discourse: Essays in Cultural Criticism. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1978. pp. 151-52.
US Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart produced a lasting example of ostensive negative definition in 1964. Admitting that he could not define pornography, he then stated “I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that” (Jacobellis v. Ohio. 378 U.S. 184. Supreme Ct. of the US. 22 June 1964).
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