Hello -- there's a pretty good Icelandic film version of *Beowulf* where Grendel is played more as a human than a monster and is called a "troll" (in the translation). Funny how the poem highlights the door and threshold that Grendel magically opens and crosses over, "like he's opening the refrigerator" as my Old English prof Nick Doane used to say.
In Mut Cantos, Faunus is something like a troll insofar as he's a wood-god associated with rivers and his violation of Cynthia's space involves that comical folksy simile on the breaking into a "dairy" house. More puck than troll however. --Tom
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From: Sidney-Spenser Discussion List [[log in to unmask]] on behalf of James C. Nohrnberg [[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, June 20, 2014 1:07 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Are there trolls in the FQ?
"The three Billy Goats Gruff seem to be missing...": but
see _Analogy of The FQ_, p. 772, on the alleged
demonization of allegorical agents:
A telling example in Spenser is Talus, who stands for
"marital law," but acts like a medieval suit of armor that
has been possessed by a demon. The figure belongs to
gothic romance, though one may also compare the robots of
science fiction, or the character known as the Incredible
Hulk, who is found in the current [ca. 1965?] Superman
comic books. Another example from the same legend in
Spenser is Pollente. Pollente stands for "power," and he
monopolizes a river-crossing; his is specifically the
power localized in that juncture of the romance topography
that we have elsewhere described by means of words like
_threshold_ and _impasse_, and the associated concept of
trespass. We might compare the limitary river-god
Scamander in the _Iliad_, since the hero wrestles with him
in the water; but Pollente and sons of Guizor are equally
kin of the folktale bridge-troll in the story of Bill Goat
Gruff. Like the bridge-troll, Pollente is a
threshold-demon.
See, in the Prose Edda's Skaldskaparmal, Old Norse vorth
nafjarthar, "guardian of the [corpse?]-fiord," as an
epithet or term for a troll, as provided by a
self-describing one.
-- Jim N.
On Fri, 20 Jun 2014 10:47:00 +0100
Penny McCarthy <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> The three Billy Goats Gruff also seem to be missing -
>but there is Grill. Penny
> On 20 Jun 2014, at 08:24, Roger Kuin wrote:
>
>> It's pleasing to see that the "Irregardless" school of
>>criticism is alive and well. It reminds me of Brigid
>>Brophy and "Fifty Works of English Literature We Can Do
>>Without". Bite-size stanza nuggets about people and the
>>sincerity of their feelings: das ist unser Spenser!
>>
>>
>> On 20 June 2014 00:04, Quitslund, Beth
>><[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>> I hope I’m not breaking a tacit consensus decision by
>>the list to ignore this, but if not then it seemed worth
>>knowing that The Faerie Queene is suffering what may well
>>be a form of academic trolling in the Chronicle of Higher
>>Education this week. Allan Metcalf, originally an
>>Anglo-Saxonist but now a dialectician, is writing a
>>series of blog posts about the poem which offer all of us
>>some advice about editing and teaching it.
>>
>>
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Beth
>>
>>
>>
>> P.S. In a possibly related note, there may be no trolls
>>in the FQ, but it is in (sort of) the movie “Troll.”
>>
>>
>>
>> OHIO UNIVERSITY
>> Department of English
>>
>>
>>
>> Beth Quitslund
>> Associate Professor & Faculty Senate Chair
>>
>> Ellis 381
>> 1 Ohio University
>> Athens OH 45701-2979
>> T: 740.593.2829
>> F: 740.593.2832
>> [log in to unmask]
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
[log in to unmask]
James Nohrnberg
Dept. of English, Bryan Hall 219
Univ. of Virginia
P.O Box 400121
Charlottesville, VA 22904-4121
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