In The Sea and Medieval English Literature, Sebastian Sobecki utilizes medieval romances to show how the developing English nation represents the surrounding seas and how its insularity helps construct its identity. Sobecki states that he does not pursue a strictly chronological strategy nor do the chosen pieces necessarily represent a particular genre, era, or understanding of the sea (23). With these qualifiers, Sobecki launches into an intense analysis of the sea's meaning throughout the Middle Ages.
In his first chapter, called “Traditions,” Sobecki explores foundational concepts of the sea in classical, biblical, and Anglo-Saxon literature. In the classical and biblical works he finds evidence of fear, and condemnation of the sea based on this fear, especially for any body of water other than the hospitable Mediterranean Sea. With the Anglo-Saxon texts, his scholarship is strongest in demonstrating the difficulty in establishing continuity between the pre- and postconquest traditions.
“Deserts and Forests,” Sobecki's second chapter, traces the development of the legends of Saint Brendan and of Tristan. As he labors through the versions of the tales, Sobecki seeks evidence in the Anglo-Norman texts for the peregrinus pro amore tradition in which Irish monks intentional sailed the choppy Irish Sea in unseaworthy vessels in order to prove their faith in God's providence. Sobecki finds echoes in Benedeit's version of the Brendan tale, where Brendan “urges his anxious fellow pilgrims to place their trust solely in God's spiritual navigation” (51). Yet, even so, Sobecki argues that much of the prior spiritual focus in this legend is exchanged in Benedeit's text for a heightened sense of adventure and, likewise, in Thomas of Britain's Tristan the sea becomes a locus of fickleness and bitterness rather than salvation.
In chapter 3, “Almost Beyond the World,” Sobecki aptly explores the spiritual, spatial, and temporal relevance of England as it was thought to lie at the edge of the known world. He discusses both the impact of England's extreme isolation as well as the implications of progress marching to the west, from Jerusalem to Rome and perhaps ultimately to England itself. Sobecki shows how Matthew of Paris believes that England suffers wrath from the sea due to the sins of Rome because England's liminal position on the fringes of the known world causes the inhabitants to be much closer to and more aware of God's will and punishment (93).
“Realms of Abeyance,” the fourth chapter, compares and contrasts Thomas of England's Romance d’Horn with the Middle English romance King Horn and illustrates how the sea acts as a vehicle of God's providence in the latter. He argues that the sea places Horn in a liminal position whereby he needs to conquer the sea in order to reclaim his position and title back on land. Likewise, Sobecki reads John Gower's version of Apollonius of Tyre against previous ones in order to ascertain the relative roles and powers of Neptune, the sea, and Fortune. In sorting through these overlapping forces, he finds that it is the sea itself that helps Apollonius the most.
In the fifth chapter, “Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea,” Sobecki parses the Middle English poem Patience as well as book 2 of The Book of Margery Kempe. With Patience, he explores the etymology of the whale, the abyss, and the leviathan in order to best understand Jonah's theology therein, ultimately showing that Jonah was quite mistaken to think that God could not punish him if he was at sea. In the case of Margery Kempe, Sobecki argues that Kempe replaces God with her daughter-in-law for her own peregrinus pro amore and combines the exile-by-sea and pilgrimage-by-sea styles in unique ways that echo the Brendan legend.
In his final chapter, “A Thousand Furlongs of Sea,” Sobecki illustrates the development in the legal tradition pertaining to ownership of the sea, showing the gradual shift in thought and in the law concerning who has the ability to claim the sea and why. Referring to the work of the glossators at the University of Bologna, Sobecki provides a rationale in his examination of The Libelle of Englyshe Polycye for how the merchants could claim the English Channel.
In the epilogue, he tries to show how all the various traditions of the sea come together in Shakespeare's The Tempest. Sobecki claims that Shakespeare moves the discourse in a new direction that entails the developing sense of Englishness as tied to freedom, insularity, and the sea and its role in defeating the Spanish Armada in 1588 (165). However, this brief chapter hardly serves to make sense of all of the various threads of his book and actually raises more questions than it answers. Indeed, my one criticism of his work is that, at times, “you can’t see the forest for the trees” because Sobecki is so enmeshed in the details of certain tales that the reader isn’t always aware of what his minute scrutiny has to do with the overall trajectory of the work. Sobecki clearly feels at home in the high and late medieval romances, and, these quibbles aside, he nonetheless provides a valuable perspective as to how the sea resonates throughout these texts.
