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BeowuLF

Beowulf
The Poem
and Its Tradition

JOHN D. NILES

HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS


Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
1983
Copyright © 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the


Andrew W . Mellon Foundation

This book is printed on acid-free paper, and its binding materials


have been chosen for strength and durability.

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data


Niles, John D.
Beowulf: the poem and its tradition.
Includes index.
I. Beowulf. 2. Oral tradition. 3. Anglo-Saxon
literature—History and criticism. 4. Anglo-Saxons.
I. Title.
PR1585.N54 1983 829'.3 83-4308
I S B N 0-674-06725-8
PREFACE

T H I S BOOK DEVELOPS a view of the first great work of English litera-


ture as a poem whose methods are grounded in an oral tradition,
whose style is formal and nonrepresentational, and whose values re-
flect those of the Anglo-Saxon aristocrats who patronized songs of this
kind.
In Part I, I discuss the poem's oral, traditional background, chiefly
in a chapter on the art of the early Germanic singers; in Part II, its
formal artistry; and in Part III, its aristocratic and community-
oriented values. Looking at Beowulf this way can be likened to three
ways of looking at a blackbird: (i) in its landscape, of wide horizons;
(2) under a lens, with attention to its fine anatomy; and (3) as a living
thing, with a potential for song, and unlike anything else.
The impression I have gained from reading other studies of Beowulf
is that their authors have sometimes been swayed by a consensus of
earlier authors who have also simply repeated what had been said by
persons of authority. My strong feeling is that less is known about the
conditions of composition of much Old English poetry than is some-
times thought. The question of dating is a case in point. The question
of the possible relation of extant texts to Anglo-Saxon oral tradition is
another. In the first part of this book I have tried to take nothing for
granted. T o a large degree, the history of Old English literature re-
mains to be written. Several of my views about the context of Beowulf
will therefore appear heretical, but only because an opposing ortho-
doxy has grown great from rather slight beginnings.
In Part II, I have tried to read the poem from the inside out, by ex-
amining the inner mechanisms by which it operates. I view the poem's
diction, structure, and style as parts of a finely wrought aesthetic sys-
tem that developed largely from the Germanic milieu in which the
poem's verse-making tradition arose.
In the last chapters I have used both contextual and textual ap-
proaches, added to common sense, to try to resolve a number of inter-
pretive issues. In general I have read the poem as a culturally central
ν
vi PREFACE
work that expresses an entire vision of life, in both its material and
spiritual aspects. In my view, the poem affirms without irony the value
of heroic action in a world in which even heroes must die.
Guiding me throughout has been my conception of Beowulf as not a
text, in any primary sense, but a performance shared among members
of a community. Rather than explain the poem on the basis of what is
least clear or is not expressed (for example, putative allusions or alle-
gories) I have tried to account for it on the basis of what it expresses
most clearly and emphatically.
In the first seven chapters I have embedded my points within a rela-
tively fine mesh of bibliographical citations. Because much of the re-
mainder of the book presents subjective judgments, there seemed to
be little point in citing every relevant opinion that others have ex-
pressed. Still, I have tried to indicate my indebtedness to authors who
have opened my eyes to new perceptions or who have provoked me to
justify my differing views.
Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Beowulf are from the
third edition by Frederick Klaeber, minus the diacritics and parenthe-
ses; quotations from other Old English poetic texts are from the
Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (ASPR); and translations are my own. In
rendering the names of historical persons I have adopted Dorothy
Whitelock's spellings in volume 1 of English Historical Documents; in
rendering most personal names from the poetry, however, I have
transliterated directly from the Old English.
My writing of this book was facilitated by summer grants from the
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Southeastern Insti-
tute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, as well as by several timely
grants awarded by the Regents of the University of California, Berke-
ley. I am grateful for this very helpful support. More specific assis-
tance, whether in the form of encouragement or of criticism, was pro-
vided by friends and colleagues who read the typescript at one or
another stage of its composition. Among these I am particularly in-
debted to Theodore Andersson, Robert P. Creed, Donald K. Fry,
Margaretta Fulton, and Alain Renoir. I should also like to thank the
members of my Beowulf classes at Berkeley and at Brandeis University
for allowing me to try out many of my ideas on them and for offering
fresh ideas in return. The illustrations from MS. Cotton Tiberius B.v.
are reproduced by kind permission of the British Library.
CONTENTS

(I) C O N T E X T

1. T h e Marvelous 3
2. The Art of the Germanic Scop 31
3. Latin Christian Letters 66
4. T h e Danes and the Date 96

(II) STYLE AND STRUCTURE


5. Formula and Formulaic System 121
6. Compound Diction 138
7. Ring Composition 152
8. Barbaric Style 163

(III) I N T E R P R E T A T I O N
9. T h e Dimension of Time 179
10. T h e Narrator's Voice 197
11. T h e Listening Audience 205
12. Reciprocity 213
13. T h e Controlling Theme 224
14. T h e Fatal Contradiction 235
Afterword
T h e Excellence of Beowulf 248
Abbreviations 257
Notes 261
Index 307
ILLUSTRATIONS
(From the British Library MS. Cotton Tiberius B.v)

Monster at hell's mouth. Folio 87b. Frontispiece


Cannibalistic giant. Detail of folio 81b. Page 1
Cannibalistic woman. Detail of folio 85a. Page 119
Intertwined dragons. Detail of folio 82b. Page 177
The Seafarers

The sea subsides, its gray waves still breaking.


The men give thanks for their deliverance,
then wade ashore. Their helmets catch the sun
and cast off flakes of light. The path guides them,
their shirts make iron music as they walk.

Someone scurries to kindle a blaze. A door


swings wide, and voices welcome the strangers in.
Glittering gifts change hands. There is a clink
of cups, a rattle of benches by the hearth.

An old man stands. Notes fall from his polished lyre.


"Hwœt! We have heard . . ." Heads turn. His fingers rest,
then do a stately dance among the strings.

As the men hear, they make the song their own.


Night falls unwatched. For hours they listen, heads
erect, the pain and sorrow in their wake
now nothing, nothing the sea they still must cross.
ι. THE MARVELOUS

I N its essentials Beowulf is a wondertale, a Zaubermärchen set in


early heroic dress. When we read it today, we soon find that it
resists approach by the kinds of expectations that readers have learned
to make of naturalistic fiction, the kind of fiction that features people
rather like ourselves engaged in pursuits that remind us of our own.
The marvelous is at the heart of Beowulf, as it is at the heart of the
Odyssey or any fairy tale. It is part of the landscape of the tale, like the
fire that rises from the water of Grendel's mere. Our minds do not
rebel when we encounter it, whether we see the hero tear the arm
from a cannibalistic creature of superhuman strength, or reach behind
him to pluck up a sword that was made by giants before the Flood, or
lose his life in combat with a flying fire-breathing dragon. These
things are to be expected. They arouse our sense of wonder but not
our surprise or disbelief. Without them we would feel cheated, as if we
were told the tale of "Sleeping Beauty" with no magic kiss.
And yet, unlike the magic of the fairy tale, the magic of Beowulf is
bound securely to the ordinary world. The setting of the main part of
the poem is no make-believe landscape where anything goes. It is the
court of a historical Scandinavian king whose name would have been
familiar to all members of the poet's audience. When the plot turns
from Denmark to the land of the Geats, the geographical locale blurs
slightly, but we are still situated in the real world in a part of what is
now southern Sweden. The lands of the Frisians, the Danes, the
Geats, the Swedes, and the other tribes that figure in the poem can all
be located, more or less accurately, on a map. Unlike Odysseus,
Beowulf never sets sail into the unknown. No storm falls like night to
cut him off from all known bearings until he emerges in a landscape
inhabited by giants, one-eyed monsters, witches, hundred-headed
hydras, and the dead. Rather, it is the unknown that comes to him: not
all forms of the unknown, thronging about him like the phantoms of
nightmare, but selected flesh-and-blood creatures of singular terror

3
4 CONTEXT
and potency. Without these creatures—without the monsters—we
would have a setting but no story. Our poem would still be a treasure
house of antiquarian interest but no longer the compelling tale of won-
der that it is.
Wise readers have never rebelled against the marvelous in Beowulf,
although in earlier years an undertone of grumbling could be heard
about the prominence that the poet chose to give it. Forty-five years
ago, when J. R. R. Tolkien admitted Beowulf fully into the ranks of
English literature with his eloquent address to the British Academy,1
he took the monsters as his main point of reference. By respecting the
marvelous in Beowulf rather than excusing it or wishing it away, he
succeeded better than anyone before him in discovering the source of
the excellence of this excellent work. He liked the monsters. He re-
sponded to their sheer physical presence, much as generations of read-
ers have responded with a fascinated shudder to Mary Shelley's Frank-
enstein or Robert Louis Stevenson's fable of Mr. Hyde. Tolkien was a
poet. The monsters fit into his concept of what constitutes a legitimate
subject of inquiry by the human brain. He was aware that there are
things about which the human brain will speculate, regardless of
whether or not mature adults approve of the activity.
Since Tolkien's address, the monsters of Beowulf have come into
their own. As one scholar has written in a review of recent criticism,
"there has been something like a core of general agreement that the
monsters are at the center of the action precisely because their univer-
sality of meaning transcends what could be expressed through specific
human antagonists." 2 Unlike such human antagonists as Ingeld, Finn,
Dseghrefn, and OngenJjeow, the monstrous antagonists of Beowulf are
bound to no particular time or place. They are as real or as unreal
today as they were a thousand years ago. Their names may change,
but their forms do not disappear from our consciousness, however
much we may wish them away. We may even admire them a little, as
if their terrifying potency were something with which we needed to
keep in touch as we go about the affairs of daily life.
Not all readers share this core of agreement about the place of the
marvelous in Beowulf, of course. A note of discontent with the easy
acceptance of wonders has been sounded in several recent studies that
attempt to account in realistic terms for certain apparently marvelous
features of the action. We are told that after the death of Hygelac, for
example, Beowulf did not swim back home from the Rhineland carry-
THE MARVELOUS 5
3
ing thirty suits of armor. He rowed back in a boat. His contest with
Breca was likewise not a swimming match but a rowing match.4 In the
hero's most astonishing adventure, similarly, he did not descend
through the waters of Grendel's mere for "a good part of the day"
(hwil dceges), as has been thought. He simply descended "at day-
break." 5
Any of these interpretations may be right. I rather suspect that they
are not right, and that the first two are based on an overly literal read-
ing of the poet's flamboyant metaphors for the act of swimming, while
the third hinges on the faith that because the Old English word
dœghwil means "daybreak," which it does, the expression hwil dœges
also means "daybreak," which it may or may not do. But apart from
any such philological niceties, something is dubious about the attitude
that seems to motivate these studies; and even if the specific studies are
right, I would like to speak against the general attitude.
The marvelous in Beowulf is not something to be embarrassed
about. We do not need to explain it away whenever the parameters of
the language will permit us to do so. In any event, it cannot be ex-
plained away. Take away the hero's long descent through the waters
of Grendel's mere and we are still faced with the problem of account-
ing for his later ascent through the same waters, an ascent that he ac-
complishes swimming, clothed in full armor, carrying Unferth's
sword, the hilt of a second gigantic sword, and Grendel's head. Later
we are told that only with difficulty could Beowulf's companions lift up
the head alone, and four of them were needed to carry it to Hrothgar's
court (iÓ34b-39). This is scarcely the mode of realism. The question
"Did Beowulf's descent take a long or a short time?" fades into insig-
nificance beside the question "What are we to make of the presence of
such marvelous events in the narrative?"
The marvelous events, the historical setting—these are the two
chief elements that combine to make up Beowulf, and the poem de-
rives its special power from their adroit blending. Each of these ele-
ments is handled superbly on its own, yet on its own, neither would
raise the poem to a level of excellence attained by the Gilgamesh epic,
the Odyssey, or other great monuments of the world's early literature.
Like the stories of Gilgamesh and Odysseus, Beowulf is a serious and
dignified work that contains enough fabulous adventures to make its
dignity appealing. If not for these adventures, the dignified setting
might soon appear pompous and would likely lose our interest. If not for
6 CONTEXT
the dignified setting, the adventures would only entertain and would not
lift us to a knowledge of how the hero's actions express a code of conduct
that helps to hold human society together.

^ Let us look then more closely at the marvelous creatures of


Beowulf and their relation to the real-life world in which they live and
move.
From the outset we should make one distinction. The basic plot of
the first part of the poem may be the heroic equivalent of an interna-
tionally known wondertale,6 but the monsters who provide the driving
force for this plot have more to do with the dark, frightening world of
the legend than with the sunnier landscape of the fairy tale.7
In the Märchen, or fairy tale (better called the wondertale because it
seldom includes fairies), malevolent creatures of the otherworld seem
to exist for the sole purpose of being vanquished by the hero. The evil
giant, troll, dragon, or witch of the wondertale poses the hero no real
threat. No psychological or spiritual sense of "otherness" separates
such creatures from the king, queen, friendly woodsman, or jealous
brother of the world of ordinary relationships, and the hero meets
them without a trace of surprise. He outwits, outruns, or dispatches
them with no more difficulty than he has climbed a crystal mountain,
or entered the underworld, or accomplished whatever preliminary task
is required before he may meet his adversary face to face. As he does
so, he arouses our delight, not our fear. There is nothing truly terrify-
ing about the Märchenwelt, for we know that ultimately its creatures
of evil are powerless. They live in a once-upon-a-time of pure imagina-
tion. Their home is east of the sun and west of the moon. Sooner or
later—it is only a matter of time—they will fulfill their destiny as pris-
oners of a structural scheme that leads inexorably to the ending of
"happily ever after."
In the Sage, or legend, all is otherwise. The ghosts, revenants,
witches, devils, giants, misshapen monsters, and other misbegotten
creatures that inhabit the Sagewelt touch our lives with the terror of
the truly unknown. They are real, these creatures, and their demands
are not to be resisted. Their occasional unexpected visitations among
human beings, usually by night or in some shadowy region to which
we seldom dare venture, remind us that coexisting with the world of
ordinary reality is a half-perceived "other" reality of chilling power.
Their appearance among us raises a shudder of recognition, as if our
THE MARVELOUS 7
darker dreams were being brought to light. Such creatures are some-
times vanquished, but often not. Vanquishing them is not the point of
the legend. Many legends are content to do no more than call atten-
tion to the existence of these creatures of other-than-human power. A
man, woman, or child catches a glimpse of one of them and shudders,
and that is that. Sometimes the ending is more gruesome, and a few
scattered, mangled limbs testify to the fate of the person whose luck it
has been to cross their path. There is no "happily ever after" for most
human beings singled out for an encounter with the otherwordly crea-
tures of legendry; the Sage has no reassuring conclusion to which the
action inexorably points. These creatures live in our own world, not in
a make-believe world of the past. The places where they appear can
often be pinpointed on a map, and local residents sometimes take pride
in pointing out these spots to strangers.
This is not to say that narrators of legends always believe in the lit-
eral truth of the encounters they relate. Often there is a willingness to
believe, however, and sometimes an unshakable faith that the events
occurred exactly as described. A North American raconteur of legends
often introduces a tale with the formula "You don't have to believe
me, but . . ." and is likely to be offended if at least some listeners do
not respond with a shudder.8
T o be sure, Beowulf is not a folktale or campfire yarn but an epic
poem of dignity and depth. Its fantastic adventures are raised above
the level of folk narrative through the art of a poet composing in an
exacting aristocratic form. Still, people today who listen with rapt at-
tention to tales of encounters with monsters of the wilderness may be
unknowing participants in a folkloric tradition thousands of years old.
In Beowulf, too, the monsters are depicted as if they were or could be
part of the natural world. The realism with which they are portrayed
permits belief in their flesh-and-blood existence (although it does not
guarantee such belief). The resultant uneasiness we feel in their pres-
ence causes the poem to modulate far from the mood and tone of most
wondertales. The monsters of Beowulf may act out their fates in a plot
structure that is derived from the Märchen, but in their own nature
they seem to have stepped out of the darker, more frightening world
oflegendry.

Κ Of all the monstrous creatures of the poem, Grendel is depicted in


the most vivid terms, and it is he who has best succeeded in capturing
8 CONTEXT
the imagination of modern readers. And yet when we try to visualize
his appearance, each reader is likely to call up a slightly different
image. Like his latter-day cousins Bigfoot, the Yeti, and Sasquatch,9
Grendel never emerges into the bright light of day. The poet leaves
his listeners free to fill out the details of the monster's appearance from
the resources of their own imagination.
Such vagueness is calculated. Never in Beowulf is Grendel described
with the richness of visual detail that is characteristic of the art of the
Gawatn poet, for example, who devotes no less than eighty-four lines
(lines 136-220) to describing the exact appearance of the Green
Knight when this strange figure first bursts in among the knights
feasting at Arthur's court. We are told of the Green Knight's size, his
physique, his clothes and all their adornments, his spurs, his hair style,
his choice of arms. Even his horse and his horse's trappings are de-
scribed in detail. Almost nothing is left to the imagination. In the Old
English epic we find no such delight in description. When we first
meet the monster who is to lay waste the court of the Danes, we know
him simply as "the mighty demon who bided in darkness" (lines
86-87).
At different times during the next hundred lines we are told of
Grendel's character and haunts, but not his physical appearance. He is
called a "fiend in hell" (101b), a "creature of damnation" (120b), an
"awesome one" (159a). He lives far from the usual paths of men: he is
a "famed strider of the borderlands" who keeps to the secret fastnesses
of the moors and fenland (103-1053). Is he human or inhuman? Is he
a spirit of some kind, or is he flesh and blood? The poet significantly
leaves us in doubt by calling him both a man (wer, 105 a) and a spirit
or demon (gcest, 86a and 102a). We are left free to choose. Even
Beowulf refuses to commit himself. When the young hero first arrives
in Denmark, he speaks of Grendel simply as an "unknown kind of
enemy" (274b) who manifests "hostility of an unheard-of kind"
(276b). The narrator reinforces our sense of the limits of human
knowledge when he observes that "men know not" where such crea-
tures roam about (i62b-i63). It is as if the poet were deliber-
ately exploiting the power that the unknown, the half-known, the
dark, and the shapeless can exert over the imaginations of adults who
have not lost the child's ability to fantasize. As yet we know little
about the monster apart from his malevolence, size, and strength.
Whatever or whoever he is, he can seize and devour thirty human
beings in a single raid.
THE MARVELOUS 9
Only slowly does the picture gain clarity. A few chosen details from
the first fight call up a more specific terror without ever bringing
Grendel fully out of the shadows. We learn not only that he uses no
weapons, but that no weapons have the power of touching him
(8oib-8o5a). As he stands framed by darkness just outside the door of
Heorot—in an image that has been called one of the simplest and most
effective in English literature 10 —an "unpretty" light "most like
flame" shines from his eyes (72Ób-727). He wastes no time preparing
his meals. Once he has seized Hondscioh, he drinks the blood right out
of the veins and swallows him "in big pieces," including the hands and
feet (742b~745a). He never speaks, but when he is wracked with pain
from Beowulf's grip, a howl that breaks from his lips strikes the lis-
tening Danes with horror. As his struggle with Beowulf continues, we
learn that he is made of as solid flesh as any mortal creature. He has
real sinews and joints, and we see them stretching and finally snapping
as he wrenches himself away. Only later, when his severed arm is ex-
hibited on one of the walls of Heorot as a trophy of the fight, do we
learn that his fingertips are capped not with ordinary nails but with
claws "most like steel" (985b).
T h e poet almost seems to want to withhold information that an-
other author might have given at once. Three other indications of
Grendel's physical appearance are given only after his mother has ap-
peared to avenge him. At dawn of the second day in Denmark,
Hrothgar recounts to Beowulf what he has heard some of his fellow
Danes report about a pair of creatures who haunt the wasteland. T h e
first had the appearance of a woman, as far as the Danes could tell.
The other had the form of a man "except he was bigger" (1353a).
Later we learn just how much bigger he is. When Beowulf returns
from the mere carrying Grendel's head, the head alone is of such a size
that four grown men must labor to carry it impaled on a stake
(i634b~39). Later still, we learn one last detail about the monster's
appearance, again without any explanation of why we were not told
this information earlier. At Grendel's side, reports Beowulf, there
hung a broad and curious "glove" fashioned of dragon skins, evidently
a sort of game bag into which he made a habit of thrusting his victims.
Grendel's mother emerges even less clearly from the mists of the
moors and fens. She is first introduced as simply an "awesome female
creature" (1259a), a "mighty worker of evil" (1339a). Her physical
strength is less than Grendel's in proportion as, in general, a woman's
is said to be less than a man's (i282b-87), and yet the hero finds her a
IO CONTEXT
far more dangerous opponent, in part because he must meet her on
her own ground. Her fingers too seem to be tipped with claws or
talons, for we are told that when she seizes Beowulf only his byrnie
prevents him from being torn to shreds (1501-05). Whether through
magic or the toughness of her hide, she too is immune to the stroke of
weapons. When Beowulf brings his sword down on her head with all
his superhuman force, the same weapon that in previous fights had
sheared through the metal of helms and byrnies now fails to do any
damage.
Grendel's mother uses weapons. The underwater chamber in which
she dwells resembles an ordinary hall in which war-gear is hung, and
once she has downed Beowulf she tries to finish him off with a long
knife (seax). Her almost civilized dwelling and her use of the seax lo-
cate her nearer the human than the nonhuman end of the spectrum
between mankind and the beasts, but we are left guessing as to her
exact nature. The poet stresses her ferocity rather than her size.
Whereas Grendel was capable of carrying off thirty thanes at once, she
carries off only äschere. Whereas Grendel is associated chiefly with
the surface of the earth over which we see him striding, his mother
normally keeps to the depths of the mere, and the epithets by which
she is named evoke her aquatic nature. She, but not Grendel, is an
"accursed creature of the deep" (1518b). She is a merewif, a "sea-
woman" (1519a), and at the same time a brimwylf, a "she-wolf of the
sea" (1506a, 1599a). This last epithet suggests her affinities not only
with the giants but with the werewolves of modern legendry. Just be-
cause she is Grendel's mother, we cannot assume that she is the same
kind of creature. The race of monsters encompasses all manner of
misbegotten creatures, and no one can say what offspring might result
from their coupling.
More than one detail in the description of Grendel suggests his af-
finities with the draugr, or revenant, of Old Norse tradition.11 Al-
though the comparison is not exact—the draugr is one of the walking
dead and inhabits a barrow, while Grendel is never associated with the
dead and inhabits a pool—still, the nocturnal habits and cannibalistic
appetite of the draugr may have provided the inspiration for the man-
like monster who haunts Heorot after the fall of night. From the
northern trolls to Grendel is a short step. The draugr Glámr who in
Grettir's Saga plays a role similar to Grendel's is explicitly identified as
an animated corpse. Nora K. Chadwick has pointed out that in more
T H E MARVELOUS

than one Old Norse saga or páttr, the mother of the draugr appears in
the form of a ketta, or she-cat with long claws.12 In the páttr of Ormr
Stórólfsson, the hero Stórólf kills a cave-dwelling troll named Brusi,
who is "strongest of all men," shortly after he has dispatched Brúsi's
mother, a coal-black she-cat who has long claws and sharp teeth and
who breathes fire.13 Perhaps the closest Norse parallel to the pair of
male and female monsters in Beowulf occurs in Qrvar-Odd's Saga, in
which the hero goes east of the Baltic and, among other exploits,
fights a man named Qgmundr who is "the worst troll and monster
ever born in the Northern Hemisphere" and who tears out a man's
throat with his teeth. Although Qgmundr's mother has a human face,
farther down she looks like an animal with enormous talons and tail.
Once a human being, she turned into an ogress who lives in the woods
with the wild beasts and who kills anything living that comes her
14
way.
These and other Norse analogues to the Grendel creatures suggest
that the Germanic North is the most proximate source for the poet's
conception of the monsters. Still, the adversaries of Beowulf far tran-
scend the character of their Norse cousins. Grendel and his mother are
not only fearsome troll-like creatures. They also partake of spiritual
evil. By linking them repeatedly to biblical history and Christian cos-
mology, the poet makes them participants in a struggle whose origins
must be sought in the earliest annals of human events and whose end is
not yet in sight. This is no simple combat of a hero against fearsome
antagonists, as in the Old Norse stories of Grettir, BçÔvar Bjarki, and
Qrvar-Odd, but one of absolute spiritual good against unmitigated
spiritual evil. In this struggle the Christian deity has sometimes taken a
personal part.
Just as Grendel is both human and bestial, he modulates between
the monstrous and the literally demonic. One cannot tell if he is imag-
ined to be a devil or merely devilish, but from the start, the poet asso-
ciates him with hell and with the hellish progeny of Cain. 15 Such epi-
thets asfeondon helle, "fiend in hell" (ioib); feondmancynnes, "enemy
of mankind" (164b); helle hafta, "prisoner of hell" (788a); and helle
gast, "demon of hell" (1274a), identify him as either a devil or a devil's
minion, while later the poet speaks of the killing of the two Grendel
creatures as a deofia hryre, a "destruction of devils" (1680a). Three
epithets the Beowulf poet uses of Grendel—atol aglœca, "terrible,
fearsome one" (592a, 732a, 816a); Godes andsaca, "God's adversary"
12 CONTEXT
(786b, 1682b); andfyrena hyrde, "shepherd of crimes" (750b)—are
used in the poem Christ and Satan of Satan himself (verses 160a, 190a,
and 159b, respectively), while in the same poem Satan's minions are
called hellehœftas, "prisoners of hell" (629a). The draugr of Old Norse
tradition has changed character in Beowulf by being assimilated to a
tradition of Christian devotional poetry with its own special concept of
the creatures of hell. In large part this concept and its associated termi-
nology derive from patristic demonology. 16
According to early medieval belief, there are many devils, or,
rather, the devil has innumerable subordinate demons whom he sends
as agents throughout the world. Devils have suborned the altars at
which the heathens worship, as jElfric relates in his homilies on the
creation and on idolatry and as is made clear in the Anglo-Saxon
psalms, where is it said that "all the heathen gods are warring
devils." 17 By worshiping their idols, the heathen prove themselves
only to be devil-worshipers, as happens in the early part of Beowulf,
when the faithless Danes offer heathen sacrifice and thereby, ironi-
cally, invoke the aid of the devil (gastbona, 177a) against the devilish.
In the hands of a different poet the Christian terms in which Gren-
del is described could easily have been exploited for devotional pur-
poses. The action of the first part of the poem could have become an
allegory in which a hero who represents Christ meets and defeats two
creatures symbolic of the devil and his minions. The Beowulf poet
steadfastly resists this temptation. His otherworldly creatures never
cross the line into symbolism. If anything, the Christian framework
within which they are introduced reinforces our sense of their actual
existence. T h e descent from Cain that the poet ascribes to them
( i 0 4 b - l 14, 1260-68) strengthens their ties to the real world of sacred
and secular history, from the earliest times to the present.
Rather than locate his monsters in the "once-upon-a-time" of fairy
tales or even in the romanticized pseudohistorical setting of the Norse
sagas and páttir, the poet thus takes pains to account realistically for
their origins in the world in which we ourselves live. Grendel and his
mother may be laid to rest, the poet tells us, but there is no reason to
disbelieve that similar devilish creatures are lurking in the darkness
somewhere out there, whether in faraway lands, at the gate of hell, or,
perhaps, in the mists and fenland pools of Anglo-Saxon England. God
may have destroyed the giants of Genesis 2 in the Flood, but a variety
of other hellish creatures sprung from the seed of the Cain survived
T H E MARVELOUS 13
this destruction to remain as potential enemies of humankind, among
them the "etyns and elves and Orkneys" of the genealogical excursus
of lines 104b-114; the malignant sea-creatures of the Breca episode
(549-579a); the etyns and niceras ("sea snakes") that Beowulf claims
to have laid low in his youth (419-4243); and the nicers and sœdracan
("sea serpents") that are seen basking on the banks and swimming in
the waters of Grendel's mere, one of which is shot with an arrow and
pulled ashore just as one would harpoon an eel or fish (1425-413).
There is nothing make-believe about these creatures. They are pre-
sented as part of the natural world, part of the damned progeny of
Cain, and, perhaps, specifically those that could not be destroyed in the
Flood because of their aquatic or amphibious nature.
Testimony to a belief in the reality of such creatures is found in
other Anglo-Saxon writings, both Christian and secular. Attention has
long been drawn to the way that the Beowulf manuscript includes
other texts that display a lively interest in strange or marvelous crea-
tures. 18 These texts include a West Saxon translation of the work
known in Latin as De rebus in oriente mirabilibus and in English as the
Marvels of the East. Other versions of the Maruels are preserved in the
British Library's manuscript Cotton Tiberius B.v, written in about
1025 (in Latin and Old English), and in the somewhat later Bodleian
Library manuscript Bodley 614 (in Latin). An editor of the Marvels
has called it "a collection of absurdities" that he is "rescuing from a
perhaps merited oblivion," 19 but what is an absurdity to modern sci-
ence may still have been taken as a fact of life by men and women of a
thousand years ago. There is no evidence to suggest that Anglo-
Saxons did not believe in the serpents, dragons, giants, cannibalistic
monsters, and other strange beasts of the Marvels with the same faith
that people today believe in the reality of the orangutan, grizzly bear,
or crocodile from seeing these creatures in picture books, even if we
could not consult the evidence of our eyes by visiting the zoo. For the
most part, the strange creatures of the Marvels are described with
what seems like an attempt at literal-minded accuracy. At only one
point does the writer's credulity falter, when he describes a race of
people who are fifteen feet tall and ten feet broad and have large,
light-weight ears in which they wrap themselves at night, using one as
a mattress and one as a blanket. After declaring that these creatures
are so shy that if they see a human being "they take their ears in their
hands and fly away very quickly," he adds, Swa is wen pat hy fleogen:
14 CONTEXT
"So people believe that they fly."20 He withholds judgment himself.
Of the many strange creatures of the Marvels, quite a few have
something in common with the monsters of Beowulf. We can see the
latter more clearly if we keep in mind their affinities with their early
medieval kindred. The motif of light shining from human eyes, for
example, is not restricted to the poet's description of Grendel at the
door of Heorot but occurs in chapter 23 of the Marvels: "Then there
is an island on which are born people whose eyes shine as bright as if a
great lantern were lit on a dark night." 21 Also featured are serpents
whose eyes "shine by night as bright as lanterns,"22 as well as a pair of
dragons "who are 150 feet long and as great as stone columns in
girth" (see illustration, p. 177). In comparison with these dragons the
50-foot-long firedrake fought by Beowulf seems somewhat less ex-
traordinary.
The illustrations of the Cotton Tiberius B.v manuscript have not
been examined with regard to Beowulf, as far as I know, perhaps be-
cause of the widespread assumption that the poem long predates these
eleventh-century illustrations. The attribution of Beowulf to an early
date can be questioned on many grounds, however, as I argue later.
The illustrations may thus represent a near contemporary's visualiza-
tion of the sorts of creatures that are introduced in the poem. Apart
from their date relative to Beowulf these pictures are of interest in
their own right as "magnificent specimens of the best late Anglo-
Saxon school"23 showing how one Anglo-Saxon artist conceived of a
variety of strange creatures of his world.
Three illustrations are of special interest for readers of Beowulf.
The first, from folio 81b, shows one of a race of men who have
"thighs and shanks twelve feet long and breasts seven feet across" and
who "rightly are called hostes, for they devour any human being they
catch" (see illustration, p. 1). In his upright stature and human ap-
pearance, as well as in his cannibalistic habits, the giant calls to mind
Grendel, who looks like a man except for his extraordinary size. An-
other illumination depicts one of a race of monstrous women who are
said to be thirteen feet tall, with boar's tusks and hair as long as their
heels (see illustration, p. 119). From their written description these
women would seem to have nothing to do with Beowulf, but the artist
has rendered his theme so expressively that one is tempted to see in
this ferocious, long-haired she-monster a family resemblance to Gren-
del's mother and the ketta of Old Norse tradition. The resemblance
T H E MARVELOUS 15
does not extend to the details of the cloven feet and ox's tail, of course.
It is a spiritual rather than a physical kinship that one senses between
these creatures. While both have the likeness of a woman, they are
wilder and more fearsome than any mortal woman, and the terror they
inspire derives as much from their being like human beings as unlike
them.
The most striking of the Tiberius illustrations and one of the mas-
terworks of Anglo-Saxon art is the full-page illumination that is repro-
duced as the frontispiece of this book. It illustrates an apocryphal
story, now chiefly lost, of the wizard Iannis and his brother Mambres.
The human figure who calmly surveys the scene from his station on
the rock is Mambres, who is using a book of necromancy to call up the
idolon ("shade") of his dead brother from hell. In the smoking pit
below, devils, beasts, and serpents torment the pustulous bodies of the
damned. In the Latin text accompanying the picture, the shade of
Iannis gives Mambres a short sermon on the importance of living a
virtuous life on earth, "for in hell there is nothing good, only sorrow
and darkness." Iannis is not shown, unless perhaps he is the bearded
figure directly beneath the right shoulder of the monster. Instead, the
scene is dominated by the huge, hairy monster who guards hell's
mouth and is devouring the bodies of several sinners.
This vigorous depiction of the hell-monster is perhaps the best indi-
cation we have as to how Grendel was imagined by an audience of
Anglo-Saxons. The monster of the Tiberius manuscript has only a
tenuous relation to the story he is supposed to illustrate. He seems to
have materialized out of the artist's own imagination, and the form he
takes corresponds to what the Beowulf poet tells us of Grendel. The
monster's gigantic size, roughly three to five times the size of the
human figures; his steel-like claws; his cannibalism; his association with
the mouth of hell—all these features could almost be taken straight
from the text of Beowulf. Even the great rock overhanging hell's
mouth calls to mind the rock that overshadows Grendel's mere. Per-
haps as important, there are no extraneous details in the portrait that
would not be appropriate to Grendel. The monster has no long tail or
other animalistic features; he is like a man, only larger and more terri-
ble.
By making this comparison between the hell-monster and Grendel,
I do not mean to suggest that the artist was familiar with the Beowulf
story and took his inspiration from the poet's words. We will never
ι6 CONTEXT
know the sources of his inspiration. We can be sure that they did not
include the version of the Marvels that is included on folios 98b-io6b
of the Beowulf codex, for this version breaks off before the story of
Iannis and Mambres and includes no picture of a monster at the mouth
of hell. What is important is that the two works reflect a similar con-
ception of a certain kind of monstrous creature. To be more exact,
they reflect not only a similar conception but a similar belief. Anglo-
Saxon readers may or may not have accepted Mambres and Iannis as
historical personages, but they knew hell and its guardians to be part
of the real world.

Κ The locus for all the monstrous creatures of the first part of
Beowulf is Grendel's mere. There they make their home, this loose-
knit alliance of nicers, sea serpents, and manlike monsters, and from
there, as from an apparently impregnable fastness, they venture out to
attack human beings. In its realistic appearance and uncanny nature,
the pool reinforces the ambiguousness of Grendel and his mother as
creatures both of and not of the natural world.
The mere looks like a natural pool, and it is described with a wealth
of detail that confirms its existence as part of a real landscape. It is lo-
cated a short distance from Heorot in a place where a body of water
descends beneath an outcrop of rock and disappears below. Mist rises
from its surface, and over it hang frosty trees. It is approached by an
untraveled path whose narrowness permits only single-file traffic as it
winds over the surrounding cliffs and bluffs.
Coexisting with these naturalistic details are other features that
seem included chiefly for their emotive force and that make us wonder
whether we are dealing with a natural pool or with something un-
worldly. The pool is said to be bottomless (i366b-Ó7)—a feature that
calls to mind the abyss of hell24 as well as that familiar, chilling terror
of anyone who as a child swam in a "bottomless" quarry or lake. Ani-
mals avoid the mere instinctively: even a hart pursued by hounds will
give up his life on the banks rather than enter the water for protection.
And every night, Hrothgar reports, a "terrible wonder" can be seen
on the mere in the form of fire that burns on its surface. No other de-
tail expresses the ambiguity of the place so clearly. Readers who are
familiar with marsh gas and other sources of weird illumination may at
first try to rationalize this fire as a natural phenomenon, for indeed
such a wonder as light shining from water is known to science. But
T H E MARVELOUS 17
Grendel's mere is no stagnant marshland pool. It is part of a turbulent
landscape of rising mists, a falling stream, and towering bluffs and
trees. T h e fire that burns on the water is ascribed no natural cause; it
reminds us more of the burning waters of hell than of anything terres-
trial.
T h e topographical uncertainty in the description of the location of
Grendel's mere confirms our uneasy sense that it is no ordinary pool.
Is the mere located in the fens? In high and rocky ground? In or near
the sea? Different details of the poet's description permit us to answer
"yes" to each of these questions. 25 T h e resultant contradictory picture
reflects the uncertainty in popular belief concerning the "true" loca-
tion of the otherworld—a terrifying but ill-defined region that British
folklore associates now with the forest, now with high mountains, now
with an island, now with an underwater or subterranean realm. 26 One
should not hesitate to identify the waters through which the hero de-
scends as cognate with the waters that separate the ordinary human
world from the magical and threatening "other" realm in so many
tales of an otherworldly journey. 27 Steep hills, the ocean, frosty trees,
rising mist, and fire on water all figure commonly in medieval and
nonmedieval accounts of such a journey. Wherever Beowulf stands
geographically, mythically he is approaching an entry to the other-
world. Just as the Grendel creatures are literally demonic, the entry is
described in terms specifically appropriate to the Christian hell. Still,
the poet never makes this identification explicit. T h e pool is always a
pool; it is never made into an abstraction or a symbol of something
else. As with the monsters themselves, we are left in doubt as to the
exact nature of what is being described, and the resultant ambiguity
adds to the listener's uneasiness.
T h e character of the mere stands out clearly when one compares it
with an analogous description found in the tenth-century collection of
anonymous sermons known as the Blickling homilies. A passage in the
seventeenth homily elaborates a concept of the mouth of hell much
like that expressed in pictorial form by the artist of manuscript Cotton
Tiberius B.v. T h e homilist takes as his main subject St. Michael and
the angels. At the end he digresses briefly to speak of hell and the fate
of the damned:

Angels are as ministering spirits sent by God here into the world to
those who with might and main will merit from God the eternal king-
ι8 CONTEXT

dom, so that they [the angels] might help those whose lot it is to contend
ceaselessly against accursed spirits. But let us now entreat the Archangel
St. Michael and the nine orders of the holy angels to be our aid against
hell-fiends. These angels are the holy ones who have received [and still
receive] the souls of men. Thus St. Paul was looking toward the north-
ern region of the earth where all waters go down under, and there over
the water he saw a gray rock, and to the north were some frost-covered
trees that had grown from the rock, and there were dark mists, and
under the rock was the dwelling-place of nicers and accursed creatures.
And he saw that many black souls were hanging on the icy trees on the
cliff with their hands fettered, and devils [literally, "the hellish enemies
of them," that is, the black souls] in the likeness of nicers were reaching
for them like hungry wolves, and the water beneath the cliff was black.
And between the cliff and the water was a distance of about twelve
miles, and when the branches broke, then down went the souls who had
been hanging on them, and the nicers got them. These were the souls of
men who had sinned wickedly here in the world and would not cease
from it before the end of their lives. But let us earnestly pray to St. Mi-
chael that he bring our souls into bliss, where they may rejoice without
end in eternity.28

A s in the passage from Beowulf, we are shown a northern landscape


where waters pass down into the earth. W e recognize the "gray
rock," the "frost-covered trees," and the "mists" of Beowulf 1415a,
1363b, and 1360a, respectively, and the homilist's cliff calls to mind
the towering bluffs that adjoin GrendePs mere (1360a and 1 4 0 9 - l l a ) .
Beneath the gray rock seen by St. Paul is a "dwelling-place of nicers"
that recalls the "many dwelling-places of nicers" near Grendel's mere,
and nicers swim in the waters of both places. More significant, the
nicers of the Bückling homily travel in the company of weargas, "ac-
cursed creatures," much as the nicers of Beowulf are the close com-
panions of Grendel, who is described as a heorowearh, a "fierce, ac-
cursed creature" (1267a). T h e whole passage introduces the subject of
the "accursed spirits" who war against the souls of the blessed on earth
and whose attacks are contrasted with the help provided by God's
angels. These accursed spirits receive the souls of the wicked, just as
ministering angels receive the souls of the blessed, and one can see
these same demons at work in the illustration of the mouth of hell in
manuscript Cotton Tiberius B.v. Beneath the giant monster and the
great rock on which Mambres stands—a prominence much like the
T H E MARVELOUS 19
"gray rock" of Beowulf and the seventeenth Bückling homily—the
artist has shown the bodies of five damned souls, their skins spotted
with deformities, their flesh subject to the abuses of devouring devils,
beasts, and serpents.
Despite several features that are unique to the homilist's descrip-
tion, particularly the image of the black souls clinging to the boughs
(borrowed from the popular Latin Visio Pauli), the passage resembles
parts of Beowulf closely enough that one may conclude that the homi-
list drew on the poem as a source. 29 T h e great interest of the homily
lies in its showing how the terrifying landscape and monstrous crea-
tures of Beowulf called to the mind of one late Anglo-Saxon church-
man the specific landscape of hell. For him and perhaps for other
Christian Englishmen of his day, little effort of the imagination was
required to identify Grendel and his mother as devils and Grendel's
mere as a symbolic entry to hell. T o such readers, the hero's willing
descent into the serpent-infested waters would have seemed an act rich
in religious overtones, much as it has seemed to those modern readers
who detect in this part of the poem an allegorical drama based on the
rite of baptism. 30 T o extrapolate thus from the text is tempting, yet by
doing so one reduces the poet's achievement to something less com-
plex and suggestive. T h e homilist, but not the poet, identifies the
scene as hell. T h e homilist, but not the poet, calls the nicers "devils in
the likeness of nicers." In this scene, as in others, the action of Beowulf
never escapes from the confines of its setting in historical Scandinavia.
One is shown a landscape strangely reminiscent of hell's mouth, inhab-
ited by creatures strangely reminiscent of the demons of hell, but the
resemblance never becomes an equation. With all the symbolic over-
tones of the mere as an entry to the otherworld, one remains no more
than a short way from Heorot, and when the hero descends into the
mere he soon finds himself not in hell but in a curiously wrought un-
derground hall.

u If the monsters of Beowulf are presented not as devils in the form


of monsters but as flesh-and-blood creatures sprung from the seed of
Cain, much the same is true of the hero himself. Rather than being
portrayed as Christ in the form of a man, he is portrayed as a real man
with Christ-like features. This distinction must be made if we are not
to distort the meaning of the poem by reducing its heroic narrative to
a simplistic allegory of salvation.
20 CONTEXT
Beowulf comes to save the Danes from Grendel, not from damna-
tion. He descends into the waters of the mere to kill Grendel's mother,
not to undergo a baptism that represents death of the old self and birth
of the new. Years later, when he offers his life in a supreme sacrifice to
save his people, he does so not to expiate their sins (for of their sins we
are told next to nothing) but because a dragon needs killing. From be-
ginning to end, the poet never allows his story to escape from the
realm of the literal. He tells of magnificent heroism in a world in
which, as in our own, even the greatest heroes must die. The terms of
the hero's struggles are of course Christian, for he lives in a universe
inhabited by frail human beings, mighty demons, and a mighty God,
and he is singled out as one of those "whose lot it is," in the words of
the Bückling homilist, "to contend against accursed spirits." One need
not therefore conclude that the story is a veiled saint's life, for we are
told very little of the hero's spiritual disposition. W e rejoice that in the
end his soul is saved, but the emphasis of the narrative is on his heroic
deeds rather than his fate after death.
In almost all respects, Beowulf measures well against Grendel.
Grendel is a manlike monster with the strength to carry off thirty
Danes at once, and Beowulf is a monster-like man with the strength to
carry off thirty suits of armor at once. Grendel spurns weapons;
Beowulf does the same. Grendel is bigger than any man, and Beowulf
is conspicuously bigger than his followers (247b). Grendel and his
mother seem equally at home on land or in the waters of the mere, and
fully armed, Beowulf can withstand being dragged to the bottom of
the North Sea (553b~555a) or to the bottom of the mere
(1497-1517) with no more ill effects than if he had taken a Sunday
swim. The two antagonists are of a kind, and both equally deserve the
epithet aglœca, "awesome one," that the poet gives them.
Where Beowulf and Grendel differ is in their disposition rather than
their power, and in this respect they are like day and night. Grendel
represents the pure perversion of will. He is the grinder, the destroyer,
the devourer; he is the spirit of evil grown huge. He is Negative Man,
to use Edward Irving's designation,31 in that he lives beyond the pale
of society and that we are always nonetheless reminded of his human-
ity. He is Thanatos, in the terms of Joseph Fontenrose,32 in that he
seeks the death of all that is bright and beautiful. In the hero who op-
poses him we see represented the triumph of will over all the infirmi-
ties of timidity, cowardice, and greed that can undermine the character
THE MARVELOUS 21
of the best of men. Beowulf too is a destroyer, but he destroys to pre-
serve what is bright and beautiful: the peaceful community of human
beings living together without treachery or fear.
The affinities between these two great antagonists could lead us to
see Grendel as a kind of "anti-Beowulf" or "antihero." In Märchen
scholarship, however, the term antihero is usually reserved for person-
ages who would be heroes but who, because of some defect of charac-
ter, systematically fail to perform tasks that a hero accomplishes. In
folktales analogous to Beowulf these figures are often a hero's two
older brothers, whose timidity leads them to run from a giant or whose
greed leads them to abandon the hero in the lower world after they
themselves have been too afraid to enter it. Invariably their choices are
based on ignorant self-will, and shame is their usual reward.
In Beowulf the person who most closely plays the role of the anti-
hero is Unferth (or Hunferth, as he perhaps rightly should be
called),33 the only Dane besides Hrothgar whose individuality is devel-
oped. When Beowulf first arrives and announces his mission in Den-
mark, Unferth is the one who seeks to slander him by twisting the
facts of the hero's former swimming contest with Breca, and Beowulf's
reply puts him in his place. "Never would Grendel have carried out so
many outrages in Heorot," the hero notes, "if your courage were as
great as you yourself account it" (591-594). Far from having screwed
up his nerve to stand firm against Grendel, the enemy of mankind,
Unferth has directed his violence against the most essential ties that
bind human society together. He is a fratricide, and by killing his
brothers he has reenacted the archetypal crime of Cain that stands at
the source of division in human affairs. Somewhat later Unferth makes
a gesture of reconciliation when he lends his sword to Beowulf shortly
before the hero's descent into Grendel's mere, but the loan only em-
phasizes the Dane's unwillingness to risk the combat himself. And in-
deed, he could not hope to undertake and win such a fight. Already, in
effect, he has proven himself to be on the side of the monsters. In him
one sees their arrogance, envy, and misdirected violence reduced to
the human level and set loose within society. As in most Märchen, the
antihero in Beowulf does not need to be fought outright, for he poses a
moral contrast rather than a physical threat. By the time Beowulf
meets Unferth, the Dane's weapons are only words, and at verbal flyt-
ing the young Geat easily proves himself Unferth's superior.
Rather than see Grendel as an antihero, one can regard Beowulf as
22 CONTEXT
a kind of "antimonster." By making this distinction I wish to suggest
that in effect, it is the monsters who call Beowulf into being, not the
reverse. He responds to them, and if there had been no Grendel there
would never have needed to be a Beowulf. If not for the extraordinary
threat of Grendel, Hrothgar might have lived out his life in relative
peace and prosperity, much as his ancestors in the Scylding dynasty
had done. The usual sorts of discord might have arisen—there are
Unferths in every society, after all—but any such unlawfulness could
have been dealt with in the customary pragmatic ways. Once Gren-
del bursts on the scene, however, the normal machinery of society for
dealing with discord breaks down. Grendel represents a threat so huge
and fearsome that the institutions of law are powerless before him.
The monster offers no wergild, he accepts no terms (154^-158),
and—until the hero comes—he stands far beyond the power of human
beings to apprehend him.
The hero in Beowulf comes into being as a response to circum-
stances that could not have been predicted and might never be exactly
repeated. The times call forth the man, and the man responds to the
times. Beowulf was not born a hero, like Achilles or other men born of
the union of gods and mortals. Once his great gift of strength has ma-
tured, he makes himself into a hero by his own acts of courage in
seeking out Grendel across the sea, Grendel's mother beneath the
mere, and the dragon at the barrow. And once the direction of his will
is set, he turns himself into a being who is nearly as monstrous as the
creatures he sets out to fight. By ceremoniously discarding his weap-
ons before the fight with Grendel, he puts himself on equal terms with
the monster and rejects the putative aid that civilization might be ex-
pected to give him. Again, during the fight with Grendel's mother, he
casts his sword aside and trusts in his naked strength. When his own
strength fails he has no recourse but to trust to superhuman aid in the
form of the monster's own sword. He fights these creatures as if he
knows instinctively that whatever evil they represent, it resists ap-
proach by normal human means. It must be ripped off at its source or
cut off at its head, and this is precisely what the hero does when he rips
Grendel's arm from its socket, beheads the she-wolf in her underwater
hall, and cuts the dragon in two.
From a certain point of view, Beowulf himself, rather than any of
the monsters, is the most marvelous of all the characters of the poem.
The monsters already have their identity. Their evil is innate and
THE MARVELOUS 23
mindless. Their envy is an automatic response to the joys they see and
hear around them. Beowulf must win his identity by transforming
himself from what he had been during his inauspicious childhood and
his intemperate youth, until at length he comes on the scene as a man
who directs his strength with all the integrity at his command in the
service of his fellow human beings. As he accomplishes this marvel, he
provides a model for us all. By creating such fearsome antagonists as
Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon, the poet tells us that cer-
tain evils exist that cannot be glossed over or dealt with by ordinary
means. To fight them a person must call up all the inner strength that
God or nature can provide. Perhaps not many can do this. Most peo-
ple have always resembled Beowulf rather less than they resembled the
timorous Danes, who look for sleeping quarters elsewhere as soon as
trouble starts in Heorot, or the faithless Geats, who flee from the hill-
top as soon as they see the dragon coming. The model is there all the
same.

if Until now I have postponed discussion of the dragon, because to


me, as to others, 34 the wyrm seems to fall into a category different
from that of the two Grendel creatures. The barrow in which he
dwells is described only in passing, and the few details the poet pro-
vides have little to do with the sinister landscape of Grendel's mere.
The dragon's character cannot be clarified by comparing it with that
of dragons in modern legends, for no recent British legends express
any attitude but a playful one toward these once formidable creatures.
From the dragons of Beowulf or of the lays of Sigurd to "Puff, the
Magic Dragon" is a long, lamentable history of decline. The various
drake and wyrm place-names of the British Isles testify to the dragon's
former stature in popular belief, but these beliefs have long since died
out or have turned into merely quaint stories.35 The role of the dragon
in some British folk plays speaks to his former stature as a heroic an-
tagonist, but his place in these plays has often been usurped by the
Turkish Knight (otherwise known as the Turkey Snipe) or by Captain
Slasher.36 Nor have literary dragons proven themselves worthy suc-
cessors to the great Fafnir and his kin. The memorable dragon who is
fought and killed by the Redcrosse Knight in the first canto of
Spenser's Faerie Queene seems more like a theatrical cut-out of a
dragon than the thing itself. Even the great MiSgarSsormr of Snorri
Sturluson's thirteenth-century prose Edda smells of the pen more than
24 CONTEXT
the fen. Unlike the Beowulf dragon, Snorri's world serpent is a pa-
tently fantastic creature, and the story of Thor's fishing him up from
the deep reads like a medieval version of the sort of tall tale that fills
the pages of Davy Crockett's Almanac. The more one looks at the
Beowulf dragon from the standpoint of comparative folklore and my-
thology, the more one sees the truth of Arthur Du Bois's reminder
that "the Beowulf dragon is not just any dragon. It is the Beowulf
dragon." 37
Like Grendel, the dragon is scarcely described. He simply is and
acts, and he acts with killing power. He is first introduced by a refer-
ence to what he does rather than what he looks like. He is simply "the
one who guarded the treasure, the steep barrow, on the high heath"
(22I2-I3a). Later we see him as "the ancient dawn-raider" (2271a),
an aged creature who "flies by night enveloped in fire" (2273-743).
Once he is settled in his barrow, his habit is to sleep peacefully, coiled
in his den, but when he is aroused, his anger boils within him until he
emerges by night and destroys whatever lies in his path. The flames
from his jaws are never described outright. We are simply shown their
effect: a charred manor-house and a stream that runs from the barrow
that "could not run deep for any while near the hoard without flam-
ing" (2545b-49). Neither is his hide described. We are left to imagine
its toughness when we see the hero's sword break in pieces upon it.
Throughout, the poet's technique is to identify things by their effect
rather than their appearance. We know that the dragon's jaws are
poisonous, for Beowulf tells us so (2523a), but only later do we learn
the fatal force of the poison when we see the hero's wounds swelling
and burning. As with Grendel, we learn the size of the creature only
after the dust of the fight has settled. When the fearful Geats approach
the barrow and their dead king, they see the dragon stretched out fifty
feet long (3042-433).
Two aspects of the dragon stand out: his flesh-and-blood solidity
and his indifference to humankind. The poet presents him as one who
"burning, seeks out barrows" (2272), not as one who seeks out human
habitations to lay waste. When he does lay waste the land of the Geats,
he does so not out of indiscriminate malice but in response to the theft
from his hoard. When he later fights Beowulf, he does so in response
to a loud and open challenge. The terms by which the poet refers to
him never express moral condemnation, but rather imply respect for
his function of guardianship. He is the "protector" of the hoard, the
THE MARVELOUS 25

"shepherd of treasures" ( frœtwa hyrde), much as an earthly king is


the "shepherd of the tribe" (folees hyrde). Like Grendel, Sigemund,
and Beowulf, the dragon is described as an aglœca, "awesome one."
T o translate the word by "monster" is to distort his nature, for there is
nothing monstrous about him except perhaps his size and fiery breath,
and even these were probably thought to be within the realm of possi-
bility within the natural world.38 From the time he first appears, he is
presented as a living creature of the same general sort as any lion,
bear, or other wild beast, only more fearsome. The lines which tell
how he first took possession of the barrow confirm one's sense that to
an Anglo-Saxon audience, the dragon was real (227(^-77):

Hordwynne fond
eald uhtsceaSa opene standan,
se Se byrnende biorgas seceS,
nacod niödraca, nihtes fleogeS
fyre befangen; hyne foldbuend
swiÖe ondraedaÖ. He gesecean sceall
hord on hrusan, Jjaer he hasSen gold
waraS wintrum frod; ne byS him wihte S y sel.

A n old dawn-raider
found the joy of the hoard standing o p e n —
he who burning seeks out barrows,
the naked dragon who flies by night
enveloped in flames; dwellers on earth
fear him greatly. It is his lot to seek
a hoard in the earth where he will guard
heathen gold, grown old and wise;
he gains nothing by that.

Earth-dwellers fear him greatly. The present tense implies a living be-
lief. The Beowulf dragon himself is not being described; we are told
that he is one of the kind of creatures who seek out barrows and fly by
night, enveloped in flame.39 The poet is summarizing the general
characteristics of dragons, somewhat as if a naturalist were describing
a rare and remarkable species. All dragons, not this one alone, have
the habit of seeking out a hoard in the earth and, as inarticulate, reclu-
sive creatures, have no profit from their wealth. Somewhat later the
poet again stands back from the action for a moment to characterize
the race of dragons, and his words again imply belief in the reality of
26 CONTEXT
such creatures. Just after the fight the poet tells how Beowulf s death
fulfills an ancient pattern (2836-423):

Huru J>aet on lande lyt manna Sah


maegenagendra mine gefrasge,
Jieah Se he dseda. gehwaes dyrstig waere,
J)3et he wiS attorsceaSan oreSe geraesde,
oSSe hringsele hondum styrede,
gif he waeccende weard onfunde
buon on beorge.
Not many a man has prospered on earth—
even men of might, as I have heard,
who had proved their nerve at every test—
if he risked the breath of a venomous foe
or disturbed a ring-hall with his hands
and found the guard who dwelt in the barrow
lying awake.

The first line can be taken as litotes for "scarcely any man at all." Var-
ious stories are told of men who met with dragons, the poet implies,
but few such tales have a happy ending.
The moral neutrality of the Beowulf dragon stands out clearly when
one considers how easily the poet could have associated him with the
Christian devil. In the poem "The Panther," part of a late Old
English bestiary, the panther is said to be friendly to all earthly crea-
tures except the poisonous draca, for whom he harbors a deadly ha-
tred. The poet then likens the continuing feud between the terrestrial
panther and the terrestrial dragon to the cosmic feud between God
and Satan that came to a climax at the time of the harrowing of hell,
when Christ "bound the ancient enemy in the abyss of torments and
fettered him in fiery bands" (lines 59-60). Such an allegorization of
the dragon is based on good precedent and goes back at least to the
authority of Revelation 12:9: Et apprehendit draconem, serpentent anti-
quum, qui est diabolus, et Satanas, "And he took hold of the dragon, the
ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan." But the Beowulf poet
does not exploit the potential allegorical significance of the dragon
fight. Only Grendel and Grendel's mother are persistently associated
with hell and the creatures of damnation. Never is the dragon called a
devil, referred to as "God's enemy," or associated with hell.40 The
T H E MARVELOUS 27

barrow where he makes his home is always an earthly hill. The boiling
stream that emerges from it seethes from the natural cause of the
dragon's heat, unlike the mysterious flame that rises for no apparent
reason from the surface of Grendel's mere.
T o make this distinction between the spiritual evil of the Grendel
creatures and the physical threat of the dragon is by no means to di-
minish the dragon's stature. It is simply to clarify his character. As
Irving notes (p. 214), "Though he may be evil, he is not Evil. There
is an amoral aspect to him, alien and remote." As long as the dragon is
undisturbed, he sleeps peacefully as the guardian of treasures put into
the earth for good. His enormous destructive potential is aroused only
when a man dares to disturb the hoard. He is evil in the sense that an
earthquake or tornado is evil when people are in its path. O f course
the dragon is frightful, but he is not therefore Satanic. It would not do
for the hero to die in an epic combat against a Guernsey cow.
If we fail to make this distinction—if we do precisely what the poet
does not and identify the dragon with Satan—we risk distorting the
meaning of the end of the poem by polarizing it along the lines of a
false spiritual dichotomy. However essential the contrast of good ver-
sus evil or God versus Satan may have been in the first part of the
poem, by the time of the hero's final combat such terms of moral op-
position have ceased to apply. Instead we are shown the heroic end of a
heroic life. If the dragon were Satan, the king's falling victim to him
would leave evil victorious. Yet the tone of grandeur and sorrow in
which we are told of the hero's last words, death, and funeral reaffirms
Beowulf as a story of how a great man met his death in a noble though
desperate cause. T o turn the story into an allegory of the triumph of
evil is not only to malign the character of the morally neutral dragon
but is also to turn Beowulf from a hero into a victim, and any such
conversion destroys the tone of muted celebration in which the poem
closes.
By the time of his final fight, Beowulf himself has become like a
dragon. He has ruled his kingdom in peace for fifty years, as untrou-
bled by foreign wars or internal dissensions as the neighboring dragon
who sleeps in his barrow. He has become a frodfolces weard, an "old
and wise guardian of the tribe," just as the dragon is frod, "old and
wise," and is the guardian of his hoard. Like the dragon, he is able to
live in peace not simply because circumstances let him, but because his
potential power is so fearsome that others prefer not to arouse him.
28 CONTEXT
When he finally has no choice but to use his power, he does so, like the
dragon, to the utmost. When the two veteran warriors meet, their
combat is ferocious, but nothing is supernatural about it. The poet
tells of no entry to an uncanny realm, no divine aid, no miracle of a
melting sword-blade or of light shining like the sun in the midst of
darkness, no miraculous cleansing of the waters—in short, none of the
wondrous details that make the combat with Grendel's mother one of
the most astonishing adventures in English fiction. One fearsome
combatant meets another, and that is all. The combat is described at
great length, with all the epic elaboration that the poet chooses to
muster, but in its essentials it is a simple meeting of force against force.
Given the nearly equal terms of the fight, it could have no other out-
come. The hero must die, the story must come to its close; and what
better way to have the hero meet his end than in a combat of awesome
proportions in which, for one last time, he proves the quality of his
fortitude by measuring it against that of the most fearsome of God's
creatures? There is something fitting about the twin deaths of the two
aged antagonists, as if two enormous sources of energy were to meet
and cancel each other, leaving only timid survivors to dispose of the
dead.

f The marvelous and the monstrous, I therefore suggest, are at the


heart of Beowulf. One cannot well account for its success without tak-
ing the monsters as the point of departure. At the same time one can-
not well account for the monsters by dismissing them as fairy-tale ene-
mies or allegorical figures of no substance, for the poet presents both
the naturalistic dragon and the strangely ambiguous Grendel creatures
as inhabitants of the "real" world, in some sense, even though they
may not be the kind of creature that one meets every day.
In Beowulf, one detects no note of sympathetic attachment to the
monsters such as can be found in modern adaptations of the story.
Whatever they represent, it is something to be quelled. Grendel and
his mother are simply and purely evil, while the dragon is too alien to
elicit sympathy. In this Anglo-Saxon epic is no romantic flirtation with
the wild or irrational, no nostalgic attachment to a noncivilized mode
of behavior that would free one from the restraints and inhibitions of
society. Safety and joy are in the group, in the band of men and
women feasting together under the roof of Heorot and listening to
tales of the tribe. Outside is darkness, isolation, and gloom.
THE MARVELOUS 29

T o say that in Beowulf our sympathetic interest is intended to fall


simply on the human sphere, however, would be as much of a distor-
tion as to say that it is intended to fall on the monsters. If the poem
depicts a supreme representative of civilization, this person is not
Beowulf. It is Hrothgar, moralist and King of the Danes, and Hroth-
gar is not the person we end up admiring most. Neither do we much
admire the passive Danes and Geats who enjoy the pleasures of the
meadhall but are incapable of doing anything to defend it. These peo-
ple flee a confrontation with the monstrous; Beowulf seeks it out. An-
dreas Haarder rightly holds that the thematic center of the work is nei-
ther the men nor the monsters, but rather "the confrontation of man
and monster which no one . . . can avoid facing." 41 T o seek out the
monstrous, not to become it but to quell it; to call up one's own drag-
onlike strength to confront and kill whatever in nature or in society or
in ourselves threatens to put an end to human joys and replace them
with darkness, isolation, and gloom—this is what the poem is about
most essentially.
In the end, the audience of the poem, whether listeners or readers,
cannot really identify itself with Beowulf the man. In his sheer
strength he outdistances us and becomes part of the marvelous ma-
chinery of the plot, like Grendel or the dragon. We know too little of
his everyday humanity, his normal human feelings and weaknesses, to
be able to see him as an extension of ourselves. Neither can we identify
ourselves with Grendel, or if we do we misread the work badly. What
we can identify with is the sequence of confrontations themselves, for
we are all part hero and part monster, and the struggle between Eros
and Thanatos continues within and around us in ever-changing forms.
Reduced to its essentials, Beowulf tells a long, threefold history of
how the confrontation between man and monster can be sought out
and won. Among other things it is a history of spiritual development.
The three adventures show a clear progression, and to displace any
one of them would alter the spiritual sense of the poem.
Grendel is a threshold figure. When we first see him clearly he is
poised literally on a threshold, at the door of Heorot, where he visibly
manifests his function as a power guarding the hero's passage or
blocking his mission to the otherworld. By confronting this power
directly rather than fleeing for shelter, Beowulf proves his credentials,
as it were, as a person qualified to pursue the monstrous to its source.
In the second adventure the hero does just that. "Seek her out if
30 CONTEXT
you dare," says Hrothgar after having recounted in detail the terrors
of the uncanny place where Grendel's mother makes her home
(1379b). The hero responds to this temptation toward passivity by
hunting the mother of evil and tracking her down—to be more pre-
cise, by letting himself be carried down—to her secret home, the abyss,
the nethermost source of darkness and confusion. Here he dares to
face the worst that the realm of darkness can deal to him, and he
emerges from the waters triumphant. After this, his strength and high
character never desert him. He returns home to take his true place in
society as fate successively rewards him with lands, esteem, a queen,
and fifty years of peaceful rule over his kingdom.
And the dragon? Perhaps he too could be called a threshold figure,
although the threshold he guards is a different one. He comes to
Beowulf as a reminder of the limits that bound all earthly success. He
is the last power that stands between the hero and the successful com-
pletion of his passage. He is not death himself, nor is he any other al-
legorical figure, but when Beowulf chooses to seek him out he does so
with a trace of reluctance, as if he knew what the outcome of the fight
must be. Of all the confrontations with evil that will be part of the life
of a good man, the meeting with one's own mortality must be the last.
The hero's conduct in his last, greatest fight shows that this confron-
tation can be ennobling.
2. THE ART OF THE
GERMANIC SCOP

W H E N the first Germanic-speaking settlers came to Britain in the


fifth century in the wake of the disintegration of Roman political
power, they did not come as cultural paupers ready to be assimilated to
a superior Romano-British civilization. They came in a spirit of fierce
independence backed by skill in the use of arms. Like their more pa-
cific descendants who settled the New World from England in the sev-
enteenth century, they brought with them a well-established culture in
which they took evident pride. They borrowed little from the popula-
tion they displaced, and they established a set of social institutions un-
like those that had been seen on the island before.
However this Germanic culture may have been modified by contact
with the remnants of Romano-British civilization and with the neigh-
boring civilization of the Celts; however disrupted and altered it came
to be during the period of Viking raids and settlements; however it was
transformed, most important, by the importation of Latin letters and
the ecclesiastical organization of Christianity, this native culture pro-
vided the basis for the forms that village organization, agriculture,
kinship structures, law, and political relations were to take as late as
the Norman Conquest, if not longer. The poetic literature that was
recorded in Old English is not only the largest and most magnificent
body of vernacular poetry to have survived from the earlier Middle
Ages, it is a literature that departs from classical Mediterranean
models in a number of its forms and themes, and it does so chiefly be-
cause of the heritage of the native aristocratic culture from which it
grew.
In recent years there has been some tendency to read Old English
literature with little reference to its native roots, as if it were the prod-
uct of a monastic literate culture alone. Such a tendency is a natural
extension of the progress that has been made in recent decades in

31
32 CONTEXT
identifying the ways that Anglo-Saxon poetry imitates and reflects the
dominant intellectual tradition of its age, the tradition of Latin Chris-
tian letters. Perhaps no other aspect of our knowledge of Old English
literature has advanced so significantly in recent years as has our
knowledge of its relation to the attitudes and practices of English mo-
nasticism. Certainly it is also true that "Anglo-Saxon poetry, in its ex-
isting written form, is the product of monastic culture." 1 T o say that
Old English poetry was written down by monks is not necessarily to
have shown, however, that monks schooled in Latin Christian letters
were responsible for shaping all features of its art.
In the Anglo-Saxon period there were both poets and scribes.
To mistake the office of one for that of the other may not do justice
to the complex set of literary interrelationships that existed in a
society in which most people were illiterate and in which singers were
honored and skilled performers for aristocratic patrons. In the absence
of evidence to the contrary, one cannot rule out the possibility that a
given Old English poetic text came into being in any of several ways:
as the written composition of a learned author; as the oral composition
of a lettered or unlettered singer whose work was written down; or as
an oral composition that was written down and then revised, perhaps
repeatedly, in the course of its written transmission.2 A priori
judgments will not help us sort through these different possibili-
ties.
Beowulf has provided a battleground for those concerned with iden-
tifying the original context of the Old English poetry that has sur-
vived. Does the poem derive its form and strength from being
grounded in the traditional art of the Germanic scop? Or is it a product
of generations of monastic experience in fashioning poetry on themes
derived from Latin letters?
The answer, of course, is both. The poem grows from a complex
milieu in which elements from Germanic and Mediterranean cultures
met and fused in a combination not quite like anything else we know of
from the Middle Ages. Like the highly refined book illumination of
the period, it presupposes skills that are both Germanic and monastic
in origin. In order to understand Beowulf, one should try to recon-
struct as exactly as possible both the traditional verse-making tech-
nique of the Anglo-Saxon scop and the nature of the monastic culture
that preserved this and all other Old English literature. If either of
these elements is ignored, one risks oversimplifying a poem whose ori-
T H E A R T OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 33
gins, despite all efforts of historical reconstruction, are complex and
obscure.

If For a variety of reasons I take what is popularly known as the


oral-formulaic theory of Milman Parry and Albert B. Lord as a point
of departure for discussing the art of the traditional Germanic scop. 3 I
do so despite the cloud of confusion that has arisen from the various
misapplications of the theory that have been made in the past, both by
followers of Parry and Lord whose occasional excesses of enthusiasm
have caused a reaction against their work as " a proliferating fantasy" 4
and by hostile critics who have seized on weaknesses in the theory as a
means of dismissing it from consideration. 5
Summarized in its essentials, the work of Parry and Lord has
proved to be important for having dispelled the mystery of how oral
epic poetry can be maintained in tradition over long periods of time
without the aid of writing. 6 Oral epic poetry can be defined as heroic
verse narrative of open-ended length that is recomposed at each per-
formance. T h e word recomposed is key to the definition and serves to
distinguish the nontraditional oral poetry of authors who memorize
their w o r k — t h e blind Milton, for example, or the unlettered Scots
Gaelic poet Duncan Macintyre 7 —from the traditional oral poetry of
singers like the Serbian bard A v d o Medjedovic. 8 Such poets rely both
on memory and on certain habitual structures of words and ideas to re-
create a song fluently without having fixed it in a single form. T h e
exact nature of these habitual structures of words and ideas will vary
from singer to singer, from region to region, and from language to
language. In some verse-making traditions, the needs of recomposition
are best served by relatively fixed formulas, hence the name "oral-for-
mulaic theory" rather than simply "oral theory." Because the nature
of the oral formula is a matter of frequent debate, the second name is
preferable. What is important is Parry's and Lord's demonstration
that oral poetry need not be either improvised spontaneously or mem-
orized verbatim. Neither need it be committed to writing to survive
for long periods. It can survive in the minds of singers so steeped in a
verse-making tradition that the "language within a language" of nar-
rative song comes to their lips almost as effortlessly as daily speech.
Although some scholars have doubted that verse so polished as the
extant Old English poetry could have been composed by "strumming
minstrels" like the illiterate bards of Yugoslavia, 9 literary excellence is
34 CONTEXT
generally a function of a poet's skill, not mode of composition. Arbi-
trary judgments as to the level of excellence that an oral poem can or
cannot achieve are not likely to help us sort through the verse of the
past and distinguish literary creations from their oral counterparts. W e
do not know how good oral poetry may have been in a context in
which illiteracy was the rule, in which oral storytelling provided not
only entertainment but a chief means to disseminate history and moral
instruction, and in which patronage for skilled singers was available
from the most central and powerful segments of society. T o judge
from the example of early Greece, such poetry may have been good
indeed. The Serbo-Croatian parallel, granted its usefulness in some re-
spects, does not go far toward helping reconstruct what the place of
oral poetry was in a society in which the art of the bard flourished not
in the coffeeshops of remote villages but in the halls of kings. Despite
the internecine warfare that was the bane of life throughout much of
the Old English period, and despite the major dislocations caused by
the Danish wars, Anglo-Saxon society was in its essentials a well-orga-
nized, aristocratic, conservative society that does not bear comparison
with the modern states of the Balkans. T h e substantial relative wealth
of this society seems to have made possible the growth of a substantial
body of heroic poetry that voiced the ideals and attitudes of the ruling
class. Anglo-Saxon wealth also seems to have made possible the pres-
ervation of at least some of this literature on vellum, although given
the monks' near monopoly of the resources of writing, probably only a
small portion of what was composed orally ever came to be written
down, and of this portion perhaps only a few texts have survived.
For a detailed account of how some Old English oral poetry came to
be recorded through dictation, we can turn to the Venerable Bede's
account of the poet Caedmon, well known from the fourth book of
Bede's Historia ecclesiastica.10 While often retold for its interest as a
tale of angelic inspiration and for the light it sheds on the earliest
English poet known by name, the story is of equally great interest in
showing how at least some Old English poetry was recorded through
the partnership of an illiterate poet and a lettered scribe.
According to Bede, after Caedmon's poetic gifts were discovered by
the Abbess Hild, the learned brethren of Whitby made use of his
verse-making talents by reading him passages of sacred history and
asking the cowherd to reproduce them in the native poetic form. After
a night of rumination Qedmon returned to the scribes to perform his
THE ART OF THE GERMANIC SCOP 35
verse. The process continued for some time, for by this method, Bede
tells us, Caedmon performed poetic paraphrases of Genesis and Exo-
dus, the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Christ,
and the acts of the Apostles, as well as devotional poems on the subject
of the Last Judgment and related themes. Bede tells us that by this
means, the illiterate cowherd "turned his teachers into listeners." In a
significant addition, Bede's late ninth-century West Saxon translator
writes that Caedmon's teachers œt his mwSe wreoton ond leornodon,
"learned and wrote from his lips," that is, wrote down what he dic-
tated.11 The translator's clarification of this point suggests that at the
time of King Alfred, the recording of songs by oral dictation was prac-
ticed in England. The translator seems to have felt that the sense of
Bede's account would be more clear if his readers were made to un-
derstand that the monks of Whitby did not simply listen to Caedmon's
singing, they recorded it in writing, as Bede implies but does not state.
The translator is not likely to have made such an addition if the prac-
tice of oral dictation were unknown to him or his audience.
Parts of Bede's account clearly pertain to the realm of legend rather
than fact. Of Qedmon's original compositions all that remains that can
be attributed to him is the nine-line creation hymn that Bede para-
phrases in Latin and that is preserved in Old English in seventeen
manuscripts. With the possible exception of Genesis A, the Old
English narrative poems on biblical themes that have come down to us
are no longer attributed to Caedmon and appear to be later creations
by different hands. All one can say with certainty is that to Bede and
his West Saxon translator, there seemed to be nothing unacceptable
about the idea that the poetic skills of unlettered persons might be the
envy even of learned monks. By writing about Caedmon, Bede does
not mean to disparage the monks for their lack of poetic accomplish-
ments. They had their calling, and Caedmon had his. Some of them
may have been excellent Latin poets, but Latin poetry could not reach
the interests and needs of the lay community. God's work was done
when two people, the singer and the scribe, united their gifts to record
a body of religious poetry in which the traditional verse-making tech-
nique of the scop was used for the first time to express themes from
the tradition of Latin letters.
Once this revolutionary step was taken, the joining of Germanic
and Mediterranean literary traditions had begun. Over the next sev-
eral centuries the process continued in a number of ways. On the one
36 CONTEXT
hand "learned Caedmons," as it were—well-educated clerics on the
order of Cynewulf and the translators of the Psalms—followed the ex-
ample of the Whitby cowherd in turning biblical history and a variety
of devotional subjects into passable English verse. As they did so, they
probably worked directly from Latin texts or from their own memo-
ries without the clerical intermediaries who paraphrased Latin Scrip-
ture for Caedmon. On the other hand, traditional songs on secular
themes, suitably adapted for a pious audience, could have been taken
down like the poems of Qedmon. Doubtless not all abbots would have
approved of the recording of such songs as "Waldere" and "The Bat-
tle of Finnsburh," but recorded they were; and some of them may
have been recorded from the lips of singers as plausibly as from the
pens of monks.
Assuming that there exists no touchstone for determining the style
of oral poetry, there may be no way for us to tell if an Old English text
derives from oral tradition, from a literary hand, or (the most trouble-
some alternative) from any number of possible combinations of oral
performances and literary records. If unlettered laymen could master
an oral style, lettered clerics could do so too. Treading warily, all the
same, one may make a few distinctions. If an Old English text is on a
religious theme, has a known Latin source or sources, is set within the
temporal framework of clerical history,12 and includes references to
the arts of reading and writing, then the likelihood is strong that the
work was penned by a learned author, whatever its density of "oral"
formulas. Cynewulf s Elene, for example, tells the story of the Inven-
tion of the Cross; is based on the Latin Acta Cyriaci; announces in its
first lines that the story takes place two hundred and thirty-three years
after the Incarnation of Christ, in the sixth year of the reign of Con-
stantine the Great; and includes an autobiographical passage
(l25ib-5Óa) in which the author speaks of his having found his story
written in books. The author's famous runic "signature" at the end
clinches the matter of the poem's learned provenance, for the signa-
ture depends for its effect on a reader, whose eye can catch and deci-
pher the runes. The poem known as "The Phoenix," similarly, devel-
ops an explicit religious allegory; is based on the poem "De ave
phoenice," attributed to Lactantius, as well as parts of the Book of Job
and medieval commentaries on Job; relies on commonplace notions of
millennial eschatology; and includes an autobiographical aside in which
the author speaks of his writing the poem.13 Anyone who doubts that
T H E A R T OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 37

the poet means what he says may consider the last lines of the poem,
which consist of a rather skillful eleven-line macaronic in Latin and
English.
When we turn to Beowulf we find none of these signs of clerical au-
thorship. The poem is on a secular theme, follows no known Latin
source, is set in the mists of "days of yore," and never alludes to
book-learning. While we need not conclude that in its original and pri-
mary mode of existence the poem was the property of scops, there is
no reason to rule out this possibility.
The case for an oral, traditional Beowulf underlying the extant text
becomes more persuasive when one considers how the poem includes a
remarkable portrait of an orally improvising scop.14 On the second day
in Heorot, after a band of men have followed Grendel's trail as far as
the bloody mere, the poet pauses for a moment to tell how the men
celebrated Beowulf's victory by racing their horses, while from time to
time the king's scop sang words of praise that included a lay of
Beowulf's own deed (864-8743):

Hwilum heaJ)orofe hleapan leton,


on geflit faran fealwe mearas,
6aer him foldwegas fegere Jauhton,
cystum cuSe. Hwilum cyninges J)egn,
guma gilphlaeden, gidda gemyndig,
se 6 e ealfela ealdgesegena
worn gemunde, word ojjer fand
soSe gebunden; secg eft ongan
siS Beowulfes snyttrum styrian,
ond on sped wrecan spei gerade,
wordum wrixlan.

From time to time the bold warriors


let their dark-skinned steeds race in contests
where the field paths seemed to them fair,
known for their excellence. A t times the king's thane,
a man with a memory for songs of praise,
who stored in his mind a vast number
of old stories, found word after word
bound in truth; in his wisdom he began
to sing in turn of Beowulf's exploit
and skillfully related an apt tale,
varying his words.
3« CONTEXT
Hrothgar's scop evidently begins his performance with certain con-
ventional opening phrases; he then recounts Beowulf's struggle of the
night before, and he continues (in lines not quoted) by singing a lay of
Sigemund, the dragon-slayer. Significantly, one is not quite sure where
the scop's song ends and where the Beowulf poet resumes his own
narration. Lines 888-915, which concern Heremod's rapaciousness
and which draw a contrast between Sigemund and Beowulf on the one
hand and Heremod on the other, could be spoken in the voice of either
the scop or the author. A similar ambiguity marks the beginning of the
later song of Finn and Hengest. Although by line 1071 we seem to be
in the midst of the song, no clear beginning, no demarcation of direct
address, tells us where the narrator's voice breaks off and the scop's
voice begins. The ease with which the Beowulf poet slips into and out
of the persona of an oral singer suggests that he saw little distinction
between these singers and himself. The portrait of the king's thane
who sings of Beowulf and Sigemund, in particular, could almost be
read as a piece of autobiography on the part of the poet. The Beowulf
poet himself is "a man with a memory for songs of praise," as he
shows time and again. He himself has "stored in his mind a vast num-
ber of old stories"—stories of Heremod, Scyld, Hrothgar, Hygelac,
Ingeld, Breca, Hama, Hengest, Finn, Offa, Ongentheow, Onela, Eor-
manric, Sigemund, Weland, and all the other Germanic heroes whose
names fill the historical and legendary digressions. He too finds words
"bound in truth," or linked by the binding of alliteration and by the
demands of his "true" history, and he too varies his words in the two-
steps-forward, one-step-back movement characteristic of Old English
narrative poetry. If the Beowulf poet was a good scop trained in the
old tradition rather than an ecclesiastic imitating the old style, then
one is tempted to see his "signature" in his portrait of Hrothgar's
anonymous scop as clearly as one reads Cynewulf's signature in the
last lines of Elene.
Apart from such speculation, the poet's portrait of the scop is ex-
traordinarily interesting in showing how one author conceived of the
role of the singer in traditional Germanic society. Hrothgar's thane is
presented as a man so steeped in the old songs, so accustomed to the
traditional language of praise, that before the sun rises on the day fol-
lowing Grendel's defeat he can recount a lay of the event in the cus-
tomary poetic form. Caedmon required a full night to mull over the
stories read to him before he could convert them into alliterative po-
THE ART OF THE GERMANIC SCOP 39
etry. The thane requires only hours to turn Beowulf's deeds into song.
The portrait of the scop is fictive, of course. We have no way of
knowing if a singer at any Anglo-Saxon court was capable of compara-
ble feats of oral composition. What is important is that the Beowulf
poet not only is familiar with this type of composition, but takes it for
granted. The scop's performance is presented as if it were the most
natural thing on earth. If composition of this kind were unknown in
Anglo-Saxon England, it is hard to imagine that the poet would have
stretched credulity by describing the scop's performance as he does.
Also taken for granted, here and elsewhere in the poem, is the public
oral presentation of poetry by skilled singers who have no pretension
to book-learning but whose memories are stocked with songs. If
Beowulf is any guide—and we must keep in mind that the poem is a
fiction set in ancient Scandinavia—then such public oral performance
was the rule in the central and powerful court society, whatever the
situation may have been in the marginal setting of the cloister.
Without any preconceptions as to how Beowulf and other Old
English poems were recorded, let us then inquire more exactly how
traditional singers composed songs in the Germanic verse medium.
How could Hrothgar's scop have composed a song of Beowulf in the
morning hours immediately following the hero's victory? And how
(moving from fiction to apparent fact) did Caedmon perform poetic
paraphrases of biblical history the morning after this history was ex-
pounded to him by the monks of Whitby?
It does not slight the achievement of Parry and Lord to point out
that their research provides only a point of departure from which to
approach Anglo-Saxon traditional verse. When Parry undertook his
study of the living tradition of South Slavic oral heroic poetry, he did
so in the hopes that what he would find would corroborate his concep-
tion of how Homer composed. If modern epic singers compose by for-
mula and theme, and if the Iliad and Odyssey resemble modern epic
songs in their formulaic and thematic schematization, then the Iliad
and Odyssey are likely to be the product of such singers. Parry trusted
in this analogy because of his conviction that oral poetry invariably
follows the same laws. He took as axiomatic that "the world's litera-
ture . . . falls into two great parts not so much because there are two
kinds of culture, but because there are two kinds ofform: the one part
of literature is oral, the other written,"15 Many scholars who have fol-
lowed Parry in seeking to apply the South Slavic analogy to the puta-
40 CONTEXT
tively oral literature of early times have undertaken their research with
the similar conviction that there exists such a thing as "oral form" to
be contrasted with "written form."
Unfortunately, the search for "oral form" has proved as fruitless as
the search for El Dorado. Parry was either fortunate or wise in re-
stricting his research chiefly to Serbo-Croatian and early Greek epic
poetry, for these two traditions share certain basic formal characteris-
tics. Neither is based on such linking devices as rhyme, assonance, or
alliteration; neither is strophic; in each, the fundamental principle of
the line is the even flow of metrical feet. In each tradition, corre-
spondingly, the fundamental poetic building-block is the fixed formula,
or group of words that is regularly used under the same metrical con-
ditions to express a given essential idea.16 Composition by fixed for-
mulas and by stable themes seems to be as basic to the art of the. guslar
as it is to that of Homer. 17
When one turns from either of these traditions and consider the
Old French chansons de geste, one is on safe ground insofar as the fun-
damental principle of the line is syllable-count; but in addition to sylla-
ble-count, Old French epic poetry observes the demands of assonance,
by which all lines in a strophe or laisse end in the same vowel sound. As
a consequence, in addition to fixed formulas one finds a number of
formulaic expressions (such as liproz e li curteis and li proz e li gentilz)
that differ from one another only in the final word. T o be useful, a
concept of the jongleur's fundamental poetic building-blocks must be
expanded to include such expressions.18
With Old English verse, as I set forth in more detail later, matters
become sufficiently complex that Parry's methodology begins to
crumble. Old English poetry does not observe fixed syllable-count. A
line may include any number of syllables from eight to seventeen or
more. Stress-count is the ruling principle of versification, and of the
four main stressed syllables that occur in most Old English lines,
either two or three are linked by alliteration. Fixed formulas still occur
in Old English, but they are not fundamentally important. Far more
significant are abstract formulaic systems, nonverbal mental paradigms
that are capable of generating any of a number of related verbal ex-
pressions depending on the local demands of sense, syntax, and alliter-
ation. Not by the repetition of fixed formulas, but by flexible use of
these open-ended mental paradigms, would a scop have been able to
compose readily in the alliterative form without needing to stop and
reflect before each phrase.
T H E A R T OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 41
Fixed formulaic diction is not characteristic of non-Germanic oral
poetry within the British Isles. Rather than rely on formulas, unlet-
tered Scots Gaelic poets make use of rhetorical techniques that permit
a full display of an inherited store of imagery. John Maclnnes notes,
"Recently, a colleague and I had the somewhat startling experience of
being addressed for the best part of twenty minutes in impromptu
song by a man at whose home we had both called unexpectedly, and
for the first time. Yet even this composition was not conspicuously
formulaic, let alone made up of formulas."19 In fairness to Parry and
Lord one should keep in mind that Scots Gaelic poetry is generally not
narrative, and memorization appears to play a large part in its per-
formance.
When one moves yet farther afield to examine oral poetry collected
from non-Indo-European traditions, one must revise the concept of
"oral form" to the point where it ceases to be of use. In the Xhosa
praise poetry of the Bantu people of South Africa, neither formulas
nor formulaic systems serve as the basic organizing principle of the
line. Instead, the tribal poet, or imbongi, is able to build up his songs
chiefly by means of parallelism of phrases, much as the ancient He-
brew authors of the Psalms did before him.20 This is not narrative po-
etry, of course, nor would parallelism of phrases be a viable technique
for the development of a long narrative.
Only a naive anthropologist would set out into the field under the
assumption that there exist two kinds of culture, "primitive" and
"modern," each with predictable social forms. The same is true of the
literary historian who expects to find two kinds of form in poetry.
Rather than speak of "oral form" and "literary form," one might bet-
ter seek to discriminate between oral forms and literary forms. The
oral forms of any one linguistic tradition may have more in common
with the literary forms of the same tradition than with the oral forms
of a different tradition, and one's comparative methodology must take
these distinctions into account. If there is any great lesson to be
learned from the information that has become available as the oral the-
ory has been extended to literatures of many different times and
places, it is that each body of poetry must be analyzed in its own terms,
with reference to the specific habits and requirements of its own verse
form.21
If one wishes to identify the possible oral prehistory of a given Old
English text, the question to ask is therefore not, "Does or does not
the poetry replicate the structures of Serbo-Croatian or early Greek
42 CONTEXT
verse?" It is, "Does or does not the poetry accord with what we would
expect the results of oral composition to be, given the unique require-
ments of the Old English alliterative verse form?" As one works to-
ward an answer to this question, studying Homer will help to a point,
and study of the songs of Avdo Medjedovic, Duncan Macintyre, or
Nelson Mabunu may help to a point, but soon one must look at the
Old English tradition itself, secure in the knowledge that the literature
of any social group is likely to have its own special characteristics that
make easy cross-cultural comparison impossible.
Inevitably, the results of such inquiry are rendered suspect by the
circularity of the methods. One must work back from the form of ex-
tant written texts to establish a model of what Anglo-Saxon oral poetic
composition was like and then hope to use this model as a means of
distinguishing texts composed traditionally from others composed pen
in hand. As one scholar poses the problem, "it may be that the nearest
evidence for understanding of orality, if investigation confines itself to
that culture's literature, is the very work whose status comes under
discussion." 22 Although I see no way around this circularity, I do not
therefore think that one need abandon the effort to understand as
much as possible concerning the art of the traditional scop. Nor need
one despair of being able to use stylistic grounds to locate a given Old
English text to either end of the oral-literary spectrum. One should
keep in mind, however, that one's methods are incapable of yielding
ironclad conclusions as to the oral or written origin of any text. At best
one may hope to understand more clearly why a particular poem like
Beowulf is put together in the way that it is. In the end, perhaps, this
information will be as valuable as any putative discoveries concerning
origins.
Let us then look more closely at the nature and history of the Old
English verse form as a prelude to more narrow stylistic analyses.
Once an Anglo-Saxon poet set out to compose in his native tongue, he
had virtually no alternative but to join phrase with phrase in accord
with the conventions of the Old Germanic alliterative form. Reduced
to its essentials, this form presents no difficulties.23 Two phrases—an a
verse and a b verse—are linked by the similar initial sound of either
two or three stressed syllables. The distribution of syllables of second-
ary and tertiary stress usually falls into certain favored patterns, which
the poet varies freely. These patterns were not learned from books;
they were practically his birthright. As one specialist has recently re-
T H E A R T OF T H E G E R M A N I C SCOP 43
minded us, " T h e scop internalized the . . . rules of his metrical gram-
mar in the course of learning his craft. T h e chances are that he was
never conscious of metre as a separate entity, especially if he had not
received schooling in the metres of Latin." 2 4
Since the first stress of the b verse regularly alliterates and the sec-
ond stress of the b verse regularly does not, almost any line can be
classified as one of three types, roughly speaking, depending on which
stress or stresses in the a verse carries the alliteration. If both the a
stresses alliterate, the result is a line with rich aural linkage, like the
following examples from the different Old Germanic dialects: 25

Rín skal ráSa rógmálmi skatna ("AtlakviSa," 2 7 / 5 - 6 )


Matheus endi Marcus— so uuarun thia man hetana
0Heliand\ 18)
Wand to wolcnum waelfyra maest (Beowulf, 1119)

The Rhine shall rule the riches of men's strife


Matthew and Mark— thus were the men called
The biggest of bonfires blazed to the sky

At least as common is the type of line in which only the first stressed
syllables of both verses alliterate:

Úlfr mun ráSa arfi Niflunga ("AtlakviSa," 1 1 / 1 - 2 )


Hadubrant gimahalta Hiltibrantes sunu ("Hildebrandslied," 14)
Him waes ful boren ond freondlajîu (Beowulf, 1 1 9 2 )

The wolf shall rule the wealth of the Niflungs


Hadubrand spoke Hildebrand's son
The cup was borne him and kindly greetings

Less favored, though still common, is the type of line in which the sec-
ond stress of the a verse alliterates with the first stress of the b verse:

Senn váru iEsir allir á £>ingi ("PrymskviSa," 56)


Thuo sia thar an griete galgón rihtun (Heliand\ 5 5 3 2 )
Hi hyne f)a aetbaeron to brimes faroSe ( B e o w u l f , 28)

Straightway the jEsir all met together


Then there on the ground a gallows they reared
Then out they bore him to the beach of the sea
44 CONTEXT

T h e notorious difficulty in translating such poetry out of its alliterative


measure into modern English is to be attributed not to the difficulty of
the form, I believe, but rather to the difficulty of reproducing the spe-
cial stylistic effects that are locked in the original languages: the ken-
nings and other sorts of metaphoric diction, for example, or (most re-
calcitrant to render gracefully) the technique of variation, by which
the same essential concept may be repeated two, three, or even more
times in nearly-synonymous terms in neighboring verses. T h e form it-
self remains viable as a medium for poetry, as is suggested by the fol-
lowing additional quotations. A s further examples of the "rich" alliter-
ative line:

Oh, to be in England Now that April's there . . .


(Browning, "Home-Thoughts, From Abroad," 1-2)

Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead . . .


(Eliot, "The Waste Land," 312)

A s examples of the second type of line:

The barge she sat in, like a burnish'd throne . . .


(Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra, II.ii.196)26
He disappeared in the dead of winter . . .
(Auden, "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," 1)

And as examples of the third:

Powers and Dominions, Deities of heav'n!


(Milton, Paradise Lost, 2.11)

The goodliest fellowship of famous knights . . .


(Tennyson, "Morte d'Arthur," 5)

Examples could be multiplied, 27 but these few are enough to suggest


that verse composed in accord with the rules of the old form is under
no compulsion to be crude or graceless.
W h y is it that of all the Indo-European peoples, only the Germanic
tribes developed an alliterative form of this kind? And why is it that
the Germanic peoples eventually came to discard their native form in
favor of the borrowed system of syllable-count and rhyme?
T H E ART OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 45
First, one may dismiss what could be called the "evolutionary fal-
lacy." T h e Old Germanic verse form was not striving toward meter.
Anglo-Saxon poets conspicuously failed to abandon their old verse
form, even after models of rhymed, metered poetry had become avail-
able to them in the form of the Latin hymns of Ambrose and others.
The old alliterative verse form came into being and later died away for
good linguistic and cultural reasons. Almost alone among the Indo-Eu-
ropean-speaking peoples, the Germanic peoples early adopted a system
of stress on the root syllable of a word. Once this change had taken
place, the way was open for the development of a verse form based on
initial rhyme, or alliteration. Whether this verse form developed grad-
ually out of a postulated Indo-European quantitative meter, was bor-
rowed from some non-Indo-European language group, or was in-
vented by Germanic tribesmen more or less from scratch, no one can
say. Whatever its origin, one may date the development of the allitera-
tive form to the common Germanic period, sometime after the phono-
logical changes known as "Grimm's Law" and "Verner's Law" had
taken their course 28 and sometime before the tribal migrations of the
third to sixth centuries. With regional variations, almost all early Ger-
manic poetry is composed in this same form. As we have seen, the
same verse form that is used to such good effect in Beowulf is also rec-
ognizable in the lays of the Old Norse Elder Edda and related poems,
the Old High German "Hildebrandslied," and the Old Saxon biblical
paraphrases Heliand and Genesis. If the great body of early alliterative
poetry that survived is in the Old English dialect, this may be because
social conditions in England favored the cultivation of poetry, in that
there seem to have been more wealthy patrons there than in other
Germanic territories. Equally important, English social conditions fa-
vored the preservation of poetry once it was composed, for from an
early period scribes wrote poems down and libraries preserved manu-
scripts once they were written.
Why then did the alliterative form die out? In part because its
means of existence died out as a result of the Battle of Hastings. As
William the Conqueror established his own French-speaking vassals in
positions of power in the court and in monasteries throughout
England, patronage for native poetry disappeared. Most of the active
tradition-bearers died out. T h e old poetic word-hoard, formerly the
property of skilled singers and an audience of Connoisseurs, fell into
disuse. In addition, the language itself began to change. When English
46 CONTEXT
poetry again came fully into its own after three centuries of eclipse, the
language in which it was composed would scarcely have struck a per-
son of King Alfred's day as Englisc. It was a hybrid tongue that no
longer featured systematic initial stress. While some of the poetry of
this time still proceeded "rum, raf, ruff, by lettre," in the words of
Chaucer's Parson, the poems of the "Alliterative Revival" of the
fourteenth century stand as the last flowering of a verse form that had
lost much of its usefulness. It is owing as much to this breakdown in
the regularity of initial stress as to the prestige of Chaucer and the
rhyming poets of Italy and France that the native verse form came to
be almost universally discarded by the time of the advent of printing.
Beowulf therefore stands somewhere midway in a tradition of Ger-
manic verse-making that seems to have begun early in the Christian
era and that continued for well over a millennium, although broken
and driven underground by the Norman Conquest. During the period
of the late seventh to the late tenth century, the tradition was under-
going a gradual transition from its oral roots to the dominance of a
lettered mode of composition. Yet even this general tendency of
change can be misleading, for there is reason to believe that composi-
tion by oral poets continued up to the time of the Conquest, when pa-
tronage for English poetry virtually disappeared.
Just because an Anglo-Saxon poem is late, one need not conclude
that it must be of monastic origins. Christian missionaries may have
brought letters to England, but England did not become literate over-
night. Throughout the Old English period, true competence in letters
was restricted to the minority who entered religious orders, and not
even all clerics became adept at the use of letters or immediately dis-
carded patterns of thought that remained the norm among their lay
relatives in the surrounding communities. Alcuin's letter of 797 to
Higbald, bishop of Lindisfarne, reminds us that a taste for heroic song
lingered in the monasteries as well as in the meadhalls of Anglo-Saxon
England, to the displeasure of some churchmen.29 Competence in
Latin letters waned to the point of extinction in eastern and northern
England in the wake of the Viking expansion, as a nonlettered Norse-
speaking aristocracy established itself by force of arms in large areas of
the island. The monasteries that reestablished themselves in the Dane-
law were notorious for their secular orientation. Such monasteries may
have provided occasional shelter for singers, in addition to vellum for
the preservation of songs. Even in the late tenth and early eleventh
T H E A R T OF T H E G E R M A N I C SCOP 47
centuries, when monks pledged to the Benedictine rule had driven out
the secular clergy and had brought about a revival of Anglo-Saxon
learning, songs of the old kind seem to have continued to be heard not
far from monastic walls. Paragraph 41 of the Law of the Northum-
brian Priests (c. 1020-1023) provides that a priest should be fined if
he "practises drunkenness or becomes a gleeman or a tavern-minstrel"
(.EHD, p. 474). Rule eighteen of the Canons of Edgar, a set of ecclesi-
astical regulations composed by Wulfstan during the period 1004-
1008, is directed against the singing of heathen lays in a context where
they would conflict with religious observances.30 There would have
been no need for such a condemnation if such songs had not been a
favored diversion, just as Alcuin would not have complained of heroic
songs being performed in the refectory if such entertainment were
never heard. One may further assume that if heathen songs were pro-
hibited on feast days, they may still have been heard the rest of the
week.
By now it should begin to be clear that one does scant justice to Old
English poetry by taking it as a product solely of a monastic, lettered
milieu. Some of the poetry must be so viewed. Most of the poetry may
perhaps be so viewed. Other works show every indication of pertain-
ing as much to the great hall of the aristocrats as to the scriptorium.
Such poems as "Waldere," " T h e Battle of Finnsburh," "Deor,"
"Widsith," " W u l f and Eadwacer," "The Wife's Lament," "The
Battle of Maldon," and Beowulf may have been recorded in monas-
teries, but they did not necessarily originate there; or if they did, they
were not necessarily composed by clerics. T o ignore the aristocratic
oral tradition in Old English poetry is to close one's eyes to a mode of
composition and performance that may have been culturally central
until late in the Anglo-Saxon period, however little information about
it may be gleaned from recorded documents. By its nature, oral poetry
shuns written records of its existence. The tradition of English ballad
singing had been thought to have died out in North America, for ex-
ample, when Cecil Sharp came to the Appalachians in 1916 and found
a richly conservative singing tradition, far from the publishing houses
of the cities, which knew nothing of its existence. If the clerical writers
of Anglo-Saxon England tended to keep silence concerning oral po-
etry, one need not conclude that oral poetry did not exist or that the
surviving Old English texts have nothing to do with it.
At the same time, we may take for granted that no extant text, with
48 CONTEXT
the possible exception of "Caedmon's Hymn," is a verbatim transcript
of an oral performance. If scribes took down poems, they probably did
so at the behest of an abbot or nobleman. Their copying may have
been precise, careless, or a mixture of both. They may have worked
either from summaries or from full performances. Once their work
was completed, it was almost certainly subject to editorial revision with
the aim of improving it. After all, Anglo-Saxon abbots and noblemen
were not interested in publishing verbatim texts for a scholarly mar-
ket. A scribe taking down the biblical paraphrases of Qedmon, for ex-
ample, would first have written the cowherd's words on inexpensive
wax tablets. Later, the tablets could have been reviewed and corrected
before the poems were transferred to the expensive medium of parch-
ment. Once fixed in ink, they would have been subject to the same
processes of copying and, perhaps, reworking, as were any other Old
English literary texts.
An uneasy reader may ask, "How can one meaningfully speak of
orally composed songs if the final product is so far removed from spon-
taneous performance?"
Perhaps it was naive to be looking for exact records of spontaneous
performance in the first place. No one has claimed that the extant
texts of the Iliad and Odyssey, for example, are direct records of the
songs that "Homer" sang before an audience of Ionian Greeks.31 In
any event, "spontaneous" oral performance is not something that just
happens. It is the result of generations of collaboration among singers
who borrow and rework the songs of others, who gradually perfect
their songs over the course of a number of performances, and who, in
modern times, have not hesitated to raid printed books for new mate-
rial, much as Casdmon drew on Scripture for his themes.32 We need
not therefore throw out the whole distinction between oral and let-
tered verse. The songs of a skilled singer are likely to have their own
style and aesthetic based on their highly conservative mode of compo-
sition, and even written records that are separated from these songs by
several removes may retain the stamp of oral tradition.
Still, the reader may ask, is not literacy the deathblow to oral tradi-
tion? If so, the death need not be instantaneous. In Anglo-Saxon
England it was not Christian letters that killed the tradition of heroic
oral poetry but the Norman Conquest, which systematically eliminated
the native English aristocracy. Heroic poetry may have continued to
be heard and may even have undergone a new vogue after the Con-
T H E A R T OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 49
quest, but this poetry was sung in French by trained jongleurs, not in
English by trained scops.
Oral tradition is persistent and multiform and has probably been so
for some time. Even in the present day, when the public is inundated
with an enormous amount of reading material that flows daily from the
presses of print shops and publishing houses, oral tradition flourishes
in the midst of modern industrial society in the form of legends, anec-
dotes, memorates, tall tales, jokes, and dozens of ephemeral forms that
resist classification. Ballad poetry, both orally transmitted and printed
on broadsides, has remained strong into the twentieth century, after
having crossed the Atlantic and adapted itself to new conditions of life.
Storytelling of a variety of sorts has survived both in Britain and
North America, where tales with a plot structure curiously like that of
Beowulf have been recorded from French-, Spanish-, and English-
speaking people. The recalcitrant fact is that people like to sing and
tell tales. W e may imagine that they have done so since the first
campfire was kindled, and the habit shows no sign of yet being broken,
literacy or no literacy, print or no print, television or no television. "In
practice," as one scholar has pointed out in the course of a thorough
review of the subject, "interaction between oral and written forms is
extremely common, and the idea that the use of writing automatically
deals a death blow to oral literary forms has nothing to support it." 33
In the Balkans, the tradition of oral epic verse-making did not grind
to a halt as soon as the first learned Serb took up his pen, as Lord has
taken pains to point out {The Singer of Tales, pp. 134-135). In Greece,
the European country with the longest continuous history of literacy,
the art of singers of traditional klephtic ballads and epic songs can be
heard on field recordings made in the 1950s and 1960s.34 If a tradition
of oral poetry dies, it will not do so because certain people in the
neighborhood have learned to read and write. It will do so either be-
cause some major disruption has destroyed the occasions for perform-
ance of the poetry or because literacy has invaded even the lowest
ranks and the most remote regions of a society, to the point that all
poetry is learned from books. At this point memorization and self-
conscious imitation of written models will have replaced oral tradi-
tional composition, although the influence of the old form and the old
poetic themes may still be felt for a time. In general, singers are likely
to continue performing in the old way as long as they can command an
audience that identifies with their songs. Even literate singers may
50 CONTEXT
prefer not to discard the old ways of composition in favor of the new
medium of pen and paper, or if they do, the results do not necessarily
represent an artistic improvement.35
If oral traditional composition has persisted as long as it has in
Greece and the Balkans in the face of a gradually encroaching literacy,
one may suppose that it persisted in Anglo-Saxon England long after
the importation of Latin letters by a small number of clergy who had
neither the power nor the inclination to upset the structures of aristo-
cratic society. The special social conditions of pre-Conquest England
should be kept in mind. In Greece and the Balkans, illiteracy has been
restricted chiefly to the lower ranks of society. In Anglo-Saxon
England, most of the higher nobility were unlettered, and even aristo-
crats who entered the cloister did not necessarily give up their oral
culture overnight.

if I offer the following as a brief sketch of the native Germanic con-


tribution to the development of Old English poetry. Like any hypo-
thetical reconstruction of the past, it may not command assent. Some
of its heretical notions may require modification as more information
becomes available. Nevertheless, in its general outlines it may still
provide a first step toward establishing a plausible literary context for
such a work as Beowulf.
Whatever kind of oral poetry was cultivated by the Germanic set-
tlers who came to England during the fifth and sixth centuries, it is not
likely to have exactly resembled any extant text, Beowulf in particular.
If the oral poetry of the Germanic tribes included such forms as
hymns, laments, work songs, satirical songs, or bawdy songs, we have
no way of knowing from the extant records. Most scholars agree that
short alliterative lays on historical or legendary themes circulated
among the Germanic-speaking peoples from an early period, but con-
cerning the exact nature of these lays we can say little. Of surviving
poems, perhaps the fragmentary Old High German "Hildebrandslied"
and the fragmentary Old English "Battle of Finnsburh" are closest to
the ancestral type. Certain lays from the Elder Edda, such as "At-
lakviSa" and "HamSismál," may represent a development from the
common Germanic lay, but if so, the form underwent a special refine-
ment among the poets of the North. If such prominent tribes as the
Goths, the Burgundians, the Franks, the Frisians, the Vandals, and the
Langobards once cultivated such lays, their poetry has vanished with-
out a trace. In its recorded form, the heroic lay focuses on one episode
T H E A R T OF T H E G E R M A N I C SCOP 5i
of a larger story known from former times. The action moves swiftly
to its conclusion, and interest centers on the deeds of a few men or
women who act out their fates in unflinching accord with their own
sense of justice, regardless of the consequences to themselves or
others.36
Given the fragmentation of Germanic society during the Age of
Migrations, one may doubt that magnificent royal patronage was often
available for singers. Still, these lays were no lyric effusions or medita-
tions composed for the diversion of a few people. They must have
been public property, to be performed before a group at meeting-
places that included the great halls of chieftains and kings. Some no-
blemen may have employed their own house-scops, singers like the
speaker of "Deor," who laments the loss of his position and lands to a
rival singer who has won the lord's favor. Other scops may have trav-
eled from court to court like Widsith, seeking patronage for their
songs of praise. Some chieftains and kings may themselves have been
skilled in the arts of song, like the Hrothgar who sings in Beowulf
(2105-14) or like the Alfred of history, who is said to have learned
native Saxon poems by heart.37 Whoever performed these lays articu-
lated a shared pride in the deeds of ancestral heroes and the values by
which such people lived and died. Ikgihorta <Sat seggen, begins the poet
of the "Hildebrandslied": "I have heard it said . . ." T h e poet claims
no special authority; he is merely repeating a story that others have
told before him. Frêtt hefir qld ("the world has heard"), begins "At-
lamál in Grœnlenzko." All know the story, and the poet's task is to
recall it faithfully in pleasing measures.
Poetry of this kind has little room for originality, in the modern
sense. If it did not articulate the common experience of the group it
would have perished, for in early Germanic times no parchment or
print existed to record private thoughts. Oral tradition acted as a win-
nowing device that separated memories central to the experience of
the tribe from more casual or intimate reflections. Poetry of the great
hall was public verse on serious themes. Its great function was to bind
the members of a society together in their knowledge of a common
heritage, and only poetry of this kind would have been passed on from
generation to generation with much stability.
This is not to say that personal experiences and emotions did not
find expression in such poetry. Doubtless they did, but in an imper-
sonal way, by being put into relation with the similar experiences of
people from the legendary past. The speaker of "Deor" sets his own
52 CONTEXT

misfortunes within the context of the sufferings of well-known persons


who had been forced to endure adversity: Weland, who lived to take
vengeance for his imprisonment by NiShad; Beaduhild, who endured
Weland's killing of her two brothers and her own pregnancy by rape;
MieÖhild, whose love for a man named Geat caused her to lose all
sleep; the men of the Goths, who suffered for thirty years under the
rule of Eormanric. Just naming these names from the heroic past
would have called up memories that members of the audience shared
in common, in somewhat the same way as poets of the age of Pope
were able to enrich their poems by allusions to stories from Ovid fa-
miliar to any educated person of the time. The author of "Widsith"
employs the device of a first-person narrator chiefly to lend a note of
authenticity and personal immediacy to what might otherwise have
been a dry catalogue of names. Of the wanderer Widsith and his per-
sonal emotions of joy and sorrow we are told very little. His experi-
ence in singing and in being rewarded for song is presented in such
general terms that it typifies the experience of all scops. The author
uses this " I " persona as a way to establish an implicit analogy: "Wid-
sith was a singer who received great gifts for celebrating the heroes of
the past; I too am a singer; shall I not too be rewarded?" The force of
the analogy becomes most clear in the author's nine-line envoi
(135-143):

Swa senkende gesceapum hweorfaS


gleomen gúmena geond grunda fela,
J)earfe secgaS, J)oncword sprecaj),
simle suS ο|ψε norS sumne gemetaS
gydda gleawne, geofum unhneawne,
se £>e fore duguj)e wile dom araran,
eorlscipe sfnan, (ψ J)aet eal saeceS,
leoht ond lif somod; lof se gewyrceS,
hafaö under heofonum heahfestne dom.

So the minstrels of men travel about


driven by fate over many lands;
they speak their need, say words of thanks;
ever south or north they meet a man
knowing in songs, liberal in gifts,
who wishes to raise his fame before the warriors,
make known his lordliness until it all fades,
light and life both. He who wins praise
has high honor under the heavens.
THE ART OF THE GERMANIC SCOP 53
Without reducing his poem to a pitch for funds, the author of "Wid-
sith" makes clear that, like the scops of former times, he has the ability
to promote the fame of noblemen through song that will win them
"high honor under the heavens" as long as he lives. As in all affairs of
traditional society, reciprocity governs the relationship between the
singer and his patron. By praising others in skilled song, the poet wins
both material recompense and praise for himself.
The function of poetry in early Germanic society seems to have
been chiefly this: to distribute praise and blame. Songs had other func-
tions too, of course. The singer fulfilled the role of tribal historian, and
part of his job was to keep in mind many stories of former times and to
perform these stories on demand, much as the Beowulf poet calls to
mind the careers of Scyld, Hengest, Offa, and many others. The con-
tinuing fame of such heroes would have reinforced the group's sense
of pride by showing how the current generation is part of a long chain
of heroic biographies. The scop was also an entertainer whose songs,
whatever their historical or moral content, would have brightened
many a long evening. Apart from these functions of memory and en-
tertainment, the songs of the scop had the central importance of de-
fining and reinforcing the values of society by showing praiseworthy
actions and their opposites. The scop was a spokesman for social
norms not by pontificating on issues of right and wrong, but by show-
ing examples of conduct deserving emulation or blame. His mode of
instruction was deictic, not homiletic, in that it consisted of pointing
out models of behavior. To judge from the heroic poetry that has sur-
vived, the scop made few subtle distinctions between right and wrong.
Right actions led to the welfare of the group. Wrong actions led to the
disintegration of social ties and the fragmentation of the group into
warring factions. Generous gift-giving and heroic leadership on the
part of a king, courage and heroic fortitude on the part of a warrior—
these are the values constantly affirmed in the secular poetry that has
survived from early Germanic times, and a chief function of the oral
songs that preceded the surviving poetry must have been to praise
those who lived by these values and to castigate those who did not.
One may only speculate on the form of these songs. Certainly they
were alliterative, in the common Germanic meter. Probably they were
variable in length, like the modern heroic songs of Yugoslavia or the
modern praise songs of Africa. Most likely they were stichic rather
than strophic in form, like the "Hildebrandslied" rather than the lays of
the Elder Edda. They may have been sung to the accompaniment of a
54 CONTEXT
small, six-stringed lyre that was plucked rather than strummed, 38 but
one cannot assume that unaccompanied song was unknown. Certainly
it is hard to imagine that the thane who sings on horseback in Beowulf
as the Danes return from the mere uses a lyre to punctuate his song.
As an apprentice singer learned to perform narrative lays, he gradu-
ally became one on whom the survival of the tradition depended. He
absorbed a working knowledge of the metrical grammar of the allitera-
tive form. He mastered the use of certain obviously useful phrases:
formulas of direct address,39 for example, or habitual ways of referring
to a hero or ruler within the half-line.40 He became adept in the special
poetic syntax. He became familiar not only with a number of plots but
with a stylized way of developing the action of a plot through the use
of such conventional themes as arming, land travel, sea voyages, gift
giving, boasts, flytings, single combat, mass combat, flight, and the
carrion birds and beasts of battle.41 As he gained experience and con-
fidence, he learned how to ornament a song with colorful diction, some
perhaps of his own coining, and with a variety of means of rhetorical
amplification. In short, he learned a style.
We have no way of knowing, however, if all singers were able to
substitute quickly among related formulas or knew how to build theme
upon theme spontaneously, in the manner characteristic of oral-
formulaic composition. The shorter a song, the more easily it can be
committed to memory. Particularly when we consider the phenomenal
powers of memory shown by some tradition bearers in recent times,42
we cannot rule out the possibility that the primary way the Germanic
heroic lay was transmitted was by memorization rather than by the
sort of fluid re-creation characteristic of modern South Slavic epic
43
song.
If Germanic lays were chiefly memorized, one might assume that
they remained relatively fixed in oral tradition for generations, or even
centuries, until eventually they were forgotten, but creativity plays a
role in the transmission even of memorized texts. T o illustrate this
paradox one may turn to the tradition of Anglo-American balladry.
Although most ballad singers memorize their songs, as they them-
selves claim and as can be seen by comparing one singer's perform-
ances of the same song many years apart, 44 still an astonishing degree
of variation can occur within the singing tradition of any one ballad.45
Apparently, each singer tends to keep to the same text once he or she
has learned it, but in the process of learning it, the singer remakes it,
T H E ART OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 55
consciously or unconsciously, according to a personal idea of what the
song is or should be. Poorer singers leave out stanzas, simplify the
plot, garble details, or introduce sentimental phrases that are the float-
ing bric-a-brac of singing tradition. Better singers preserve the song
more faithfully or improve it by adding details, clarifying obscurities,
or purging it of sentimental accretions. Some of the best singers per-
fect their repertory over the course of many years in a way that
reflects their own changing aesthetic or style. 46 In a lively song-
tradition, the result of this chiefly memorial process will be a bewil-
dering variety of versions of the song, each known verbatim by a
singer who often honestly believes that he or she has preserved it "just
as I first heard it."
While it is often assumed that the early Germanic lay had died out
or become moribund by the time Anglo-Saxon literature was first re-
corded, there is no reason to conclude that it did not remain a viable
form throughout the first millennium, occasionally influencing the
newer modes of written literature in a relationship whose complexities
are difficult to assess. If it had been one of the chief forms of aristocra-
tic entertainment and instruction before the coming of Christianity,
then there is no reason to suppose that it died an instant death simply
because churchmen began teaching the mystery of the Redemption
and imported a number of Latin books to England. T h e values of gen-
erosity, heroic leadership, courage, and personal devotion were not in-
compatible with Christian belief. No evidence suggests that mission-
aries felt compelled to destroy those aspects of aristocratic culture that
offered no contradiction to the new religion. Some ecclesiastics may
have frowned on the singing of heroic lays within the shelter of monas-
tic walls, but it is unlikely that they either sought to uproot such lays
from the mead hall or met with much success if they did.
Surviving texts suggest that the early Germanic lay not only had
not died out by the late seventh or early eighth century but had al-
ready begun developing into a longer and more sophisticated form.
This change from lay to epic, or, more precisely, this development of
an epic form in addition to the short lay, seems already to have begun
by the time of Caedmon's "Christian revolution" in Old English po-
etry.
For a variety of reasons one must question the commonly accepted
idea that epic poetry was not a native Anglo-Saxon development but
derived from imitation of classical Latin models. 47 Although an occa-
56 CONTEXT
sional detail from the Aenetd may have provided a spark for the imagi-
nation of the Beowulf poet, the differences between the two poems
make it inconceivable that one could have grown from the other.
Beowulf's sustaining source can only have been the native poetic tradi-
tion itself. When Anglo-Saxon poets began composing long biblical
paraphrases, their originality consisted of their adaptation of the long
narrative mode to Christian subjects, not of their inventing such a
mode outright. The change from lay to epic was not merely a change
in length: the surviving Old English epic poetry, whether on secular
or religious themes, shows a rhetorical technique far more supple and
sophisticated than that of the "Hildebrandslied" and "The Battle of
Finnsburh." It is distinctly not the rhetorical technique of the Vulgate
Bible or the Aeneid. This special poetic language was not invented
overnight by Cxdmon or any other poet, but was the development of
generations of poets who gradually created an epic mode of composi-
tion suitable for the special conditions of patronage in the great halls of
English aristocrats.
By the late seventh century in England, conditions of social life had
progressed far from what they had been during the Age of Migra-
tions. The kind of poetry that had flourished on the Continent was not
necessarily the only kind of poetry that came to be sung in the courts
of Anglo-Saxon kings of the Heptarchy. The Germanic tribesmen
who migrated to England won possession of an agriculturally advanced
realm whose potential wealth was substantial, in comparison with that
of their former homelands. The possible rewards for poetic accom-
plishment in such a realm may have far exceeded what was available on
neighboring parts of the Continent during the sixth and seventh cen-
turies, and one can easily imagine that singers vied with one another
to create songs that would gain them high patronage and praise.
Rather than forget the art of heroic song, Anglo-Saxon scops brought
this art to a new state of refinement as the relatively settled prosperity
of Anglo-Saxon society encouraged the development of narrative po-
etry longer than that known previously, as far as we can tell, in the
Germanic North.
There is a danger, of course, in extrapolating from the apparent fact
of Britain's wealth to the assumption that such wealth was used to
sponsor poetry. We do not know the extent to which aristocrats of the
Heptarchy provided patronage for song, nor can any poems be attrib-
uted to their courts in the way that "The Battle of Brunanburh" can
T H E ART OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP 57

be attributed to a "gifted and well trained publicist" in the service of


King Athelstan.48 Still, the existence of secular epic poetry in Anglo-
Saxon England but not elsewhere in Germanic territories is a fact that
calls for explanation.
If Beowulf were the only poem of its kind to have survived, one
might doubt that Anglo-Saxon epic poetry was essentially a native de-
velopment. Two fragments of what was once an epic-length song of
Walter of Aquitaine, now preserved in the Royal Library in Copenha-
gen, are of inestimable worth in showing that the making of Beowulf
was not a unique event to be attributed to an idiosyncratic poet, but
rather was one expression of what must have been a more widespread
verse-making tradition. What has been preserved is probably only a
small portion of the body of epic song that was current in Anglo-Saxon
England. Within the "Waldere" fragments alone one finds a reference
to Weland, the master smith of the Old Norse "VçlundarkviSa,"
whose fame was well known to the Beowulf poet (lines 452-4553) as
well as to the author of "Deor" (lines I - 1 2 ) and the carver of the
Franks Casket. One finds references to /Et\a (Attila), GuShere
(Gunther), and Hagena (Hägen), immortal heroes of the Middle High
German Nibelungenlied and protagonists of the Eddie lays "AtlakviSa"
and "Atlamál in Grœnlenzko," where they are known under the names
Atli, Gunnarr, and Hçgni. Allusion is made also to Deodric, who is
the Theotrihhe, or Detrihhe, of the "Hildebrandslied," the Dietrich von
Bern of Middle High German poetry, and the PiÖrikr of the late Old
Norse prose Pñrik's Saga, and who is better known as Theodoric the
Great (455-526), ruler of the Ostragoths from his capital city of
Verona. Like the Beowulf story, the story of Waldere is linked to early
Germanic legendry by a network of filiations. Songs recounting the
exploits of these various Germanic heroes must have been sung in
England as well as in Germanic-speaking areas of the Continent, and
there is no reason to suppose that these songs took the form only of
simple lays rather than of expansive narratives like "Waldere."
From the length of the fragments of "Waldere," one would have no
way of knowing that this poem must have been "an epic of consider-
able magnitude, at least a thousand lines long, perhaps even as long as
Beowulf, " in the view of Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie.49 Its leisurely style
immediately sets it apart from such a poem as the "Hildebrandslied"
and identifies it as a work of epic scale. In former days, when the Lie-
dertheorie of F. A. Wolf dominated Homeric criticism and threw a
58 CONTEXT

long shadow over medieval scholarship as well, some scholars followed


Karl Müllenhof in believing that a work on the scale of Beowulf could
have been stitched together from a number of separate lays.50 The
pacing of "Waldere" and Beowulf belies this assumption. In "The
Battle of Finnsburh," a five-day battle is recounted in fifteen lines. In
Beowulf the relatively brief single combat between the hero and
Grendel is spun out to nearly eighty lines as the poet uses every device
at his command to impress upon his audience the magnitude of the
fight. This technique of amplification, by which the poet draws out the
color and emotive significance of a narrative event, chiefly distin-
guishes the epic style from the style of the lay and guarantees that no
matter how many Germanic Lieder were stitched together, the result
would be a patchwork of Lieder and not a poem like Beowulf51
As an illustration of the epic style one may compare how two
Anglo-Saxon poets deal with the conventional theme of "arming."
When the "Finnsburh" poet wishes to say that the Danes at Finn's
stronghold armed themselves for the fight, he does so in a single line:
"Then many a gold-adorned thane arose [and] girded on his sword"
(13). When the Beowulf poet wishes to tell how the hero armed him-
self for the fight with Grendel's mother, he develops the theme in a
self-contained verse paragraph of thirty-one-and-a-half lines. I shall
quote all but the last eight of these as a point of reference for further
discussion of the epic style:

Gyrede hine Beowulf


eorlgewaedum, nalles for ealdre mearn;
scolde herebyrne hondum gebroden,
sid ond searofah sund cunnian,
1445 seo Se bancofan beorgan οιφε,
J)aet him hildegrap hrejjre ne mihte,
eorres inwitfeng aldre gesceJ)San;
ac se hwita helm hafelan werede,
se ])e meregrundas mengan scolde,
1450 secan sundgebland since geweorSad,
befongen freawrasnum, swa hine fyrndagum
worhte waepna smiS, wundrum teode,
beseite swinlicum, Jiaet hine syS£>an no
brond ne beadomecas bitan ne meahton.
1455 Naes Jjaet Jxjnne maetost msegenfultuma,
{wet him on Searfe lah Syle HroSgares;
T H E A R T OF T H E G E R M A N I C SCOP 59
waes jDsem haeftmece Hrunting nama;
J)aet wjes an foran ealdgestreona;
ecg waes iren, atertanum fah,
1460 ahyrded hea|)oswate; naefre hit aet hilde ne swac
manna aengum {jara Jîe hit mid mundum bewand,
se Se gryresiSas gegan dorste,
folcstede fara; naes Jjaet forma si8,
J)Eet hit ellenweorc asfnan scolde.

Beowulf donned
his noble arms with no thought for his life;
his broad mail-shirt woven by hand,
expertly wrought was to explore the waves;
1445 it knew how to cover his cage of bones
so that no hostile grip could injure him,
no enemy's grasp could touch his vitals.
T h e bright helmet that guarded his head
was soon to seek out the eddying waves
1450 and stir up the sea depths, adorned with treasure,
clasped with lordly bands just as the weapon-smith
had fashioned it wondrously in former days,
surmounted it with boar-images so that ever afterwards
no sword or battle-blade could bite through it.
1455 Not the least aid to his strength was what
Hrothgar's thyle lent him in his need;
the hilted sword was named Hrunting;
peerless it was among ancient treasures;
the blade was of iron gleaming with poisonous designs
1460 hardened in war-blood; never at battle
had it failed any man who wielded it in his hands
as he dared to try dangerous exploits
on the field of combat; that was not the first time
it was called to perform a deed of valor.

T h e leisurely pacing of the passage could never be mistaken for that of


the simpler lay. T h e poet delights in detail, and he delays any account
of the fight until he has gone over every aspect of its preparations.
T h e basic information is given in a line and a half; all else is adorn-
ment. After first telling that "Beowulf armed himself," the poet speci-
fies what these arms were in a point-by-point description, five lines of
which are devoted to the coat of mail, seven to the helmet, and eleven
to the most important item, the sword that Unferth lends him. N o t
6o CONTEXT
only is each item named, it is described in a small verse paragraph in
which statement is added to statement in a paratactic style. T h e poet is
not content to say that "a helmet guarded Beowulf's head." He speci-
fies that the helmet was "shining," and that it was "destined to stir up
the sea depths and seek out the eddying waves," and that it was
"adorned with treasure and clasped with lordly bands and surmounted
with the images of boars," and that "a master smith had wrought it so
in former days," and that he had fashioned it so that "no sword blade
could ever shear through it." One sort of amplification is added to an-
other until at length the poet turns to the next item in the description.
A syntactic device that helps to achieve epic fullness is the use of the
relative clause. The poet speaks of the coat of mail "that knew how to
defend the bone-cage" (1445), the man "who dared to try dangerous
exploits" (1462). Another is the use of clauses of purpose or result: the
coat of mail defends the hero's breast "so that no attack could injure
his vital parts" (1446-47); the helmet is set with boar images "so that
no sword could cut through it" (i453b-54).
Although these devices are basic to the language in general, other
syntactic devices are a special feature of the epic style. Chief among
these is the use of elaborate sorts of apposition.52 No other feature of
the poet's art so effectively breaks down the regularity of end-stopped
lines and permits the development of a supple syntax tailored to the
alliterative form. This syntax has no equivalent in Greek epic poetry,
which bears no comparison in this regard.53 Instead of simply saying
that the coat of mail was to enter the waters, the poet amplifies the
statement by adding parenthetic phrases that tell us what kind of
armor it was: "the war-shirt woven by hands, broad and expertly
wrought, was soon to explore the waves." Instead of simply saying that
the blade of Unferth's sword was iron, the poet specifies that "the
blade was of iron, gleaming with poisonous designs, hardened in the blood
of battle. " Sometimes the appositive words or phrases add little to the
sense of the passage and are no more than poetic adornments that
color the description and help to fill out a resounding line. When we
are told that the coat of mail defended the hero "so that no hostile
grip, no enemy's malicious grasp, could injure his breast or his vitals, " we
need not rebel against the redundancy of the italicized phrases. Such
redundancy is a natural part of a poetic language whose richness de-
rives from the use of many near-synonyms. When we are told that the
helmet was fashioned in such a way that "no sword or battle-blade
THE ART OF THE GERMANIC SCOP 61
could shear it," we need not wonder what the difference is between a
sword and a battle-blade. The two terms are roughly equivalent, and
the poet names the object twice for no other reason than that the
verse-form encourages a certain stylistic extravagance.
In the hands of an inferior poet the device of apposition can be
abused, as it is, for example, in the Chronicle poem on the death of
Edgar, in which Oslac, earl of Northumbria, is driven out "over the
tumult of waves, over the gannet's bath, over the throng of waters,
over the whale's homeland." 54 The Beowulf poet avoids such a parade
of synonymous expressions. His more supple use of apposition ad-
vances the story at the same time it allows for incidental graces that
would have pleased listeners gydda gleawe, "skilled in songs," in the
words of the author of "Widsith." Such persons would not have been
content with the bare bones of a story but would have expected an epic
to be sung in epic form, with its proper adornments.
Equally characteristic of the expansive style is the generous use of
metaphoric diction and other forms of periphrasis. Armor is not simply
armor, it is "noble dress." The torso is the "cage of bones," water is
the "conjunction of waves," a sword is a "hilted blade" or a "battle-
blade," blood is "battle-sweat." All of these periphrastic expressions
take the form of compound words whose initial simplex carries the al-
literation. Like the device of apposition, compound diction served the
poet as a fundamental verse-making technique. Without these devices,
there would be no epic style. In the twenty-three-and-a-half-line pas-
sage quoted above, there occur no less than twenty different com-
pound nouns or adjectives. Each carries the alliteration of the line in
which it occurs. Sixteen occur in the a verse and only four in the b
verse, which more often includes the verb. Three completely fill the
verse in which they occur. Fourteen occur nowhere outside Beowulf in
the thirty-thousand-odd lines of the Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus. 55
For this last astonishing statistic there are two possible explanations.
Either the Beowulf poet was an idiosyncratic author who coined a
large part of his vocabulary, or he was a master of a kind of diction
that is not recorded elsewhere in exactly the same form because no
comparable poems, other than the two fragments of "Waldere," hap-
pen to have survived. The second explanation is more attractive, for
there is little that is strained or esoteric in the kind of compound dic-
tion used by the poet. One need not think of the author as a James
Joyce of the first millennium. His unique diction follows traditional
62 CONTEXT

patterns. Among the fourteen words of the passage that do not occur
outside Beowulf, for example, is the compound eorlgewœde, "noble
clothing," which may be compared with the other Old English poetic
compounds eorlgestreon, "noble treasure"; eorlgebyrd, "noble birth";
eorlmcegen, "noble might"; and eorlweorod, "noble troop." Another
unique compound, herebyrne, "war byrnie," survives in Layamon's
Brut in the form hereburne and may be compared with heregeatu, "war
gear"; herereaf, "spoils of war"; herewœpen, "weapon of war"; here-
cyrm, "noise of war"; and several dozen other here- compounds at-
tested in the poetic corpus. A third unique compound is beadumece,
"battle-sword," which may be compared with beadowcepen, "weapon
of battle"; beadosearo, "battle gear"; beadupreat, "band of warriors";
and a score other beadu- compounds found elsewhere in Old English
poetry. These examples are typical, as anyone may ascertain by glanc-
ing through the Bessinger-Smith Concordance.
The unique diction of the Beowulf poet takes on a still less idiosyn-
cratic appearance when one considers how it tends to fall into lexical
systems. If the compound eorlgewœde is not found outside of Beowulf,
neither are the compounds breostegewœde, "breast clothing" ( i 2 l i a ,
2162a), or gwSgewœde, "battle clothing" (six occurrences in the
poem). Herebyrne is unique, and so are the compounds gwSbyrne,
"battle byrnie" (321b); irenbyrne, "iron byrnie" (2986b); and isern-
byrne, "iron byrnie" (671b); while hea&obyrne, "battle byrnie"
(1552a) occurs elsewhere only in verse 64b of " T h e Gifts of Men."
The word beadumece is part of a formulaic system whose other mem-
bers are hildemece, "battle-sword" (2202b), and hœftmece, "long-hilted
sword" (1457a). If one supposes that the Beowulf poet coined all or
most of his unique diction, one must conclude not only that he in-
vented individual words but that he devised flexible formulaic systems
among which he could substitute at will. Far more likely is that the
tradition did this inventing for him.
Also counting against the conclusion that the Beowulf poet coined
all or most of his otherwise unattested diction is that the poet of
"Waldere" seems to have been almost equally inventive in his word-
hoard. O f the nineteen compound nouns or adjectives that occur in the
sixty-one lines of the "Waldere" fragments, ten occur nowhere else in
the Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus.56 O f the nine compounds found else-
where, three occur only in Beowulf: these are swatfag, 'blood-stained";
guhbill, "war-sword"; andfe<Sewig, "battle on foot." One, byrnhoma, or
T H E ART O F T H E GERMANIC SCOP 63
"coat of mail," is found elsewhere only in "Judith" and another,
œtsteall, "camp station," only in Guthlac A. It is hard to imagine that of
the two authors of secular epic poems that have come down to us in
Old English, both were idiosyncratic poets who exercised their imagi-
nations coining a large number of new words or using words practi-
cally unknown elsewhere. One suspects that if the whole of "Wal-
dere" and one or two other Anglo-Saxon epic poems on secular
themes had happened to survive, many such words could be identified
as members of well-defined traditional lexical systems.

Because there are no Latin sources for the subjects of early Ger-
manic heroic poetry, no Latin prototype for the Germanic meter, and
no Latin models for the elaborate sorts of apposition and compound
diction that are characteristic of the Germanic epic style, one can con-
clude that the lay and the epic were two forms of oral narrative poetry
that arose in the Germanic North largely independent of Mediterran-
ean cultural influences. T h e first goes back to proto-Germanic roots
and appears to have come to England during the tribal migrations of
the fifth and sixth centuries. T h e second seems to have been a native
Anglo-Saxon development that flourished chiefly on English soil. As
these forms continued developing, they absorbed a number of influ-
ences from monastic culture, and yet each retained much of its native
character. The lay was relatively short, simple, and direct. The epic
was ample, involuted, and richly allusive and digressive. Transmitting
the lay may have depended largely on memorization—more so among
weaker singers, progressively less so among the capable and experi-
enced ones. T h e epic can scarcely have been memorized but was prob-
ably transmitted by professional or semiprofessional singers who could
recreate any number of songs on demand. Such singers would have
based their performances both on their memory of previous perform-
ances and on their mastery of traditional rhetorical techniques that in-
cluded frequent digressions for the sake of thematic depth, 57 frequent
speeches of direct address, liberal use of gnomic sententiae,58 use of
elaborate sorts of apposition and other amplificatory devices, and em-
ployment of a body of traditional diction that allowed for much meta-
phorical periphrasis, particularly involving compound words.
In practice, especially during the later Old English period, the he-
roic lay and the heroic epic may not have been two separate genres but
rather two modes of performance that differed from one another in
64 CONTEXT
degree rather than kind. One can easily imagine that a single s o n g —
the story of Waldere's escape from the Huns, for example—could
have been either compressed to the length of a lay or drawn out to epic
proportions, depending on the singer's skill, the circumstances of the
performance, and the patience of the audience. The Beowulf poet
knew how to compose either in the epic style or in the style of the lay
(as with the song of Finn and Hengest). O f the extant early Germanic
poetry, "The Battle of Finnsburh" and the "Hildebrandslied" (frag-
mentary though they are) provide the best evidence as to the nature of
the heroic lay, and Beowulf and "Waldere" the best evidence as to the
nature of the heroic epic, but between these two extremes probably
existed a number of poems of intermediate complexity and length.
One example of such a poem is "The Battle of Maldon," a narrative
that runs to 325 lines in its present fragmentary state and may once
have been a hundred or so lines longer. Its importance for historians of
English poetry can scarcely be exaggerated, for it shows that even as
late as 991, the year of the battle the poem commemorates—four
centuries after Latin letters had been introduced by the missionaries
and several decades after the monastic revival—the tradition of
Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry was still capable of finding most vigorous
expression. In this poem one sees the heroic ideal embodied in quintes-
sential form in a narrative as forceful and polished as any that survives
from the Old English period. The "Maldon" poet does not strive for
the richly sententious mode of Beowulf. His use of poetic diction is re-
strained, and he avoids the digressive technique of the fully-formed
epic. Instead, he tells a straightforward tale of a lord's tragic overcon-
fidence and the heroic deaths of the man and his best companions. Pre-
cisely because of the author's restrained yet full narrative technique,
many readers have found the poem as admirable as anything surviving
from the period. That this poem dates from near the end of the Old
English period rather than from its beginning speaks forcefully against
any tendency to undervalue the contribution of the native Germanic
tradition toward shaping Anglo-Saxon attitudes and poetic forms.
T o say this is not to have determined the exact relation of any Old
English text to the kinds of verse that were current in oral tradition.
Until a tape-recording of a scop singing an oral prototype of " T h e
Battle of Finnsburh" or "Waldere" is discovered, we have no way of
knowing to what extent the text of any such poem reproduces the way
the song was actually sung. Still, we distort these texts when we read
THE ART OF THE GERMANIC SCOP 65
them as if they had been penned by a learned ecclesiastic on the order
of the author of the Latin Waltharii poesis. The character of Beowulf,
in particular, is difficult to account for unless one postulates a long
prior tradition of epic verse-making in the vernacular, just as the
recording of the text with pen and ink was impossible without a long
prior development of the technology of book making.
Whether Beowulf derives from the recitation of a scop, from the
writing of an ecclesiastic who remembered the singing of a scop and
imitated it more or less accurately, or from the writing of an ecclesias-
tic who was himself a scop, we shall never know, but I do not see how
we can read the poem as if it had no relation to the art of Germanic
singers of tales. Nowhere else in Old English poetry and rarely else-
where in the literature of the British Isles do we see such richness of
poetic diction. Nowhere else do we see such a deep and sustained inter-
est in defining the nature of ethical behavior in a world dominated by
broken faith and self-destructive violence. Rather than ignore the na-
tive traditions that made such a poem possible, we would do well to
respect them as the primary source of the excellence of this noble
work of human imagination.
3. LATIN CHRISTIAN LETTERS

/ \ S Anglo-Saxon verse-making continued through the period of


X V t h e growth of Latin letters in England, it was influenced at every
turn by the concepts of Christianity. New formulaic diction was de-
vised or old diction adapted in response to the need of expressing new
religious and philosophical concepts. New set themes, such as thanks-
giving or prayer, were devised to express new patterns of human be-
havior that were constantly reinforced by books, sermons, and the liv-
ing example of the pious. A new history of the world, with its
teachings of the Creation, the Fall, the Flood, the Redemption, and
the Last Judgment, became available as an ideological framework for
stories of the Germanic past. The Northern belief in monsters was as-
similated to Mediterranean concepts derived from patristic demonol-
ogy; the lives of heroes came to be patterned on the lives of the saints;
the West Saxon kings were given pedigrees going back to Noah and
Adam. In these and other ways the influence of Christian concepts and
learning led to a revolution in English sensibility as profound as any
that has occurred since.
Aware of how many themes of Old English poetry can be traced in
the Latin devotional literature of the time, scholars no longer read this
poetry in the spirit of fifty or a hundred years ago, when every effort
was made to see in it relics of paganism or primitive thought. 1 Poems
that once were taken to be expressions of a primitive Germanic men-
tality are now more accurately read within the context of the Christian
tradition of their time. It would be less than productive today to read
"The Wanderer" without reference to the medieval genre of the con-
solatio,2 for example, or to read "The Seafarer" without reference to
the eremitic ideal of the voluntary pilgrim-exile,3 or to read "The
Dream of the Rood" without considering how early Christian writers
described the Crucifixion in the mood of an athletic contest, strenuous
and exhausting,4 or to interpret such a poem as Andreas without ex-
ploring its reliance on medieval typology.5
66
LATIN CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 67
As we correct one set of misreadings, however, we must take care
not to introduce another. It seems as though the same field that was
once dug for evidence of pagan burials is now being combed for
Christian artifacts. The apparent, secular meaning of Beowulf is found
inadequate while great ingenuity is exerted to find hidden symbolic
designs, and the poet once thought to be a child of nature is pictured
now as a learned cleric with the medieval equivalent of the entire Pa-
trologia latina at his fingertips.
Although there is no reason to think of the Beowulf poet as other
than an orthodox Christian Englishman of his time, I find myself a
skeptical reader of attempts to interpret his poem as an "encoded"
narrative that says one thing and means another. Similarly I find little
evidence that the poet knew Latin, let alone composed his work as a
tissue of allusions to Latin authors. While Beowulf is self-evidently the
product of a Christian milieu, the learned nature of this milieu should
not be taken for granted. Particularly if the poet moved freely among
the lay aristocracy, there is no need to assume that he was especially
erudite. Encoded messages or secret allusions might have been part of
his intent, but if assumed too readily, we risk interpreting the poem on
the basis of what is not there rather than what is.
Alfred the Great, in his preface to the West Saxon translation of
Gregory's Cura pastoralis, provides evidence that people with the
learning of Bede or Alcuin were the rare exception in Anglo-Saxon
England. Lamenting on the state of knowledge of Latin letters at the
time that he came to the throne, Alfred writes that "so completely had
learning decayed in England that there were very few men on this side
[of] the Humber who could apprehend their services in English or
even translate a letter from Latin into English, and I think that there
were not many beyond the Humber. There were so few of them that I
cannot even recollect a single one south of the Thames when I suc-
ceeded to the kingdom" ( E H D , p. 888). Allowing for hyperbole, for
Alfred had an interest in stressing the progress that had taken place
under his rule, this picture of the state of learning in about the year
871 is perhaps not much gloomier than warranted by the facts.
Whether from the relaxation of ecclesiastical standards or from out-
right burning and plunder on the part of the Danes, knowledge of
Latin letters had deteriorated so much in England that to establish
qualified teachers in Wessex, the king had to import scholars from
Wales, Mercia, and the Continent.
68 CONTEXT
This much is common knowledge. What is perhaps less appreciated
is that in the same preface, in words addressed to his chief ecclesiastics,
Alfred outlines a program of educational reform that established
English as the first language of literacy in the realm.6 Contrary to
what one might expect, Alfred did not see his task as one of simply
promoting Latin learning, as had been the aim of Charlemagne a cen-
tury before. It might have been Alfred's ideal in the best of worlds,
but the king was realistic enough to perceive that cultivation of Latin
literacy alone would not serve the needs of all his people, given current
social conditions in a realm that had been wasted by war. The Latin
language in England had never been other than an alien language
known to an ecclesiastical elite. It had to be learned laboriously by
those who chose monastic orders or who, like the young Bede, were
placed into orders at an early age. Even during the best of times, few
churchmen are likely to have been wholly at ease in Latin. Others may
have learned enough of the language to perform their daily devotions
without ever having become "dextrous in writing the mysteries of
words," in the phrasing of one Old English poet.7 When the Viking
invasions disrupted or destroyed the centers of monastic learning,
knowledge of the more difficult foreign language was the first to go.
Alfred's educational reforms were chiefly directed to serving the needs
not of the few who would ever be adept in Latin but of the many who
were literate (or who could be made literate) in their native tongue.
The king's program thus had two aims: first, to increase the num-
ber of important works available in English translation, and second, to
ensure that every freeborn man of means, whether or not he was to
enter religious orders, would gain a reading knowledge of English.
The West Saxon translations themselves testify to the success of the
first goal: Gregory's Pastoral Care, Augustine's Soliloquies, Gregory's
Dialogues, Boethius' Consolation of Philosophy, Orosius' Universal His-
tory, and Bede's Ecclesiastical History. Copying of these works contin-
ued actively through the tenth century at the same time as other works
were rendered into English, either as continuous prose (such as
/Ethelwold's translation of the Benedictine Rule or /Elfric's translation
of the Heptateuch) or in the form of interlinear glosses (as with the
psalms and hymns). We may value Alfred's success all the more highly
when we consider just how revolutionary his plan was: until his time,
nothing resembling such an infusion of religious and secular learning
into the vernacular had been known in all Europe.
LATIN CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 69
Alfred's second aim, education for all freeborn men of means, was
doubtless never fully realized, and functional literacy remained some-
thing of a clerical monopoly until sometime after the Conquest.8 Still,
his plan took sufficient hold to have a significant effect on the course of
English education during the hundred years after his death. During
most of the tenth century, England did have the peace, as he had
hoped, and the period was one of steady and impressive growth in the
wealth that made possible both leisure and learning. Asser, author of
the Vita Alfredi, specifies that the king established a school at court
where a number of children of both noble and common birth studied
under teachers who grounded them in the liberal arts in both Latin
and English.9 In this way the king's youngest son, iEthelweard, was
given advanced literary training, while his other children Edward and
i®fthryth "learnt carefully psalms and Saxon books, and especially
Saxon poems" (EHD, p. 293). According to Asser, the king allocated
one-eighth of his revenues to his school at Winchester. Education
utriusque linguae (that is, in both Latin and English) seems to have
been the norm during the reigns of Alfred's successors.10 While Latin
remained the most prestigious of the two languages, English was pro-
moted with special success, for vernacular literature continued to
flourish long after the Benedictine reform had established strict educa-
tional standards in the monasteries.11
Much of this literature seems to have been directed to an audience
of educated laymen as well as learned clerics, although this is not to say
that such laymen read these works themselves rather than heard them
read by clerics. The entries of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, the reme-
dies of Bald's Leechbook and the Lacnunga manuscript, the scientific
compendium known as Byrhtferth's Manual, and the Old English ver-
sion of the Marvels of the East all speak to a continuing effort to make
useful information available in English. /Elfric's bilingual grammar
(written in English on Latin, and the first grammar to be written in
any European vernacular tongue) and yElfric's bilingual glossary (per-
haps to be considered the earliest English dictionary), together with
the same author's little Latin "Colloquy," speak to an unprecedented
desire to smooth the way to Latin learning for those who found such
learning difficult. The Old English version of Apollonius of Tyre pre-
supposes a reading public for secular romance and raises the question
of the extent of female literacy. Of the four great poetic codices that
were copied about the year 1000, two—the Beowulf manuscript and
70 CONTEXT
the Exeter Book—contain works of secular themes or interests mixed
in with devotional pieces. T w o others—the Junius manuscript and the
Vercelli Book—include only works of religious content, although the
appeal of these must have gone far beyond the cloister. In this same
category could be put the anonymous prose homilies of the Vercelli
Book and the Bückling manuscript, together with the large corpus of
saints' lives and homilies by ^ l f r i c and the smaller body of homilies by
Wulfstan. None of these works is directed to a small circle of learned
readers. All speak to the needs or interests of a wide audience includ-
ing both clergy and laymen. Compared with this brilliant flowering of
literature in the vernacular, the Anglo-Latin literature of the period is
of secondary importance. Aside from lives of /Ethelwold, Dunstan,
and Oswald, little of note survives.
T o trace the growth of literacy in Anglo-Saxon England is thus a
more complex task than to trace the growth of Latin letters. English
letters constantly supplemented Latin, while Latin learning was always
filtering through to the vernacular. At the risk of oversimplifying, one
can distinguish six stages in the growth of learning from pre-Christian
times to the Conquest. It should go without saying that these stages
are not to be thought of as sharply demarcated from one another, but
rather as parts of a continuum of change. 12
1. A pre-Christian, preliterary stage (before 597) during which
knowledge of letters meant knowledge of runes. Those few persons
who were skilled in the art of runes used them for practical purposes
that did not include the recording of history or literature. There was as
yet no technology of book making from parchment or vellum; runes
were used to carve short messages on stone or wood.
2. An early Christian stage (597 to about 675) during which Latin
was introduced as the language of the new faith. T h e art of book
making was established on a small scale. Latin letters were used chiefly
if not exclusively for copying important ecclesiastical works. T h e first
of these were imported in 597 and 601 by the first Roman mission-
aries, who spoke a form of Latin as their native tongue. Others were
brought by Celtic missionaries from Iona; by Theodore of Tarsus,
who was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury in 668 and who
brought many books written in Latin and Greek; and by Bede's first
master, Benedict Biscop, a native of Italy, whose six trips from Rome
swelled the holdings of the libraries of the monasteries of Wearmouth
and Jarrow. Members of the aristocracy were a key element in the es-
L A T I N CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 71
tablishment of monasteries, some of which may have been kept almost
as family holdings. Schools were established at Canterbury and Monk-
wearmouth. For most clerics, education meant training in subjects that
had a direct bearing on the faith and the proper observances of monas-
tic life. A modified form of the Latin alphabet was in use for writing in
English, but the only surviving vernacular texts to have been recorded
on vellum during this period are certain codes of law, which were
probably kept in English by force of tradition. The runic alphabet
continued to be used for vernacular inscriptions, sometimes side by
side with the Latin alphabet used for Latin inscriptions, and indeed
runes never passed out of use for select purposes until after the Con-
quest.
3. A golden age of Latin learning (about 675-800) that was cen-
tered in Northumbria and to a lesser extent in Mercia. Noteworthy
during this period was the production of ecclesiastical manuscripts that
are among the glories of book production of any time, among them
the Book of Kells, the Lindisfarne Gospels, and the Codex Amiatinus.
Equally brilliant was the original Anglo-Latin literature of the time, as
for a while England led Europe in learning. Evidently the first Latin
works written in England were lives of Gregory, Cuthbert, and Wil-
frid. These were soon followed by the works of Aldhelm, Bede, Boni-
face, and Alcuin. Bede's library is thought to have contained nearly
two hundred books, chiefly hagiographical or patristic in character,
and, according to his own account at the end of the Historia ecclesias-
tica, he added to this number some thirty-five new titles of his own, all
written in Latin. By the end of the eighth century, when Alcuin
penned his verses on York Minster, 13 the library at York contained
very nearly the whole learning of the time, including works by Aristo-
tle (in Latin translation), Boethius, Lactantius, and Priscian. Although
Latin remained the chief language of learning throughout this period,
some vernacular works, chiefly on devotional themes, also came to be
recorded. Most important were the poems of Qedmon, but of these
nothing has survived except the nine-line hymn. Aldhelm is said to
have composed poems in the vernacular, but if the report is true, none
of them has survived. The story of his luring Englishmen to God by
singing at a bridge is probably no more historical than the story of
Gunnar's playing the harp with his toes. 14 Bede is said to have been
skilled in native songs, but all that we have of his is the five-line
"Death Song," if this is indeed his and is not part of an early attempt
72 CONTEXT

to convert his life into hagiography. 15 Also from this period, most
likely, are the "Leiden Riddle" (a translation of Aldhelm's "Lorica"
riddle) and the runic fragments of " T h e Dream of the Rood." O f ver-
nacular prose there remains next to nothing.
4. A period of decline (about 800-880) during which knowledge of
Latin lapsed while the production of new manuscripts slowed or in
some areas stopped altogether. This is the stage lamented by Alfred in
the preface to Gregory's Pastoral Care. It is not clear when the decline
set in or why. The Danish wars were not its cause, but they did much
to intensify it. In 866 York was captured, and the great library there
was probably dispersed or destroyed. In 870 Ely and Peterborough
were sacked. Other devastation followed until a general peace was es-
tablished by the Treaty of Wedmore in 878.
5. A minor renaissance (about 880-940) during which Alfred em-
barked upon his educational program and the kings of Wessex estab-
lished hegemony over all England. T o this period may be traced the
beginnings of a native prose tradition in the Alfredian translations and
in the entries of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. Asser's biography of
Alfred is the only important Latin work to have been composed by
Alfred's circle of scholars. Only a little poetry can be firmly dated to
this period, notably the Meters of Boethius and "The Battle of Brunan-
burh," but a good deal more may have been produced in both English
and Norse, for the court of Athelstan was a magnet for men of talent.
T h e discipline of most monasteries was still lax.
6. A golden age of vernacular learning (about 940-1066) centered
largely in the south and reaching its richest expression in the works of
TElfric. During this time, the production of manuscripts increased as
never before, thanks to the reorganization of the monasteries under
Dunstan and the still-increasing prosperity of the realm. By the end of
the tenth century nearly forty monasteries existed in the south of
England alone, each a potential center of book production. Secular in-
fluence or control in the monasteries was now largely broken. Al-
though Latin remained the chief language of ecclesiastical affairs, most
original literature was written in English, and some of it was brilliant
poetry. Despite the renewal of Viking attacks during the reign of Eth-
elred, the conquests by Swein and Cnut, and increasing Norman influ-
ence during the reign of Edward the Confessor, the continuity of
English culture was not broken until the Battle of Hastings. England
on the eve of the Conquest was one of the wealthiest and more stable
LATIN CHRISTIAN LETTERS 73
states of Europe, with a highly developed tradition of vernacular
learning, an unparalleled heritage of vernacular poetry, and a knowl-
edge of Latin letters that seemed to the Normans somewhat back-
ward. After William the Conquerer virtually eliminated the native
aristocracy, Latin became for a time the sole written language of
church and state. Written English fell into disuse, to the point that
within a few centuries manuscripts recorded in the old insular script
were literally a closed book except to a few antiquarians.

TI It has long been customary to assume that Beowulf is in some


sense a product of the outstanding Latin learning of the eighth or even
late seventh century. This theory has opened the gates to a flood of
criticism that would find Latin models for any number of features of
the style or content of the poem. The theory requires one to believe
that the poem was handed down more or less intact through the period
of disruption caused by the Danish wars, the period of Alfred's re-
forms, and the period of the Benedictine revival, until eventually it was
copied about the year iooo in the version we read today—all this
without ever being mentioned in the writings of another author.
For a number of reasons this view of the origins of the poem can be
discarded. The poem shows few signs of having been composed by a
learned ecclesiastic like Bede or Alcuin. I am not convinced, in fact,
that Bede or Alcuin would have approved of the work or would have
wished it to be read widely. On the other hand, the character of the
poem's Christian utterances presupposes a long period of development
of Christian poetry in the vernacular. At least some of these utterances
can best be attributed to the later Old English period, sometime after a
tradition of homiletic prose literature in the vernacular was well estab-
lished. By this time, but not before, the English language had gained a
prestige equal to that of Latin as a vehicle for serious literature. There
had developed some kind of a secular reading public, thanks in part to
Alfred's encouragement of vernacular learning, and it is to the pious
layman rather than the learned cleric that the poem makes its most
forthright appeal. The hypothesis that Beowulf emerged in a vernacu-
lar context after the time of Alfred cannot be proven, but it makes at
least as good sense of the poem as does viewing it in a Latinate milieu
in the eighth century.
Apart from the thorny question of dating, the relationship of
Beowulf to Latin, Christian tradition needs to be clarified. Without
74 CONTEXT
any preconceptions as to the date of the poet, without any assumptions
as to his degree of learning or mode of composition, let us review some
of the claims that have been made for his direct debt to Latin models.
The following survey cannot hope to be exhaustive, but a fairly sys-
tematic review of the main points will establish a critical framework for
the evaluation of minor points that cannot be treated here.
Since classical Latin epic poetry is still generally thought to have
provided the chief literary model for Beowulf, we may begin with Vir-
gil and Statius. Both authors are among the few pagans listed by Al-
cuin in his inventory of York library. Despite the relative obscurity of
Statius in Anglo-Saxon England, Richard J. Schräder has made a case
for considering the Thebaid as a model for much of the concluding
part of Beowulf}b After emphasizing that Beowulf is not Virgilian—
"Nearly every conceivable parallel with the Aeneid has been mined,
and the results show no consistent pattern of imitation" (p. 242)—
Schräder proceeds to draw a new set of parallels between Beowulf's
funeral and the funeral of Opheltes in Thebaid 6. The comparison still
reveals no pattern that could be called consistent. There is a circum-
ambulation of a barrow in both poems, but in the Thebaid the barrow
is circled not by a group of twelve horsemen but by seven squadrons of
one hundred soldiers each; the men crash their arms together four
times, while the women keen. Both Beowulf and Opheltes die from
serpent wounds, but the "serpent" in the Old English poem is a rather
more formidable creature than most snakes in the grass, and the hero
dies in combat, not from a chance venomous bite. In the Thebaid the
men offer a heap of treasures as a sacrifice to an offended Jupiter,
while the idea of a propitiatory sacrifice is foreign to Beowulf Also ab-
sent from Beowulf are the funeral games of the Roman epic. Particu-
larly counting against the comparison is the difference in the character
and status of the person whose death is being commemorated.
Beowulf, the hero of the epic that has been given his name, dies as an
aged king. Opheltes is a minor character and a mere boy. One sus-
pects that if scholars were to search the Thebaid for parallels to
Beowulf as assiduously as they have combed the Aeneid, more such
correspondences could be drawn, but without powerful results.
The question of the Beowulf poet's debt to Virgil is more complex,
or has been made so by the labors of generations of scholars. Lines are
firmly drawn: H. M. Chadwick, Ritchie Girvan, and John Nist have
spoken sharply against the assumption of Virgilian influence,17 while
LATIN CHRISTIAN LETTERS 75
Frederick Klaeber, Tom Burns Haber, and others have been energetic
in urging the comparison.18 Long lists of supposed parallels have led to
no consensus that one poem is based on the other. The author of one
recent comparative study wisely refrains from assuming direct influ-
ence; he is content to compare and contrast the description of Gren-
del's mere with Virgil's description of the approach to Avernus while
making no judgment as to whether one poet knew the other any more
than either knew the Tibetan Book of the Dead.19
W e may quickly pass over the parallels in motif and sentiment, be-
cause by their nature they can seldom if ever be pinned down to in-
stances of direct influence. While both poets speak of a striving for
fame and celebrate the spirit of hardihood in the face of death (com-
pare especially Beowulf 1386-89 and Aeneid 10.467-469), such senti-
ments are to be expected in a heroic poem and need not have been
learned from a literary source. T o compare Grendel to the Hydra of
Aeneid 6 tells us little about either creature except by clarifying what
each is not like. Beowulf's dying speech can be likened to that of Dido
as she reflects on her career as queen (Aeneid 4.651-62), but one
would not want to press the comparison. T o speak of fire as "devour-
ing," battle as a "storm," or emotion as a "surge" is simply to use
commonplace metaphors. The gloomy sky that overhangs Grendel's
mere (roderas reota<5, "the heavens weep" 1376a) has been thought to
recall the rorantia . . . astra of Aeneid 3.567, but the equation of ro-
deras with astra is inexact; rorantia means "dewy" rather than "tear-
ful"; the verb reotan may or may not mean "weep" in this context
(elsewhere it means "grieve" or "lament"); and Virgil here describes
a storm at sea. Nor can more exact short parallels in wording be taken
as evidence of literary influence. The Beowulf poet's phrase Him on
mod bearn (67b) reads almost like a gloss on Virgil's venit in mentem
(.Aeneid 4.39), but the idiom is routine and there is no further likeness
between the two passages. Both poets speak of the "naked" sword,
but the parallel would be significant only if either poet used the phrase
as a formula.
More promising are thematic parallels accompanied by verbal simi-
larities, especially if the two passages in question seem to lock into a
wider context. One favored example of influence is the resemblance of
Beowulf 1408-11 to Aeneid 11.524-525. According to Klaeber, this
parallel "can hardly be explained otherwise than as a case of imitation
on the part of the Anglo-Saxon author."20 The lines from Beowulf
76 CONTEXT
describe the journey of Hrothgar 21 over the wasteland that separates
Heorot from Grendel's mere:

Ofereode J^a aejîelinga beam


steap stanhliSo, stige nearwe,
enge anpaSas, uncuS gelad,
neowle naessas, nicorhusa fela . . .
Then the son of noblemen stepped out over
steep rocky hills, a narrow path
where men went singly, an unknown trail
past towering bluffs, many a serpent's den. . .

The lines from the Aeneid describe a glen in high ground to which
Turnus retires in hopes of ambushing Aeneas:22

. . . tenuis quo semita ducit


angustaeque ferunt fauces aditusque maligni.
Hither leads a narrow path, with straitened gorge and jealous approach.

While the stige nearwe could recall the tenuis semita of Virgil, and while
the scenery is threatening in both instances, the parallel is not borne
out in detail. The fauces of Virgil could not be mistaken for the nœssas
of the Beowulf poet, and the Virgilian landscape lacks serpents. Fur-
thermore, the imagined echoes do not lock into a wider context. The
aged Hrothgar, leading a band of Danes and Geats, scarcely calls to
mind the athletic Turnus, who approaches the glen alone and whom
we have just seen "exultant in his high spirit and in his hope of finding
his foe at hand," like "some stallion which has broken his tether and,
free at last, gallops from his stall with all the open plains before him,
hastening towards the pastures where herds of mares are feeding."23
Grendel's mere becomes the scene of the climactic fight of part I of
the Old English epic, while the glen occupied by Turnus turns out to
be of no significance. Klaeber's enthusiasm for the parallel seems ex-
cessive.
Nor does the creation hymn sung by Hrothgar's scop soon after the
building of Heorot clearly recall the song performed by Dido's min-
strel Iopas before the gathered Trojans and Phoenicians in Carthage,
as many have thought:
LATIN CHRISTIAN LETTERS 77
Cithara crinitus Iopas
personat aurata, docuit quem maximus Atlas.
Hie canit errantem lunam solisque labores,
unde hominum genus et pecudes, unde imber et ignes,
Arcturum pluviasque Hyadas geminosque Triones;
quid tantum Oceano properent se tinguere soles
hiberni, vel quae tardis mora noctibus obstet. (1.740-746)
Long-haired Iopas, once taught by mighty Atlas, makes the hall ring with
his golden lyre. He sings of the wandering moon and the sun's toils;
whence sprang human kind and the brutes, whence rain and fire; of Arc-
turus, the rainy Hyades and the twin Bears; why wintry suns make such
haste to dip themselves in Ocean, or what delay stays the slowly passing
nights.

Each minstrel sings of the sun and the moon and the origin of living
creatures. Each song appears early in the epic and is sung before a
large group of listeners at a happy time before disaster. There is thus a
tighter "locking into context" than with other supposed parallels, and
yet the correspondence remains inexact. Iopas' song is not a hymn,
nor is its main subject creation, let alone the creation of the universe
by a single all-powerful deity. In its concern with the motions of the
sun and moon and with the differing lengths of day and night, the song
of Iopas breathes a spirit of scientific rationalism that reflects Virgil's
interest in the natural philosophy of Lucretius and that is foreign to
the Anglo-Saxon poet's simpler piety. 24 T h e proximate source for the
song of Hrothgar's scop is of course not the first book of the Aeneid
but the first book of the Bible, together with "Caedmon's H y m n " —
two works that were probably as well known as any others in the
England of the Beowulf poet's day. W e do not have to turn to a loose
Virgilian parallel to account for the scop's performance. T h e song
grows naturally out of its own surrounding context as the poet devel-
ops an implicit threefold analogy between the human beings who cre-
ate Heorot, God who created the universe, and the singer who creates
songs. Perhaps the idea of a song on the subject of the natural universe
was suggested by the example of Virgil. More likely, we need look for
no other source than the poet's imagination, colored by his knowledge
of Caedmon and his memory of performances by other Anglo-Saxon
scops. In either event a close comparison of the two scenes serves
more to clarify what is unique about the Old English poem than to
prove that its art is derivative.
78 CONTEXT
The closest "fit" between Beowulf and the Aeneid\ in my view,
consists of a pair of synonymous phrases that do seem to mesh at least
partially with their surrounding context: swigodon ealle (1699b) and
conticuere omnes (Aeneid 2.1). That a phrase meaning "they all fell si-
lent" should occur within the ample confines of each epic is not sur-
prising. What is interesting is that each phrase precedes a speech that
is addressed to a great assembly of men and women and that is one of
the significant "set pieces" of the poem. The Old English phrase
directly precedes Hrothgar's impressive discourse on the subject of
pride and mutability (1700-84). Particularly when one thinks of
Beowulf as sung or recited before a listening audience, the words pre-
pare for the gravity of the speech that is to follow. T h e phrase from
Virgil precedes the long apologue by Aeneas that occupies the whole
of books 2 and 3 of the Aeneid. It too signals the importance of the
speech to come. Still, the fit between the two passages is imprecise.
T h e phrase from Beowulf occurs midway through the epic rather than
early along, while the moralistic cast of Hrothgar's speech has nothing
in common with Aeneas' heroic narrative. T h e parallel could be the
result of coincidence, a great neglected factor in discussions of literary
influence. More precisely, it could stem from similar artistic intentions
on the part of each author. Only a poor poet would have an imagined
audience all fall silent before a trivial speech.
A reading of Beowulf side by side with the Aeneid thus yields a few
similar phrases, a number of loosely analogous motifs and sentiments,
perhaps a similarity of mood, 25 and perhaps a comparable approach to
the depiction of landscape, 26 but no firm evidence that the later poet
used the earlier work as a model. I would not go so far as Girvan in
holding that "few epics seem less like Beowulf than the Aeneid" (p.
470), for Dante's Commedia, the Gerusalemme liberata, the Faerie
Queene, Paradise Lost, Wordsworth's Prelude, Tolstoy's War and
Peace, and Pound's Cantos, for example, all seem even more remote
from the art of the Old English poet. Still the differences between the
two works stand out far more than their similarities.
In Beowulf there are no invocations of the Muse, no epic catalogues
or great deliberative assemblies, no epic similes, no dreams or por-
tents, no references to the heroes of ancient mythology. In short,
there is none of the epic paraphernalia that Virgil got from Homer and
that Milton got from both his ancient masters, and that identifies all
three as authors working in a common tradition. Just as important,
L A T I N CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 79
perhaps, the Old English poem differs in its broad outlines and emo-
tional contours and in the kind of struggle it depicts. There is no victo-
rious conquering and civilizing power in Beowulf, as there is in the
Aeneid or The Song of Roland}1 There is no sense of a chosen race,
and both Danes and Geats are destined to suffer misfortune according
to the decrees of an indifferent fate. The hero wins individual fame but
founds no empire. Combat between human tribes is not glorified in the
Old English epic as it is in Virgil. Nor do battles seem to be of much
interest: there is nothing like the gravis luctus of Aeneid 7 - 1 2 , with
troops massed against troops. When weighted against these significant
points of divergence, the possible echo of a phrase like conticuere omnes
does not suggest the Anglo-Saxon poet learned from Virgil "the new
conception of a true epic poem" (Klaeber, p. cxviii). In Beowulf one
sees a quality of intelligence and a kind of poetic form and style that
are not to be explained by reference to the epic poets of Rome. 28
If there is no strong evidence that the author of Beowulf knew
pagan Latin poets, one may still ask whether he made use of the fig-
ures of rhetoric that medieval theorists codified on the basis of their
study of these poets. Clearly a knowledge of rhetoric was common-
place in learned circles during much of the Old English period.29 T h e
seven liberal arts, including grammatica and rhetorica as their founda-
tion, were an established part of the school curriculum. Aldhelm
clearly set out to imitate the most aureate and rhetorical of Latin
poets. Bede wrote his important treatise De schematibus et tropibus
largely on the model of Donatus' Ars maior. Alcuin modeled his trea-
tise De rhetorica et de virtutibus on the five divisions of Ciceronian
rhetoric. yElfric wrote his bilingual grammar largely on the basis of the
adaptation of the Ars maior in Isidore's Etymologiae. Vernacular poets
learned the figures of Latin rhetoric not only through the standard
treatises but through the art of translation and adaptation, as in the
Alfredian translation of the metrical portions of Boethius' De consola-
tone philosophiae or as in the poetic paraphrase known as " T h e Phoe-
nix." During the Middle Ages, as in more recent times, a good part of
education has consisted of learning how to imitate well.
At the same time, there existed a set of native Germanic poetic
strategies that deserve the name rhetoric just as much as do the strate-
gies of Latin authors, even though the Germanic tropes were never
codified in written treatises. The most basic stylistic features of Old
English poetry—parallelism of phrases, variation of words or phrases
8o CONTEXT
set in apposition to one another, the use of special poetic diction in-
cluding kennings and compound nouns and adjectives, and the use of
formulas and formulaic systems—were not learned from Latin
sources. They were part of the native poetic idiom.30 When one deals
with an Old English text in isolation, there is often no way to tell the
extent to which its style expresses Latin rhetorical conventions. A
person with no special knowledge who read Riddle 35 of the Exeter
Book, for example, would have no way of telling that it is a West
Saxon translation of a Latin original, Aldhelm's "Lorica" riddle, per-
haps by way of a Northumbrian intermediary (the "Leiden Riddle").
Nor would one know that Aldhelm's riddle is derived from the model
of Symphosius and was ostensibly penned to illustrate a particular kind
of Latin meter. The recalcitrant fact is that most Old English poems
are of unknown authorship and antecedents. Latin influence was often
indirect, for as soon as many Latin poems had been turned into
English, their rhetorical patterns must have begun to be reflected in
the style even of authors who knew no Latin but had absorbed much
native poetry.
The influence of classical rhetoric on Beowulf is hard to judge. Evi-
dently the poet had assimilated the habits of style bequeathed him by
his tradition, whether those were of Germanic or Latin origin. Beyond
this there is no evidence that he was manipulating rhetorical figures.31
One scholar has argued that the expansiveness of the epic style of
Beowulf was not learned from the Germanic Heldenlied but resulted
from studied use of various types of amplificatio by a poet schooled in
Latin rhetorical techniques.32 I have already suggested that the ex-
pansive epic style was a native development that arose in part because
of the opportunities for patronage that existed in Anglo-Saxon
England. Certainly one need not look to Latin poetry for examples of
the expansive style. Avdo Medjedovic read neither Latin nor Serbo-
Croatian, yet he knew enough of the arts of amplificatio to be able to
hear a song once, then repeat it at nearly three times the length.33
Homer never attempted Priscian's Progymnasmata or pored over
Boethius' treatise De differentibus topicis,34 yet he managed the expan-
sive style as well as authors who have had such works at their finger-
tips.
Conspicuously absent from Beowulf is the kind of neat use of rhe-
torical figures that is evident in certain Old English poems on homi-
letic or devotional themes. One critic has nevertheless advanced the
L A T I N CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 8ι

claim that the absence of clear rhetorical figures in the poem can per-
haps be taken as evidence for the rhetorical sophistication of its author.
According to this view, the poet "had so thoroughly absorbed his edu-
cation and mingled it so unobtrusively with his innate talent that his
poem achieves a state where art subsumes artfulness" (Campbell, "Ad-
aptation," p. 197). The poet had so thoroughly absorbed his educa-
tion, we are asked to believe, that none of it shows. Such an argument
is as difficult to disprove as it is to prove, but common sense should tell
us to assume a knowledge of rhetorical figures on the part of an
Anglo-Saxon poet only when such figures are recognizable within his
work. Even then, we must admit the possibility that they were the
product of a native rhetoric or were learned from the poet's imitating
other vernacular authors rather than his studying Latin masters. The
Beowulf poet seems to have assimilated Latin rhetoric to the extent
that the Old English poetic language itself had done so by the time he
composed the poem. Perhaps this general debt was significant. T o
postulate any greater individual debt is to go beyond what the text can
tell us.
Turning back from style to substance, let me pose the large and
difficult question of whether or not the Beowulf poet used the writ-
ings of early Christian authors, in particular Lactantius, Prudentius,
Boethius, Gregory, and Augustine.
Although Alcuin lists Lactantius among the authors known in the
library of York Minster, his works were not much copied, and his Di-
vinae institutiones appear to have been virtually unmined by Anglo-
Saxon authors. Donald W . Lee's claim that the Beowulf poet used
Lactantius as a source for certain early parts of his epic thus requires
strong support.35 Conceivably the Beowulf poet drew the inspiration
for the creation hymn of Hrothgar's scop (lines 9ob-98) from Institu-
tiones II.5, where Lactantius writes rhapsodically of God the creator of
the physical universe, but a closer inspiration was at hand in the form
of Caedmon's well-known hymn. In any event, praise of God as creator
of the universe is not an idea for which we need search out a specific
source. The same is true of Heorot's standing idei ond unnyt, "empty
and useless" (413a). Although this idea might be thought to recall
Lactantius' words, "It is possible for the world to be without man, just
as it is for a city and a house to be without a man," the correspondence
is imprecise. If anything, the phrase idei ond unnyt recalls not Lactan-
tius but verse 106a of the Old English poem Genesis A. The sugges-
82 CONTEXT
tion that Grendel is meant to call to mind Gaius Verres, quaestor of
Sicily, whom Cicero accused of pillaging Sicily by despoiling the tem-
ples, carries no more weight. It is a long step from the man whom Ci-
cero describes as frequenting the shore of Sicily clothed in effeminate
Greek garb, with a cheap tart on his arm, 36 to the creature who swal-
lows Hondscioh whole. Taken together, such supposed parallels add
up to nothing more substantial than what would result if one were to
have practically any work of literature fresh in mind, then turn to
Beowulf and jot down a few points of similarity.
Although the chief works of Prudentius were available in England
from an early date, and the Psychomachia was especially popular from
the time of Aldhelm and Bede onward, the obvious differences be-
tween Beowulf and the Psychomachia have not encouraged compari-
sons between the two. In a well-known essay, Morton W. Bloomfield
has suggested that Beowulf was colored by Prudentian allegory and
that the character of Unferth is modeled on that of Discordia in the
Psychomachia,37 "Unferth," by a slight permutation, yields the signifi-
cant name Unfrith, "Mar-peace," or "Strife," hence Discordia. Al-
though this suggestion has been widely accepted, it is based on a vul-
nerable chain of linguistic hypotheses. Because the manuscript
consistently gives Hunferth as the spelling of the thyle's name, one
must imagine the following set of transformations:

translation metathesis lowering of vowel


Discordia * Unfrith * Unfirth *
aspiration
Unferth » Hunferth

Such a reconstruction of the thyle's original name and function might


be persuasive if it yielded an attractive result, but in Prudentius' alle-
gory, Discordia plays the role of Heresy and is killed by Faith. In
Beowulf there is no indication that Unferth plays the role of an advo-
cate for heresy, nor is Beowulf presented as a defender of the faith, nor
does Beowulf or anyone else kill Unferth. If Prudentian allegory lurks
beneath the surface here, it has been badly handled. I see no reason
not to take the Unferth episode at its face value, as an example of a
flyting that is meant to prove the credentials of the hero to hold his
head high in what could sometimes be a fiercely competitive society. If
L A T I N CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 83
the name Hunferth ("Hun-spirited") is to be emended to Unferth, as
it need not be, then a simpler account of the name has been proposed
than Bloomfield's hypothetical reconstruction.38
In part because there is no record of Boethius' De consolatione
philosophiae being known in England before the ninth century, 39 those
who believe in a seventh- or eight-century Beowulf have not looked to
Boethius as a source. Nevertheless, Alan Roper has suggested that the
hero of the Old English epic "rejoices in the five gifts of the Boethian
Fortuna," namely "opes, honores, potentia, gloria, and voluptates"
(book III, prose 2). These take the form of "the riches that he gains
from Hrothgar and the dragon's cave, the honor and power of his
kingship, the glories of his victories, and the pleasures of the mead-
hall." 40 Clearly the first four of the goddess's five gifts pertain to
Beowulf, as indeed they do to the hero of practically any heroic poem.
One could question, however, whether the joys of the meadhall cor-
respond to what Boethius means by voluptates, and we are not shown
that Beowulf takes much pleasure in his cups. It is not clear that he
ever rejoices in his good fortune, in fact, although others rejoice
around him and late in life he expresses satisfaction that the Lord need
not punish him for misdeeds. Roper points out that the Boethian con-
cept of fate is rather different from the corresponding concept in
Beowulf, for Old English wyrd often signifies "death" while Boethian
fortuna means "prosperity." He also notes that in Beowulf one does
not find the note of contemptus mundi apparent in the Consolation and
in works indebted to Boethius. Insofar as both Boethius and the
Beowulf poet address the theme of mutability, their works have com-
mon ground with innumerable others. Beyond this there is no specific
evidence for the Latin author's influence.41
As a matter of convenience I consider together the possible influ-
ence on Beowulf of St. Augustine of Hippo and St. Gregory the Great,
the two Church Fathers whose works did most to establish the typo-
logical view of scriptural history that was to dominate clerical thought
during the Middle Ages. T h e study of patristics in Old English litera-
ture has largely meant, in effect, the study of the influence of Augus-
tine and Gregory on vernacular poetry, generally to determine the
presence of underlying allegories of some sort. In recent years a prolif-
eration of patristic studies has led some scholars to reconsider what has
been called the mode and meaning of Beowulf The mode has been
taken to be allegory, the meaning to be thoroughly devotional.
84 CONTEXT
Some dangers of this approach are evident from a few examples.42
In an influential book, Margaret E. Goldsmith has claimed to find in
the dryncfat deore ("precious drinking vessel") of the dragon's hoard a
missing link between the themes of glory, transience, and death in the
poem: the glory of Beowulf in part I, and his death as a result of his
seeking transient wealth in part II. The hero's death is seen as sugges-
tive of a "final battle with the bana, the death-bringer, who tempts
men to grasp the things that perish." The golden cup symbolizes "all
the satisfactions the world can offer," and it is likened to Gregory's in-
terpretation of the calix aureus Babylon, the "golden cup of Babylon,"
and Augustine's discussion of a richly decorated vessel that tempts the
eyes, but that is in no way preferable to caritas, a more precious pos-
session that costs nothing. The golden cup of the hoard is thus taken
as signifying "the temporalia for which the aged Beowulf was willing
to sell his life." It is "a poor exchange for the chalice of God," which is
not further identified.43
T h e chief problem with this interpretation is that much symbolic
weight is put on a branch too slight to bear it. The Beowulf poet has
little to say of the cup in question. He provides no elaborate descrip-
tion of it analogous to Augustine's description of his imagined cup
with its delicate craftsmanship, its weight of silver, and its lustrous
metal. It is simply named as an item stolen from the hoard. The poet
gives no indication that the hero held it in high regard, or wished to
sell his life for it, or preferred it, say, to a eucharistie vessel, or spurned
caritas in order to have it. Even if the terms of such a condemnation of
cupidity were justified in the poem, furthermore, they would fall pri-
marily not on Beowulf but on the thief who stole the cup from the
hoard. T h e thief is the one who aroused the dragon's ire by stealing
the cup, and it is he, not Beowulf, who would deserve censure, accord-
ing to the supposed allegory. In addition, the term bana, "killer," is
never used to characterize the dragon as a demonic enemy like Gren-
del. Nor does the dragon tempt either the thief or Beowulf to grasp
the things of this world. On the contrary, the dragon functions as a
persuasive deterrent to prevent men from grasping the things of this
world, at least when they lie in a buried hoard. Finally, it is not clear
on what basis one makes the equation "drinking cup = golden chalice
of Babylon" toward the end of the poem and not earlier—for example,
when Wealhtheow presents a mead-filled cup to Hrothgar, Beowulf,
and the other gathered warriors. The terms of the supposed allegory
seem chosen arbitrarily.
L A T I N CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 85
Similar problems beset Stephen C. Bandy's attempt to relate the
poet's description of Heorot to Augustine's contrast of the City of
God, whose citizens are on pilgrimage in this world, and the earthly
city, which is peopled by the sinful. According to this reading, Heorot
is tainted with pride and death and is equivalent to Babel, the paradig-
matic prideful city, as well as to Sodom and Gomorrah. Its ruler,
Hrothgar, is brought low through his thirst for fame. Like all the cities
of the sons of Cain, Heorot is to be destroyed for its pride, and its de-
struction prefigures the final destruction of the Dragon Satan at the
end of time.44
The difficulty here is that the Beowulf poet makes no distinction
between two sorts of cities peopled by two sorts of men. He shows no
examples of saintly communities or of persons like the speaker of
" T h e Seafarer," for whom "the joys of the Lord are warmer than this
dead life loaned on earth" (lines 64b-66a). Every city or community
in the poem must therefore be a civitas terrena, as it is taken to be by
Bandy, who considers Beowulf, Heremod, Hygelac, Ongentheow, In-
geld, and Hrothgar all to be kings led to destruction by their thirst for
fame. Such a view may be consistent with the attitude of Alcuin, who
had little sympathy for pagan Germanic heroes, but scarcely of the
Beowulf poet, who was keenly interested in these heroes and clearly
distinguishes those who were arrogant and bloodthirsty, like Here-
mod, from those who were not, like Hrothgar and Beowulf. If the
Danes in Heorot are to be numbered among the sons of Cain, further-
more, then there is nothing to distinguish them from the Grendel
creatures, who are explicitly said to be of the tribe of Cain and who
wage a bitter feud against the Danes. The enmity of Grendel against
Heorot is hard to comprehend if the Danes are his spiritual kindred.
The proposed dualism of the City of God versus the earthly city nulli-
fies the true, essential dualism of the poem, by which the civilized
community of human beings stands in opposition to all that is wild and
disruptive of peaceful society.
Particularly counting against this Augustinian approach is the poet's
failure to describe Heorot in anything but glowing terms.45 Heorot is
"the greatest of halls" (78a), "the best of houses" (146a), "the most
glorious of earthly halls known to men" (309-3103). It is the site of
the scop's song of creation and is filled with men and women living to-
gether eadiglice, "blessedly," in the peace and prosperity of Hrothgar's
long rule, until this peace is interrupted by a threat that arises from
outside, not from within. From the refined pleasures of Heorot to the
86 CONTEXT
depravity of Sodom and Gomorrah is a long step. As for the future de-
struction of Heorot, one is not told how this destruction is to come
about or why, nor can one even be sure that it is to take place. The
poet seems to suppress this dimension of the story rather than bring it
into the spotlight, as he could have done had he wished to promote a
symbolic view of the doomed Heorot as a préfiguration of the doomed
earth.
Another proposed allegory concerns the act of violence by which
Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm. Judson Boyce Allen sees here a sym-
bolic reference to Gregory's exegesis of Job 3 1 : 2 1 - 2 2 , "Let my shoul-
der fall from its joint, and let my arm with its bones be broken." Ac-
cording to Gregory, the forearm signifies good deeds, and the upper
arm signifies the conjunction of social life. The person who promises
good deeds but does not perform them is like one whose arm is torn
off. Allen concludes that by the "neat trick of allegory, based on an
established exegetical equation," bad morality is made "as palpable and
monstrous as Grendel." 46
The exegetical leap here is the critic's rather than the poet's. In
Beowulf no distinction is made between Grendel's forearm and upper
arm. Unlike Grendel, in addition, Job asks that his arm be broken if he
has not dutifully clothed the poor or sheltered the fatherless. Allen's
concentration on the dramatic image of dismemberment leads him to
disregard the context and, hence, the full significance of either Job's
speech or Gregory's exegesis of it that, "as the limb is separated from
the body, so a man who had been capable of effecting good works is
torn off from all good things in the universe." Grendel is indeed de-
picted as a loner who is torn off from all human fellowship, but the
poet does not depict him as one who has failed to perform good deeds
that he had been capable of effecting. In the end the comparison col-
lapses.
In a different study, Thomas D. Hill has raised the possibility that
when the giant sword-blade that the hero finds in Grendel's lair melts
"very much like ice" (1608b), the image alludes to the ice of evil
being melted away, as in Augustine's commentary on Psalm 125:4,
"Like ice in a warm wind, our sins are dissolved." In this commentary,
hard ice is equated with hardened sin, while the action of the warm
wind on ice is identified with the action of the Holy Spirit within the
heart. Hill wisely notes that proof for his suggestion would have to de-
pend on the fight with Grendel's mother as a whole, for images taken
alone can be taken as signifying almost anything.47
LATIN CHRISTIAN LETTERS 87
T h e lack of just such a contextual "fit" argues against a scriptural
or patristic allusion in this part of Beowulf. In order for the equation
to hold, the sword-blade would have to represent sin—presumably
Beowulf's sin, although perhaps Grendel's is meant. About Beowulf's
supposed sin, the poet has told us nothing, and even readers who see
the hero's behavior as ultimately flawed find it admirable up to this
point. If the sword-blade represents Grendel's sin, then one is sur-
prised to find it used to quell the monster. As for a warm wind, there is
no mention of one either here or elsewhere in the poem, nor is any ref-
erence made to the Holy Spirit. Like the others, Hill's suggestion
must be rejected for its lack of contextual support.
Many more passages would have to be discussed if the question of
patristic influence on the poem were to be dealt with adequately. It is
not my intention to deny such influence. Hrothgar's "sermon," for
example, obviously draws on commonplaces of patristic discussions of
the devil, temptation, and sin, whether these commonplaces were
derived directly from Gregory's Moralia in Job or were in the air, so to
speak, for any author of the time to use. My point is simply that pa-
tristic allusions or an allegorical intent cannot be assumed on the basis
of loose similarities between passages in Beowulf and the writings of
Gregory or Augustine. They must be proven to be plausible on the
basis of sets of similarities that mesh together. Until a comprehensive
symbolic structure is shown to be present in the poem, exegetical criti-
cism, like certain schools of psychoanalytical or mythic criticism, will
be vulnerable to the charge of attempting to buckle the text into a
ready-made system.
Rather than looking to the Continent for evidence of the poet's
debt to Latin models, some scholars have searched English soil. The
Venerable Bede, Felix of Croyland, and Alcuin are the important
Anglo-Latin writers who, for different reasons, may be thought to
have had an influence in the shaping of Beowulf.
Bede's voluminous writings differ so self-evidently from Beowulf in
both subject and style that they have not proven an attractive hunting
ground for those seeking to relate the poem to Latin sources, despite
the usual dating of the poem to Northumbria of the early or mid-
eighth century. T o my knowledge only one attempt has been made to
relate the poem to the works of Bede. Niilo Peltola postulates that the
poet's allusion to "giants who warred against God" (113) derives not
only from Genesis 6:1-4, with its reference to gigantes born of the
union of the sons of God with the daughters of men, but from Bede's
88 CONTEXT
commentary on this passage in his treatise In genesim. Peltola is able to
make this claim with some plausibility because Bede, in contrast to
Augustine and other Church Fathers, explicitly states that giants ex-
isted after the Flood as well as before it. While Genesis A has the giants
killed off in the Flood, Beowulf and Bede allow part of their race to
survive. The Latin loan-word gigant in Beowulf 113, 1562, and 1690
"suggests a possible Scriptural or exegetic origin" for the poem's allu-
sions to giants.48
This point rests on the inference that Grendel and his mother are of
the old race of giants, but the poet never says this. We know them as
extraordinarily large creatures whose genealogy goes back to Cain,
but they are never called gigantes. On the contrary, the poet clearly
states that "the Flood killed the race of giants" and adds that on ac-
count of the giants' enmity to God, "the Lord gave them final recom-
pense through the surge of water" (1689-93). The word endelean,
"final recompense," suggests the definitive destruction specified by
most scriptural commentators rather than the partial destruction envi-
sioned by Bede. In addition, the use of the loan-word gigant does not
indicate an immediate Latin source, for the word appears elsewhere in
vernacular poetry, notably in Genesis A as the first element of the
compound gigantmœcgas, "giant progenies," as well as uncompounded
in Psalms 18 and 32 and in the thirty-first Blickling homily. Most
likely the poet's knowledge of giants did not depend on only one
source, such as Bede's scriptural commentaries, but was drawn from
various Latin and vernacular sources.
Although Felix's mid-eighth-century prose Vita Guthlaci does not
invite comparison with Beowulf, Dorothy Whitelock has drawn atten-
tion to a few features common to both works. Both tell of demons who
dwell in the fenland or wasteland, whence they venture forth to tor-
ment human beings. In both, the demonic tormentors are identified as
"the seed of Cain." The devil, the antiquus hostis, first attacks the her-
mit Guthlac while he is singing psalms and canticles, much as Grendel,
the ealdgewinna, first attacks Heorot after mention is made of the
scop's song of creation. The motif of spiritual armor, borrowed from
St. Paul's letter to the Ephesians (6:13-17), is developed at some
length to describe Guthlac's preparations against the fiend, while the
Beowulf poet draws on the same motif in Hrothgar's "sermon," when
the old king warns against a leader's succumbing to self-satisfaction
and greed (1740-47). 49
LATIN CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 89
These points of resemblance chiefly pertain to the religious coloring
of the Grendel episodes rather than to the heroic action of any part of
the poem. Calling attention to such similarities reminds us, if any re-
minder is necessary, that the poet has transformed the bare bones of a
folktale plot into a poem of greater significance by consistently devel-
oping its action in terms taken from the religious literature of the age.
Any other conclusions would be risky, and Whitelock does not make
them. The notion of "the seed of Cain," the devil as antiquus hostis,
and references to spiritual armor are sufficiently commonplace features
of Anglo-Saxon devotional literature that one need not hunt for their
specific source. Other resemblances are probably accidental, although
one cannot rule out the possibility that the poet knew the Vita Guthlaci
or, more likely, drew on vernacular accounts of Guthlac's life for some
of his inspiration concerning fenland demons.
Given Alcuin's hostility to songs about pagan Germanic heroes, as
emphatically expressed in his letter of 797 to Higbald of Lindisfarne,
one would not normally look to his writings to elucidate features of
Beowulf. W. F. Bolton has done so in a book that starts from the
question: "How would Alcuin have read the poem?"50 Reconstructing
a particular eighth-century reader's response to Beowulf is difficult at
the outset in the absence of recorded remarks by this reader on the
poem, which for all we know was unknown to him or was composed
after his death.
In addition, Bolton walks on thin ice when he claims that the study
of parallels between Beowulf and the writings of Alcuin leads to "a
new theory of the theme and structure" of the poem (p. 10), for the
parallels cited are too flimsy to bear weight. The Beowulf poet once
speaks of bad weather and Alcuin does twice, but the parallelism is not
"extremely close" (p. 93): Alcuin speaks of snow, sleet, and hail, and
the Beowulf poet tells of a rough wind at sea. The Beowulf poet men-
tions the building of Heorot, and Alcuin writes in some detail of the
building of York Minster with its columns, arches, porticoes, solaria,
and thirty altars with various ornaments (p. 103), but neither descrip-
tion seems based on the other, and Heorot is not a church. Both au-
thors speak of the arrows of the devil's temptations, but this is com-
mon in the vocabulary of moral exhortation. As for Bolton's new
theory of interpretation, it is based on the conflation of things that the
text keeps separate, as when the fire breathed by the dragon is seen as
"the fire of concupiscence," the dragon and the fire are seen as "the
90 CONTEXT
same thing," and the riches of the hoard are "likewise the same" (pp.
148-149). Perhaps Alcuin would have read the poem in this reductive
way. Perhaps he would not have. In either event one cannot assume
that an extraordinarily learned man living at the court of Charlemagne
in Aix was typical of the poem's original audience. If anything, he rep-
resents the sort of Latin-trained ecclesiastical scholar who would have
been least tolerant of a poem of this character.

ÍJ Even if the poet did not draw on Anglo-Latin authors, surely he


knew the Scriptures. He speaks of the Creation, Cain and Abel, giants,
and the Flood in such a matter-of-fact way that a knowledge of these
topics must have been routine to him as well as to the members of his
audience. Nonetheless, one may ask how he came by his knowledge.
Was it by firsthand acquaintance with the Vulgate Bible of St. Jerome?
Or could it have been by intermediary sources such as biblical com-
mentaries, the liturgy, sermons, poetic paraphrases of Scripture, or
other forms of devotional literature or discourse in Latin or the ver-
nacular, much as many people derive their knowledge of the Scrip-
tures today?
I have already called attention to the difficulty of ascertaining the
source of the poet's knowledge of giants (ultimately from Genesis 6:2
and Job 25:5, but more proximately from the writings of Augustine
and Gregory and, probably, from the patristically-influenced Genesis
A). The same difficulty prevents our identifying the source of the
motif of spiritual armor. There is no reason to assume that the poet
drew directly on the Vulgate for his knowledge of these subjects when
other sources were closer at hand, and no one source need be postu-
lated for ideas that were well-worn currency.
Attempts to show a specific correlation between Beowulf and parts
of Scripture tend to break down in the face of the failure of the text to
match its supposed source in other than commonplace ways. When
Hrothgar praises Beowulf by saying that whoever the woman was who
bore him, "the everlasting Lord was gracious to her in her childbear-
ing" (945-9463), the words have been thought to recall Luke 11:27,
"Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the paps that gave thee
suck." 51 The physical specificity of the Gospel verse is absent from the
Old English passage, however, and one is justified in holding that "so
natural and widespread a sentiment scarcely need have a definite
'source.' " 5 2 Somewhat more ingeniously argued is Willem Helder's
claim that the thief who steals a flagon from the dragon's hoard
LATIN CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 91
is meant to call to mind the thief-metaphor of Matthew 12:29,
24:43-44, and 2 Peter 3:10. According to the traditional exegesis of
these passages, the thief who plunders the house of a strong man is in-
terpreted as Christ, the time of whose Second Coming one can no
more predict than a paterfamilias can predict when a thief will come in
the night. The plundering of the hoard in Beowulf is thus "exem-
plary," even "a Christ-like act," and the poet's presentation of the
thief is "sympathetic." Since Beowulf too is a treasure-thief, according
to this interpretation, he too is said to act "in imitation of Christ"
when he accepts the treasure.53
The chief difficulty here is the poet's designation of the thief as syn-
bysig, "distressed by sin," or "guilty" (2226a). This is not an epithet
appropriate to an exemplary figure, nor does the poet mitigate this as-
sessment of the man's character by speaking of him elsewhere in com-
plimentary terms, let alone in terms that recall the Christian Savior.
On the contrary, the thief is the man chiefly to blame for Beowulf's
having to lose his life in a fight that could have been avoided. The
dragon's hoard, furthermore, is not the house of a strong man or pa-
terfamilias; Beowulf is nowhere said to be a thief or like a thief; and the
theft from the hoard is preceded by none of the apocalyptic distress
and exaggerated sinfulness traditionally associated with the time be-
fore the Second Coming. The supposed biblical parallel might still be
worth pursuing if the dragon's fire could be said to signify the fires of
Doomsday, but the apocalyptic overtones of the end of the poem re-
main overtones and nothing more, for the fire leads to no new order.
One looks in vain for the novos cáelos and novam terram predicted in
Peter's epistle. If the dragon is pushed over the cliff into the sea in
"anticipation of the fate of the ancient dragon of the Apocalypse,"
who is to be cast into a lake of fire and brimstone (Revelation 20:10),
then it is curious that the poet neglects to develop the dragon's Satanic
aspect. In the end the comparison is too imprecise to ring true.

U Altogether one thus finds little or no evidence that the poet knew
Latin letters directly. The few possible instances of direct influence are
counterbalanced by many examples of critics' strained efforts to pur-
sue comparisons that prove weightless. While direct Latin influence
on Beowulf cannot be ruled out, attempts to discover it have failed to
establish a valid literary context for the poem.
On the other hand, evidence abounds that the poet shared the vo-
cabulary and psychology of his age. In part these derived from the
92 CONTEXT
great body of patristic writings that had found their way to England by
his time. T h e countless Christian themes and phrases in the poem bear
witness to the extent to which its author was steeped in the tradition of
English devotional literature that began with Caedmon, in whose hymn
one may already see patristic thought expressed in Germanic verse. 54
There is every reason to believe that the poet and his audience had as-
similated the tradition of Christian poetry in the vernacular, for the
Germanic story-matter of Beowulf \s presented in terms that are some-
times identical with those of poems on religious themes. The poet was
a pious author, not a zealot, who was able to articulate some of the
basic concepts of Christianity in a work whose primary appeal was sec-
ular rather than religious.
For most of the poem's Christian allusions there is no need to search
for a Latin source. The Creation, Cain and Abel, the Flood, heaven,
hell, and Doomsday were familiar subjects to all Englishmen. For
many other allusions, parallels are at hand in the vernacular. Grendel is
described in terms used elsewhere of the devil. T o "choose God's
light," a phrase used regarding Hrethel's blessed death (2469b), is also
used in the fourth Chronicle poem to describe the blessed death of
Edgar, as well as in Guthlac in regard to Guthlac's death. T o go on
feonda geweald, "into the keeping of fiends," means to be damned,
whether the words apply to Heremod (903a) or any other sinner
(compare Christ 1415a, Andreas 1619a). The conception of sin in
Hrothgar's "sermon" parallels what one finds in Juliana 400-4093, in
which the devil takes up the Pauline and Gregorian concept of the
human soul as a fortress, defending itself against the shafts of sin. T h e
same concept is found in the Bückling and Vercelli homilies and in
other Anglo-Saxon sermons. That the whole central part of Hroth-
gar's speech is a tissue of homiletic topoi is evident from Klaeber's ar-
ticle "Die christlichen Elemente im Beowulf, " from which hundreds of
other examples of vernacular parallels to the poet's religious diction
could be cited.55
Although the poet's Christian vocabulary does not provide any sure
means of dating his work, certain words, phrases, and whole para-
graphs are more consistent with a late date than an earlier one. Most
of the terms for the devil are not paralleled in Genesis A and Exodus
(two poems that have been held to be early) but are duplicated in the
saints' lives Juliana, Guthlac, and Elene. Examples are feond man-
cynnes, bana, helle gcest, helle hœfta, deorc dea<5scua, atol aglœca, Godes
LATIN CHRISTIAN LETTERS 93

andsaca, and fyrene hyrde. The "heathen" curse that is set on the trea-
sure is couched in wholly Christian terms having a late ring. A person
who violates the curse is condemned to be held "guilty for his sins, . . .
bound in infernal clamps, stricken with defilements" (307ib-73a).
Besides the parallels to Anglo-Saxon laws and to the formula of ex-
communication,56 the lines call to mind that part of the late poem "Ju-
dith" that describes the fate of Holofernes' soul, which departs to be
"condemned to torment ever afterward in the grip of worms, in forced
punishments, bitterly confined in hellfire" ( 1 1 4 - 1 1 6 ) .
Of particular interest in regard to dating is the passage that tells of
the Danes' idolatry (175-1833), together with the "Christian ex-
cursus" that immediately follows (183b-188). The first passage is
paralleled in the Old English Daniel in lines that tell of the idolatry of
Nebuchadnezzar's followers, heathens who "bowed to that idol [and]
offered sacrifice; they knew no better way, they acted wrongfully . . . "
(181 b - 1 8 3 a). The Beowulf passage has been thought to be the later of
the two,57 but the point is unimportant. What is significant is the way
in which the two passages voice a similar attitude toward idolators. T o
some readers the tone of the Beowulf passage has seemed compassion-
ate, as if the poet felt sympathy for the plight of the heathen Danes,58
but surely his words condemn them. In history, the continental Danes
were not baptized until the eleventh century. There was no love lost
between the Anglo-Saxons and the heathen Vikings. An unambiguous
reference to the Danes' spiritual error ("they had hellish things in
their hearts," 1 7 9 b - ! 80a) is followed by an equally emphatic state-
ment of what lies in store for idolators, as well as for others, both
damned and saved (183b-!88):

W a bi6 pxm Se sceal


|)urh sliSne nifi sawle bescufan
in fyres fefim, frofre ne wenan,
wihte gewendan! Wei biS f>aem jDe mot
sefter deaSdaege Drihten secean
ond to Faeder faejsmum freoSo wilnian!
Woeful shall he be who is bound to see
his soul thrust into the embrace of fire
and suffer cruelly with no hope of grace,
never turning aside! Well shall he be
who has leave to seek the Lord after death
and ask for peace in the Father's embrace!
94 CONTEXT

T h e poet's attitude is scarcely one of sympathy or compassion for the


heathen, however much this may have been the characteristic attitude
of Christian Englishmen toward the Germanic pagans during the pe-
riod of missionary activity on the Continent. On the contrary, White-
lock rightly sees such a tirade against idolators as uncharacteristic of
this earlier self-confident age. Since she attributes the poem to an
eighth-century milieu, she therefore is tempted to see the passage as
an addition to the text by an interpolator of the Viking age. 59
The problem with such a solution is one of defining limits. If one is
to hypothesize interpolation in a text, on what basis does one identify
certain passages as additions? Normally, in the absence of conclusive
linguistic evidence one does so on the basis of a general theory of the
poem. But of what use is a general theory that cannot account for all
the poem? Any theory will be convincing as long as one can discount
the parts of the text that contradict it. Without ruling out the possibil-
ity of interpolation, I prefer to approach Beowulf as the work of a sin-
gle author composing at a given place and time, in the hopes that a
general theory based on this assumption will account for all the poem's
parts without strain.
The "Christian excursus" of lines i83b-i88 has given critics pause
precisely because this sort of construction is well documented in the
later devotional literature of the period.60 A fully developed example is
the closing part of Wulfstan's seventh homily:

W o e to one who must dwell there in torment! . . . God is very merci-


ful and will quickly have mercy and will fully forgive one who desists
from evil with his whole heart and zealously amends. But woe to one
who persists in evil and amends nothing! T r u l y they shall perish utterly.
L o , lo, blessed is the band that shall be severed from the devil's com-
pany at Doomsday: these are the blessed ones who love God and keep
His commandments. 6 1

It is significant that among the various classes of sinners Wulfstan


identifies as destined to suffer the more unpleasant of these fates, he
mentions witches and idolators. The passage is in the spirit of post-
Viking ecclesiastical documents directed against heathen rites, for
pagan customs were constantly being introduced to England during
the period of Scandinavian settlement. Section 5 of the Laws of Cnut
provides an example:
LATIN CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S 95
And we earnestly forbid every heathen practice. It is heathen practice if
one worships idols, namely if one worships heathen gods and the sun or
the moon, fire or flood, wells or stones or any kind of forest trees, or if
one practises witchcraft . . . (EHD, p. 455).

The "Christian excursus" of Beowulf not only reflects the spirit of the
homilists in their occasional outbursts on the subject of damnation and
salvation; it also manifests the same lively concerns that encouraged
the enactment of late laws against idolatry and witchcraft because of
the persistence of pagan customs among Englishmen of Norse de-
scent. The passage from Beowulf would scarcely have suited the pre-
Viking period. Since nothing else forbids dating the poem to a period
after the Scandinavian settlement had begun, there is reason to believe
that Whitelock's interpolator is none other than the poet himself.

1Ì By no means, then, can the Beowulf poet be assumed to have been


adept at Latin letters just because his poem was written down. While
some of the poet's themes and phrases parallel passages of classical or
medieval Latin, the parallels are seldom unequivocal and sometimes
fade when examined closely. T o the extent that the poet had assimi-
lated Latin Christian thought, he had probably done so chiefly through
the intermediary of easily accessible vernacular materials, including
poems, sermons, saints' lives, and ecclesiastical or legal formulas. Even
these he did not necessarily know through the written word, for the
culture of Anglo-Saxon noblemen probably never ceased being pre-
dominantly nonliterate, and probably many monks too had good aural
memories. If the poet's use of Christian learning suggests anything
about the date of Beowulf, it directs us not to Bede's Northumbria or
any other Latinate milieu but instead to the great period of vernacular
literature that began under the encouragement of Alfred.
4· THE DANES AND THE DATE

I N the early years of the twentieth century, great hopes were


expressed that the surviving corpus of Old English poetry could be
dated scientifically. Various linguistic tests were devised to determine
the relative date of the poems. Although the tests were subject to in-
terpretation and sometimes led to contradictory results, for the most
part they corroborated a chronology that scholars had tended to accept
intuitively. T h e Caedmonian corpus, variously defined, was thought to
precede Beowulf; Beowulf was held to precede the Cynewulfian cor-
pus, again variously defined; and all these poems were ascribed to the
period of the late seventh through the early eighth century, the
Golden Age of Northumbrian learning. Nothing of value was attrib-
uted to the ninth century, while the tenth century was thought to have
produced only a few poems of inferior technique.1
In subsequent years this chronology was subject to minor adjust-
ment. Whitelock argued convincingly that nothing forbids dating
Beowulf as late as the second half of the eighth century,2 while Sisam
made a strong case for dating the poems of Cynewulf no earlier than
the end of the eighth century.3 Other poems were dated with some
precision within the later Old English period,4 while the early date of
" T h e Wanderer" was questioned.5 Still, the notion of a Beowulf pre-
ceding the Viking age came to be repeated as a kind of dogma, to the
extent that one scholar writing in 1972 was able to remark approv-
ingly that "virtually no one now thinks of Beowulf as post-825." 6
Equally unquestioned has been the devolutionary premise in Old
English literary history. The "early" poetry has been taken to be
"good," the "later" poetry generally "bad." Such a view is accepted in
the most recent history of medieval English poetry, for example, in
which the author speaks of a "marked decline" in the practice of po-
etry after the year 850, as a result of the Danish invasions and the de-
cline of monastic learning, so that by the tenth century the poetic tra-
dition was "bankrupt" and survived in attenuated form thanks only to

96
THE DANES AND THE DATE 97

the natural conservatism of the monasteries.7 That this view of early


English literary history leads to certain paradoxes has not been
counted against it. T h e same author, for example, grants that this de-
cline in the poetry does not relate to the social history of the period, as
"there was of course nothing bankrupt about the state of England nor
its monastic culture" in the tenth century. He accepts the late poem
" T h e Battle of Maldon" as a "miraculous resurrection of Old English
poetic energy," the poem "Judith" as another major example of late
poetic composition, and the late poem Genesis Β as the masterpiece of
Old English poetic art.8
Both the assumption of a pre-Viking Beowulf and the devolutionary
premise in Old English literary history deserve more serious scrutiny
than they have received. T h e dating of Old English poetry remains an
open question.9 How valid are the linguistic tests on which chronologi-
cal judgments have been based? T o what extent did there exist a non-
monastic tradition of vernacular poetry that resisted destruction
through the period of monastic upheavals during the Viking age?
What were the conditions of literary patronage during the rich period
of cultural interchange under the united Anglo-Scandinavian kingdom
of Athelstan and Edgar the Peaceful? What kind of literature was ad-
mired and preserved in the secular monastic houses against which the
Benedictine reformers directed their energies? T o what extent do such
poems as " T h e Seafarer" and the Vercelli Book's version of " T h e
Dream of the Rood" share the content, symbolic structure, and horta-
tory mode of much homiletic literature of the late Old English period,
the period of supposed decline? Until these and other questions are re-
solved, if they ever can be, little is accomplished by approaching the
history of Old English poetry as if it could be written authoritatively.
Developing a general chronology for Old English poetry, however,
is a task that must be left to others. M y specific concern is with
Beowulf. Despite the consensus that has developed in favor of an
eighth-century Beowulf there is no good reason to exclude a later
date. T h e linguistic evidence that has seemed to support an early date
is not convincing, while certain features of the style and content of the
text, particularly the treatment of the Danes, point as persuasively to
its affiliation with tenth-century Anglo-Scandinavian England as with
eighth-century Anglo-Saxon England. Justification of these ideas will
require a brief review of the chief evidence that has been taken to in-
dicate an early date, after which I shall see if further evidence can be
98 CONTEXT
brought to bear on the question of identifying the poem's historical
context. T o avoid misunderstanding, I should make clear from the
outset that I do not intend to prove a late date or disprove an earlier
one. In these matters one must be content to establish the relative
probabilities of several possible alternatives. Proof in a scientific sense
is beyond us.
Fortunately, the somewhat technical linguistic tests have been the
subject of scrupulous review in a monograph by Ashley Crandell
Amos. 10 Since Amos's conclusions dovetail neatly with mine, I appeal
to her authority on points that I cannot develop here in detail.
Leaving aside tests that have no bearing on Beowulf, one sees that
the five chief linguistic tests fall into two groups, phonological and
metrical (numbers 1 - 3 ) and syntactic and grammatical (numbers
4-5):
I. About the time that the first Old English literary texts were
written down, h was lost after the consonants r and / in positions be-
fore a vowel, and the loss of the consonant caused compensatory
lengthening of the preceding vowel: mèarh, *méárhes became mèârh,
meares. Soon thereafter, if not at the same time, short forms of the
lengthened vowel developed by analogy to the forms that retained h:
méárh, meares. Study of the meter of Old English poetry sometimes,
though not always, indicates whether the vowel is long or short in such
a position. According to theory, the proportion of long to short vowels
in words with loss of h provides a means to date Old English poetic
texts relatively: early texts show all or chiefly long forms, while late
texts show all or chiefly short forms.
Like the other phonological-metrical tests, this test is based on as-
sumptions about the scansion of Old English poetry that may or may
not reflect the actual practice of Anglo-Saxon poets. Few subjects in
Old English literary history are so open to controversy as the subject
of metrics, and a linguistic test based on a theory of meter stands on
dubious ground. There is no knowing if lines that do not scan nor-
mally according to modern theories would have sounded unacceptable
to Anglo-Saxon ears. Lines which were acceptable metrically to one
Old English poet may have been unacceptable to another. The deter-
mination of a given vowel as long or short is thus not beyond dispute.
Even if the lengths of vowels in words with loss of h were known
beyond doubt, the distinction between long and short forms in words
like meares and meares is no sure indication of date. Compensatory
THE DANES AND THE DATE 99
lengthening after loss of h may not have occurred in all words at once.
Analogical shortening could have occurred at different times in differ-
ent words. Short and long vowels in these positions could have coex-
isted for some time during the Old English period, and the distinction
between them may have been merely a feature of style. The late tenth-
or early eleventh-century poem " T h e Battle of Maldon" 11 includes
both short forms (verses 194b and 259b) and a long form (verse
239b). Statistics do not yield a clear chronological picture and are vi-
tiated by their slender data base: there occur only 14 words with loss
of h (11 long, 3 short) in the 3,182 lines of Beowulf, 2 in the 764 lines
of Daniel, none in the 617 lines of Genesis B, none in the 349 lines of
"Judith." Amos is justified in concluding that "those texts with mixed
long and short forms," like Beowulf, "cannot be relatively dated" (p.
167), and the usefulness of the test in general is slight.
2. Early in the Old English period neighboring vowels contracted
after loss of intervocalic h, j, and w: dôan became dòn, doñ became
<3<?Ö. According to the system of scansion devised by Eduard Sie vers,
the meter of poetic texts sometimes requires the restoration of uncon-
tracted forms where manuscripts record contracted forms. The pro-
portion of such uncontracted forms has been held to be an indication
of the date: uncontracted forms must be early; contracted forms, late.
Apart from its vulnerability on metrical grounds, the test of con-
traction is weak because uncontracted spellings occur in the prose of
all periods. The uncontracted form of verbs could have beer, restored
by analogy with all third-person endings in -aft. In speech, the two
forms may have existed in free variation until a late period. Uncon-
tracted forms may have become "fossilized" in certain formulaic ex-
pressions that were part of the traditional diction of Old English verse.
The test of contraction might still be useful if a clear gradation of
poems showing only uncontracted forms to poems showing only con-
traction could be discerned, but no such gradation exists. No Old
English poem of more than sixty lines shows only uncontracted forms,
and just a few show only contracted ones. Even among these poems
the difference could be one of style. "Since the test of contraction can-
not be simply and rigorously applied with consistent, unambiguous re-
sults," concludes Amos (pp. 48-49), it "does not provide reliable evi-
dence for dating."
3. Also during the earlier Old English period, monosyllabic words
terminating in the syllabic consonants I, m, n, or r came to be pro-
ΙΟΟ CONTEXT
nounced with a parasitic (or inorganic) vowel: *wundr became wun-
dor; *tacn became tacen. Monosyllabic forms of these words can some-
times be distinguished from disyllabic forms on the basis of meter, and
the monosyllabic forms have been taken to be earlier.
Assuming the validity of the metrical theory on which this test is
based, there is still no way to know if the phonological change in ques-
tion occurred uniformly and gradually during the time that the extant
texts were recorded. Several scholars have argued that parasiting was
already complete by the end of the prehistoric period of Old English.
They see the later monosyllabic forms as the result of analogy, on the
model of inflected forms like wundres and tacne.12 Another has argued
that parasiting was originally restricted to words with long stems. If so,
then parasiting after short stems is a later analogical development.13
Such differences of opinion concerning the history of the development
of parasitic vowels before syllabic consonants would undermine this
test even if it led to attractive and unambiguous results. In fact, what
one finds is typically ambiguous. Both Genesis A, which is probably
early, and " T h e Battle of Maldon," one of the latest texts, show mixed
monosyllabic and disyllabic forms. Very likely, Anglo-Saxon poets felt
free to choose either variant on the basis of style or meter, and Amos
rightly dismisses the test of syllabic consonants as "worthless" (p. 77).
4. In Beowulf, more than in any other Old English poem, the com-
bination weak adjective -I- noun is preferred where the normal prose
usage would be article + weak adjective + noun. This unusual feature
of the style of the poem has been taken to reflect an early state of the
language, when the weak adjective still had independent status and
emphatic force.
This test differs from the phonological-metrical ones in that it is not
based on a linguistic change that can be verified from any source inde-
pendent of the poetry, and dating the poetry is precisely the problem.
Old English prose does not illustrate with any clarity the change that
has been hypothesized concerning the force of the weak adjective. Use
of the weak adjective in the absence of a preceding article was proba-
bly a poetic liberty, and the extent to which any poet chose to exploit
this liberty may have been a matter of personal style or temperament.
In the absence of metrical criteria confirming a manuscript reading,
furthermore, one cannot tell where the definite article appears by au-
thorial intention and where by scribal caprice. The three Old English
poems that have survived in more than one manuscript show much
T H E DANES A N D T H E D A T E ΙΟΙ

scribal variation with respect to definite articles and weak adjectives. 14


Taking into account the uncertainty of the manuscript readings on
which it is based, and given our ignorance of the underlying linguistic
change said to be involved, the test "cannot be used with any confi-
dence to date Beowulf or other Old English texts" (Amos, p. 124).
5. The demonstrative force of the article se, seo, pœt has been held
to be present in Beowulf to a greater degree than in other poems, and
the text is said to be earlier in that respect. This stylistic test is open to
the same objections as the preceding one. Strictly speaking, it is not a
test at all but a subjective judgment, and as such it is difficult to prove
or disprove. In practice, the degree of demonstrative force of the arti-
cle is not easily determined. Even if valid, the distinction between the
use of the article by the Beowulf poet and other authors is as likely to
be one of style as of date. In this and in other respects, the poet seems
to have used a poetic language removed from the language of prose.
The special features of his style might seem less unusual if other epic
poems on traditional Germanic themes had survived.
These are the chief linguistic tests. As presently formulated, they
provide no reliable evidence for the date of Beowulf or any other
poem, nor do they provide the basis for a relative chronology of Old
English literature. At best the tests may provide a sort of index of tra-
ditionally. If a poetic text seems to include chiefly long stem-vowels in
words like meares and feores, chiefly uncontracted forms like döan as
opposed to dòn, and chiefly monosyllabic forms of words like wundor
and tacen, and if in addition it frequently permits weak adjectival in-
flections in the absence of a preceding article and seems to use the defi-
nite article with demonstrative force, then there is reason to conclude
that it was composed by a poet who was at home in the traditional
verse-medium and who wished to exploit the differences between the
language of poetry and the language of ordinary discourse. Any other
conclusions are premature.15

Κ Among the various cultural or historical reasons for favoring a


pre-Viking date for Beowulf, the most persuasive one has been
thought to be the poet's depiction of the Danes. Some scholars have
opted for an early date on other grounds: the poem's excellence, for
example (here one sees the influence of the devolutionary premise), or
an imagined set of similarities between the poem's style or the material
culture that it depicts and the material culture of one or another
102 CONTEXT

Anglo-Saxon kingdom. Beowulf has sometimes been thought to have


features in common with the style of Northumbrian art of the early
eighth century, the great age of Hiberno-Saxon manuscript illumina-
tion. If the artistic productions of Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of other pe-
riods were as well known, this method of dating by association might
seem less reliable. The discovery of the Sutton Hoo ship burial has
given rise to an equally speculative theory of the origin of the poem in
an East Anglian court of the seventh century, so that one scholar has
had to go to some trouble to point out that "Beowulf has no direct
connection with Sutton Hoo." 6 The material culture depicted in the
poem is the stylized material culture of heroic convention, and it can-
not be used as a basis for dating the text.
Far more persuasive than such arguments has been the notion that
no Englishman of the post-Viking age would have composed a poem
two-thirds of which serves directly or indirectly to glorify the Scylding
dynasty of Denmark. Klaeber takes it for granted that "a poem so
thoroughly Scandinavian in subject-matter and evincing the most sym-
pathetic interest in Danish affairs cannot well have been composed
after the beginning of the Danish invasions toward the end of the 8th
century" (p. cvii). Whitelock likewise doubts that an English poet
composing after the first Viking raids would have depicted the Danes
in a favorable light:

I doubt whether he would have spoken in such terms during the Viking
Age, or whether his audience would have given him a patient hearing if
he had. It is not how men like to hear the people described who are
burning their homes, pillaging their churches, ravaging their cattle and
crops, killing their countrymen or carrying them off into slavery. (Au-
dience, pp. 24-25)

A pre-Viking date for Beowulf could be taken for granted if the his-
tory of the Scandinavians in England were in fact a story of unremit-
ting burning, pillaging, ravaging, killing, and enslavement, but the
story is not so simple. Certainly the Vikings first came to England as
raiders. Sporadic raiding by Norsemen continued in parts of the island
up to the end of the Old English period, while even in the best of
times relations between the Danes and the English may have been
strained, to judge from the violence that erupted between the two
peoples during the reign of Ethelred and that came to a head in the St.
Brice's Day massacre of 1002. Still, large numbers of Scandinavians
THE DANES AND THE DATE 103

came to England not to fight but to farm. Once they had established
their presence by force of arms, many Danes seem to have settled
down as husbandmen who tilled their fields and raised their livestock in
peaceful coexistence with their English neighbors.
This history of peaceful husbandry is not the history written in the
militaristic annals of The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,17 but it is no less sig-
nificant for having occurred without the clash of arms. The Danish in-
vasions were no repetition of the Germanic invasions of the fifth and
sixth centuries, in the course of which the native British population was
largely displaced. The Danes settled side by side with the native popu-
lation to make use of agricultural land that was already well tended by
a kindred race with kindred language and customs. As Kenneth Sisam
has noted, the eastern counties that were settled by the Danes were
the richest and most populous of England. While not much is known
about the inhabitants of the Danelaw until the late tenth century, still
they cannot be neglected "as intermediaries between English and
Scandinavians, as an audience for the oral literature of both peoples,
and as possible preservers of heathen legends that had lost their hold in
the long-christianized South." 18
Many towns seem to have come to terms with their conquerors
quickly. At York, according to F. M. Stenton, there is "no evidence of
any breach in the continuity of life during the Danish wars," 19 while in
other northern towns like Lincoln and Nottingham the native English
population was never displaced. In Lancastershire, according to F. T .
Wainwright, "theories of military conquest, mass slaughter, displace-
ment, and dispossession may be safely forgotten." 20 Archeological
evidence confirms that the churchyards of northern England were in
continuous use by Scandinavians as well as Anglo-Saxons.21 The evi-
dence of place-names shows conclusively that there was no extermina-
tion of the English peasantry in the Danelaw. 22 At the same time, the
Danes came in sufficient numbers to impress their own names and
customs on the land. Stenton speaks of the transplantation to England
of a Norse vocabulary "which covered the whole framework of agri-
cultural life" ("Historical Bearing," p. 312). The question is still being
debated as to whether or not the Scandinavian population in England
was ever great enough to justify our speaking of a Norse "migration"
from the Continent, 23 but there can be no doubt that the number of
immigrants was sufficient to leave a lasting impression on the pattern
of settled life in the eastern and northern parts of the land.
T o a large extent, the history of the Danish settlers in England is
104 CONTEXT
one of their gradual acculturation to the habits and traditions of the
native population. The most important of these acts of acculturation
was their acceptance of Christianity. 24 Little in the history of the later
Old English period is more astonishing than the rapidity with which
the Vikings who had warred against Alfred agreed to take on the reli-
gion of their adversaries. Within a generation or two after the Danish
leader Guthrum had been baptized by Alfred as part of the terms of
the Treaty of Wedmore (878), Christian Danes and Englishmen were
worshiping side by side, with little, as far as we know, to distinguish
the religious practices of one group from those of the other. T o be
sure, Norse heathenism did not die out overnight. From the late ninth
to the early eleventh century new groups of unbaptized immigrants
entered England from different parts of Scandinavia, and each new
family or group was subject to a similar process of conversion and ac-
culturation. Heathen practices must have been reintroduced to
England periodically during this period, to judge from the stern laws
that were promulgated against them in the Canons of Edgar, the Law
of the Northumbrian Priests, and the Laws of Cnut. 25 Such indications
of the survival of paganism should not obscure the important fact that
as a group the Danes quickly and even enthusiastically embraced the
new faith. Danish influence within the Church extended to the highest
levels, to judge from the career of Oda "the Good," Archbishop of
Canterbury during the years 9 4 1 - 9 5 8 and a Dane by birth.
T h e ready conversion of the Danes goes far to explain the relative
peacefulness of tenth-century political history. Once the Danes had
accepted Christianity, nothing stood in the way of their intermarrying
with the native population and living with them in an atmosphere
of mutual toleration, if not respect. Rather than harry and burn, the
second- and third-generation Anglo-Danes seem to have been willing
to work with the English to solve the basic problems of making a liv-
ing from the land and defending it from its spiritual and human ene-
mies.
Contributing to the easy acculturation of the Danes was their rela-
tive lack of political unity and hence their early submission to the kings
of Wessex. Just as they had been unaccustomed to a state-supported
monotheistic religion with all the persuasive power of organized
Christianity, they had been unaccustomed to the authority of a single
state government. Their loyalties tended to shift among a number of
lesser chieftains who, by English standards, were kings only in name.
T H E DANES AND T H E D A T E 105
After the security of the Danelaw was threatened by new raiders,
chiefly Norwegian raiders based in Ireland, the Danes began to look to
the kings of Wessex for protection, particularly to Edward the Elder
(899-924), whose energetic military campaigns were proving him to
be the most powerful ruler in England. By the year 919 Edward had
won back the Danelaw, and all England south of the Humber was
united under his rule.
In this united kingdom the Danes had both rights and responsibil-
ities. Some of their responsibilities are suggested by the entry in The
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle for the year 918, which states that Edward gar-
risoned Nottingham with both Englishmen and Danes.26 Some of
their rights are evident in several charters of the year 926 that show
the English buying land from the Danes rather than seeking to win it
by military conquest. As Stenton points out, these charters "correct
the impression of unqualified hostility between Danes and Englishmen
which is produced by the monotonous record of their wars." 27 By 934,
when Edward's successor Athelstan (924-939) had extended English
power over the Welsh and over the Norse kingdom of York, the
English king well deserved the title that he chose for himself: Angel-
saxonum Denorumque gloriosissimus rex, "most glorious king of the
Anglo-Saxons and Danes." 28
Athelstan's court was truly international, and Egil's Saga is not the
only document that testifies to the high repute that the king enjoyed
among Norsemen.29 At the great court held at Winchester on 28 May
934, five of the twelve earls in attendance bore Scandinavian names,
and these and other Norse names appear regularly in royal charters of
the period.30 The great triumph at Brunanburh in 937 was no simple
victory of Englishmen over Scandinavians; it was won in defense of a
united Anglo-Danish kingdom in opposition to Norwegian and Irish
invaders whose security was threatened by the expansion of Athel-
stan's power. This alliance between Englishmen and Danes is evident
in the Chronicle poem of the year 942 on the capture of the Five Bor-
oughs of the Danelaw from the Norsemen of York. The author makes
a clear distinction between the Danes and their heathen enemies,
under whom they had previously been forced to live "in the fetters of
slavery" (line 10). The term "heathen" could at this time be applied
only to the Norsemen of York, who were still plundering monasteries,
not to the converted Danes of the Danelaw.31
Anglo-Danish relations were at their most friendly during the reign
ιο6 CONTEXT

of Edgar (959-975), surnamed "the Peaceful" by those who appre-


ciated the spirit of cooperation that characterized his rule. The fourth
of his law codes, adopted in 962-963, gives the Danes the right to
choose their own laws "because of your loyalty, which you have always
shown me." T o conclude the code Edgar, addressing the leading men
of the Danelaw, adds, "I am very well pleased with you all, because
you are so zealous about the maintenance of the peace." 32 Edgar's favor-
itism for the Danes is not surprising if truth underlies the tradition that
he was brought up in the home of an East Anglian ealdorman after his
mother died when he was scarcely a year old.33 In addition to respect-
ing the legal autonomy of the Danelaw, Edgar seems to have made a
policy of appointing Danes to important positions in the north, men
such as Oscetel, Archbishop of York, and Thurcetel, abbot of Bed-
ford. 34 Speaking of Edgar's glorious reign, in many ways the apogee
of Anglo-Saxon political history, the Chronicle adds only one fault: that
he loved foreign customs and manners and attracted many foreigners
to the realm.35
T h e harmony of the united Anglo-Danish kingdom of Edgar
quickly broke down during the reign of Ethelred (978-1016), whose
efforts to dislodge Danes from positions of authority and whose en-
croachment on the legal autonomy of the Danelaw led to a polariza-
tion of the realm that only served to weaken his power and impoverish
the treasury. T h e seeds of discord sown by Ethelred led to renewed
attacks from abroad, the payment of huge sums of Danegeld, and the
eventual eclipse of the royal house of Wessex after the invasions by
Swein and Cnut. Swein's invasion may have been a direct reponse to
the St. Brice's Day massacre of 1002, a senseless slaughter of people
of Scandinavian or Anglo-Scandinavian descent that is said to have in-
cluded Swein's sister Gunnhild among its victims.36 By the time of the
invasion, Ethelred had alienated enough of his subjects that Swein's
conquest was made easy, and the English king's exile and death was
not widely regretted. After the death of Swein in 1014 and the ac-
cession to the throne and baptism of his son Cnut, England entered a
new and glorious period of Anglo-Danish cooperation, this time under
the overlordship not of a Christian Englishman, as in the time of
Edgar, but of a newly converted Dane.
This brief historical survey is meant to give credence to the view
that by the early tenth century, Anglo-Danish relations had changed
significantly from what they had been during the period of burning
and harrying. Whitelock acknowledges this change, yet I am not sure
THE DANES AND THE DATE
that she takes it sufficiently into account in her assessment of the prob-
able date of Beowulf. Her objections to the idea of a post-Viking
Beowulf are chiefly directed against the concept of a «/«/A-century mi-
lieu for the poem. These objections carry weight. The same argu-
ments do not preclude a date of composition sometime during the
tenth century, however, when Anglo-Danish relations had stabilized to
the point that Englishmen and Danes acknowledged the same over-
lord, fought side by side, and tilled the fields in mutual cooperation. In
the absence of linguistic evidence that would dictate otherwise, one
cannot rule out the possibility that the poem as we have it, based per-
haps on stories long in circulation, was composed within the century
preceding the time when the manuscript was copied, which on paléo-
graphie grounds is taken to be about the year iooo. T o test this
hypothesis, one should ascertain more exactly how the poet views the
Danes.

f Is the Beowulf poet's depiction of the Danes laudatory, as Klaeber


and Whitelock assume? Or does he mean to show them in a disparag-
ing or even insulting light, as others have held,37 so as to glorify by
contrast the triumphs of the young hero Beowulf? Each view has
something to recommend it and can be supported by reference to the
text. The poet's ambivalent portrait of the Danes corresponds with
what we should expect of an Englishman living in the ambivalent cir-
cumstances of those parts of the tenth century when resentment of
prior Viking depredations was tempered by respect for powerful Dan-
ish supporters of the English church and throne.
Initially, the poet's stance is unambiguous. In the first lines the lis-
teners are informed that the song they are about to hear will be in cele-
bration of the glory of former kings of the Danes. Over the next fifty-
three lines the poet fulfills this promise as he sings the triumphs of the
early Danish kings Scyld and Beow. Each is presented as a model of
what a king or prince should be. Such Danophilia on the part of the
poet is hard to account for until one recognizes that the first lines of
Beowulf reflect English traditions that were not cultivated in the Vik-
ings' homeland. Both Beow and Sceaf, Scyld's ancestor are scarcely
known in Norse tradition. In ninth- and tenth-century English docu-
ments, all three kings appear as ancestors of the West Saxon royal
line.38 By singing of Scyld and his lineage, the poet was not only glori-
fying the Danes, he was celebrating ancestral rulers of what was to be-
come the English royal house. As the first periods of his heroic song
ιο8 CONTEXT
rolled out, all members of the audience, whether of English or Danish
extraction, could have felt a sense of pride in their common heroic her-
itage.
As the song continues, this initial link between Englishmen and
Danes fades as the poet proceeds to the time of Hrothgar, Scyld's
great-grandson, who does not figure in the West Saxon genealogies.
On the surface, the poet's attitude toward the Danes is still one of
unreserved admiration. The young Hrothgar's success in gathering a
band of retainers and building the great hall Heorot represents all that
a king should hope to accomplish. By the time Grendel bursts upon
the scene, the tone of respect in the poet's voice begins to change. The
words of praise remain, but they begin to ring slightly hollow as the
facts of the plot belie them.
The process of undercutting begins as the poet shows the effect of
Grendel's first entry into Heorot. Faced with the sudden loss of thirty
of his thanes, Hrothgar simply sits, immobilized by his sorrows. None
of his surviving retainers offers to challenge the monster, and the aged
king is unwilling or incapable of undertaking the task himself. The
only thought his retainers have seems to be to find themselves a more
secure place to sleep after burum, "among the bedchambers" (140a),
presumably among the women's quarters. As time passes and Gren-
del's raids continue, the king's retinue dwindles, until the hall stands
"empty and useless" (413a) as soon as night falls. The only recourse
taken by the Danes is to offer heathen sacrifice at a temple, thereby
ironically invoking the aid of the devil against their demonic adversary,
and the poet could not be more emphatic in his condemnation of their
ignorance and loss of faith (i78b-i88). The glories of the Danes are
now past. Contrasting with the triumphant reigns of Scyld and Beow is
a gloomier present whose daytime splendor masks an inner reality of
cowardice and indecision.
The hero whose arrival begins to set things right is not a Dane but a
Geat. As such he has few legendary attachments. As far as one can
tell, his character is unencumbered with a set of defined traits given
him by a previous storytelling tradition, so that the poet is free to
make of him what he will. From the first, he makes him a man of ac-
tion. The speed with which Beowulf responds to Hrothgar's needs by
equipping a boat and sailing for Denmark singles him out at once from
the passive Danes. Like the monsters, the hero is defined not by what
he looks like but by what he does. Unferth's challenge to Beowulf
THE DANES AND THE DATE

confirms the contrast that has been developing between the active
hero and his ineffective hosts. By criticizing Beowulf for risking his life
in the contest with Breca "for a foolish boast" (509a), Unferth shows
himself to be blind to the glory that Beowulf won as a result.
As the story progresses and night falls after the hero's reception in
Heorot, the Danes prove their mettle by falling asleep. Once the
struggle begins, they can do no more than stand at the walls, groping
for their weapons and listening to the monster howl, while Beowulf
carries through with the fight on his own. Although the hero later
states that the victory was won by common effort—"We fought that
fight with great good will" (958-9593)—his words display more gen-
erosity than truth. The audience is well aware that the fight was
fought singlehanded, as Beowulf had hoped it would be.
The contrast between the active hero and his passive hosts is made
yet more clear during the ensuing fight with Grendel's mother.
Hrothgar acknowledges that the Danes have no hope of offering resis-
tance to her threat if Beowulf does not take on the task: "Now once
again our cure is in your hands alone" (i370b-77a). The hero replies
with a speech that expresses in quintessential form the heroic code on
which he bases his conduct (lines 1384-91):

N e sorga, snotor guma! Selre biS aeghwaem,


Jjaet he his freond wrece, jjonne he fela murne.
U r e aeghwylc sceal ende gebidan
worolde lifes; wyrce se |)e mote
domes ser deafìe; £>aet biS drihtguman
unlifgendum aefter seiest.
Aris, rices weard, uton hrajje feran,
Grendles magan gang sceawigan.

Grieve not, wise one! Better that each man


avenge his friend than mourn excessively.
E a c h of us must await the end
of his worldly life. L e t him who may
win fame before death; that is the best
for a lordly man once he is dead.
Arise, guard of the realm, let us go quickly
to look on the tracks of Grendel's kin.

Instead of contemplating sorrows, Beowulf sets out to root out their


cause. His speech bristles with verbs of strong action: Ne sorga, wrece,
I IO CONTEXT
wyrce, Añs, uton hra]>e feran. Once the Danes and Geats come to the
edge of the mere, Beowulf descends into the waters alone. Apart from
Unferth's loan of his sword—a loan that only points up the owner's
reluctance to undertake the fight himself—Hrothgar and his retainers
not only lend no help, they desert the hero when they see blood well-
ing in the pool. Their loss of faith is paralleled later, in the midst of the
dragon fight, when Beowulf's hand-chosen companions desert him and
flee for the shelter of the woods.
Whether by their actions or their inaction, both Danes and Geats
thus prove themselves unworthy of the formulaic words of praise with
which the poet honors them. The Danes are hwate Scyldingas ("keen-
hearted Scyldings") by definition, as part of their identity as partici-
pants in heroic history. Their actual ineffectiveness only highlights the
hero's decisive action. It is typical of the poet's technique to call them
hwate Scyldingas even when their actions prove them less than keen-
hearted, as when they abandon the mere (1601a).
Hrothgar does not escape the poet's two-edged terms of praise
either. Although the poet never utters a word disparaging him, never,
after the summary of his early career, do we see the king acting in
a manner that commands respect. Against the threat of Grendel
or Gendel's mother he can do nothing. Although characterized as a
pious monotheist, he seems to make no effort to prevent the Danes
from offering heathen sacrifice. He allows Unferth to insult his
guest without interjecting a word of reproach. His moments of
greatest glory come not as a result of his own actions but when he
rewards the actions of others with magnificent gifts, as during the
great feast when he honors Beowulf with a precious sword and his own
war-horse, symbols of the martial authority that he long since has
abandoned.
Hrothgar thus appears as only the shell of a good king. His piety,
generosity, wisdom, and good intentions can be taken for granted, and
they are shown to advantage in many a scene. His actions still never
prove him to be a king of the stature of the aged Beowulf or the leg-
endary Scyld Sceafing. The ferocity of these two kings wins them
reigns of peace and prosperity. Hrothgar's old age is a long history of
misfortune. The poet's ambivalent depiction of Hrothgar is nowhere
else expressed so tellingly as when the warriors who ride back from the
mere after Grendel's flight sing Beowulf s praises, without, the poet
stresses, thereby disparaging Hrothgar (856b-8Ó3):
THE DANES AND THE DATE III
Dser wies Beowulfes
maerSo maened; monig oft gecwaeS,
jjaette su S ne norS be saem tweonum
ofer eormengrund o {Der nœnig
under swegles begong selra η sere
rondhaebbendra, rices wyrSra.—
Ne hie huru winedrihten wiht ne logon,
glaedne HroSgar, ac {wet waes god cyning.

There was Beowulf's


glory recounted; many a man
said more than once that south nor north
between the two seas, over the wide earth,
there lived no one better beneath the skies,
no other warrior more worthy of kingship.
Yet they found no fault with their own lord
gracious Hrothgar, but he was a good king.

The last two lines read as a classic example of praise that damns.
Through line 861 the poet has accomplished his purpose of praising
Beowulf by telling how he is praised by the Danes. The passage could
fittingly have ended here. By adding the next two lines the poet com-
plicates the picture: the warriors' praise of Beowulf, we are to under-
stand, is not to be taken as disparagement of Hrothgar. There would
have been no comparison with Hrothgar if the poet had not forced the
issue. The king is an old man, after all, and we have learned not to ex-
pect from him the deeds of a youth. By forcing the audience to think
of Beowulf and Hrothgar side by side, the poet only reminds us of the
king's weakness. Even the summary judgment "but he was a good
king," recalling the poet's earlier praise of Scyld (i lb), sounds hollow
beside the praise of Beowulf as a hero unequaled "south nor north,
between the two seas, over the wide earth . . . beneath the skies."
In the poet's depiction of the Danes one thus finds support for the
idea that Beowulf reflects interests and attitudes that would have been
prevalent among aristocratic Englishmen of the early or middle years
of the tenth century, but not earlier. If one postulates an earlier date
for the poem, its extraordinary interest in Danish affairs and in the
Scandinavian world at large is a fact "still calling for an adequate ex-
planation" (Klaeber, p. exxiii). The poet's ambivalent attitude toward
the Danes seems accurately to reflect the political and social realities of
the post-Viking age. The Danes are not depicted as villains or sense-
112 CONTEXT
less marauders, as one would expect if the poem had been composed
during the Viking wars. On the other hand, they are not made into
the heroes of the tale, and the poet's praise for them is undercut
by reminders of their unwillingness or inability to act with heroic
stature.
I therefore both follow and depart from L. L. Schücking's conclu-
sions in his important study "Wann entstand der Beowulf? Glossen,
Zweifel, und Fragen." 39 Almost alone among Anglicists of his day,
Schiicking resisted the impulse to push the poem back into the mists of
history and marshaled a number of arguments for dating it to a time
after the first Viking raids. His views were attacked by scholars who
mistakenly imputed to him the belief that the poem derives from late
Scandinavian traditions, which it clearly does not.40 In a response,
Schücking corrected this distortion of his position and clarified his
view of Beowulf as an English poem based on English traditions and
composed by an English poet.41 For the reasons stated, I find much
that is attractive in the view that a poem showing such a striking inter-
est in the Danes was probably composed for an audience including
Danes, or at least composed sometime after the Danelaw was estab-
lished by the treaty of 878. Where I part company with Schücking is
in his supposition that the poem came into being when a Scandinavian
prince from the Danelaw hired a famous English singer to create an
epic of moral instruction for his son, who was to be educated in
English. Such a scenario is no more than interesting speculation. Par-
ticularly detrimental to the idea of Danish patronage for Beowulf is the
poet's less-than-flattering depiction of the Danes. Given the failure of
Hrothgar and his retinue to act with anything approaching heroic for-
titude, however energetically they conduct themselves when it is time
to eat and drink, I doubt that the poem was commissioned by a Dane
or, if it was, that such a patron would have been pleased with the re-
sults.
A safer conclusion is that the poem was composed for an English
patron and, in all probability, for a mixed Anglo-Scandinavian audi-
ence. Such a mixed audience would have been the norm in practically
any great court held during the reign of Athelstan or his successors. If
an oral version of Beowulf was performed at any such state occasion,
perhaps as part of a number of festivities, recording it would have pre-
sented little difficulty. While the English possessed as yet no chancery,
in the later sense, already in Athelstan's reign a staff of clerks attended
the king on his progresses.42 A poem like Beowulf, once performed
THE DANES AND THE DATE "3
and admired, could have been recorded by one such clerk or several
such clerks at the bidding of the king or anyone high in his service.
O n c e written down, the poem would have been available to a small
reading public o f clergy or educated laymen. It could have been read
aloud to a wider listening public. T h e text could have found its way to
a scriptorium for copying, or it could have been heard by singers who
would have used their memory of it as the basis for new oral perform-
ances. A n y such new performance could have been taken down in
writing, in turn, in the continuing interplay between oral and written
transmission that has been characteristic of oral literature in more re-
cent times.
Still less would have stood in the way o f the poem's being per-
formed and recorded at any of a number o f ecclesiastical centers. Un-
fortunately, evidence bearing on the state o f the monasteries in the
ninth and early tenth centuries is almost nonexistent. W h e r e monasti-
cism survived in the face o f the Viking invasions, it went through a
process o f secularization that left many houses under lay influence or
control. D o m David Knowles's view that by the reign of Athelstan,
England was "wholly without any organized monastic life" 4 3 is per-
haps based on a rigorous concept of what constitutes organization.
Certainly monasticism o f a sort continued in a variety of ways.
Knowles estimates that although many or all o f the smaller houses had
disappeared, many of the larger ones had fallen into secular hands,
"while in others the level of regular life had fallen so low as to be
scarcely recognizable any longer as monastic" (p. 32). In some houses
a period of desolation may have been followed by a period of irregular
monastic life, as at Ely, where the monastery is said to have been de-
serted for eight years until a group of monks returned in 878 and were
joined by others " w h o lived not canonically but most irreligiously." 4 4
T h e discipline o f some monasteries may have been irregular from the
start, as is not surprising in view of their close ties to the lay aristoc-
racy. Certainly all were not like Bede's Jarrow; as I have shown, Bede
speaks bitterly of the way that the companions o f some clergy give
themselves over to tales and feasting. In a speech addressed to his bish-
ops and heads of monasteries in about the year 9 7 1 , King Edgar de-
nounces in no uncertain terms the failure of the clergy to live up to the
ideals of their calling:

Let me speak, let me speak of things that make good men grieve and
evil men laugh. Let me speak in lamentation, if indeed such things can
114 CONTEXT
be uttered, of how they are abandoning themselves in gluttonous feasts
and drunkenness, in bedrooms and in acts of shame, so that the houses
of clergymen are reputed to be brothels for prostitutes and meeting-
places for entertainers. There dicing, there dancing and singing take
place; there wakeful hours stretching until the middle t>f the night are
spent in riotous noise and horror . . . Was it for this that our ancestors
drained their coffers? Was it for this that the royal treasury was shrunk
by the withdrawal of many revenues? Was it for this that royal generos-
ity granted fields and holdings to the churches of Christ, so that whores
might adorn themselves with the idle gifts of clerics? So that luxurious
banquets might be prepared? So that dogs and birds and similar frivoli-
ties might be acquired? These things the soldiers are shouting about; the
people are muttering under their breath; the actors are singing and
dancing about—and do you ignore them, do you turn a blind eye, do
you pretend not to see?45

In reading this speech one must allow for rhetorical hyperbole. T h e


tone suggests perhaps an excess of moral zeal on the part of its author,
who was doubtless one of Edgar's chief clergymen and a leader of the
reformist party. Nonetheless, one may safely conclude that the Bene-
dictines had something to reform. T h e author of the Regularis concor-
dia, the supplement to the Rule of St. Benedict that was adopted in the
Winchester synod of 970 and that served as the "constitution" of the
reformers, inveighs in a similar tone against the "utter loss and ruin"
caused by magnates who had used their power to gain control over ec-
clesiastical endowments. 46 In the view of Eric John, the Benedictine
revival led by Dunstan and /Ethelwold is best seen as a reaction to sae-
cularium prioratus (domination of monastic houses by laymen and se-
cularly oriented clerks) on the part of zealous ecclesiastics who joined
forces with the king to defeat the perversion of the monasteries' origi-
nal purposes.47 Many of the clerks driven out by the reformers were
well-born. T h e late tenth-century Vita Oswaldi, for example, speaks of
clerks " o f very high birth" who squandered the wealth of the Church
on their wives. 48 A s John has pointed out (p. 170), "well-born clerks
tend to have equally well-born lay relatives endowed with power and
influence," and to a large extent the Benedictine reform was directed
to overturning the working alliance of monks and secular magnates
that had been the dominant factor in the growth of English monasti-
cism from the beginning. 49
As a Christian or as a student of Church history, one may lament
T H E DANES AND T H E DATE 115
the presence of lay influence within the monasteries of Anglo-Scan-
dinavian England as an unfortunate aberration from Benedictine
ideals. As a students of English literature, one perhaps owes a debt of
gratitude to those well-born ecclesiastics whose concept of devotion
did not exclude an interest in worldly affairs, for the Old English secu-
lar literature that has come down to us probably survived because of
their influence. The relatively tolerant, worldly-oriented attitudes that
were prevalent among cloister-dwelling clerics during the years pre-
ceding the reform may have permitted such poems as "Finnsburh,"
"Waldere," "Widsith," and "Deor" to be preserved when they might
otherwise have disappeared without a trace. After the reformist party
came out on top in its bitter struggle for power,50 interest in nondevo-
tional literature probably diminished. Seldom would there have been
occasions for the performance of secular literature within monastic
walls, for the celebration of Ingeld was no longer found consistent with
the service of Christ. Sections 10 and 1 1 of the Regularis concordia ex-
plicitly forbade monks from feasting with laymen. If this prohibition
was observed, secular song most likely continued to be heard only
outside the customary homes of scribes. Secular texts were probably
still preserved in monastic libraries, thanks to the natural conservatism
of the monks, but the body of such written literature is not likely to
have increased. On the other hand, a monastery under secular influ-
ence or control, particularly one including converted Danes among its
brethren, may well have provided the milieu in which a poem like
Beowulf was performed and recorded. The devotional sentiments and
Christian framework of the poem would have made it acceptable to
pious Englishmen, while its story of heroic deeds in ancient Scandina-
via would have struck a welcome chord in the hearts of well-born
clergy with an interest in their Germanic heritage. If some prereform-
ist clerics squandered money on their wives, one can imagine them also
patronizing secular literature.51

TJ For a variety of reasons, then, composition of the present text of


Beowulf sometime in the tenth century, whether in the Danelaw or
elsewhere in England, need not be ruled out. Such a date accords with
the tone and content of the Christian utterances in the poem. Linguis-
tic data are inconclusive and cannot settle the matter in themselves.
The keen interest in Danish affairs during the first part of the
poem—the celebration of Scyld and Beow, in particular, and possibly
116 CONTEXT
the celebration of Hengest as a Danish sympathizer 52 —is hard to ex-
plain if the poem is thought to precede the period of Danish settlement
in England. The poet's outward praise for the Danes forbids dating
the poem to the period of Viking attacks either during the ninth cen-
tury or during the reign of Ethelred, and it argues against dating the
poem to the period of the reconquest of the Danelaw; furthermore, the
subtle undercutting of Danish pretensions to heroism may reflect
long-standing English resentment of the Viking depredations.
Whether the poem was recorded by a scribe associated with a noble
household or with a worldly oriented monastery, conditions were fa-
vorable for the preservation of such a text at any time from the ac-
cession of Athelstan in 924, or shortly before, until the Winchester
synod of 970, or somewhat later. I therefore suggest that the case is
open for placing the poem neither within the context of early Ger-
manic oral tradition, nor within the learned milieu of Bede or Alcuin,
but in the united Anglo-Scandinavian kingdom of the post-Viking age.
T o repeat myself for the sake of clarity: by assembling certain evi-
dence that points to a possible late date for Beowulf, I do not mean to
claim that the poem was composed no earlier. I would only like to see
discarded the outworn axiom that the time of the first Viking raids
provides a terminus ad quem for a poem of this character. A reliable
terminus ad quern is provided only by the date of the manuscript itself,
a copy of about the year 1000. If one could firmly conclude that the
author of the seventeenth Bückling homily knew Beowulf, as is likely,
then the upper limit could be lowered to 971, the apparent date of
compilation of this homiliary.53 Whether the poem was copied once or
many times, there is no way to judge.
If guess comes to guess, the second quarter of the tenth century
provides a plausible historical setting for the composition of Beowulf
By this time the English monarchy had weathered its earlier misfor-
tunes and was embarking upon a period of unprecedented splendor.
Englishmen and Norsemen were at peace and viewed one another
with mutual respect, to the point that in 925 or 926 Athelstan gave his
sister in marriage to Sihtric, the Norse king of York, while somewhat
later Harold Fairhair of Norway chose to foster his youngest son
Hákon at Athelstan's court. 54 A staff of royal clerks had been estab-
lished, and the monasteries that survived were under the influence or
control of magnates who are likely to have loved the old aristocratic
poetry. The tradition of heroic poetry was still continuing strong
THE DANES AND THE DATE 117

through this period, to judge from such datable poems as " T h e Battle
of Brunanburh" (937) and " T h e Battle of Maldon" (post-991).
Corroborating the notion of the composition of Beowulf during a
time not distant from the reign of Athelstan is the evidence of the fa-
mous Wiltshire charter of 931. 5 5 T h e place-names Grendeles mere
("Grendel's mere") and Beowan hamm ("Beowa's enclosure") that
appear in this charter suggest that something like the extant poem was
known in the southwest of England at that time. In themselves, the
place-names prove little, however, for oral versions of the Beowulf
story may have been in circulation long before and long after our
unique text was written down. Until additional facts are discovered,
one is wiser to admit one's ignorance of when, where, and how the
poem was written down than to pretend to have knowledge that is be-
yond our grasp.
5- FORMULA AND FORMULAIC
SYSTEM

W H A T is the relation of the surviving Old English poetry to


the oral verse-making technique of Germanic singers of tales?
In an attempt to answer this question, medievalists have looked to an-
cient Greece as well as twentieth-century Yugoslavia for evidence
bearing on how oral poetry is generated by singers who do not memo-
rize their texts but recompose them with each performance, relying on
fixed formulas and on formula-like expressions to facilitate rapid com-
position before an audience.1
This resort to the Greek analogy has been both a blessing and a
curse. It is a blessing because scholars exploring the oral roots of such
a poem as Beowulf have been able to compare it not only with modern
heroic poems surviving on the margins of society but with the far
greater poems of Homer, which had a central place in the halls of
noblemen and kings. It is a curse because too often the language of
Old English narrative poetry has been treated as if it were comparable
to the language of early Greek epic. The result has been confusion.
The meter of Beowulf, to return to a point, is alliterative. It is based
on the linkage of two half-lines by the similar initial sound of either
two or three stressed syllables. The meter of early Greek epic poetry is
quantitative. It is based on a steady flow of dactylic feet, six per line, in
a system whereby one long syllable may substitute for the two short
syllables of any dactyl (and will always do so in the final foot). Because
of this fundamental difference in meter, the formulaic language of
Beowulf differs significantly from the formulaic language of Homer. In
particular, the stylistic feature of variation is much more important in
Old English narrative poetry than in the narrative poetry of early
Greece.2
Consider Homer's "winged words." The phrase hτεα πτερόεντα
προσηνδα, "he spoke winged words," occurs eighty-five times within
121
122 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

the thirty thousand or so lines of the Homeric corpus with only one
variation, the substitution of the imperfect προσηύδων for the aorist
ιτροσηνδα. Each time the phrase occurs, it occupies the same metrical
position, from the masculine caesura to the end of the line, as the dia-
gram shows.

φωρήσας
f/ur Ι
φωνήσασ'
[ a<j>eas J
κa i • λισσόμενος
'έπεα irrepoevra προ
β όλοφνρόμβυος
άγχον 8' ιστάμενος
Tovs δ γ' 673οτρννων

addressing (mase.)

and •
{him

them
addressing (fem.)
entreating
winged words he spoke
then lamenting

near [him] standing

them urging on

Although a case had been made that Homer uses the phrase "winged
words" only at chosen moments, when he wishes to give a speech spe-
cial emphasis, 3 Milman Parry was able to show that it is used chiefly
for its metrical convenience. T h e various "winged words" lines are
used to bring in speech when "the character who is to speak has been
the subject of the last verses, so that the use of his name in the line
would be clumsy." 4 Given the poet's desire to say "he said" in the sec-
ond half of a line that does not begin with the speaker's name, he will
use the phrase "winged words." N o alternative expression occurs. T h e
phrase is thus a good example of a formula, under Parry's definition:
"a group of words which is regularly employed under the same metri-
cal conditions to express a given essential idea."
T o compare an example of formulaic language from Beowulf, the
word gedryht, "band of retainers," occurs six times within the 3,182
lines of the poem. 5 Each time, it occurs without inflection as the sec-
ond measure of the off-verse, or ¿-verse:
FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM 123
ι. mid minra secga gedriht 633b
2. mid Jjinra secga gedryht 1672b
3. mid his eorla gedriht 357b
4. [ond] minra eorla gedryht 431b
5. mid his haelejja gedryht 662b
6. aej)elinga gedriht 118b

While no two of these verses are exactly alike, all share a certain re-
semblance. In each, the word gedryht is preceded by a noun denoting
"man" or "nobleman" in the genitive plural case {secga, eorla, hœlépa,
œpe/inga). In the first five, the noun denoting "man" is preceded by
two unstressed words, a preposition (mid, "with") or a conjunction
(ond, "and"), 6 followed by a possessive form of the personal pronoun
(minra, pinra, his). These first five verses could reasonably be said to
constitute a single formulaic system: that is, a group of verses that fol-
low the same basic patterns of rhythm and syntax and have at least one
main semantic element in common. The members of this formulaic
system differ from one another in the number (but not the distribu-
tion) of unstressed syllables, which do not enter into the alliteration. In
addition, and more significantly, they differ in the choice of a variable
word that carries the alliteration. The poet speaks of secgas rather than
eorlas or hœ/epas not because of a desire to fit the precise connotation
of a word to a particular context, one may plausibly imagine, but to
satisfy the alliteration of the line.
When one considers these five verses, one can speak of no "group
of words regularly employed," an essential criterion for the formula
under Parry's definition. One can speak of no "identical metrical con-
ditions," except in regard to those verses that share the same allitera-
tion (for example, verses 1 and 2, or 3 and 4). Instead, the five verses
are similar in rhythm and syntax and identical in the relative placement
of the word gedryht. Very likely the poet knew them not only as iso-
lated phrases but as verses of a type, so that he was able to substitute
them for one other almost without thinking. The abstract system is as
follows:

(χ) χ χ Χ χ (x) gedryht.

The large X of this equation represents the initial stressed syllable of a


noun in the genitive plural case, while the small x's represent un-
124 S T Y L E AND STRUCTURE
stressed syllables (optional ones in parentheses). Here, as elsewhere in
this chapter, a vowel with primary stress is marked with an acute ac-
cent (') and one with secondary stress with a grave accent Ç), while
the alliterating element is set in boldface type.
What then of the sixth verse, œpe/inga gedriht? Despite its general
resemblance to verses 1 - 5 , it may more profitably be considered a
member of a different formulaic system whose abstract form could be
represented by the equation œ'pe/inga(-es) X. Six other members of the
system occur in Beowulf:

sej)elinga beam 1408b


aeSelinga beam 2597a
ae^elinga beam 3170a
aej)elinges beam 888a
aej^elinges fier 33b
aej)elinga gestreon 1920b

Like the members of the gedryht system, these verses are of the same
metrical type and syntactic pattern. They are related semantically by
one constant element, the word celling, "nobleman," in the genitive
singular or genitive plural case and occupying the first measure of the
verse. This constant element is fairly meaningless. In the heroic con-
text of Beowulf, to say that a man is a "son of noblemen" is simply to
say that he is a man; to say that treasure is "treasure of noblemen" is
simply to say that it is treasure. In this system the constant element
supplies the alliteration while the variable element carries the semantic
burden. The primary function of the formulaic system remains the
same: to allow the poet to express his meaning unerringly in the given
metrical form.
Aware of the importance of the stylistic feature of variation in Old
English poetry, Donald K. Fry has proposed definitions of the formula
and formulaic system that suit the special conditions of the Anglo-
Saxon poetic line. T o Fry, a formulaic system is "a group of half-lines,
usually loosely related metrically and semantically, which are related in
form by the identical relative placement of two elements, one a vari-
able word or element of a compound usually supplying the alliteration,
and the other a constant word or element of a compound, with approx-
imately the same distribution of non-stressed elements."7 The formula
can then simply be defined as a member (or product) or a formulaic
FORMULA A N D FORMULAIC SYSTEM 125

system. Fry's definitions cut across fruitless debate over how much re-
semblance between phrases is sufficient to identify them as "the
same." They direct attention away from the recurrent phrase to the
pattern that underlies both recurrent phrases and similar phrases that
do not happen to recur. According to these definitions, for example,
verse 633b (mid minra secga gedriht) deserves to be considered a for-
mula not only because a nearly identical verse happens to occur else-
where in the poem (1672b, mid pt'nra secga gedryht) but because it is a
member of a well-defined formulaic system. The verse would still be a
formula even if nothing quite like it were to recur, as happens with
verse 662b, mid his hœlepa gedryht}
In view of the utility of this concept of the Old English formula, I
regret that Fry's application of it has not been more rigorous. As a re-
sult, his concept has not received the attention it deserves. The main
problem lies in the identification of what constitutes metrical and se-
mantic resemblance between different verses. T o judge from Fry's
own examples, the metrical and semantic resemblance between mem-
bers of the same formulaic system may be loose indeed, while the syn-
tactic resemblance may be nonexistent. Fry cites the following as
among thirty-one members of what he calls the "X mup" system in
Old English poetry, for example ("Aesthetic Implications," p. 520):

recedes mujaan Beowulf 724a


£>urstige muSe Paris Psalter 61.4 3a
lease muSe Paris Psalter 77.35 lb
ofer seolfes mu6 Andreas 1300b
hunig on muSe "Homiletic Fragment I" 21b
f)urh £>aes deman muS Elene 1283b
rum recedes muÖ "Cotton Gnomes" 37a

It is hard to see what rhythmic or syntactic pattern underlies these


verses or to see how they could have formed part of a functional for-
mulaic system in the mind of an oral poet. T o be functional, a formu-
laic system must provide a poet with a way of expressing his meaning
with a minimum of reflection. The system will not do the poet's
thinking for him, but it will narrow the linguistic choices open to him
at a particular moment and thus will facilitate his task of rapid compo-
sition. It is difficult to see how Fry's postulated "X mup" system could
have narrowed the choices of a singer in any significant way. Almost
126 S T Y L E AND STRUCTURE
inevitably, if one searched through a poetic corpus of some thirty
thousand lines, one would find instances of the same word occurring at
the end of a verse. T o say that a common word such as
"mouth," in some inflection, occurs at the end of a verse thirty-one
times in the entire Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus does little to account for
the formulaic language of a given poet.
Interpreted loosely, Fry's concept of the formula is little more help-
ful than Parry's. Interpreted rigorously, it may yet provide a satisfac-
tory way of identifying what is formulaic about Old English narrative
poetry. T o put the matter in general terms, a formula in Anglo-Saxon
poetry may be considered a rhythmic-syntactic-semantic complex one
half-line in length. It is identifiable by virtue of being a member of a
formulaic system, or set of verses of a similar metrical type in which
one main verbal element is constant.
Strictly speaking, a formulaic system is not the same as the sum of
its members. It can be looked upon as a preverbal Gestalt capable of
being realized in a number of different surface forms, not all of which
may occur in the extant poetry.9 With reference to thz gedryht system,
for example, one may reasonably surmise that if the text of Beowulf
were two three times its actual length, the poet might have had occa-
sion to use such verses as mid his pegna gedryht (compare Christ 457b,
his pegna gedryht) or mid his Geata gedryht. Although such verses do
not occur in the text that has come down to us, they easily could have
been generated by the poet's central concept of the gedryht system.
Because it is difficult to speak of a nonverbal psychological Gestalt and
impossible to measure it statistically, however, there is practical justifi-
cation for considering a formulaic system to be equal to the sum of its
recorded members in the work of a given poet.
Such a view of the Old English formula accords with what is known
about the way that oral poets learn the fundamentals of their craft.
According to Albert Lord, singers learn to sing tales not by rote mem-
orization of formulas but as one learns to speak a language, by gradual
assimilation.10 The difference between the language of oral poetry and
the language of everyday speech is solely one of degree: "the former is
of the same kind as the latter, but it is more intensive and specialized
because of added limitations of form." 11 T o Lord (who is well ac-
quainted with the nature of formulaic language, having recorded about
700,000 lines of epic poetry in the field),12 a formula is not a fixed
phrase, a dead counter to be shuffled about at will. It is "a living phe-
nomenon of metrical language." T o put the matter another way, the
FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM 127

formula is "the offspring of the marriage of thought and sung


verse." 1 3 Robert L . Kellogg echoes Lord in urging scholars to turn
their attention to the pattern behind the formula rather than to the
fixed formula alone:
Professor Lord maintains that "in studying the patterns and systems
of oral narrative verse we are in reality discovering the 'grammar' of
the poetry, a grammar superimposed, as it were, on the grammar of the
language concerned" [The Singer of Tales, pp. 35-36] . . . Both the
fixed traditional formulas and the phrases invented by the singer during
a performance will conform to a given number of abstract patterns. And
it is an elaborate set of these patterns, rather than merely the stock of
fixed formulas conforming to the patterns, that constitutes the verse-
making tradition of oral-formulaic poetry . . . We now know that the
really relevant elements, in analysis as in composition, are not the ver-
batim repeats within the corpus, but rather they are the abstract patterns
governing the construction of lines and verses.14

A reexamination of Beowulf 1 - 2 5 with attention to the abstract


patterns governing the construction of verses provides a fair glimpse
into the working "grammar of poetic diction" of one Anglo-Saxon
poet (see the appendix to this chapter). A review of these lines will im-
mediately show the extent to which flexible formulaic systems rather
than fixed formulas constituted the core of the poet's vocabulary.
O f the first fifty verses, thirty-three are expressions of a formulaic
system identifiable within the poem as a whole. Only nine verses (2a,
5a, 6b, 9b, l i b , 15a, 16a, and 17a) are repeated elsewhere in the
same form, allowing for differences of spelling and inflection. In other
words, the first fifty verses are 66 percent formulaic and 34 percent
nonformulaic or doubtful, with 18 percent reiterated phrases. One
could search the entire Anglo-Saxon poetic corpus for parallel phrases,
of course, as Magoun does in his seminal article on the Old English
formula. 15 Eight or nine additional verses (ib, 3a, 3b, 4b, perhaps 8a,
10b, 13a, 14a, and 23a) would then qualify as reiterated phrases.
Methodologically this step would be unsound, however, for it means
confounding the diction of Beowulf with the diction of poems com-
posed in different genres, regions, and centuries. 16
Fifty verses of the poem's 6,364 is only a small sample. T o see
whether or not the formulaic density of Beowulf 1 - 2 5 is representative
of that of the entire poem, I have undertaken a similar formulaic anal-
ysis through line 500. For each of these thousand verses, as in the
smaller sample, I have checked each main word against the Bessinger-
128 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

Smith computer-generated Concordance so as to identify all formulas


and formulaic systems that are attested within these lines. As a pre-
cautionary measure I have checked my results against the impressive
data amassed by Robert P. Creed in his 1955 Harvard dissertation
"Studies in the Techniques of Composition of the Beowulf Poetry in
British Museum MS. Cotton Vitellius A.xv." Since the results of this
inquiry are too unwieldly to reproduce, in the interests of economy I
must summarize them as follows:
Formulas and Formulaic Systems, Beowulf 1-500

Members of formulaic systems 632 63.2%


Reiterated verses 133
Nonreiterated verses 499
Reiterated verses not part of a formulaic system 36 3.6
Nonformulaic or doubtful verses 327 32.7
Verses metrically defective 5 0.5
1,000 100.0%

If one adds the number of reiterated verses that play no part in a for-
mulaic system (36) to the number of reiterated verses that are mem-
bers of a formulaic system (133), one arrives at a total of 169 reiter-
ated verses, or 16.9 percent of the whole. This figure is very close to
the one Creed obtained, 16.7 percent, for verses repeated in "identical
or nearly identical" form in the entire poem.
Study of a larger sample thus verifies my earlier conclusions. Close
to two out of three verses in the poem are members of an identifiable
formulaic system. In creating these phrases, the poet not only was
working within the linguistic patterns afforded him by the natural lan-
guage, he was using more highly specialized patterns that enabled him
to compose fluently in the alliterative form. On the other hand, only
about one verse in six recurs elsewhere in substantially the same form.
T o call these reiterated verses "fixed formulas" would be misleading,
for most of them (almost 80 percent) belong to a flexible formulaic
system. In other words, the diction of Beowulf is indeed highly formu-
laic, but far more important than the repetition of fixed phrases is the
substitution of one verbal element for another within flexible formulaic
systems filling the half-line.17
In sum, one may conclude that the Beowulf poet did not have to
search his mind for new and ingenious ways of saying what he wished
to say. His tradition not only provided him with a large body of known
FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM 129

stories, it also provided him with a method whereby he could sing


these stories fluently in verse. T o an overwhelming extent, this
method did not consist of parroting fixed phrases or formulaic tags but
of varying verse-length phrases belonging to a vast interlocking net-
work of formulaic systems. In this way the poet could easily generate
new verses on the model of old ones as the need arose. It is the set of
abstract verse-making patterns used by the Beowulf poet, rather than a
body of fixed phrases, that constitutes his true formulaic repertory.
One task still facing students of oral and archaic literature is to re-
fine the tools of oral-formulaic analysis so as to approach each tradition
in terms of its own poetics. If oral poetry tends to differ in style from
written poetry, in addition, the evidence is clear that the oral poetry of
one linguistic and cultural tradition will differ in style from the oral po-
etry of a different tradition. If the oral-formulaic theory is to lead to a
better understanding of Beowulf, one must take care to distinguish be-
tween the verse-making habits of the Germanic scops and of singers of
other times and places. In this way misleading comparisons may be
avoided and the language of Beowulf may be seen for what it is: a rich,
dignified, and supple language uniquely suited to the alliterative form.

APPENDIX
Formulas and Formulaic Systems, Beowulf 1 - 2 5

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM

la. H wat! We Gardena


to Gardenum 601a
ond Gardenum 1856b
o S S e to Gardenum 2494b
8ser Hringdene 1279b
hu hit Hringdene 116b
swa ic Hringdena 1769a
to Westdenum 383a
to Westdenum 1578b
lete SuSdene 1996a
haefde Eastdenum 828b

Cf. verses based on the com-


pounds Eastdena 3 9 2 a , 6 1 6 a ;
Suddetta 4 6 3 b ; Nof&detium 7 8 3 b .
130 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM


ib. in geardagum
Jjone on geardagum 1354a -um
swa hy on geardagum 2233a -e
(χ)(χ)(χ) χ X (x) -dàg
naefre he on aldordagum 718a -as
swylce he on ealderdagum 7573 -a
swa hine fyrndagum 1451b
samod aerdaege 1311b
somod serdaege 2942b
after deaSdiege 187a
sefter deaSdsge 885a
Eer swyltdsege 2798a
ne his lifdagas 7933
sceolde lsendaga 2341b
J)aet hio hyre heofungdagas 3153a
on Öyssum windagum 1062a
Cf. verses based on the com-
pounds endedœg 637b, 3035b; lif-
dagas 1622a; lœndagas 2591a.

2a. peodcytiinga
Jjeodcyninges 2694b Γ -a
woroldcyninga 1684b Χ (χ) -cyning J -es
wyruldcyninga 3180b -e
2
wuldurcyninge 795 a
síecyninga 2382b
heahcyninges 1039b
eorScyninges 1155 b
Frescyninge 2503 b
Cf. verses based on the com-
pounds gwScyning 199b, 1969a,
2335b, 2563a, 2677b, 3036b;
peodcyning 2144a, 2579a, 2963a,
2970a, 3008a, 3086a; folccytiing
2733b, 2873a; beomcyning 2148a;
soìScyning 3055a.
FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM


2b. prym gefrunon
aefre gefrunon 70b (χ) X (x) gefrúnon (-eri)
godne gefrunon 1969b
hilde gefrunen 2952b
swa guman gefrungon 666b

3a. hu ÌSa œ pe/ingas


sif)öan aejjelingas 982a -as
sySSan seSelingas 2888b (χ) χ χ cEpe/ìng -e
waeron aej)elingas 1804a -es
ofer sef>elinge 1244a
set Sam seSelinge 2374A
J)aet hig f>aes aeSelinges 1596a

3b. eilen fremedon


mserSo fremede 2134a ' -edon
mserSa gefremede 2645b Χ (χ) (ge-)frém ede
maerSu fremman 2514a man
geoce gefremede 177b
geoce gefremman 2674b
fyrene fremman 101a
fyrene gefremede 81 ia
daed gefremede 585b
daed gefremede 940b
helpe gefremede 55ib
gryra gefremede 59IB
feohtan fremedon 9593
arna gefremedon 1187b
wyrpe gefremman 1315B
lses gefremede 1946b
sorge gefremede 2004b
aenige gefremman 2449b
ssecce fremman 2499a
folcred fremede 3006a
Cf. oft gefremede 165 b, oft gefre-
medon 2478b, φ gefremede 135b,
penden fremedon 1019b,/orÖ gefre-
mede 1718a.
132 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM


5 a. monegum mœg(Sum
manigum mxgjja 1771a mánigum(-gre) Χ χ
manigre maeg£>e 75a
manegum maSmum 2103a
monegum fira 2001b

6b. sy&San œrest wear?)


sySSan aerest wear?) 1947b χ χ Χ χ wéarUS
pa \)xr sona wearS 1280b
swa hyt lungre wearS 2310b
to hwan sySSan wear?) 2071b
forSam secgum wear?) 149b
he his leodum wear?) 905b
he jjaer eallum wearS 913b

7 a. feasceaft funden
godne funde 1486b X (x) (on-)fúnde(-n)
hleonian funde 1415b
weard onfunde 2841b
sona onfunde 2226b

8a. weox under wolcnum


weold under wolcnum 1770a X under I wolcnum
wod under wolcnum 714a t0\

wand to wolcnum 1119a


won to wolcnum 1374 a
wan under wolcnum 651a
wieter under wolcnum 1631a

9b. para ymbsittendra


ymbesittendra 2734a . I ~ ra
healsittendra 2015b ( x )( x ) X -attendi -um
healsittendum 2868a [ -e
fletsittendum 1788a
fletsittende 2022b

Cf. pat pec ymbsittend 1827a.


FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM A B S T R A C T FORM
ioa. ofer hronrade
ofer swanrade 200a Ofer 1 χ _ràde
on seglrade 1429b on J

ι ob. hyran scolde


healdan scolde 230b -e
healdan scoldon 704b
Χ χ scóld < -ort
bugan sceolde 2918b
-est
bugan sceolde 2974b
waecnan scolde 85b
Jx>lian scoldon 832b
ge£>eon scolde 910b
gangan scolde 1034b
maenan scolde 1067b
feallan scolde 1070b
seSan scolde 1106b
wunian scolde 1260b
bicgan scoldon 1305b
mengan scolde 1449b
xfnan scolde 1464b
habban scoldon 1798b
raedan sceoldest 2056b
bywan sceoldon 2257b
gewegan sceolde 2400b
gretan sceolde 2421b
fremman sceolde 2627b
ñafian sceolde 2963b
weorSan sceolde 3068b

1 1 a. gomban gyldan
golde forgyldan 1054a Xx (for-)gyldan (-e)
gode forgylde 956a
Grendle forgyldan 1577a
lige forgyldan 2305b
134 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM


lib. pat wies god cyning
\>xt wss god cyning 2390b (χ) χ χ X cyning
ac jDaet wss god cyning 863b
J)a was frod cyning 1306b
wies jja frod cyning 2209b
]Dset waes an cyning 1885b
swylce self cyning 920b
wolde self cyning 1010a
J)a gen sylf cyning 2702b

12b. after cenned


ser acenned 1356b X (x) (a-)cénned

13 a. geong in gear dum


gamol of geardum 265a m
gomen in geardum 2459a Χ (χ) l géardum
gist of geardum 1138a °f J

13b. pone god sende


J)e him god sealde 1271b (χ) χ χ gód Χ χ
£>e him god sealde 2182b
swylc him god sealde 72b
Jwes Jse him zr god sealde I75ib
nymSe mec god scylde 1658b
hwseSre him god uSe 2874b

14a. folce to frofre


nonformulaic, but cf. hœleftum to
helpe 1709a, 1961a

15 a. pe hie <er drugon


pe hie ser drugon 831b
1 hie X drúgon
pe hie «er drugon 1858b pe J
pa hie gewin drugon 798b
hi siS drugon 1966b
FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM A B S T R A C T FORM
15b. aldorlease
aldorleasne 1587a -e
ealdorleasne 3003a Χ χ (x) -lèas -ne
sawolleasne 1406b -um
sawulleasne 3033b
Seodenlease 1103a
winigea leasum 1664a
feormendlease 2761b
hlafordlease 2935b

16a. lange hwile


lange hwile 2159b Χ χ (χ) hwile
longe hwile 2780a
lytle hwile 2030b
lytle hwile 2097a
orleghwile 2911a
orleghwila 2427a
laessan hwile 2571b
aenige hwile 2548b
ane hwile 1762a

Cf. lange präge 114a, 1257b,


longe präge 54b.

16b. him pas liffrea


nefne sinfrea 1934b χχ Χ -frèa
Cf. agendfrean 1883a

17a. wuldres wealdend


wuldres waldend 183a Χ χ (χ) wáldend
wuldres waldend 1752a
sigora waldend 2875a
ylda waldend 1661b

Cf. waldendjira 2741b

18b. bleed wide sprang


hra wide sprang 1588b X wide spráng
136 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM


19a. Scyldes eafera
HreÖles eafora 2358a r -a
HreSles eafora 2992a (χ) Χ χ éafer J -an
H regies eaferan 1847b I -urn
Wslses eafera 897a
be Finnes eaferum 1068a
uncran eaferan 1185a
angan eaferan 1547a

19b. Scedelandum in
Freslondum on 2357b X -làndum in

20b. gode gewyrcean


men gewyrcean 69b X (x) gewyrcean
hlaew gewyrcean 2802b
wunde gewyrcean 2906a

2 ib. on fader bear me


ond to faeder fasjjmum 188a (x) x féder Χ χ
on faeder staele i479b
be faeder lare 1950b
fore faeder daedum 2059b

22a. pœt hine onylde


Jjset hire on hafelan 1521a hine - ' on '
Jjaet ic on Jjone hafelan 1780a hire witS
]Diet hire wië halse pœt X
1566a ic mid
Jjaet him on breostum 2714a etc. , , etc.,
Jxet heo on asnigne 627a
Jjaet \œr on worSig 1972a
pxt he mid Sy wife 2028a
f>aet he bi wealle 2716a
Jjset him for swenge 2966a
Jjaet he to Gif?» urn 2494a
FORMULA AND FORMULAIC SYSTEM

APPENDIX
(continued)

SYSTEM ABSTRACT FORM


22b. φgewunigen
eft gefremede I35B éft χ Χ χ (χ)
eft gelimpeS 1753B
eft gesealde 2142b
eft gemetton 2592b
eft ne wendon 1596b

23 a. wi/gestpas
swaese gesijjas 29a Χ (χ) gesí<Sas(-a)
swaese gesiÖas 2040a
swaese gesiÖas 2518a
swaesra gesiSa 1934A
ealdgesiSas 853B

24a. leode gelästert


soSe gelaeste 524b -en
oft gelaeste 2500b Χ (χ) gelœst -e
gilp gelaested 829b -ed

25a. in mœgjpa gehwœre


aet niSa gehwam 882a hwœre
swa he niÖa gehwane 2397a hwam
(χ) χ Χ χ (ge-)
Jjaet he dogora gehwam 88a hwane
wiS manna hwone I55A etc.
wiS feonda gehwone 294a
ond on healfa gehwone 800a
Jiaer maeg nihta gehwaem 1365A
ond Jjegna gehwylc 1673a
se Se meca gehwane 2685a
peah öe he daeda gehwaes 2838a
6. COMPOUND DICTION

O N E striking feature of Beowulf is its extraordinary wealth of


compound diction. T o a large extent this vocabulary appears to
be formal and inherited rather than idiosyncratic, and it seems a partic-
ular adjunct to the heroic style. W e hear this special diction from the
poem's first two lines:

Hwaet! W e Gardena in geardagum,


jDeodcyninga, J)rym gefrunon . . .

Lo! W e have heard of the glory of tribal kings


of the Spear-Danes in days gone by . . .

O f the first four verses, three are built upon a different compound
noun. Each of these compounds forms part of a formulaic substitution
system used by the poet. With Gardena may be compared Beorht-,
Hring-, East-, Nor(5, SutS, and fVestdene; with geardagum may be com-
pared œr-, dedÇ>, ealdor-, ende-, fyrn-, hearm-, lœn-, lif-, swylt-, and
windceg; and with peodcyninga may be compared beorn-, eor<5-, fole-,
gut)-, heah-, leod-, sœ-, soft-, worold-, and wuldureyning. All these com-
pounds occur at least once within the poem's 3,182 lines, in one in-
flection or another. In the work as a whole, compounds occur more
than fifteen hundred times, or at the rate of almost one every other
line, a higher percentage than in any other Old English narrative
poem except Exodus.1
These compounds have long attracted attention. They have been
counted and catalogued, and their aesthetic effect has been described.
All I need to stress is that they are not merely ornamental; they are
not used merely for poetic effect. They are functional, and this is their
prime reason for being. The unusually rich and varied compound dic-
tion in Beowulf is the product of a centuries-old tradition of alliterative
verse-making, and the poet used it not only because he loved it but
because it helped him compose.
Up to now, few inquiries into the relationship of Beowulf to oral

138
COMPOUND DICTION 139
tradition have taken as their starting point this question of utility. How
useful to a scop composing in the native verse form of the Anglo-
Saxons were certain, specific ways of making phrases? As the early
Germanic scops composed in their alliterative form, they developed a
vocabulary uniquely suited to it, for the demands of the form tended to
encourage the development of a special poetic diction. As the poet var-
ied his alliteration from line to line, he could continue to express his
meaning exactly, without being at a loss for words, by varying his
words in ways that corresponded to the alliteration. If the Beowulf
poet had wished, for example, he might have begun his poem as fol-
lows:

Hwaet! We Hringdena heahcyninga


on serdagum eilen gefrunon . . }
Lo! We have heard of the valor of high kings
of the Ring-Danes in days gone by . . .

Although feebler than the poet's actual words, such an opening would
probably have been tolerable to Anglo-Saxon ears. The poet had
available to him such varied possibilities of expression not only because
Anglo-Saxon poetic word order was relatively free, but because of the
number of synonymous or nearly synonymous expressions to which
the alliterative verse form had given rise. Rarely does the Beowulf poet
repeat the same idea in exactly the same terms. Most often he varies
his expression by substituting one similar word, syllable, or phrase for
another. He is able to do so because his tradition had armed him with
an inherited system of flexible poetic diction that permitted him to
compose fluently in a form in which the controlling element, the allit-
eration, was constantly changing.
Milman Parry's key discovery, the root of his theory of the oral-
formulaic composition of the Homeric epics, was the principle of thrift:
the observation that in the poems of Homer, in a given metrical posi-
tion in the line there normally exists only one formula by which the
poet expresses a specific idea.3 T o a poet composing in the Greek epic
hexameter, such thrift has an obvious function. Given a specific idea
and a specific metrical slot in which to express it, the singer need not
hesitate among alternative phrases. Normally only one appropriate
phrase exists.
In the Old Germanic alliterative form, the situation is quite differ-
ent. Thrift would have been precisely what was to be avoided. Instead,
140 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

the scop would have desired many different ways of expressing the
same idea. In Beowulf, in place of thrift one finds the stylistic feature
of variation, a feature so basic to the art of the scop that it has been
called "all-important" and "the very soul of the Old English poetical
style." 4 Filling or nearly filling each metrical position—the a-verse
and the ¿-verse—the Beowulf poet tends to have available any number
of alternative words and phrases by which he can express a given es-
sential idea. Usually he chooses among these expressions at will, de-
pending on the alliteration that he needs or wants to use at the mo-
ment. Often within one sentence the poet repeats the same essential
idea two or three times, always in words that fit a changing alliteration.
T h e resulting stop-and-go narrative movement is one of the most
prominent aspects of the Old English poetic style.
T o clarify this contrast between a formulaic language based on
variation and one based on thrift, consider the different ways in which
Homer and the Beowulf poet refer to a specific lord or king. In the
Homeric epics, in the metrical position that extends from the bucolic
dieresis to the end of the line, Achilles is referred to thirty-four times
by the noun-epithet formula δ ¿os Ά χ ί λ λ ε ύ β , "godly Achilles." Five
times he is called ώ/cvs Ά χ ι λ λ ε ώ , "swift Achilles." In the metrical
position that extends from the masculine caesura to the end of the line,
he is referred to thirty-one times as ΠΌΔΑΣ ¿MVS Ά χ ι λ λ ε ώ , "swift-
footed Achilles." Only once is he referred to by a different formula,
μεγάθυμοι Ά χ ι λ λ ε ύ β , "great-hearted Achilles." In the metrical posi-
tion that extends from the feminine caesura to the end of the line,
twenty-one times he is called ποδάρκηβ δ ios Ά χ ί λ λ ε ύ β , "swift-footed
godly Achilles." N o other expression for "Achilles" occurs in this po-
sition. In other words, the formulaic language by which Homer refers
to Achilles within the space of the half-line is marked by considerable
thrift. 5
In vivid contrast to this thrift is the variety of ways in which the
Beowulf poet refers to Hrothgar, King of the Danes, within the space
of the half-line. By my count, within part I of the poem (lines 1-2199)
sixty-three different nominal expressions for "Hrothgar" occur within
the half-line. 6 Most of these fill the verse. Twenty-four are compounds
or are built on compounds. A m o n g them are the nouns sincgyfa and
leodgebyrgea and eight verses that show double alliteration: <z)>eling
œrgod\ eald epelweard, freowinefolca, gomelguïSwiga, goldmine gúmena,
hordweard hœle)>a, har hilderinc, and wœlreow wiga. Fifty-three other
COMPOUND DICTION 141
expressions for "Hrothgar" fall into a limited number of formulaic
substitution systems. The poet refers to the Danish king as a gw&cyn-
ing, heahcyning, or peodcyning; as a hildfruma, leodfruma, or wigfruma;
or as a freodryhten, sigedryhten, or winedrihten. Seen in relation to his
father, the king is bearn Healfdenes, maga Healfdenes, sunu Healfdenes,
or Healfdenes sunu. In his character as a wise, aged ruler, Hrothgar is
se goda, se gómela, se mœra, se rica, se snotera, or se wisa. As the dis-
penser of treasure he is beaga brytta or sinces brytta; as defender of the
realm he is folces hyrde or rices hyrde, beahhorda weard or rices weard.
The remaining expressions are members of the following doubly vari-
able substitution systems:

ι. Noun + noun {possessive case)


aldor
bre
§° Eastdena

wine

2. Noun {possessive case) + noun


De
"iSa dryhten

3. Adjective + noun

cempa
frod
cyning
gamela
fengel
msere haelej)
rumheort rinc
sigerof Scylding
snottor jDeoden
wisa
142 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
Not all the combinations that are possible on the basis of the foregoing
list occur in fact, of course. Some are excluded on metrical grounds;
others may simply not have been part of the poet's formulaic vocabu-
lary. Conversely, the poet easily might have referred to Hrothgar by a
number of other terms that he happened to avoid. Examples of terms
for "king" or "lord" that occur elsewhere in the poem are beorncyn-
ingjolccyning, and leodcyning; freodryhten, gumdryhten, and mondryfi-
ten; beaggyfa and goldgyfa; leofe peoden and rice peoden; hringa fengel,
hringa pengel, and wigena strengel; and such other terms as cepele ord-
fruma, leof landfruma, winia bealdor, weoroda rœswa, ealdor pegna,
freca Scyldinga, cumbles hyrde, and se herewisa.1 Addition of these
terms would swell the foregoing list. Still, the various alternative ex-
pressions for "Hrothgar" that do occur are enough to suggest the ex-
traordinary flexibility of the Beowulf poet's diction. Depending on his
desire of the moment, the poet could express the idea of "Hrothgar"
in any of ten different consonantal alliterations—[b], [f], [g], [h], [1],
[m], [r], [s], [J)], or [w]—as well as in the vowel alliteration. Several of
these expressions are functionally redundant. The verses eodur Scyl-
dinga and aldor Eastdena share the same alliteration and are very simi-
lar in meaning and rhythm, for example, while with little change of
effect, the poet could have substituted gamela Scylding for gomel
guhwiga, or goldwine gúmena for gúmena dryhten. In Beowulf, instead
of Homeric thrift one finds an extraordinary variety of diction by
which the same basic idea may be expressed within the same metrical
limits. The Beowulf poet was familiar with a store of traditional diction
that enabled him to compose fluently when dealing with themes that
were customary in the poetry. More important, he knew abstract pat-
terns of verse making by which he could generate new words and
phrases on the model of old ones.

If one wishes to isolate the inherited word-hoard of the Old


English scop, there is no better place to start than with these flexible
formulaic systems, especially the systems of compound nouns. Many
of these are attested to not only in Beowulf and in the rest of the Old
English poetic corpus but in such poems as the lays of the Old Norse
Elder Edda, the Old High German "Hildebrandslied," and the Old
Saxon Heliand as well. A hypothetical Icelandic or Norwegian poet
setting out to retell the Old English story of Beowulf could probably
have done so without overwhelming difficulty. In place of the English
COMPOUND DICTION 143
poet's peodcyninga or sœcyninga he could have used the equivalent
words pjótSkonunga or sœkonunga. In place of the phrase on geardagum
he could have used the equivalent expression i árdaga. A Continental
Saxon poet likewise could have spoken of thiodkuninga, offolkkuninga,
or of weroldkuninga, of erdagos or of forndagos (compare the Old
English fyrndagas). An Old High German poet might have spoken of
erdcuninga or of weraltcuninga. All of these compounds are attested to
in these various early Germanic dialects, as are other formulaic ways of
referring to a certain lord or king. With the compounds md&umgifa
and beaggifa compare Old Saxon me<Somgebo and boggebo; with rœdgifa
compare Old Norse rwSgjafi and Old High German ratgebo; with sige-
dryhten and mondryhten compare Old Saxon sigidrohtin and mandroh-
tin; with hererinc compare Old Saxon heririnc. The following list sug-
gests the wealth of compounds and compound systems that were
shared among two or more of the different Old Germanic dialects and
that would have helped a scop compose fluently when dealing with
conventional themes.8

T H E EARTH. With O E woruldrice and eorbrice cf. O N


jartiriki, OHG weraltrichi and erdrichi, and OSax weroldriki and
erthriki. With OE eormengrund cf. ON jqrmungrund. With OE
eorftweg, foldweg, moldweg, and peodweg cf. ON jarïSvegr, foldvegr,
moldvegr, and pjóìSvegr, and OHG diotweg.
MANKIND. With OE eorment>eod cf. OHG irmindeot. With
OE eortScynn, gumcynn, and mancynn cf. ON mannkyn, OHG erd-
kunni and mankunni, and OSax gumkunni and mankunni. With OE
eovSbuend and landbuend cf. ON jar<Sbyggjandi and OHG lantpuant.
T H E T R I B E OR BAND OF M E N . With OE dryhtfolc and mœgen-
folc cf. OSax druhtfolc and meginfolc. With OE folcweras and leodweras
cf. OSax folkweros and liudweros. With OE leodwerod and manweorod
cf. OSax liudwerod and manwerod. With OE helmberend, sweord-
berende, and wœpenberend cf. ON hjalmberi and svetàberendi, and
OSax helmberand and wapanberand.
SAILORS AND T H E SEA. With OE sœlfàende and wœgliïiend cf.
OHG seolidanti, and OSax seolitSandi and wag/tÔand, and cf. OSax la-
guItìSand. With OE lagustream, merestream, and sœstream cf. OSax la-
gustrom, meristrom, and seostrom. With OE sœweg cf. ON sjóvegr.
COLD. With OE eallceald\ hrimceald\ isceald, and winterceald
cf. ON allkaldr, hrtmkaldr, and tskaldr, and OSax wintarkald.
144 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
BRIGHTNESS. With OE eallbeorht and goldbeorht cf. ON all-
bjartr and gullbjartr.
ANXIETY. With O E breostcearu and modcearu cf. OSax briost-
kara and modkara.
RESOLUTION. With OE fastmod, heardmod, and stearcmod cf.
ON hàr&mcfòigr, OHG fastmuoti, hartmuot, and starchmuoti, and OSax
hardmod and starkmod.
SORROW OR A N G E R . With OE geomormod, sarigmod, and
tornmod cf. OHG zornmuotig, and OSax jamarmod and seragmod.
With OE bealuhydig and gramhydig cf. OSax baluhugdig and gramhug-
dig.
ENEMIES. With O E leodscec&a, manscecfàa, peodsceaìSa, and
wamscecfàa cf. OSax liudskaìSo, menscw&o, thiodsccfòo, and wamsccfiSo.
T H E MEAD HALL. With OE meduœrn cf. ON mjçÔrann.
With OE ealuhus cf. ON qlhús. With OE beorsele, gœstsele, heahsele,
hornsele, and winsele cf. ON bjórsalr and hásalr and OSax gasiseli and
winselt.
T H E TRAPPINGS OF T H E M E A D H A L L . With OEgifstol cf. ON
gjáfstóll. With OE heahstede cf. ON hásta&r. With OE ealubenc cf.
ON qlbekkr. With OE goldfœt and winfœt cf. ON vínfat, OHG win-
faz, and OSax goldfat.
C L O T H I N G AND W E A P O N S . With OE beaduserce cf. ON
bqtSserkr. With OE herewœd cf. ON herváiSir. With OE healsbeorg
and banbeorge cf. OHG halsberga and beinberga and OSax halsberga.
With OE hornboga cf. ON hornbogi. With OE heardecg and scearpecg-
ede cf. ON har§eggjä§r and skarpeggr.
D E A T H AND T H E SLAIN. With OE decfàdœg and endedœg cf.
ON datfàadagr and endadagr, and OHG endidago. With OE wœldreor
cf. ON valdreyri.

Not all these compounds and compound systems can be dated to the
common Germanic period. Some may have developed independently
in different areas, while others may have been imported from one re-
gion to another. All the same, the number of compounds and com-
pound systems that appear in common among the different dialect
areas is enough to suggest that by an early date, perhaps before the
Age of Migrations, scops were developing a core of formulaic vocabu-
lary, much of it in the form of compound diction.
The Old English compound noun or adjective could thus be consid-
ered the child of the alliterative form. It is at the heart of the scop's
COMPOUND DICTION 145
verse-making technique. An aesthetics of Old English poetry that
overlooks the importance of compounding is bound to be superficial,
and one that overlooks the utility of compounding is likely to go astray
in searching out nuances of meaning in the poet's use of one alterna-
tive expression in place of another, when very likely his chief concern
was not to develop subtle shades of meaning but simply to compose in
the alliterative form.
The point can be argued, of course. It is sometimes tempting to be-
lieve that the Beowulf poet chooses every word with an eye toward its
aesthetic implications: that in a particular situation, for example, the
poet speaks of Spear-Danes rather than Ring-Danes or West-Danes
because he wishes to call up an image of the Danes' martial prowess.
After reviewing the various -Dene, -Scyldinge{-as), -Geatas, and -Seti-
fingas compounds in Beowulf, one scholar concludes: "We have dis-
cussed fifteen compounds, occuring in all twenty-nine times, and in
each case we have seen that their use is justified, not only as far as
sense and metre is concerned, but also as to poetic connotation and ar-
tistic significance."9
Such a conclusion cannot be refuted. If the poet uses the word
Spear-Danes at a time when the Danes are successful in war, the noun
is clearly apt. If on the other hand he uses it at a time when the Danes
are conspicuously unsuccessful in their exercise of the martial arts, the
noun must be ironic, hence also apt.
Without ruling out attempts to find justification for the poet's use
of a particular compound in a particular place, I would suggest that the
Danes are Spear-Danes and are brave in war by definition, regardless of
their conduct at any moment. Normally, it seems, the poet chooses his
compound diction to fulfill the needs of alliteration with minimal con-
tortion of rhythm and syntax. He will choose a word or phrase without
regard for its thematic overtones, even occasionally at cross-purposes
to its thematic overtones, for the sake of one thing: its utility. All the
same, one need not conclude that the initial alliterating element of a
compound is colorless. It may provide a good deal of color to the nar-
rative, but this color tends to be constant. Once invoked it is omni-
present; it does not flare up or die away depending on the context.
The ocean is always a whale-road, it is always a seal-road. The Danes
are always brave. The sun is always the world-candle, God's bright
beacon, a jewel clothed in light.
By stressing this point I do not mean to encourage the fallacy that
the poet's verse-form did his creating for him. In no way did the poet's
146 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
choice of a particular alliteration determine what he would say next.
On the contrary, verbal freedom is perhaps the most striking feature
of the Old English formulaic style. Especially in the work of a master
like the Beowulf poet, no one word choice could dictate another any
more than it does in everyday speech. Present-day readers therefore
have free license to search out the possible nuances of a word or phrase
in its specific context. I suggest only that as one does so, one should
try not to mistake the sensibility of our own century for that of the
eighth or tenth. Overtones of meaning that occur to us today, espe-
cially ironic or ambiguous ones, may have played no part in the appre-
ciation of the poem by its original audience, who could not stop the
narrative and ponder each word choice.10

if Was the Beowulf poet then a singer of tales after all? Or was he a
learned author who set out to imitate the old style for antiquarian ef-
fect? Doubtless the question will never be resolved to everyone's satis-
faction, and the healthiest stance for one to take might be one of
open-minded agnosticism. All the same, it seems to me that the high
incidence of compounding in the poem—even more, the frequent or-
ganization of these compound words into useful formulaic systems—
might indicate not only that the author of the work was familiar with
the old oral tradition, but that he was a living part of it. Unlike the Ex-
odus poet, who draws on a great number of compounds of unusual
construction, the Beowulf poet rarely uses exotic compounds. 11 He
relies on the combination of simple words whose meanings are usually
transparent. The apparent ease with which he varies formulaically-
related compounds suggests a poet at home in a traditional verse-
medium. This is no touchstone for the oral style; it is only one of many
subtle indices which, if carefully observed, might indicate to which end
of the oral-literary spectrum a given text lies.
A comparison of two passages of Old English poetry will illustrate
this point. The first, which describes Grendel's midnight approach to
Heorot, has consistently been praised as an example of the art of the
Beowulf poet at its finest.12 I have selected the second passage, from
the Old English poetic paraphrase of the metrical portions of
Boethius' De consolatione philosophiae, because it has formerly been
used to support the thesis that formula counting is no test of oral style.
The compound nouns and adjectives that occur in each passage are
printed in italics, and at the end of each passage I note the formulaic
COMPOUND DICTION 147
substitution system to which each compound word pertains, if any
exists. Supporting evidence for these systems is restricted to the 3,182
lines of Beowulf and the 1,750 lines of the Meters of Boethius, respec-
tively, so that the words and phrases of many different poets compos-
ing in different times, places, and genres are not used as evidence for
one poet's linguistic practice. 13
Beowulf 710-727:

710 Da com of more under misthleopum


Grendel gongan, godes yrre baer;
mynte se manscaïSa manna cynnes
sumne besyrwan in sele f)am hean.
Wod under wolcnum to JMES J)e he winreced,
715 goldsele gúmena, gearwost wisse,
faettum fahne. Ne waes Jwet forma siS
{jset he HroJjgares ham gesohte;
naefre he on aldordagum aer ne sif)Öan
heardran hiele, heafâegnas fand.
720 Com to recede rinc siSian,
dreamum bedaeled. Duru sona onarn,
fyrbendum fest, syfjfian he hire folmum [aethrjan;
onbraed £>a bealohydig, Sa he [ge]bolgen waes,
recedes mujjan. Rajae aefter {30η
725 on fagne flor feond treddode,
eode yrremod'; him of eagum stod
ligge gelicost leoht unfeger.

710b. misthleopum: cf. fenhleoSu 820b, wulfhleoSu 1358a, naes-


hleoSum 1427a.
712a. manscafta: cf. manscaSa 737b, 1339a, 2514b, jseodsceaÖa
2278a, 2688a, feondscaSa 554a, guÖsceaSa 2318a, hearmsca]3a 766a,
synscaSa 707a, synscaSan 80ib, uhtsceaÖa 2271a.
714b. winreced: cf. winreced 993b, healreced 68a, 1981a,
eorÖreced 2719a, hornreced 704a.
715a. goldsele: cf. goldsele 1253a, 1639a, 2083a, beorsele 482a,
492a, 1094a, 2635a, drihtsele 485a, 767a, 2320a, hringsele 2010a,
2840a, 3053a, eorÖsele 2410b, 2515a, guÖsele 443a, 2139a, beahsele
1177a, gestsele 994a, heahsele 647a, hrofsele 1515a, niSsele 1513a.
718a. aldordagum: cf. ealderdagum 757a, geardagum ib, 1354a,
148 S T Y L E AND S T R U C T U R E
2233a, aerdaege 126b, 1 3 1 1 b , 2942b, deaÖdaege 187a, 885a, laendaga
2 3 4 1 b , laendagas 2591a, lifdagas 793a, 1622a, fyrndagum 1 4 5 1 b ,
heofungdagas 3 1 5 3 a , swyltdaege 2798a, windagum 1062a.
719b. heafàegnas: cf. healSegnes 142a, aldorJ)egn 1308a,
magoJ)egna 1405b, selej)egn 1794a.
722a. fyrbendum: cf. irenbendum 774b, 998b, hellbendum 3072b,
hygebendum 1878b, oncerbendum 1 9 1 8 a , searobendum 2086b,
waelbende 1936a.
723a. bealohydig: cf. anhydig 2667a, gromhydig 1749a, J)risthydig
2810a.
726a. yrremod: cf. geomormod 2044a, 2267a, 3018a, bolgenmod
709a, 1 7 1 3 a , hreohmod 2 1 3 2 a , 2296a, werigmod 844a, 1543a, galg-
mod 1277a, glaedmod 1785a, guftmod 306a, stiSmod 2566a, swiSmod
1624a.

Meters of Boethius 6:

Da se wisdom eft wordhord onleac


sang soiScwidas, and J)us selfa cwaeS:
Donne sio sunne sweotolost scineS,
hadrost of hefone, hrceSe bioS aSistrod
5 ealle ofir eorSan oSre steorran,
forSsem hiora birhtu ne biS auht
to gesettane wiS ¡Diere sunnan leoht.
Donne smolte blsewS suSan and westan
wind under wolcnum. J)onne weaxeS hraSe
10 feldes blostman, fegen Jœt hi moton.
Ac se stearca storm, £>onne he strong cymS
norSan and eastan, he genimeS hraSe
Jjaere rosan wlite, and eac Jja ruman sae
norSerne yst nede gebaedeS,
15 £wet hio strange geondstyred on staSu beateS.
Eala, Jjset on eoröan auht faestlices
weorces on worulde ne wunaS afre!
ib. wordhord: none.
2a. so<5cwidas: cf. soÖcwidas MB 8.3a, soÖcwida MB 2.7a, MB
7.3a, sarcwidas MB 2.4a.

In his outstanding essay " T h e Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon


Formulaic Poetry," Larry D. Benson has shown that the diction of the
COMPOUND DICTION 149

passage quoted from the Meters of Boethius is just as formulaic as the


diction of Beowulf. From this and other such comparisons, he con-
cludes that since all Old English poetry uses formulas, there can be no
way to determine whether a given text was originally oral or written. 14
Benson has shown that blind formulaic analysis of a passage of Old
English poetry cannot reveal its mode of creation. Many learned au-
thors have been known to use formulas, whether for atmosphere or
rhetorical effect or because the poetic language itself is steeped in
them. In the absence of other information indicating the origin of a
text, one must use great caution in attributing the work to a singer. All
the same, a distinction needs to be made between living formulaic lan-
guage and the parroting of formulaic tags. In trying to discover how
a text was composed, one must not only count the number of fixed
formulas, for these are easily imitated by a lettered author, but one
must look for evidence that the poet in question made formulaic lan-
guage his habitual mode of thought.
When one compares the sixth of the Meters with the Anglo-Saxon
prose that served as its source, one can see that many of its formulas
are mere padding.15 When the prose author speaks of "all stars," the
poet speaks of "all stars over the earth" (5a). When the prose author
speaks of "the wind," the poet speaks of "the wind under the sky" (9a).
When the prose author laments that "no worldly thing long endures,"
the poet laments that "no worldly thing on earth long endures" (16).
Clearly the person who translated the prose version of the Meters into
passable verse used a number of formulaic tags. One still cannot con-
clude, however, that he used flexible formulaic language as his habitual
mode of thought; that is, that he thought like an oral poet. Certainly
he did not compose like the author of Beowulf a master song-smith
and one of the greatest of English narrative poets.
Nowhere is this difference more evident than in the two poets' use
of compound diction. The Beowulf poet uses nine compounds in eigh-
teen lines. Each forms part of an extensive compound system (that is,
a formulaic substitution system with at least four different members
attested to in this poem). The author of the Meters uses two com-
pounds in seventeen lines. Neither forms part of an extensive com-
pound system used by this poet.
Although the two passages quoted cannot be taken as representative
of every part of the two works in question, the Beowulf poet's greater
reliance on compounding is a statistical fact. Otto Krackow figures the
incidence of compounding in Beowulf to be about two compounds for
STYLE AND STRUCTURE
every four lines; in the Meters, somewhat less than two compounds for
every six lines. He takes care to add that blind counting of compounds
means little. One must also ask what kind of compounds occur. He
notes that the incidence of compounding in the Meters is as high as it is
only because of the presence of many verbatim repetitions, which in
Beowulf are the exception rather than the rule.16
One may conclude that the two poets not only were of different
ability; each drew on the Old English poetic word-hoard in a different
way. Formulaic tags exist in Beowulf, but they are used with relative
restraint. Flexible systems of compound diction, on the other hand, are
at the heart of the poet's verse-making technique. One could almost
say that without them there would be no epic style. Of the two au-
thors, only the Beowulf poet shows evidence of having used flexible
formulaic language as his habitual mode of thought. Only he, that is,
appears to have composed in a manner one would expect of a good
scop skilled in the old tradition.
I can thus only partially agree with Arthur G. Brodeur's summation
of the nature of the poem's diction: "In fine, the poet of Beowulf, like
Homer, was by no means independent of formula, but was its master
and not its servant. Nowhere else in Old English do we find such
splendor of language; its wealth and sureness attest that Beowulf is the
work, not of an illiterate 'singer,' but of a great literary artist, domi-
nating, expanding, and transcending the limits of the form in which he
elected to compose."17 The splendor of language to be found in
Beowulf should be evident to all. That the poem is the work of a great
literary artist should likewise provoke little argument. Still, the con-
clusion that this artist dominated, expanded, and transcended the limits
of the form in which he composed does not necessarily follow. An art-
ist's talents can be expressed in his mastery of inherited forms as well
as in his attempt to transcend them. Particularly in a society that sets a
premium on traditional values, the aberrant artist is not necessarily ad-
mired. Unfortunately, so little has survived of what must once have
been a large body of Old English heroic poetry that judgments must
remain speculative as to whether the Beowulf poet transcended the
limits of his form or was fairly typical of Anglo-Saxon court poets in
his storytelling skills and his handling of language. As far as one can
judge, the poet of "Waldere" may have been his equal. The poet of
"The Battle of Maldon," though more austere in his handling of po-
etic diction, knew how to tell a story well. Rather than view the author
COMPOUND DICTION
of Beowulf as an individual genius chafing against the limits of an in-
herited form, one could more plausibly regard him as an accomplished
poet who brought an inherited form to a fine stage of fulfillment.
In this poem, tradition and individual artistry are not at odds. The
Beowulf poet was a brilliant and creative individual; at the same time,
he was at home in his traditional verse-medium. In reading his poem,
one need not imagine oneself reading the work of a literate author who
was striving to liberate himself from the "heavy hand" of convention
(Brodeur, p. 17). One may imagine oneself in the presence of a master
song-smith. The poet seems to have felt no more oppressed by the
conventional terms of his craft than the artisans who fashioned the
Sutton Hoo jewelry seem to have felt oppressed by the conventional
figures of Germanic design. For this Anglo-Saxon poet, although not
for all his fellow-poets, flexible systems of compound nouns and adjec-
tives formed the nucleus of a vast formulaic vocabulary that permitted
him to compose fluently in the alliterative form. He used this inherited
vocabulary because he wanted to, because he needed to, and because it
probably never occurred to him not to. As a person for whom the he-
roic vision was still a living thing, he must have looked upon this time-
tested language—this language of princes, of thrones, of deadly com-
bat, of treasure, of ships, and the sea—as practically his birthright. For
him it was a true language that expressed the best in the traditions of
his fathers.
η. RING COMPOSITION

T H E overall structure of Beowulf was once believed to be a prod-


uct of a series of mistakes or fortuituous accidents. The author
(or authors, for he was multiplied) was given credit for his fine senti-
ments and noble style, but not for his sense of form. Like most readers
today, I believe that this view is based on a misapprehension of the
poet's concept of what constitutes narrative form, and I want to help
lay the view to rest by examining certain ways in which the poem
shows patterning in its larger structure as well as on the level of the
formulaic word or phrase.1
One feature of the poem's patterning that deserves attention is ring
composition, a chiastic design in which the last element in a series in
some way echoes the first, the next to the last the second, and so on.
Often the series centers on a single kernel, which may serve as the key
element, so that the design as a whole may be thought of as an ABC
... X.. . CBA pattern capable of indefinite expansion.2
In her illuminating study of the rhetorical patterns used by Old
English poets in extended verse paragraphs, Adeline Courtney Bart-
lett cites a number of passages that are organized according to what
she calls an "envelope" pattern, in which the same word, phrase, or
idea both begins and ends the passage.3 A good example of ring com-
position based on a verbal "envelope" not cited by Bartlett occurs
early in Beowulf, in lines 1 2 - 1 9 , which tell of the coming of Scyld's
son, Beow (or Beowulf, as the scribe mistakenly calls him):

Daem eafera waes aefter cenned


geong in geardum J)one God sende
folce to frofre; fyrenSearfe ongeat
J)e hie aer drugon aldorlease
lange hwile; him £>aes Liffrea,
wuldres Wealdend woroldare forgeaf:
Beowulf was breme —blaed wide sprang—
Scyldes eafera Scedelandum in.

152
RING C O M P O S I T I O N 153
To him in time a son was born,
young in the land, whom the Lord sent
to comfort the folk; He knew the dire need
they had suffered earlier, lacking a king
for a long time. The Lord of life,
Ruler of glory, granted them grace for this.
Beowjulf] was famous, his name rang widely,
Scyld's son, in the lands of the North.

This self-contained verse paragraph clearly is framed by the word ea-


fera, "son." Less obviously, it is built up not only as an envelope but as
a ring. The second element in the ring is a phrase descriptive of
Scyld's son, Beow: first he is said to be "young in the land" (13a), then
he is described as "famous" (18a). Third is the equivalent of the
phrase "God sent him as a blessing to the people" ( i 3 b - i 4 a , i 6 b - l 7 ) .
The kernel of the passage is the reference to the Danes' long years of
misery before the coming of Scyld (I4b-i6a). The poet uses ring
composition as a means of traveling from the immediate reality (the
Danes under Scyld's son, Beow) to an "other," legendary reality that
is used as a point of comparison (the Danes in their previous years of
misery), then back again to the present reality. Ring composition en-
ables the poet to ease into and out of a picture of past terrors, as the
Danes' previous sufferings are safely enclosed within the envelope of
God's mercy.
Ring composition in archaic and oral narrative poetry is not con-
fined to the short verse paragraph. It may be used as a way of organ-
izing long passages as well, or even entire poems. In Beowulf it is a
technique of major importance from beginning to end. The poet relies
so greatly on this sort of patterning that, for him, balance and sym-
metry of thought must have been almost second nature. O f course,
certain instances of ring composition in the poem might be dismissed
as obvious and practically inevitable. The two sea voyages, for exam-
ple (lines 205-228 and i88ob-i924), show a kind of symmetrical
structure that could hardly have been avoided: journey down to the
shore, embarcation, voyage across the high seas, disembarcation, journey
up from the shore? Other instances of fairly simple ring composition
are identified by Bartlett and by Constance B. Hieatt in their discus-
sions of "double envelope" and "triple envelope" patterning in
Beowulf5 I call attention here to certain additional ways in which the
poet built up his narrative using chiastic patterning of a sort that is nei-
154 S T Y L E AND STRUCTURE
ther obvious nor inevitable. The parts of the poem I single out are the
episodes that tell of the midnight struggle between Beowulf and Gren-
del (702b-836), the subsequent feud between Beowulf and Grendel's
mother (1279-18023), and the battle many years later between
Beowulf and the firedrake (2200-3136). A close study of these epi-
sodes shows that the Beowulf poet used ring composition not only as a
minor rhetorical device or an occasional linking tool, but as a means of
giving form to the most important events of his story.6

^ All the preliminary action of the poem leads up to a single event,


the hero's hand-to-hand struggle in Heorot. Before the fight begins,
Grendel stands for a moment at the door of Heorot and laughs to see
his sleeping prey (730b). When the fight is over, it is Beowulf who
stands at the door rejoicing (827b). The act that initiates the fight—
Grendel's devouring the young warrior Handscioh, even his feet and
hands—is balanced later by Beowulf's similar act of brutish violence in
wrenching Grendel's arm from his body. When the monster first
grapples with Beowulf, the poet notes the deadly effect of Beowulf's
grip on Grendel's hand ("his fingers burst," 760b) and indicates that
the ogre "wished to flee" (wolde fleon, 755b). Toward the end of the
fight the poet reverts to a similar bone-crushing image ("his joints
burst," 818a) and indicates that Grendel "had to flee" {scolde. . .fleon,
8i9-820a). At the climax the poet twice calls attention to the uproar
in the hall and to the fear that grips the listening Danes (767-770,
782b~788a). All the details of the fight radiate about a single kernel,
the moment of extreme violence when Heorot itself seems about to
fall (771-7823). Formless though the episode might seem at first,
owing in part to the repetitive, stop-and-go narrative movement that
has been described rather generously as "lack of steady advance"
(Klaeber, p. lvii), the narrative coheres. Important events align them-
selves into contrastive pairs that center about the moment of awesome
fury when the mead hall begins to splinter around the two antagonists,
whose struggle is still unresolved.
Longer and more complex is the account of the events that occur
from sunset of the second day until sunset of the third day of the
hero's stay in Denmark. The episode centers on the critical fight be-
tween Beowulf and Grendel's mother on the floor of the mysterious
pool that serves as the monsters' home.
At the start of the day, Hrothgar, Beowulf, and their companions
RING COMPOSITION 155
emerge from their chambers and learn of the attack made by Gren-
del's mother during the night. In a long speech Hrothgar recounts the
death of his chief thane, yEschere, and describes the monsters' pool
(1321-82). In a short reply Beowulf expresses his determination to
average /Eschere's death (1383-96). Toward the end of the day these
two speeches are answered by another pair, a brief address in which
Beowulf reports on his success (1651-76), and Hrothgar's long, homi-
letic speech on the subject of pride (1700-84). In like manner, the
journey of the Danes and Geats to the pool (1399-1421) is later bal-
anced by the briefly described triumphant return of Beowulf and his
men to Heorot (1632-50). On the journey out, the narrow trail taken
by the men is called an "unknown path" (1410b); on the return trip,
the same route has become "known ways" (1634a). Each journey cul-
minates in the image of a severed head—first /Eschere's, then Gren-
del's.7 When the Danes and Geats first come to the banks of the pool,
they gaze with horror on the blood welling there, the blood of
äschere. After Beowulf has emerged from the mere, the poet again
calls attention to the blood staining the water, now the blood of the
monsters. Other details echo back and forth in similar fashion: the cer-
emonious arming of Beowulf in his helm and byrnie ( 1 4 4 ^ - 5 4 ) and
the swift removal of his helm and byrnie after his return (1629-303);
the hero's solemn farewell before the fight and his comrades' joyous
greeting of him afterward; his descent through serpent-infested waters
and his later ascent through the same waters, now miraculously "all
cleansed" (1620). From first to last, events on the third day in Den-
mark succeed one another not haphazardly, but in the order imposed
by a sustained narrative intelligence.
Some of these correspondences are admittedly of little consequence.
If the hero survives his descent through the waters of the pool, for ex-
ample, he can be expected to swim back up; if he journeys overland
from Heorot to the pool, he can be expected to return. All the same,
the consistency with which events after the fight echo earlier events is
a special characteristic of the Beowulf poet's style. One observes little
patterning of this sort in, for instance, the corresponding episode of
Grettir's Saga (chaps. 65-66), in which the story is nearly linear in its
development. In Beowulf, few narrative events stand alone; most are
linked to others in complex interrelationships.
Equally characteristic of the poet's style is the way in which thesis is
answered by antithesis. The horror of the second night in Heorot is
156 S T Y L E AND STRUCTURE
answered by the calm of the third; solemn farewells are answered by
joyful greetings; the once infested waters become miraculously
cleansed. Rarely in Beowulf is an event repeated in the same terms and
with the same emotional coloring. More often, one event is balanced
by another that resembles it in certain respects but contrasts with it in
others. Between the monster's midnight attack and Beowulf's tri-
umphant return from the pool, events seem clouded. Fear of the un-
known hangs over all, making even familiar paths look weird and un-
known. After the fight, events seem to take place in the clear light of
the sun.
Less elegant in its patterning, though in some ways still more inter-
esting, is the third great episode, the story of the aged hero's fight
against the firedrake. Apart from certain transitional lines that sum-
marize some of the chief events of the preceding years (2200-ioa,
2354^-96), this episode occupies the whole of the second great part
of the poem up to the final fitt. Although any scheme that claims to
account neatly for all the events in this part would be an oversimplifi-
cation, the episode does not lack form. In this section—the loftiest
and most magnificent of the poem—speeches, journeys, allusions to
Swedish-Geatish hostilities, and references to the splendor of the
dragon's hoard are ranged in complementary pairs about the scene of
the hero's final combat and death.
Although the fight itself and its immediate aftermath are recounted
linearly, this kernel episode too reveals the poet's tendency toward
stylization and patterning. Three times the dragon attacks before
Beowulf and his young kinsman Wiglaf cut him down (see 2569,
2669-70, 2668); three times the wounded king speaks before he dies
(2724-51, 2792b-28o8, 2813-16). Framing this central episode like
a pair of trumpet calls are two speeches that express in brief the code
of conduct on which both Beowulf and Wiglaf have based their ac-
tions. In the first of these Beowulf addresses his comrades and kinsmen
for the last time and affirms in emphatic words his intention to live and
die by the heroic ideal (2535b-37). The second speech is Wiglafs. It
concludes with an equally emphatic approach to the same comrades
and kinsmen, who in the meantime have been found conspicuously
lacking in the stuff of heroism: "Death is better / for any man than a
life of shame!" (289ob-9i). Framing these two speeches are two
longer ones alluding to ancient Swedish-Geatish hostility, which threat-
ens to erupt again into war. Beowulf addresses the first of these to the
RING COMPOSITION 157
Geats (2425-2509); the second, the "Messenger's Prophecy," is spo-
ken by an unnamed Geat who is given the gloomy task of bearing the
news of the fight to his countrymen (2900-3027). The dangers of
war, which had seemed hypothetical, are now both real and immediate,
and the messenger depicts them with grim precision.
In this episode as in other parts of the poem, ends and beginnings
are intertwined. The initial account of the dragon's hoard (2231b-
70a) finds a counterpart in the later description that introduces the
theme of a charm or curse laid on the treasure (3047-57). In each
passage the poet dwells with evident delight on the splendor of the
hoard: the rings and cups plated with gold, the swords, the helms, the
byrnies. After the later description, the rifling of the barrow's trea-
sures by eight chosen Geats answers to the event that set this episode
in motion, the rifling of the barrow by an unknown fugitive. Even the
"Lament of the Last Survivor" (2247-66), the celebrated digression
in which the last survivor of an ancient tribe is depicted in the act of
bequeathing his tribe's treasures to the earth, finds an echo in Wiglafs
solemn address to his fellow Geats as they stand over their dead king
(2864-91).
Wiglafs speech is the last in the poem, and it is heavy with the mel-
ancholy tone that has been sounded throughout this episode. Its
speaker has more than a little in common with the speaker of the ear-
lier "lay." 8 Wiglaf too is a last survivor, as Beowulf makes clear in his
final speech, when he addresses him as "the last of our tribe, the
Wjegmundings' " (2813-143). Wiglaf too has lived to see the death of
his former lord. He stands gazing on the same treasure that the last
survivor had held so lovingly, and he buries it "as useless to men as it
had been before" (3168). The last survivor witnessed the breakup of a
kingdom. Wiglaf fears the same fate for the Geats. Between the
speech of the last survivor and Wiglafs concluding speech, between
the first rifling of the treasure and the last, there is little advance in
tone. The same sense of impending doom hangs over all.

In the main, one may conclude, the poem consists of three major
episodes of different length and complexity, each one of which shows
ring patterning. The question remains: How are these episodes articu-
lated into a single coherent story of epic length?
If the reader does not become lost in the many byways of the narra-
tive, the large-scale symmetry of its design will be evident: (A) intro-
158 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
duction, (Β) fight with Grendel, (C) celebrations, (D) fight with
Grendel's mother, (C) celebrations, (Β) fight with dragon, (A) close.
T h e three great fights that constitute the main body of the poem are
separated by two substantial interludes in which the hero's triumphs
are celebrated with gifts, feasting, and songs and speeches alluding to
legendary heroes. Surrounding the whole—enveloping it in the wraps
of eternity, as it were—are passages of opening and closing that look
deep into the past, in the story of Scyld, and far into the future, in the
dark forebodings of the "Messenger's Prophecy" and in the building
of a barrow for the dead king that is to stand ever after "as a remem-
brance to my people" (2804).
In the grand design as well as in its parts, events answer to one an-
other. The poem ends where it begins, with a eulogy for a dead king.
And before and after these eulogies? Stories of the kings' funerals. In a
way too consistent to be the result of chance, events in the poem's
gradual unfolding find a reply in events from the poem's gradual close.
Although these events are like one another in some ways, they are an-
tithetical in others. Scyld is an ideal king, for example, but is preemi-
nently a king of war and conquest. Beowulf, an equally ideal king, is
renowned for his keeping of the peace: of all worldly kings he is
"mildest and most gracious to his people" (3181-82). The fight with
Grendel is the young Beowulf's first great test, and he meets it with
extraordinary vigor. The moment he puts his hands on Grendel, the
joyful outcome of the fight is no longer in doubt. The fight with the
dragon is the aged Beowulf's last test of all, and he meets it with al-
most superhuman fortitude. In this fight, the narrator's frequent and
all too clear asides ( 2 3 4 ^ - 4 4 , 2 4 1 ^ - 2 4 , 2511a, 2589-913, and
2725b-28) impress on the audience the dark end that is drawing near.
Most of the chief correspondences that knit the poem together are
obvious. Others, less obvious, appear with equal force when one re-
flects on them. Hrothgar's command to build Heorot, for example
(Ó7b-7Óa), has a parallel in Beowulf's request to have his barrow built
(2802-08). Each edifice, adorned with gold in magnificent quantities,
is to stand high (hlifade, 81b; hlifiart, 2805 a) over the surrounding
countryside, a monument to future generations of the glory of the
past. Each is given a special name—Heorot, Biowulfes beorh—and
each shines bright (311, 2803a). Heorot echoes with the song of the
Creation (9ob-98), and over the barrow is heard the lamentation of
the Geats (3i48b-55a).
RING COMPOSITION 159
T o a remarkable extent, the structure of Beowulf can be described
in terms of a series of major and minor pairs. The two great parts of
the poem—the parts that together make up Tolkien's "balance" and
"opposition of ends and beginnings"9—are the largest pair. Another
contrasting pair consists of the Grendel fight and the dragon fight.
Somewhat smaller are the sea voyages to and from Denmark. Smallest
of all are minute echoes of diction that ring too clear to be fortuitous,
such as "unknown path" (1410b) and "known ways" (1634a).
Many of these correspondences, great and small, converge on a sin-
gle narrative event of great intensity: the hero's struggle against
Grendel's mother in the depths of the monsters' pool. The choice of
this event as the structural center of the epic is not casual. At this
point in the narrative the young hero has his closest brush with death;
he is in fact given up for dead by the Danes, who think that the blood
welling to the surface of the pool is his. Insofar as Beowulf is marked
out as "a mythic figure of death and resurrection," as Albert Lord has
maintained,10 it is here that he can be said to suffer symbolic death.
Thereafter, the hero returns to his native land to take his rightful
place in society as a mature and respected adult.
Readers of the Odyssey will note a curious and appropriate parallel
between the ring structures of these two poems. As others have ob-
served,11 the adventure that forms the kernel of the story of Odysseus'
wanderings (books 9 - 1 2 ) is the Nekyia, the tale of his journey to the
land of the dead. The corresponding event of the Aeneid will leap to
mind: book 6, Aeneas' descent to the underworld to consult the shades
of the dead. Like Homer and Virgil, the Beowulf poet had the narra-
tive genius to develop his story around its point of greatest mystery. In
doing so, he called to mind the greatest story of Christendom as well.
By repeatedly associating Grendel and his mother with the creatures of
hell, he presents Beowulf's descent in terms that call to mind Christ's
legendary harrowing of hell, as recounted in the apocryphal Gospel of
Nicodemus.12 Such echoes may have been unintentional, of course.
There is no way of knowing if the narrator was consciously alluding to
Christ's descent, although he evidently drew on established concep-
tions of the mouth of hell. Virgilian influence in the poem is uncertain,
and direct Homeric influence can be ruled out. In developing a narra-
tive that has points in common with certain critical parts of the Odys-
sey, the Aeneid, and the story of Christ, the author may unconsciously
have been drawing on the same age-old popular traditions (or the same
ι6ο STYLE AND STRUCTURE
psychic depths) that inspired Homer, Virgil, and the early dissemina-
tors of the Christian myth. All one can say with confidence is that to
an audience familiar with these mythically cognate materials, such as-
sociations between Beowulf and other legendary heroes are an appro-
priate means of enriching the poem. Thanks largely to the way in
which it centers on a complex of events that resonates deeply with fa-
mous stories of the past, Beowulf is transformed from what it might
have been—a fairly straightforward tale of the deeds of a good man—
into a work of superb psychological and mythic suggestiveness.
Far from having been an unskilled compiler of separate tales, the
poet was endowed with a keen (although always flexible) sense of nar-
rative form. His epic develops in a leisurely manner, as events in the
poem's gradual beginning eventually find their equivalents in the
poem's gradual close, so that the work as a whole has the solidity and
grace of a well-planned piece of architecture. Beowulf is no mere col-
lection of "fabulous exploits redolent of folk-tale fancy" (Klaeber, p.
xii). It is no sightless narration, nor is it a clumsy joining of two tales.13
It is a well-wrought epic poem. Its chief materials may be highly dis-
parate, but in ordering them the poet shows his competence in relating
a long, cohesive verse narrative.
While it is tempting to believe that the structural patterning of
Beowulf has some relation to the poem's special conditions of oral per-
formance or to the conditions of oral composition among hypothetical
prototypes of the text, this relation is too problematical to be assessed
here. Patterning of any sort is mnemonically useful to an oral poet or
to a performer of oral poems, just as it is useful to any stage performer
(whether singer, storyteller, actor, musician, toastmaster, or nightclub
entertainer) who does not rely on a fixed text as the basis of his or her
performance. Ring composition could serve as one elementary type of
mnemonic patterning: as Cedric Whitman observes, "The oral poet,
having mentioned A, B, and C, picks them up later on in the order C,
B, and A, since it is natural to reconstruct a chain of thought back-
wards." 14 All the same, oral texts taken from the field have not been
shown to exhibit complex ring structures comparable to those evident
in the Iliad and Beowulf. Perhaps these structures exist, but the neces-
sary field work and analysis have not been done. Moreover, even some
polished literary works (such as Tom Jones and Paradise Lost) show
complex ring patterning. 15 The various sorts of ring composition in
Beowulf may plausibly be taken as traits that would be useful to an oral
poet or performer, but further conclusions are premature.
RING COMPOSITION i6i

More important, perhaps, is the question of audience response.


What aesthetic effect would the patterning in the structure of Beowulf
have had on an audience of Anglo-Saxons listening to the poem? And
what is the aesthetic effect of such patterning on a person reading the
poem today?
Assuming that the poem was composed for oral presentation, one
might think that an audience of Anglo-Saxon monks or thanes could
hardly have been cognizant of the poem's close-knit design. If the
poem was recited during a single evening, how could listeners have
held the Scyld episode in mind until the poem reached Beowulf's fu-
neral? How or why would they be thinking of Grendel at the time of
the dragon's attack? If the performance was drawn out over several
sittings, the audience's perception of patterning would be yet more
faint. All the same, one suspects that the patterned structure of
Beowulf would not have been wholly without aesthetic effect. N o con-
cern is purely structural; one cannot conceive of structural phenomena
in literature that are devoid of aesthetic implications. T o the question
of whether or not Homer's audience could possibly have caught the
signs of such "fearful symmetry" in the Iliad, Whitman replies, " T h e
human mind is a strange organ, and one which perceives many things
without conscious or articulate knowledge of them, and responds to
them with emotions necessarily and appropriately vague. An audience
hence might feel more symmetry than it could possibly analyze or de-
scribe." 1 6 An audience of Anglo-Saxons listening to a performance of
Beowulf might well have had certain definite, though unarticulated,
expectations about the proper way of conducting such an epic song.
Among these may have been the expectation that in a well-wrought
tale, no one narrative event would stand alone; no event would be
thought of as random or isolated, without antecedents or conse-
quences. T h e story of the coming of Scyld, for example, might have
set up certain expectations that would not have been satisfied until the
singer came to tell of the passing away of Beowulf. T h e story of the
young hero's rout of Grendel, a monstrous creature whose eyes blaze
like fire, who has been ravaging a king's hall in midnight attacks, and
who reminds one of the walking dead, might likewise have set up ex-
pectations that would not have been satisfied until the poet came to
sing of the hero's last fight against the dragon, a more terrible crea-
ture, whose mouth breathes fire, who has razed a royal hall in a mid-
night attack, and who comes as inexorably as death itself. T h e proba-
bility that such expectations would have been unconscious makes them
IÓ2 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
no less real. Moreover, one need not assume that they were uncon-
scious. An audience that had heard a story told often, with variations,
might have become sufficiently discerning to appreciate even subtle
instances of thematic echo.
T o a modern reader able to review the text in detail, comparing
event with event, speech with speech, and word with word, the poem
has a readily apparent symmetry of design that exerts a clear aesthetic
effect. In Beowulf, it would appear, human success and failure are con-
ceived of as an inseparable pair. As in other poems of the Anglo-Saxon
corpus,17 joy does not occur apart from sorrow, creation apart from
dissolution, human success apart from failure. The founding of the
Scylding dynasty is answered in time by the tribal dissolution facing
the Geats. ./Eschere's head demands Grendel's. Heorot gives way to
war or flames,18 and in its place stands a barrow. In Beowulf, as Joan
Blomfield has pointed out, there is no simplistic development of either
character or plot. In a tale such as this, "the concluding affairs must be
implicit in the beginning," as one is made to see "the ever-present
identity of seed in fruit and fruit in seed." 19 John Leyerle has put
the matter more pessimistically: "The sudden reversals inherent in the
structure . . . give to the whole poem a sense of transience about the
world and all that is in it . . . With each reversal the elegiac texture is
tightened, reminding us of impermanence and change, extending even
to the greatest of heroes, B e o w u l f . . . A bright and golden age of a
magnanimous man vanishes, even as it seems hardly to have begun." 20
The dominant mood created by this recurrent play of joy against
sorrow, creation against dissolution, may strike some readers as fatalis-
tic, and it may well be; but if so, the poem's fatalism stems from a real-
istic understanding of the limits that bound earthly success. The poet
seems to have lived enough of life to appreciate the awful ease with
which time and an indifferent fate blot out even the most glorious of
human achievements. Possibly the realistic fatalism of Beowulf may be
the melancholy of a person looking back upon a former heroic age
whose virtues he admired intensely. Possibly—more plausibly, it
seems to me—such fatalism is an innate part of the heroic view of life.
Whatever the explanation, the poem has power to move, and that is its
reason for being.
8. BARBARIC STYLE

T HE aspects of Beowulf that have been discussed in the preceding


chapters can be subsumed under a single heading: the poem's ab-
stract, nonrepresentational style. To a greater degree than has some-
times been realized, the style of Beowulf is the key to its meaning. The
poem refuses to be read in the manner that naturalistic fiction, for ex-
ample, demands to be read. If the poem is approached in this way it
will be misunderstood, and its cultivated style will be mistaken for
something inept or naive.
That the conventions that govern the composition and form of Old
English poems are "radically different for the most part from those af-
fecting more recent poetic compositions"1 is likely to be granted as
readily by students who come upon these works for the first time as by
scholars who have spent a lifetime studying them. Anglo-Saxon taste
and appreciation differed from our own in ways that are difficult to re-
construct. What is still lacking in the criticism of this period is a sys-
tematic effort to describe what constituted the conventions of the old
poetic style and to identify how they expressed something as elusive as
Anglo-Saxon aesthetics.
To venture such a description would take a book in itself. Indeed,
one may well doubt that the poems of the period could be treated as a
group without regard for their differences in date, genre, and condi-
tions of authorship and performance. As a step in the direction of a
more general aesthetics of Old English poetry, there is thus some jus-
tification for singling out Beowulf as an example of a complete,
lengthy poem that comes from a single creative impulse and that one
can take, with some caution, as representative of what was once a
larger body of heroic verse.
A minute example of the peculiarities of the style of Beowulf is the
poet's use of the formula hwate Scyldingas, "keen-hearted Scyldings,"
to characterize the Danes at the moment when they display less than
keen courage and abandon their stations at the edge of the mere

163
164 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
(1601 a). Taking the term hwate at its face value as a nonironic epi-
thet, one critic has tried to account for it in realistic terms. "Convinced
that Beowulf is dead," the Danes "courteously withdraw to allow the
Geats to mourn their supposedly lost leader in private." Their ap-
parent faithlessness is in fact a praiseworthy act of respect.2
For several reasons this reading is hard to accept. No mention is
made that the Geats intend to mourn their leader. They simply con-
tinue to stare at the waters "sick at heart" ( 1603a), hopelessly wishing
(to use the poet's own paradoxical terms) that they will see their lord
again. More important, the apparently anomalous formula hwate Scyl-
dingas is no more than an expression of the poem's abstract style,
which rarely if ever strives for realistic effects. In Beowulf, the essen-
tial qualities of persons and things do not change from moment to mo-
ment. Human beings may change, but if so, they change emphatically,
once and for all, like Heremod or Offa's queen. People are either
"good" or "bad," "valiant" or "cowardly," and the poem's formulaic
vocabulary reflects this point of view. The use of a fixed phrase in an
apparently anomalous context need not be explained on naturalistic
grounds, for the author's language is a tissue of conventions about
which there is nothing naturalistic in the first place.
A similar stylization is evident on the narrative level. During the
dragon fight, we are told, the hero can barely stand firm against the
dragon's second onslaught and is enveloped in flame. His hand-picked
companions break from the hill where he has stationed them. Wiglaf
alone recalls his duties as Beowulf's kinsman and thane, berates the
men at length for abandoning their king, and advances to stand by him
(259^-2668).
Here again it is possible for a reader who is looking for realism to
rebel against the apparent meaning of the text. How could Wiglaf de-
liver a twenty-seven line speech to the thanes who have fled to the
woods, presumably some distance away? The same critic has argued
that in the interests of verisimilitude, one must imagine that Wiglaf
first fled with the group, then realized his mistake and acted accord-
ingly.3
Such an explanation is based on narrative expectations that do not
fit this poem. The essential point is that Wiglaf says what must be said,
given this opportunity to define the heroic ethos. What is important is
the thematic content of his speech, not such external factors as the
distance from the hill to the woods or the relative ease or difficulty
BARBARIC STYLE 165
with which the man's words, in the real world, could have been heard.
After all, Beowulf does not depict the world of everyday reality. It
presents a landscape as conventional as any stage. T h e "real" audience
of W i g l a f s speech is we, the listeners or readers, not a group of name-
less and fictive Geats. In any event, why salvage one realistic spatial
detail of this scene when the whole fabric of the narrative is abstract
and nonrepresentational in its disregard for the naturalistic passing
of time? During the whole passage in which Wiglaf is introduced
and delivers his speech, time is suspended; the flames that envelop
the hero cannot harm him in the least. In a naturalistic story or in
real life, W i g l a f s behavior would be at fault. If a man were truly
in need of help, his young kinsman would not pause to deliver a
twenty-seven line oration to absent companions but would go im-
mediately to his side. 4 Not only is the narrative nonrepresentational
at this stage, it is deliberately and characteristically so. T h e poet's em-
phasis is all on the inner significance of the action and not at all on its
spatial and temporal relations, which he ignores to display his theme
with perfect clarity.
W h a t I have just discussed are examples of a general stylistic ten-
dency in Beowulf. T h e elements of the real world, as they normally
offer themselves to perception, are rearranged by the poet's vision into
abstract intellectual patterns that express not a world, but an ethical
concept of a world. Just as this concept is foreign to most present-day
readers, the style in which it is expressed is alien and can be misunder-
stood or dismissed on this account. From a classical perspective, "ar-
tistically Beowulf is a rude and comparatively unskilled poem." 5 From
the perspective of its author and original audience, I suspect, the poem
expressed its themes efficiently in a cultivated, aristocratic style. Be-
cause this nonclassical style has no accepted name, I refer to it as "bar-
baric," using the term in the nonpejorative sense that it has in the fine
arts.
Among art historians, the term barbaric (not "barbarous") has oc-
casionally been used to denote the various types of abstract design that
were cultivated, to some extent in common, by the Germanic and
Celtic tribes who bordered on the Roman Empire. 6 In contrast to
Mediterranean naturalistic art, which came to provide a model for
most Western European art from the Renaissance until the early
twentieth century, the art of the Northern tribes shunned the realistic
depiction of persons and things, knew nothing of three-dimensional
STYLE AND STRUCTURE
perspective, and tended to break surfaces into intricate, swirling, zoo-
morphic designs rather than depict them in naturalistic "modeled"
contours.
Anyone familiar with the Sutton Hoo metalwork in the British Mu-
seum or the full-page illuminations from the Book of Kells qr the Lin-
disfarne Gospels will know the dynamic style of this art at its finest.
Even in these latter examples, classical influence can be detected, and
an increase in classical influence can easily be traced in the art of the
later Anglo-Saxon period. Here too, however, an abstract, nonrealistic
streak sometimes sets this art off decidedly from classical norms. A
similar gradation between barbaric and classical norms can be observed
in Anglo-Saxon poetry, some of which is obviously patterned on Latin
models while some (like "Widsith") displays a rhetorical structure that
cannot well be accounted for except in terms of a native Germanic po-
etics. Beowulf falls somewhere between these two extremes. Like the
stonecarving, metalwork, and manuscript illumination of the period,
the poem bears witness to the existence of a well-defined set of non-
classical aesthetic conventions that predated the arrival of Mediterran-
ean culture in Anglo-Saxon England and that remained strong, though
progressively changed, at least until the Norman Conquest.
Some scholars have spoken of the need to read Beowulf in a manner
in keeping with the aesthetics of its age. John Leyerle has called atten-
tion to apparent similarities of style between Anglo-Saxon visual and
poetic arts and has shown how the concept of "interlace," borrowed
from the sphere of decorative design, can be used with some suc-
cess to account for certain patterns of recurrence within the design of
the poetry.7 In a more far-ranging attempt to correlate the arts and
poetry of the period, Peter R. Schroeder has stressed the abstract qual-
ities of each and has suggested that the stylized representation of space
in the visual arts is analogous to the stylized representation of time in
the narrative poetry. In both the art and the poetry, he finds "not a
representation of reality as we perceive it, but a breaking up and rear-
rangement of that reality to create a composition in which the 'reality'
can often be discerned only with difficulty."8 Schroeder is thus led to a
point of view that accords closely with Joan Blomfield's understanding
of the style of Beowulf as expressed in an article whose judgments im-
prove with time: "The poetry of this time (like the visual art) reaches a
high degree of abstraction and formalism. As far as his medium, a se-
quence of words, will allow, the poet has detached his theme from the
BARBARIC STYLE

processes of time and space and disregarded the appearance which for
practical purposes constitute reality. . . . The writer of Beowulf \s in
fact a true poet; he has created a tragic unity, he sees with the poet's
eye which splits and recombines the elements of everyday percep-
tion." 9 Rather than speak of the "lack of realism" of the poetry of this
period, one might better speak of its possession of a set of conventions
that permit it to express unerringly what it considers most important.
In general, these matters do not have to do with the outward appear-
ance of people or things, or with their external relations, but with their
ethical or spiritual significance.
A number of features of the poem cease to appear anomalous when
one reads it not as a realistic narrative that has failed, but as an expres-
sion of a stylistic impulse that finds similar expression in the abstract
visual arts of the period. An example is Grendel's entry into Heorot.
For a moment, recall the scene. For twelve years the Danes have
been vacating Heorot as soon as night falls because of their fear of
Grendel. Beowulf and his companions—"the bravest that he could
find" (206b-207a)—have come from across the sea with the express
purpose of challenging the monster and, after chivalrous negotiations,
have arranged to spend the night in the hall. "Not one of them be-
lieved he would ever again partake of the joys" of his native land, the
poet informs us ( 6 9 1 - 6 9 3 ) . At this critical moment the men take to
their beds and . . . pray? Adjust their armor and weapons? Take leave
of one another, or speak nervous boasts in which they only half be-
lieve? No. They fall asleep. Concerning the fear, anxiety, tiredness, or
other feelings that the author of a naturalistic novel might wish to as-
cribe to them, we are told not a word. The men have no such feelings
but fall asleep as obediently as puppets in a child's play. 10
Still, this is not the chief anomaly of the passage. A few lines later
the monster breaks down the door with one blow of his fists. He then
treads on the floor of the hall, an "unpretty light" flashing from his
eyes. Here, with this sudden violent outbreak of noise, at the culmi-
nating moment of the Geats' journey and, one would think, of their
entire lives up to this moment, the warriors continue sleeping just as
soundly as before. They wake only later, after one of their number has
been devoured "hands and feet" ( 745a) and after Beowulf, who alone
has been watching these events in alert silence, has met Grendel's grip
with one more powerful.
If one reads the poem expecting it to fulfill the conventions of natu-
ι68 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
ralistic mimesis, the behavior of the Geats at this point violates all nar-
rative propriety. Only if one reads the narrative as a diagram of an ac-
tion rather than an imitation of one, as it were, do its inner relationships
become clear. T h e men fall asleep and stay asleep not out of tiredness,
nor because their sleep is magically induced, but because of the narra-
tive principle of contrast. Their behavior is explicable on stylistic
grounds, not mimetic ones. Rather than react as real persons would in
the same situation, they are obedient participants in the conventions of
an abstract type of narrative composition. According to these conven-
tions, the hero is strong and his companions weak. T h e hero manifests
whatever qualities are necessary for success in a certain situation—vig-
ilance and self-discipline, here—and his companions show the opposite
traits. T h e hero and his great antagonist meet each other alone, and if
others do happen to be present, the narrator manages to nullify their
presence as effectively as if they were no more than the furniture of
the scene. They provide contrast to the hero and magnify terror by
furnishing a victim, or rather by furnishing a roomful of potential vic-
tims who serve as the dramatic audience for the fight. Apart from
these ethical and dramatic functions, the men have no real interest. As
the scene progresses, the poet forgets them except to call attention to
their fear and ineffectiveness—qualities that again set them sharply
apart from the hero.
T h e loss of Hondscioh, then (the man who is devoured by Grendel)
inspires neither tears nor regret. Beowulf cannot be blamed for allow-
ing him to die. Ethically speaking, the sleeping Hondscioh represents
all the Geats. His fate shows what the fate of all of them would have
been in the absence of a hero, or what the fate of Beowulf himself
would have been in the absence of those qualities that distinguish him
from his companions. The principle of contrast, together with a desire
to magnify terror, calls Hondscioh into being and insists that he be
handed over to the monster without the least outcry of protest.
The apparent anomalies of such a scene seem less awkward when
one treats them as a result not of the author's violation of the demands
of realism, but of his willing observance of the conventions of the bar-
baric style, among them the principle of contrast. A second convention
also leads to occasional anomalies. This is the principle that each scene,
passage, or episode has its own integrity, regardless of what is said or
not said elsewhere in the narrative. The story is time-bound, as only a
narrative spoken or sung aloud can be, and thus it includes narrative
inconsistencies.
BARBARIC STYLE 169

A s has often been noted, the performances of oral literature do not


always achieve the same kind of unity that is characteristic of written
texts. 1 1 W o r k s composed for the printed page tend to achieve an or-
ganic unity whereby each part relates to the others naturalistically.
Each passage can easily be compared with others, both in the process
of composition and in the act of reading, so that internal discrepancies
stand out as mistakes. W o r k s composed for oral performance—in par-
ticular, works composed not only for but during oral performance, like
the epic songs of the Balkans—achieve a unity that might be called in-
organic, in that it is abstract and intellectual. It is based on consisten-
cies o f theme rather than o f characterization or plot. T o modern eyes
it is therefore likely to appear as a lack of unity, but to phrase the
matter thus is to put in negative terms what might better be consid-
ered an expression of a special kind of artistic impulse. In time-bound
oral narrative, each passage stands alone. Although it may be linked
to others by a complex network of intertextual allusions, it is self-
consistent and is to be interpreted only with reference to itself and the
controlling themes o f the story. T o express these clearly, the singer or
tale-teller may disregard or even contradict what he says in other pas-
sages, each of which will also be consistent with the controlling themes
o f the work. A n y resulting anomalies are likely to be the result of
faulty perception on the reader's part rather than authorial ineptitude.
T h e y often result from the expectation that the work will abide by the
conventions of modern fiction, which stress unity of plot and character
over unity of theme. 1 2

W h y , for example, does Hygelac say that he opposed Beowulf's ex-


pedition to Denmark ( 1 9 9 ^ - 9 7 a ) , when earlier one was told that
wise men among the Geats not only did not try to stop Beowulf, but
urged him on ( 2 0 2 - 2 0 4 ) ? Surely one is right to believe that "such
discrepancies seldom disturb an audience if they come far apart in the
narrative flow, as do the[se] Beowulf passages . . . Each belongs to its
scene, and listeners, unlike readers, cannot stop proceedings at will to
compare mental notes." 1 3 A t the same time, one can g o beyond this
explanation and account for the anomaly not only as a by-product of
the poem's oral mode o f delivery but as a product of the barbaric style.
Each passage belongs to its scene, and in addition, each scene ex-
presses one of the themes of the work as a whole.
In the first passage, Beowulf has just entered the narrative and is as
yet unknown and nameless. A t this point it is important for the audi-
ence to know that he is undertaking his journey not rashly but with the
ιηο STYLE AND STRUCTURE

encouragement of his elders, fond as they were of him. T h e poet pre-


sents the young man's action as the result of a mature choice and as a
deed worthy of imitation. Emphasis is on communal assent to the
value of heroic enterprise in the young. A t this stage in the narrative,
any indication that the king opposed Beowulf's journey would have
made the young man out to be a social maverick who lived by the dic-
tates of his own will rather than communal wisdom.
A different set of narrative needs governs the second scene. By this
time the hero has already proved himself in magnificent fashion. He
has been consistently praised for his valor and wisdom, and his actions
have borne such praise out. For Hygelac to say that he tried to dis-
suade the young man from his journey does not detract from one's as-
sessment of Beowulf's character; it adds to it. A t this point the audi-
ence cannot possibly question the hero's judgment, for even Hygelac
admits that he was wrong and Beowulf was right. T h e magnificent
gifts that the hero parades into the hall would settle any dispute on this
score. T h e point here is to show Beowulf's superior judgment and
thus to exalt him by comparison with his king.
Other troublesome details can be accounted for similarly. W h y does
the poet emphasize that the path to Grendel's mere was "unknown"
( 1410b) when just the day before, men from far and near had traced
Grendel's tracks to the same pool (841-8563)? T h e path cannot liter-
ally be unknown; furthermore, Hrothgar seems sufficiently familiar
with the locale to describe it at length ( I357b-76a). Again, the anom-
aly disappears when the two journeys are read as part of their immedi-
ate narrative contexts, which are so different in mood as to call forth
what almost seem to be two different landscapes.
In the first scene, emphasis is all on the joy of the Danes as they
look upon the bloodstained waters and find evidence that the monster
who had terrorized them for the past ten years is dead. T h e sun is
about to rise; the men race their horses in sheer delight; the scop sings
songs of heroes. T h e trip is a gomenwa]>, or "joyous journey." In the
second scene, detail after detail builds up a dreary, ominous mood that
grows more intense as the narrative progresses from Hrothgar's de-
scription of the mere to the journey of the men to the place in ques-
tion. T h e path is narrow and winds over dark moorlands to a place be-
tween overhanging bluffs where the men must travel single file. T o
call the path "unknown" reinforces its appalling character and thereby
helps to define what is heroic about Beowulf's cheerful willingness to
BARBARIC S T Y L E

undertake this venture. It is one thing to fight a known enemy in


known surroundings, as the hero had done with Grendel, and quite
another to risk one's life in an unknown territory that is equated with
the very source of evil. Each landscape fits its scene like the same vista
seen first by day and then by night, when even familiar surroundings
seem strange.
Again, why is one told that Beowulf had an unpromising youth and
was considered "lazy" (2187b), so that his grandfather Hrethel gave
him little honor, when later the hero claims that after Hrethel adopted
him when he was seven, the old king gave him treasure and loved him
like a son ( 2 4 2 8 - 3 4 ) ? Either Beowulf is lying, one might think, or the
narrator is confused or is working from contradictory sources. More
likely, both these contradictory passages are included because they
contribute to the poem thematically, each in a different way. 1 4
In the first passage, the hero's first great triumph has just been
confirmed by Hygelac's gifts. While summing up Beowulf's accom-
plishment, the narrator introduces the "male Cinderella" or "Ash-
boy" motif, familiar from countless fairy tales, that assures the audi-
ence that innate nobility will prove itself despite all temporary set-
backs. T h e law of contrast governs: a dismal childhood leads to a
glorious manhood. In the second passage, the hero is now an aged
king who is taking a retrospective view of the critical events of his life.
What is stressed throughout this long speech is his dignity, compe-
tence, and legitimacy as king. He tells of his faultless treatment by
Hrethel and his unrivaled preeminence among Hygelac's warriors, and
thus one knows of him as heir to a continuing line of warrior kings.
Both passages thus enhance our estimation of the hero, but in dissimi-
lar ways. Consistency of character is disregarded in the interests of
maintaining consistency of theme. Whether regarded as an archetypal
folktale hero or as an ideal thane and king, Beowulf presents a model
worthy of imitation. In a substantive sense, the two versions of his
childhood are therefore equally "true" and valid, to the point that a lis-
tener might perceive no contradiction between them.
A further set of anomalies arises from the existence of two separate
accounts of the hero's adventures in Denmark, one in third-person
narrative ( 2 2 9 - 1 9 0 4 ) and one in his own voice ( 2 0 0 0 - 2 1 5 1 ) . T h e
second of these has caused severe problems of interpretation because
of readers' inability to accept it as a self-contained account that has its
own separate integrity. Why does Beowulf call attention to the place
172 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
taken by Hrothgar's daughter Freawaru at the feast, when nothing
had been said of her before? What is the strange glove made of
dragon-skins into which Grendel was going to put the hero, according
to the later account? How is it that Beowulf tells that Hrothgar sang
lyric elegies during the feast, when no mention of the king's poetic tal-
ents had been made before?
Readers who are uncomfortable with these sorts of discrepancies are
likely to take them as evidence for the existence of what were once
separate lays on the subject of Beowulf and his adventures. 15 Evidence
for the existence of the story in multiform variants would indeed be of
interest, but these discrepancies afford no such proof. They are typical
of the poem's style, which isolates each episode and gives it a self-
consistent unity. Freawaru was not necessary in the first episode be-
cause the poet had Wealhtheow fulfill the same role of hostess at the
feast. T h e dragon-skin glove was not necessary because emphasis was
all on Grendel's arm, hands, and claws. Hrothgar's songs were not
necessary because the poet gave us the royal scop with his song of
Finn and Hengest. T o have introduced these new details earlier would
have crowded the narrative. On the other hand, an exact recapitula-
tion of the same story would have been intolerably tedious to an audi-
ence listening to a time-bound oral performance. T h e poet chooses a
middle course between repetition and variation and has Beowulf re-
count his adventures in terms that enhance their interest for a listening
audience. T h e details about Hrothgar and Grendel supplement rather
than contradict what had been said before. T h e introduction of
Freawaru, above all, permits a long digression on the subject of In-
geld, whose well-known history exemplifies the difficulty of settling
feuds through marriage. While the poet could have told the story of
Ingeld earlier, he had already said much on the subject of Danish his-
tory. Beowulf s retrospective speech to Hygelac provides a more fit-
ting opportunity to elaborate on the theme of the self-destructive vio-
lence of feuding.
Mention of Grendel's glove leads us to a third characteristic of the
barbaric style, its tendency to indulge in the truncated motif. This is a
motif that is introduced, often with some fanfare, only to lead to no
narrative consequences. Whereas truncated motifs are sometimes
found in naturalistic fiction, they tend to occur as the result of some
kind of mistake. Usually their presence in oral traditional literature is
the result not of forgetfulness but of narrative demands or desires that
are unique to a particular scene or episode. When the scene or episode
BARBARIC STYLE 173
is passed by, the motif is dropped. Usually its loss entails no interpre-
tive problem for the listening audience, for whom, in effect, it has al-
ready ceased to exist.
In the visual arts of the Germanic period, most motifs are truncated.
T h e serpent heads cunningly made of garnet cloissonné that adorn the
borders of the pair of gold shoulder-clasps from the Sutton Hoo ship
burial lead nowhere except into swirls that eventually lead the eye out
of the frame of the design altogether. Each head has its own interest,
and taken together they add up to a geometric frieze rather than a nat-
uralistic picture. 16
In folk literature, truncated motifs abound. A n example is a magic
mountain that provides the fairy-tale hero with everything he needs to
accomplish his task—swords, horses, and magic garments—but that is
forgotten as soon as this task is accomplished, at which point he must
obtain special clothes from a different source. 17 Similar truncated
motifs are well known in oral epic poems that have not been subject to
literary editing. In a song that Parry and Lord recorded in 1934 from
a Serbian tavern-keeper, an error occurs concerning which Lord
writes as follows:

O n e of the most glaring inconsistencies . . . within my experience of Y u -


goslav oral song occurs in Bemail Zogic's song of the rescue of Alibey's
children by Bojicic Alija. . . . T h e young hero has neither a horse nor
armor with which to undertake his mission, and his mother borrows
them from his uncle, Rustembey. Later in the poem there is a recogni-
tion scene in which Alija is recognized because he is wearing the armor
o f Mandusic V u k , whom he [once] overcame in single combat. Zogic
has not made the necessary adjustment in the theme o f recognition so
that it would agree with the theme of the poor hero who borrows his
armor. 1 8

In this song the motif of borrowed armor is included early, as is con-


ventional, but it appears in truncated form. While generically appro-
priate to a song of a young hero, in this instance it leads nowhere ex-
cept to a state of confusion in the mind of the literate reader as to how
Alija obtained the entirely different set of arms by which he is later
recognized. Evidently the singer was not troubled by the mistake, for
he repeated it in a performance seventeen years later.
Grendel's dragon-skin glove is an example of a truncated motif that
causes little confusion, for it is an incidental adornment. Other trun-
174 STYLE AND STRUCTURE

cated motifs have caused more serious problems because of critics' de-
sire to integrate them in a narrative master-plan that either does not
exist or is never expressed. Examples are the curse on the treasure and
the supposed existence of treachery in the Danish court.
T h e curse on the dragon's treasure ( 3 0 5 1 - 7 5 ) is a crux that cannot
be disposed of here. Rather than influencing the entire last part of the
narrative, I believe, it is a classic example of a motif that leads no-
where. Taken by itself, it is of exceptional interest; it is generically ap-
propriate to this kind of story, which deals with the winning of a
dragon's hoard; and it has no narrative consequences whatsoever.
What could be more natural than that buried treasure should carry
a curse? And yet introducing the motif of the curse is perhaps the
poet's most serious blunder. Even if only for a moment, the curse
takes the attention of the audience away from what is most impor-
tant—the value of the hero's self-sacrifice—and directs it to something
peripheral, for the poet never speaks of the curse as having caused
Beowulf's death. On the contrary, he calls attention to the efficacy of
the poison with which the hero has been infected from the dragon's
teeth (271 i b - 1 5 a ) . T h e notion of a curse is not introduced until well
after the hero's death, and Beowulf is a time-bound narrative in which
later events do not explain earlier ones. Neither need one take the
curse as causing the prospective ill-fortune of the Geats during the pe-
riod that is to follow the hero's death and burial. T h e Geats are the
cause of their own ill-fortune. Their cowardice during the dragon
fight, when known, will act as a magnet for Swedes, Franks, Frisians,
and any other tribes looking for easy plunder. Moreover, the Christian
terms in which the punishments to be effected by the curse are ex-
pressed (3069-733) have no relation to the misfortunes that are fore-
seen in the "Messenger's Prophecy" ( 3 0 i 5 b - 2 7 ) . These are of a mil-
itary character and have to do with the feared subjection of the Geats
to hostile tribes, not with their suffering plagues and hellish confine-
ment for their sins. Altogether, the curse is a minor flaw when taken
as a truncated motif and a major headache when taken as a motif that
silently guides or controls any events in the poem's close. T h e curse
has its own integrity in the scene in which it occurs, but thereafter, one
had best forget it as quickly and effortlessly as a folktale audience for-
gets a magic mountain or an audience listening to a Serbian singer
forgets a suit of borrowed armor.
Hrothulf's supposed treachery against members of the Danish court
BARBARIC S T Y L E 175
is another motif whose importance has been exaggerated by those who
see it as a central concern of the poet, when it probably amounts to no
more than a truncated motif, if it is not an outright invention of mod-
ern readers.19 The supposed treachery of Hrothulf is entirely a prod-
uct of critical extrapolation from the words "their peace was yet un-
broken" (1164b) and "the Danes were committing no wrongful acts
at that time" ( ioi8b-i9)—words that may point to some kind of fu-
ture quarrel or, in the second passage, some kind of past quarrel but
that do not say how this quarrel will or did come about. While a veiled
allusion to future treachery may be present in one or both of these
passages, I am not sure that one should make an issue of what the poet
chooses not to say. The poet never gives us enough information to
judge Hrothulf's character one way or another. T o assume that the
audience was so familiar with Hrothulf's bad character that the poet
needed to say nothing about it is guesswork that does not have the
support of Norse tradition, in which the character of Hrothulf's equiv-
alent, Hrólfr, is exemplary. In any event, several enigmatic hints do
not make a dominant theme, any more than several doubtful stars
make a constellation. Either the poet did not know of any future
treachery on Hrothulf's part or he chose to suppress this theme. The
motif of Hrothulf's treachery, if present, should be considered trun-
cated and is best left aside from evaluations of the main action, in
which the Danes generally appear in a favorable light, with the excep-
tion of Unferth and Heremod, whose former crimes may be the sort to
which allusion is made.

U In sum, the old Germanic poetic style that is illustrated in Beowulf


is marked by the occasional use of a word or phrase without regard to
its narrative context; an occasional disregard for ordinary relations of
time and space; a lack of psychological depth in the characterization of
lesser figures, and the consistent subordination of such figures to the
principle of contrast; the relative independence of each scene from
others, and the consequent presence of narrative inconsistencies; and
the introduction of motifs that lead nowhere. This style is best ap-
proached in its own terms, as the expression of an artistic impulse
whose probable mode of delivery was public, time-bound, and ceremo-
nial. The poet disregards narrative verisimilitude in the process of
creating an imaginative composition whose parts are related by theme
and inner significance, not mere appearance. To borrow a phrase from
i76 STYLE AND STRUCTURE
Blake, the poet sees through and not with the eye. He does so not as a
visionary artist pursuing private dreams but as an author who uses his
art to express values whose authority derives from communal assent.
While the style that finds full expression in Beowulf had its origins
in an oral verse-making technique, in its mature form it may well have
existed independently of any one mode of versifying. What is in ques-
tion is not merely a way of composing poetry but a way of perceiving
the world. When read with attention to its style, the poem assumes the
character of an artifact that expresses the aesthetics of its age. Without
intending to do so, it sums up a particular kind of aristocratic vision of
the world. In all its complexity, it expresses its age as eloquently as
does the whole concept of the Sutton Hoo ship burial, with all its trea-
sures and tools cunningly assembled to form a community's monu-
ment for a dead king, and the poem does so less enigmatically because
it uses words. Words slip, bend, and crack under the strain of express-
ing true relationships, and the difficulty of ascertaining the full mean-
ing of words over a distance of many centuries needs no comment.
Still, despite all their inexactitude and all the uncertainties involved in
their interpretation, words joined to words are capable of expressing
the ethos of a culture more expressively than the mute artifacts that fill
our museums.
Because the words that express the heroic ethos of Beowulf are
locked into a style whose idiosyncrasies may not be immediately ap-
parent, I have thought it wise to clarify this style before addressing
any major interpretive issues. As I begin to address these now, my
conclusions will follow from the concept of barbaric style advanced
here. The central view of the poem remains the same: as an abstract,
nonrepresentational work of art that splits and recombines the ele-
ments of everyday perception to show the spiritual or ethical relations
that lie behind things.
9. THE DIMENSION OF TIME

IN folktales, time is linear. Event follows event in a chronological

sequence whose forward progress remains unbroken. Rarely does


the narrator interrupt this steady flow of events with expressions such
as, "While all this was going on, the prince had . . ." or, "Twenty
years previously, the girl's parents had arranged . . ." The heroes and
heroines of folktales stand without relation to time past and time fu-
ture: one knows nothing of their genealogy or tribal history, and their
fate after marriage or the accomplishment of their goal remains un-
known. The folktale narrator takes care to remove the story from the
realm of historical time with the very first words: "Es war einmal," or
"Once upon a time."
This is essentially the method of a short heroic narrative like "At-
lakviSa" or the "Hildebrandslied," except that the "once upon a time"
of the story is located in history. Events stand in stark isolation. The
heroic lay begins in the midst of action and follows this action more or
less swiftly through to its end. Concerning the prehistory or future
fate of the characters one is told very little, although these matters
may be familiar from other stories.
In Beowulf, all is otherwise. Almost no other feature of the poem's
composition distinguishes it so clearly from the narrative mode of the
folktale or the heroic lay as does its handling of the dimension of time.
From the beginning, the hero is set into a complex net of temporal in-
terdependencies that range from the beginning of Creation (with the
scop's song in Heorot) to the day of the final dissolution of time (with
the references to Doomsday). The hero's byrnie is an heirloom that
links him to the time of Weland. He introduces himself by speaking of
his father Ecgtheow, son-in-law of the former Geatish king Hrethel
and brother-in-law of the reigning king Hygelac, and Ecgtheow was
once sheltered by Hrothgar the Dane. Hrothgar, in turn, is given a ge-
nealogy that extends back through Healfdene to the legendary Scyld
Scefing. Even Grendel and Grendel's mother are given a pedigree,
179
ι8ο INTERPRETATION
one going back to the time of Cain and Abel. The dragon, the
dragon's hoard, and the sword hilt taken from the mere are all given
histories that bring us hundreds or thousands of years back into the
past. Unferth speaks of Beowulf s youth; Wiglaf recalls prior gift-giv-
ing; Beowulf himself takes a retrospective view of his entire life. Nar-
rative movement between present and past can occur at any moment,
on practically any pretext. Sometimes the movement is between pre-
sent and future, as when Beowulf tells what he thinks will happen con-
cerning Ingeld, or when the narrator tells what he knows will happen
to Wealhtheow's necklace. Each stage of the action can thus be seen
(and often must be seen) not in isolation but in a temporal dimension
of richness and depth.1
This is not to say that the action of the poem can be plotted on a
time-line like the events of history. The chronology of the poem is left
vague; the past is like a pit into which all former things have fallen.
The action is set "in days of old," not 233 years after the Incarnation
of Christ and 6 years into the reign of the Emperor Constantine, like
the action of Cynewulf s Elene. This is the clock of clerical history,
and it is not running in Beowulf. We know when the battle of Brun-
anburh was fought, but the battle of Ravensburh cannot easily be
dated. If one event to which the poet refers, the Rhineland raid in
which Hygelac met his death, can be ascribed a definite date, this is
only because Frankish clerical historians wrote of the same raid as
having taken place in A.D. 521.
The sketchiness of spatial relationships in Beowulf is thus balanced
by an intricate, interlocking set of temporal relationships that lose
nothing in depth for being left somewhat imprecise. T o say that
these relationships can be fitted to a straightforward scheme of
"past," "present," and "future" would be an oversimplification. The
uniform progression of time through three such divisions—a natural
enough idea to modern Europeans and Americans—has not seemed
natural to all peoples at all times, as cultural anthropologists have
taken pains to point out. Nor was it necessarily a concept that seemed
natural to Germanic tribesmen, with their two-tense verb system of
"past" and "nonpast" time (sometimes misleadingly called "past" and
tt .>1\
present ).
Even if it was, such a concept does not do justice to the complexity
of temporal relationships that figure in the poem. In Beowulf, time
"past" can mean the time of the action of the poem: that is, the "nar-
THE DIMENSION OF TIME 181
rative present" that unfolds as one follows the hero's fortunes in Den-
mark and in his homeland. It can also refer to the more distant period
of history that preceded the action of the poem, the period of such
kings as Healfdene, Hrethel, and Ongentheow, or the yet more re-
mote period of legendary heroes who are harder to place in time
(Heremod, Sigemund, Weland). "Past" time can also partake of fu-
turity, as when one hears what will happen to Ingeld or Hygelac or to
the Geats after Beowulf s death. "Present" time refers most immedi-
ately to those few hours when, one is intended to imagine, the narrator
of the poem performed his work before an audience of listeners. The
manuscript text of Beowulf that can be read in the British Library
today, however, was written by a scribe sometime later than when the
poem was first orally performed (assuming that it was orally per-
formed); it could have been read or copied at any time thereafter,
given the presence of a literate person to consult it; and of course it
can be read in edited versions in print all over the world today. For any
such scribe or reader, whether of the eleventh century or the twen-
tieth, "present" time means first of all the time in which the reader
lives, whereas the time of the poem's imagined performance is now
likely to appear as "past" as the events that are said to take place in
sixth-century Scandinavia. To complicate matters further, the poet
refers several times to events that are to take place in the more or less
distant future (Doomsday) or that are thought to have taken place in
the distant biblical past (the Creation or Flood). These events are so
far removed from recorded Germanic history that one can speak of
them as belonging to a kind of mythic time.
These various relationships will perhaps become more clear if they
are summarized in a list:

Mythic past (Creation, Cain and Abel, Flood)


Legendary past ("timeless" heroes, such as Sigemund, Weland)
Historical past:
Narrative past (Hrethel, Ongentheow, and so on)
Narrative present (Beowulf's adventures)
Narrative future (fate of the Geats, and so on)
Present of poem's performance (real or imagined)
Present of reading the text
Mythic future (Doomsday).
i82 INTERPRETATION
The distinction between these categories is not as neat as might be as-
sumed. They form a continuum, and narrative movement between
them is rapid. The term mythic does not mean "fictive" or "ahistori-
cal," for example, for the myths were believed to be true stories. Leg-
endary also does not mean "ahistorical"; the term simply implies that
the deeds of such a legendary hero as Sigemund cannot be located in
history as precisely as can the deeds of, say, Ongentheow or Hygelac.
In addition, although Beowulf the hero and king appears squarely in
the midst of what is presented as the "historical" past, not the slightest
evidence indicates that he was ever a historical personage, as many of
the incidental characters of the poem are known to have been. His ad-
ventures are pure fiction, although they are told as if they once took
place. The destruction of the Geats foretold in the last part of the
poem, likewise, may or may not have occurred in history.
Each time-frame contributes something different to the texture of
the whole and is worth considering in turn.
I. The mythic past. Long before the "days of old" during which the
main action of the poem is imagined to be taking place, God estab-
lished the earth, the sea, the sun, and the moon and gave life to all liv-
ing things. The Creation of which the scop sings in lines çob-çS is the
first and greatest of the miracles that figure in the poem, and it is not
by accident that the poet raises the theme of God's all-encompassing
power early on.
The mythic past is introduced to the narrative not only to account
for the origins of human beings and the physical universe, or the
source of the evil represented by the Grendel creatures, but to make
manifest, through familiar examples, the living power of God. The
three miracles that occur in the central part of the poem—the shining
of a light "like the sun" at the moment of the hero's victory over
Grendel's mother, the melting of the blade of the giant sword, and the
miraculous cleansing of the waters of Grendel's mere—are all linked
to the Creation through their source in the power of God, who seems
to take a personal interest in Beowulf's fate. If the mythic time of the
Creation had not been introduced, one would still encounter miracles
in the main action of the poem, but their source would not be known.
The poem would be transformed from what it is—in part, a story of
the ways in which God intervenes in human affairs to help those who
help themselves—into a set of merely fabulous adventures.
While the scop's song reminds us of God as beneficent creator, the
T H E DIMENSION OF T I M E 183
several allusions to the Flood and the exile of Cain show us the same
God as destroyer, or as having the potential to destroy. The narrator
makes no secret of God's vengeful powers, for these powers were re-
vealed when the giants rose against Him. " H e paid them back for
that," the narrator emphatically affirms (114b). Those two aspects of
the Deity, His creative and destructive sides, are first introduced
within twenty lines of one another in the initial fitt of the poem, and
they set the stage for the action that is to ensue, for the allusion to
God's destructive potential is followed in the next verse by the first
steps of Grendel toward Heorot (115a). Thus the Grendel episode is
not only accompanied by miracles that recall the Creation, but from
the first, it recalls God's destructive powers as well. It is presented in
terms that identify it as a latter-day resurfacing of a feud that began
with Cain's killing of Abel and resumed with the giants' war against
God. 2 One therefore knows that Grendel is born to lose, as surely as
God sits in heaven, and one knows that whatever violence the hero
uses against the Grendel creatures is justified as an act of God's will.
The mythic past is thus important for its potential "presentness" as
well. Hrothgar knows this. He reminds the hero of it in his famous
exhortatory speech (1700-84), the homiletic part of which begins with
an acknowledgment of the continuing universal rule of God, who
"rules over all" (1727b). Hrothgar appropriately thanks God, not
Beowulf, for the hero's victories (928-9293, I778b-8i). Beowulf is
also aware of the potential presentness of mythic time, as one sees, for
example, when he remarks that he would have died in Grendel's un-
derwater hall if the Lord had not guarded him and helped him find the
sword forged by giants before the Flood (i657b-Ó4). And the narra-
tor explicitly assures us that Beowulf is right. The Lord did help the
hero regain his feet at the critical moment (i553b-5Ó), just as He
gave him his strength in the first place ( i 2 7 o b - 7 i , 2 i 8 i b - 8 2 ) , sent
him to Denmark as a savior (665b-668), and helped him defeat Gren-
del (1056-573), Earlier, God had acted similarly by sending the an-
cestral king Beow to the Danes during a time of need ( 1 3 b - 1 7 ) . The
hero's knowledge of God's ever-present power to defeat evil is in fact
what chiefly permits him to achieve his victories, which he wins by a
combination of strength and faith (1269-743):

í>aer him aglaeca aetgraepe wearS;


hwaejjre he gemunde maegenes strenge,
I84 INTERPRETATION
gimfeste gife, Se him God sealde,
ond him to Anwaldan are gelyfde
frofre ond fultum; Sy he f)one feond ofercwom,
gehnsegde helle gast.
There the terrible one gripped him fast,
but he remembered his strength and might,
the glorious gift that God had given him,
and he kept his faith in the Lord's favor,
His grace and help; by these means he managed
to defeat his enemy and lay the demon low.

Throughout the Grendel episode, the same lesson is driven home: the
creative and destructive powers that God manifested with awesome
effect in the time of Genesis can manifest themselves at any moment in
history, given sufficient need.
During the last third of the poem, conspicuously little reference is
made to the mythic past. The Creation, the banishment of Cain, and
the Flood form a background for the Grendel episode but not for the
hero's last combat. Neither the narrator nor Beowulf makes an issue of
the importance of keeping faith in God's favor, and one is not sure that
the aged king has God's blessing when he fights the dragon.
Some critics have made much of these facts and have thought that
the hero's actions are spiritually flawed. Such a conclusion is unneces-
sary, because a different set of narrative needs governs the dragon
fight. T o be blunt, the third great fight is introduced first and fore-
most to provide the hero with a suitable death. This the poet does by
supplying him with an opponent who is both formidable and spiritually
neutral. The dragon is bad, but as we have seen, it is not demonic in
the sense that the Grendel creatures are. It is not given a genealogy
going back to the beginnings of time, and when the poet lists the vari-
ous unpleasant creatures who were part of the brood of Cain
(111-114) dragons are not among them. The mythic dimension of
time is not evoked during the dragon fight, I believe, because the poet
does not want this episode to be considered a new chapter in the con-
tinuing feud of God against His enemies. Instead of a story of a savior
who rescues a people from a demon, one is told of a battle between
two great adversaries. If this battle results in death for the hero as well
as his inhuman opponent, one may grieve at this unhappy outcome
but not shudder as one might have done if God's enemies had
T H E DIMENSION OF T I M E
triumphed. Such an ending would truly have been catastrophic, but
this is not what the poet gives us.
Beowulf s relative silence concerning his faith in the Lord's protec-
tion is therefore understandable, for the king is to be killed. If the poet
had made an issue of the old man's keeping his faith in God, this faith
would have been belied by the ensuing course of events. The poet
finds a happier solution by simply avoiding the topic of God's interest
in protecting heroes, just as he avoids alluding to the mythic past and
refrains from introducing miracles.
The last third of the poem includes only three allusions to God's
powers, and none of them builds up false hopes concerning Beowulf s
chances to avoid the fate that lies in store for all of us. The first is to
the effect that "undoomed men" (unfœge) can easily escape trouble if
the Lord protects them (2291-933). That Beowulf is not "un-
doomed" is frequently remarked upon. The second occurs when Wig-
laf tries in vain to revive his dead king (2858-59). Emphasis here is on
God's power to take away heroes, not to preserve them. The third al-
lusion comes when Wiglaf notes that even though the king's compan-
ions forsook him shortly before his death, God as dispenser of victories
granted Beowulf the ability and opportunity to avenge himself with his
own blade (2873-76). Here, if I am not mistaken, Wiglafs words boil
down to not much more than a statement to the effect that "even
though you ran, thank God that the king did not die unavenged." A
curious reader might ask why, if the Lord was concerned with saving
Beowulf s reputation, He did not care more about saving his life, but
such a question misses the point. The hero's death is not only a fore-
gone conclusion but a narrative necessity if the poet is to express the
guiding theme of this part of the story, the theme of the possibility of
heroic action in the face of a fate that will not be turned aside.
2. The legendary past plays a simpler role. In brief, this is the age of
exemplary heroes who lived, fought, ruled, and died before the time of
the actors who figure in this poem and their immediate ancestors. It is
the age of Sigemund, "most famous of exiles far and wide" (898),
whose career represents the fulfillment of the heroic ideal and whose
dragon fight presages Beowulf's own. It is the age of Weland, the
master smith, who in the Eddie "VçlundarkviSa," as in "Deor," rep-
resents the type of hero who lived to carry out full vengeance for prior
sufferings. O f the great kings named in the poem, at least two, possi-
bly four, could be said to have lived their lives in this legendary past.
ι86 INTERPRETATION
Scyld Scefing clearly is introduced as a representative of the ideal of
kingship, while Heremod represents the counter-ideal. The allusion to
Eormenric (i200b-0i) is too brief to reveal what the poet thought of
him, but since reference is made to his "crafty enmity," probably one
is to call to mind the wolfish disposition that is attributed to him in
"Deor," "HamSismál," and Vqlsungasaga. Like Heremod, he may
have exemplified how the power of a great king can lead to disaster for
his people when unrestrained by self-control. On the other hand, the
great Anglian king Offa I is praised for his generosity, wisdom, and
valor. Like Scyld, he represents the ideal of heroic kingship, and he
fulfills this ideal so well that he wins praise as "the best of humankind
between both seas" ( 1955-57 a)·
The chief function of the legendary past is thus to provide "time-
less" models of conduct to be imitated or avoided. When Beowulf is
praised, it is by comparison with Sigemund. When he is warned, it is
by allusion to Heremod. When a necklace is to be praised, likewise,
the poet can think of no better way to do so than by comparing it to
the great Brosinga mene, a treasure that is probably to be identified
with the necklace of the goddess Freya that figures in "PrymskviÖa."
The legendary past is an age of unqualified superlatives whose heroes
embody the absolutes of good and evil against which other people can
be measured or can measure themselves.
3. The historicalpast during which the main action of the poem takes
place can be regarded as a second heroic age intermediate between the
legendary past and our own day. While linked to the legendary past by
dynastic history, inherited weapons, or moral comparisons, the people
of this period stand apart from it as complex figures subject to human
weakness. Although their character or conduct is often described in
superlative terms, it is rarely exemplary, for whatever the stature of
such people may be, they rarely embody pure good or evil. Their
strength is tempered by weakness, their wisdom flawed by foolishness,
in a complex amalgam that comes closer to what one expects of real
people in the natural world.
The two kings of part I of the poem complement each other's im-
perfections, for example. Each represents an imbalance of the two de-
sired qualities of wisdom and fortitude.3 Whereas the old Hrothgar is
as wise as could be wished, his fortitude (in the martial sense) is all in
the past; and whereas the young Hygelac is strong and brave, his ca-
pacity for heroic action is untempered by wisdom. Each therefore suf-
T H E DIMENSION OF T I M E 187

fers: Hrothgar lives in misery for the twleve years of Grendel's at-
tacks, and Hygelac leaves his bones bleaching at the mouth of the
Rhine.
Other subsidiary characters share such a mixed role. Unferth is a
rascal and a fratricide. Nonetheless, Beowulf praises him as a good
warrior ( 1 8 1 0 - i i a ) , and the surly Dane neither offers a physical fight
nor is made into an exemplar of evil on the order of Heremod. Wiglaf
impeccably fulfills the duties of kinship and loyalty, and the effective-
ness of his sword-play in the dragon fight leads one to expect nothing
but good of him in the future. Still, no hope is offered that he will be-
come such a commanding king as to deter neighboring tribes from at-
tacking the Geats. W e know too little about the other male characters
to judge them as good or evil. Chiefly they are important as the agents
or victims of violence, not as heroes. Collectively, the Danes, like the
Geats, win praise but not respect, äschere and Hondscioh are passive
victims. Among the women, Wealhtheow, Freawaru, and Hygd all
seem admirable for their grace and generosity at the feast, but their
roles are incidental and do not leave room for a display of heroism like
that of GuSrun in the Eddie lays or self-will like Hallgerd's in Nja/'s
Saga. The one woman in the poem who has an exemplary function is
Offa's queen Thryth (or Modthryth), who is damned for her violent
self-will and praised for later having reformed ( 1 9 3 ^ - 5 4 ) . Like Offa,
she is a peripheral character who does not take part in the action.
Beowulf towers above these flawed or incomplete people. He ob-
scures his lesser companions, and in his combination of strength and
magnanimity, he seems to unite in one person the characteristics of a
mythic savior and a legendary warrior-king. His tragedy, if one can
call it that, is that even as an archetypal figure he is subject to a histori-
cal world, our world, whose iron laws are change and death. If any
leitmotif runs through Hrothgar's long homiletic address to the hero
(1700-84), it is this theme of inexorable reversals to which all human
life is subject. The reversal of fortune evident in Heremod's or Hroth-
gar's career warns what could happen to any man. In historical time,
change is the rule: pride grows great, the body decays, one man's
throne is given over to another, life itself is lœne, "on loan" (1754b).
The legendary strength in which the young Beowulf exults is his only
ane hwile, "for a while" (1762a). Hrothgar speaks true, and in the last
part of the poem one sees the hero tragically forced by his own inner
convictions to fight as he had in his youth, but without a young man's
188 INTERPRETATION
strength. The bleak ending of the poem reminds one of the fate that
awaits all men and women, even the most exemplary hero, in a transi-
tory world bound by time.
4. The present tense of the poem stands clearly apart from the past
action that it describes, all of which takes place "in former days," "in
that day," or "in that day of this life.'' 4 Aside from knowing that this
present is not past, however, one can identify it only in the most gen-
eral terms. The poem yields very little information about the date of
its composition or performance in pre-Conquest England. Probably
this vagueness is deliberate, for it permits the poem a sort of contem-
poraneity that would not have been possible if the narrator had dated
his own age precisely.
The present is identifiable chiefly through narrative asides, as when
the poet refers to one year's giving way to the next "as it still does"
(1134b). The same formula is used to describe the ever-present reality
of the power of God, who ruled over the men of that day "as He still
does" (1058b). God has power over times and seasons ( i 6 i o b - i i a ) ;
the sky's candle shines from heaven now as it always has (1571-723);
the Father loosens the lock of ice on the waters each spring in a never-
ending cycle (1608-11); dragons seek out barrows in which to live.
These are the eternals of the natural world, and they are matched by
corresponding eternal relationships in human affairs as well. While
God's power is unchanging, human fortune is subject to cyclical
change like that of nature. " A person who lives long in this world of
strife will meet much that is welcome, much unwelcome," the narrator
takes care to point out (io6ob-62). Beowulf shows every indication of
being aware of the constants that govern human existence. He makes
them the cornerstone of his philosophy of life, which is a philosophy of
action. "Everyone's life is bound to end," as he says just before risking
his; "the best thing is to win a good name before you die" (1386-89).
The essence of such gnomic statements is that they blunt the teeth
of time by expressing what once was, is now, and ever shall be.5 God
rules unmoved; all else moves, seasons and men, for good and for ill, in
a perpetual cycle of change. In these essential features, the historical
age in which the main action of the poem takes place is our own. W e
all grow old and die, as Hrothgar reminds us. Good fortune gives way
to ill, and one king's bad rule is replaced by another's better one.
These things have happened before and will happen again. Toward
the end of the poem the Geatish messenger grimly prophesies that the
fifty years of peace during Beowulf s reign will give way to unparal-
T H E DIMENSION OF TIME 189

leled disasters from foreign invasion. One need not conclude that the
cyclical course of human affairs will therefore cease, for in turn, these
disasters will eventually become a thing of the past. Those enemies
who had prospered at the Geats' expense will be made to suffer in
turn, much as Hrothgar had lived to find solace for his afflictions and
much as the Danes had suffered before the Lord sent them the strong
kings Scyld and Beow. Human misfortune is nothing new in the world,
and like good fortune it will not last forever.
T h e historical age is repeatedly linked to the present, then, by the
narrator's assurances that fundamental constants in human existence
exist as they do in the natural world. Without such constants Beowulf
could not be the exemplary tale that it is. It would have to remain a
sort of historical romance of interest for its adventures and for its nos-
talgic picture of the past, not for its ethical teachings. Comments such
as "thus should a person do" and "thus should a kinsman do" would
express the heroic code of a past age but would not reverberate with
the currentness of meaning that they carry. A t the end of the poem,
that currentness of its values is strongly reaffirmed. T h e king dies
"just as anyone must relinquish his borrowed life" (259ob-ç)ia). T h e
treasure that is buried with him is still there, lying in the ground, an
imaginary tangible link between past and present (3167). T h e king's
chief thanes mourn him just as it is, not was, fitting that a man praise
his lord when he dies (3174). Through the narrator's asides, the values
of heroic society are identified as ones by which people can live today.
What the poem offers is thus not only a set of exemplars drawn
from the "timeless" realm of legendry, but a set of assurances that he-
roic ideals have had validity in our own time. It affirms that such ideals
have been previously put into practice without meaning disaster to
those who have followed them. It shows that those who live by high
ideals, like Beowulf, are rewarded. When disaster does fall in the
poem, it falls on those whose behavior abnegates the heroic ideal, peo-
ple like Heremod, the Danes who flee before Grendel, or the Geats
who desert their king, and not on Beowulf, whose only misfortune is
to die like a man and whose unyielding integrity wins him both fame
on earth and salvation in heaven.
This discussion of present time, however, refers only to the present
of the poem's performance. What of the other present tense that
enters into the texture of the work, the present tense of our reading it
now?6
Few if any current readers can approach archaic literature unin-
INTERPRETATION
fluenced by knowledge of the developments that have changed the
face of the globe since the time this literature was produced. Between
the prefeudal tribal society depicted in Beowulf and the enormously
more complex commercial nation-state of today, there extends a gulf
so great that historical criticism can only begin to bridge it. Heroism is
out of fashion today. Money is dirty. God, if not dead, averts His face.
Leaders, particularly, do not personally risk their lives for their people.
The concept of tribal community, central to the poem, has crumbled
away to insignificance between the opposed ideals of rugged individu-
alism and devotion to the giant state. Even in trying to read the poem
in the spirit of its age, inevitably one imports to it one's knowledge and
cultural preconceptions. At best, such knowledge and preconceptions
can change the coloring of certain passages. At worst, they can affect
one's entire reading of the work.
The supposed destruction of the Geats is an instance of the lesser
evil. Toward the end of the poem, an unnamed messenger assures the
Geats (and the narrator confirms in an aside) that their cowardly be-
havior presages a period of national disaster. Swedes, Franks, and Fri-
sians will invade the realm; women will walk the paths of exile stripped
of their treasures (2099-3027). Modern historians are aware that at
some point during the earlier Middle Ages, the historical tribe of the
Geats lost its separate identity and was absorbed by neighbors. The
"Messenger's Prophecy" is thus sometimes read as an allusion to some
kind of genocide that the Beowulf narrator and his audience knew to
have taken place.7
Although commonly accepted, such a reading goes beyond what the
poet suggests. In history, as Kenneth Sisam has pointed out,8 the
Geats may have been absorbed peacefully. We do not know the cir-
cumstances in which they dropped out of history, but their disappear-
ance as an independent tribe may have long postdated the text of the
poem. In the poem, the Geats are said to be about to suffer the ravages
of war, but given the unsettled conditions of life in that age, little is
unusual about this prospect. What is unusual is that for the past fifty
years they have not had to wage war, thanks to their king's success in
keeping the peace against habitual enemies. Overdue violence is about
to fall on them, but of supposed genocide the poet says nothing, and
extratextual half-knowledge should not color one's understanding of
this passage by painting its tragedies in darker tones.
The historical knowledge that present-day readers commonly pos-
T H E DIMENSION OF T I M E 191

sess is likely to distort one's understanding of major interpretive ques-


tions as well. When the young hero risks his life in Grendel's mere and
the narrator adds, "So should a person do . . . he cares not for his life
(i534b-3Óa), a modern reader is likely to nod assent as readily as
would an audience of Anglo-Saxons. Whether or not the same princi-
ple should be extended to the aged Beowulf s fight at the barrow is
another question. Most present-day readers would answer no. Still,
twentieth-century standards for evaluating where bravery stops and
foolhardiness begins are not necessarily those of the eighth or tenth
century, when leaders were expected to win the esteem and allegiance
of their followers by examples of personal bravery. Such examples
were not an indulgence; they were meant to be imitated. As an elev-
enth-century proverb sums up the matter, "The whole army is brave
when its general is." 9
In modern military affairs, high-ranking officers or heads of state do
not take unnecessary risks. They do not tempt injury or death, for
they know the importance of the stability of command in times of cri-
sis. If they have not learned how to delegate authority and risk, they
are not good leaders. At the United States army officer's training
school at West Point, for example, Beowulf has, recently been taught
to cadets as an admonitory tale of the disasters that can result "when
the leader abandons his role and reacts to the situation directly rather
than delegating responsibility for mission accomplishment to a mem-
ber or members of the group." 10 Outside military circles, on the other
hand, some readers' view of the poem can be influenced by their dis-
satisfaction with the ideal of personal sacrifice for something as vague
and impersonal as "the state." One might add that the ideal of winning
personal fame does not seem to excite the interest of a great number of
people today, while those attracted by such an ideal are more likely to
find what they seek by pursuing a career in film or popular music than
through death on a battlefield.
Without resolving the question of what the hero's final sacrifice in
Beowulf means, enough has been said to suggest that between the
present tense of the narrator and the present tense of the current
reader, there exists a gap that can contribute to a reader's discomfort
with the simple ethical judgments expressed in the text. That this dis-
comfort is a significant part of many modern readers' experience of the
poem is evident from a glance at the critical literature, which, unlike
the text, is filled with references to the hero's flaws.
192 INTERPRETATION
In later chapters I attempt to quiet some of this discomfort by of-
fering a response to the poem that dispenses with much of its supposed
irony. For the moment, I am content to suggest that even readers who
claim to approach the poem in the spirit of its age may unknowingly
find their reactions influenced by modern assumptions and values.
Present-day readers may find it hard to believe that dragons inhabit
barrows, that God controls human affairs, and that good leaders risk
their lives for their people, but an audience of Anglo-Saxons may have
accepted all these notions without raised eyebrows. A fair reading of
Beowulf, it seems to me, is one that seeks to minimize the effects of the
distorting lens of time by using all one's imagination and all one's
scholarly resources to make the two presents of the poem coincide as
much as possible. Once the poem is read and understood on its own
terms, then, and only then, should its values be judged by modern
standards.
5. The mythic future is introduced to the poem only in passing, but
its significance should not be minimized on that account. Middle
Earth, after all, earns its name not only because it occupies a position
midway between the sky and the underworld or midway between two
seas, but because the events that take place on it occur in a temporal
middle ground between the Creation and the final dissolution. Al-
though God's final judgment of humankind is affirmed by only a few
verses (977b~979, 3069a, perhaps 2741a and 3083b), the prospect of
judgment is implicitly present throughout the poem. Similarly, the re-
ality of Christ's Incarnation is also implicit—in fact, it is never men-
tioned—not because the poet did not care about the Incarnation, but
because he chose to avoid both the problems of anachronism that
would have arisen if he had depicted his heroes as worshipers of Christ,
and the alternative problems of theme that would have plagued him if
he had had to damn his heroes for not worshiping Christ. In general,
the poet does not make more of theological questions because his em-
phasis is elsewhere. His vision is not eschatological. By taking final
things for granted, he is able to assume, without belaboring, an ideo-
logical framework within which he is able to carry out his main artistic
purpose: to depict societies in trouble and a hero who tries to set things
right.
Still, the poet is aware that his fictive characters must be imagined
as subject not only to the ethical judgments of the audience but to the
final judgment of God. Beowulf's soul departs to seek out soïSfœstra
dorn, "the judgment that accrues to the righteous." 11 Scyld, like
T H E DIMENSION OF T I M E 193
Beowulf, goes "into the Lord's keeping" (27b), while the aged
Hrethel dies in the manner of a "blessed" man and finds "God's light"
(2469-70). Heremod, Unferth, and Grendel, on the contrary, are all
imagined as suffering (or being about to suffer) the torments of hell.12
One is to be saved or damned; there is no middle ground. The dom
that awaits the hero is not only the judgment of human beings who re-
member the high deeds of those who have gone before, but also the
judgment that awaits the souls of those who have lived their lives in
good conscience and have kept faith with God and their fellow men.
Thus one finds in Beowulf a mythic future that answers to the
mythic past and thereby provides a framework within which all pro-
fane history takes its course. This frame helps to define the nature of
human tragedy by defining its limits.
At the end of the poem one finds no Ragnarçk, no Götterdäm-
merung. There is no dialectic here between Norse and Christian
mythologies, as some would have it. 13 In Ragnarçk, according to
Snorri's account, Thor falls victim to the World Serpent and suffers
final defeat along with the other pagan gods. In Beowulf, the hero kills
his dragon (who is a flesh-and-blood flying dragon and not a mytholog-
ical creature), and then his soul finds salvation. If the Geats are to suf-
fer as they fight for their lives against their neighbors, that is their
problem, not God's. This is part of the endless up-and-down of his-
tory. After all, the Geats and Swedes are not engaged in a cosmic feud
in which the Swedes represent the antichrist. Just as one need not ele-
vate local disturbances in Germanic tribal history into some sort of
doom of the pagan gods, one need not magnify the Geats' troubles by
turning them into a presage of the "ultimate failure" of God's rule and
"the final return of chaos." 14 While such a view may have a certain
post-Nietzschean appeal, the poet himself is not so heretical. Fear of
the ultimate failure of God's rule may well be an occasional response to
the global wars and acts of genocide of our own time, but there is little
to be gained by projecting such fear back into the Germanic period
and attaching them to tribal rivalries that provide the background for
this poem. In Beowulf the mythic future, insofar as it has a role to
play, promises an end to the chaos of history by offering a vision of the
triumph of the absolute justice of God. Within the chaos of history,
the poet shows us a hero who lives by high standards so that when he
dies—swa sceal œghwylc mon, "as everyone must" (2590b)—he can
take leave of a life well spent.
* * *
194 INTERPRETATION
In Beowulf, therefore, events do not succeed one another in a
progressive linear sequence, as in most folktales and short narrative
lays. They unfold in slow, measured growth. Events are rooted in the
past, and their implications extend into the future into space yet unoc-
cupied by anything tangible. They are wrapped in layers of allusions to
other analogous events from the realms of history and legend. Their
beginnings might remind one of the Creation and their ends of the
world's final dissolution; nevertheless, the poet's emphasis is not on ul-
timate things but on the integrity of human action in a time-bound
world.
In the last third of the poem, movement between present and past
becomes so rapid that careless readers are in danger of losing track of
the narrative in its overgrowth of historical allusions. The Swedish
history is not easy to keep in mind, particularly when it is presented in
fragments that must be pieced together like shards. The prehistory of
the dragon's treasure is notoriously hard to reconstruct from the poet's
several scattered references. One critic speaks of the "ebb and flow of
time-boundaries" throughout the dragon episode; another of the "pris-
matic" effect of the poet's digressive methods; a third aptly writes that
in this part of the poem, "history is not made, it is studied." 15
Readers looking for a straightforward story toward the end of the
poem will be disappointed, especially if their interest in early Scandi-
navian history is cooler than that manifested by the Beowulf poet. The
poet shows an odd disinclination to get on with the business of the
dragon fight until he has set it against a background of generations of
rivalry in the tribal history of the North. All the same, his method
here differs only in degree, rather than in kind, from his method in
earlier parts of the poem. In those earlier episodes, too, the great nar-
rative action in which Heorot was cleansed was set into finely inter-
locking temporal relations. By the time this section of the poem has
come to an end, one knows the fates of four generations of Danish
kings and has been introduced to a fifth; one knows of three genera-
tions of Geatish leaders, including Hrethel, Ecgtheow, Hygelac, and
Beowulf himself; one has heard of Sigemund, Heremod, Eormenric,
Hama, Hnaef, Finn, Hengest, Hildeburh, Offa, and Offa's queen; one
knows of Beowulf s inglorious youth, his swimming contest with
Breca, and Unferth's fratricide; and one anticipates the future destruc-
tion of Heorot, the future violence between Ingeld's Heathobards and
the Danes, and the future death of Hygelac in Friesland.
T H E DIMENSION OF T I M E 195
I therefore cannot agree with a concept of the poem as a three-part
drama in which Beowulf first is presented as an archetypal hero fight-
ing in a mythic period {in ilio tempore) to defend the "sacred pre-
cincts" of Heorot, then "begins his descent into the world of time"
with his descent into Grendel's mere, and eventually "enters history"
in the last part, when he becomes "an historical king rather than a
timeless hero." 16 On the contrary, mythic time and historical time are
intertwined from the moment the hero enters the scene. Beowulf does
not come from the unknown or depart into it, like Scyld or other ar-
chetypal saviors. He comes from the land of the Geats, where he is a
grandson of the former king, and he returns to his home there after
finishing his business in Denmark. Mythic time, legendary time, and
historical time are all present simultaneously in potentia from the be-
ginning of the poem to the end. At any moment, as a way of making
the involutions of the text more dense, the poet may allude to persons
or actions that pertain to any of these three modes of time. Thus a
given moment is not exactly a narrative event, for nothing much may
happen in it to advance the plot. It is rather a kind of narrative "cross-
roads" for the intersection of lines drawn from significant points in and
out of time.
I have singled out the dimension of time for discussion because,
more than almost any other feature of the poem's composition, it is
what sets this first great work of English literature apart from its con-
stituent elements of folktale and heroic legendry. If Beowulf is in some
sense an epic, it does not achieve epic fullness through geographic
comprehensiveness (for the action is narrowly localized) or through an
amplitude of elements in the plot (for the story is simple) or through a
parade of epic similes, invocations, or catalogues (for all of these are
absent). It does so by handling the dimension of time in a way that sets
the action into a network of temporal interdependencies. Rather than
compose events in accord with strict chronology, the poet allows them
to unfold in a slow, considered growth, as a hero's responses to three
separate threats are examined in the light of sacred history, profane
history, present-day existence, and the constant values that transcend
such distinctions.
Especially toward the end of the poem, when the epic style is at its
most leisurely, the narrative proceeds with such an indifference to
straightforward chronology that one could almost say that time in its
usual sense does not exist. What does exist is connection: the connec-
196 INTERPRETATION
tion of theme and theme, of cause and effect. T h e poet's handling of
time lifts his narrative from what it might have been—a fairy-tale writ
large—and turns it into an epic poem whose great concern is with
human values and whose mode is almost broodingly involuted.
IO. THE NARRATOR'S VOICE

T H E interpretation of a poem usually presupposes a "poet" and a


"reader." The poet is often known by name; the reader is usually
a convenient fiction, whether the author's or the critic's. The reader is
assumed to be a private audience. In addressing him or her, the poet is
often able to adopt a personal voice that may be ironic or confessional
in tone, for both irony and confession depend on a certain private bond
being established between the speaker and listener. In ironic discourse,
the private bond is assumed, while in confessional discourse it is estab-
lished.
T o some extent the interpretation of Beowulf can be based on these
conventional notions of poet and reader, but the terms do not entirely
fit the text. Even the notion of "the text" as the basis of our under-
standing is not entirely applicable, for the poem was not primarily a
text but a sequence of words spoken or sung by a performer. Like any
dramatic or semidramatic performance, it was a dynamic event shared
for a few hours by a performer and a listening audience. It did not
exist in isolation, especially not in isolation on the page, but was part of
an interchange among people who, in other ways as well, probably
made up a group.
For much of this chapter and the next, I put aside the notions of
poet and reader to concentrate on the more essential terms narrator
and audience. Normally these terms suggest a quiescent role for both.
An audience passively hears, while a narrator passively transmits a
text. I should like to use the terms in the more active sense that is ap-
propriate to the oral poetry of societies in which skilled performers are
chiefly responsible for creating and preserving a body of traditional
song. They cannot do so without audiences who bring their own spe-
cial knowledge to the performance and enter actively into the process,
whether by encouraging the singer or by perfecting the song in their
own minds. Literature of this kind is public property. The narrator
speaks with an impersonal voice that assumes some important experi-

197
198 INTERPRETATION
enee shared within the group. His tone is rarely ironic or confessional,
for he utters his words as a spokesman for all rather than as a person
sharing private perceptions.
An active narrator of this kind is sure to have provided the poem's
link to a live audience. This narrator presumably had a name and char-
acter of his own and impressed his character on the work at least to the
extent that a skilled musician or conductor impresses his character on a
piece of music today. Although this dimension of the performance is
lost, the role of the narrator in Beowulf is still not completely impossi-
ble to reconstruct, because the poet includes a part for him. From
early on, one is aware of the presence of an I, a speaker who is not
the poet himself but is the voice of the poet's alter ego in oral perform-
ance.1
It is this voice that recalls the action, orchestrates it in its imposing
detail, and mediates it by setting it within a value system that the lis-
tening audience would have recognized as its own. This voice is not
exactly a persona, in the sense that critics use the term to speak of
Chaucer's self-portrait in the Canterbury Tales or as Ezra Pound used
the term to refer to the different masks or personalities he adopted in
his shorter poems. Such a persona is always individualized and is often
playful or ironic: there is an important difference between Ezra Pound
and Pound's Propertius. In Beowulf one can make no such clear dis-
tinctions, for the poet's mask is nearly featureless. The chief function
of the narrator's voice is to validate the story and comment on it—to
"authenticate" it for the listeners.2 The habitual stance of the narrator
has been aptly described as one of "authority based on exceptional
knowledge about a common tradition."3
From the poem's first lines, the narrator suppresses his individuality
to present himself as one of the group, the other members of which
constitute the listening audience. "Lo, we have heard," he begins,
shunning the personal voice of the Anglo-Saxon elegies. The narrator
claims to speak only what is common knowledge.
Eventually this first-person plural voice merges almost unnoticeably
into the first-person singular. After the first line, as the story becomes
more specific, the narrator never again uses the pronoun we in relation
to his knowledge of his sources. A bare dozen times (in lines 38, 62,
74, i o n , 1027, 1196, 1197, 1842, 2163, 2172, 2694, and 2773) he
uses the pronoun / in phrases of the sort hyrde ic pœt, "I have heard
that"; or pa ic . . . gefrœgn, "I have heard, then . . ."; or, in compara-
T H E N A R R A T O R ' S VOICE 199

tive constructions, ne hyrde ic, "I have not heard o f " (a more comely
ship, or more generous king, and so forth). Another five times (in lines
776, 837, 1955, 2685, and 2837) he uses the fixed formula mine
gefrœge "by my account" or, perhaps, "according to my version of the
story." None of these phrases is meant to call up the idea of a human
being with an individual sensibility or with an original story to relate.
At the most, they suggest that the narrator speaks from his deep famil-
iarity with the stories of Germanic antiquity, a familiarity that he has
gained from oral tradition. Many stories of old times are told, the nar-
rator suggests. O f these he has chosen one for retelling.
Apart from these few instances of first-person asides, Beowulf may
seem to be a story that tells itself. Its immediate impression on a reader
is likely to be that of direct, unmediated narrative, much like that of
Genesis A or Exodus. The falsity of this impression becomes evident as
soon as one considers how frequently the narrator uses gnomic state-
ments, superlatives, and explicit ethical judgments to build up a grid of
belief against which the action he recounts can be plotted. The narra-
tor is not with us only intermittently, at moments when he speaks of
his having heard the story; he is a constant presence throughout. His
one great function is to put his listeners into the position of his ideal
audience, an audience that nods assent to all his judgments. Because
these judgments are not the property of any one person but have been
handed down as collective wisdom, the narrator does not really manip-
ulate his audience, as an author of propaganda might. One could think
of the poem as a process whereby a society's traditional system of
values or beliefs is articulated so that it can be appreciated more deeply
by all those present.
The narrator in Beowulf is not omniscient, though he has been
called that.4 He speaks what he knows of the actors in the story, much
as Hrothgar's thane recounts "just about all that he had heard said
concerning Sigemund's courageous deeds" (874.b-876a). Usually he
observes a respectful silence concerning things that no mortal could be
expected to know. "People know not how to say truly" who received
Scyld's funeral boat (5ob-5ia), just as "no one knows" the move-
ments of the secret creatures of hell (i62b-iÓ3). These matters he
accepts as mysteries. On the other hand, his knowledge of Beowulf's
adventures seems to have no limits, for he is able to describe, for ex-
ample, the hero's fortunes even at the bottom of Grendel's mere. At
one point he moves back in time to recount the words of a speaker
200 INTERPRETATION

who died hundreds of years before this story begins (2247-66). He


knows of Grendel's descent from Cain, even though there is no indi-
cation that the people in the narrative do, and he knows that Beowulf's
soul is saved, even though the Geats do not. T o call him "near-omnis-
cient" hits close to the mark. 5 Although like many a storyteller he
sometimes claims knowledge that no one could really possess, he more
often plays the role of an informal historian who repeats what he has
heard from common report.
For the most part, his aphoristic asides are truisms: God rules
over the human race (700b~702a, 10570-58); everyone has to die
(2590b-gia); death is not easy to flee (ioo2b-o8a); misery awaits
the souls of the damned, bliss the souls of the saved (183b-!88); life
holds good and bad in store for everyone (io6ob-62); a person who
has the Lord's favor can survive any difficulty (2291-933); a good
leader prospers through his generosity (20-25); kinsmen should be
true to one another (2i66b-69a, 2Óoob-oi); gold does dragons
little good (2275b-77); winning treasure from a dragon is no easy
task (2415b-16); a good retainer will praise his lord after his death
(31740-77). These are the sorts of commonplaces that the narrator
lets fall whenever the situation asks for them, as if one of his duties
as spokesman for the tribe was to generalize from the particular to
the universal.
T h e narrator feels free to appeal to customary Christian or secular
wisdom even when this leads him to apparent contradictions, just as
two proverbs can sometimes be cited to support opposite sides of a
question. A f t e r references to Grendel's crimes and the Lord's eternal
rule, for example, the narrator puts much emphasis on the virtues of
discernment and forethought (1059-603). After reporting how
Beowulf trusted in his naked strength in the monsters' underwater
hall, he remarks that a man who hopes to gain lasting fame should act
without pausing to reflect on his safety (l534b-36). There is no real
contradiction here, for the situations are different and call for a differ-
ent wisdom: evil impulses are to be restrained, but a hero must some-
times act impetuously.
T h e narrator's gnomic voice is thus a flexible one that remains im-
personal. It cannot be pinned to a single point of view, the way that
the gnomic utterances set into the mouths of the characters sometimes
can. Whereas Beowulf, Hrothgar, Wiglaf, and the minor personages
are sometimes given aphorisms to speak, these utterances accord with
T H E N A R R A T O R ' S VOICE 201

their character (or help establish their character) in a way that the
narrator's asides do not. The credo of action is set into the active
Beowulf's mouth (1384-89), while the credo of caution is set into
W i g l a f s (3077-78). The aged, gracious, somewhat humbled Hroth-
gar is made to speak the great fatherly warning against pride and
greed (1700-84). The guardian of the Danish coast, appropriately, is
given a sententious remark on the need to distinguish fair words from
fair deeds (287b-8ç)). These persons are individualized in the poem,
briefly or at length, but the narrator never assumes a separate identity.
If he did so he would lose his mediating role as one who speaks for all
his audience, not only those with certain roles or views.
Perhaps the narrator's most disarming trait is his enthusiasm in
making simple judgments. "That was a good king!" ( n b ) , he says of
Scyld. "That was a brave man!" (1812b), he later remarks of Beowulf.
"That's what a man should be!" (2708b), he says of Wiglaf. There is
nothing ironic or naive about these designations, as there is when the
Chaucer-persona of the Canterbury Tales praises the Shipman with the
words "and certeinly he was a good felawe!" T o be a "good felawe,"
in the context of Chaucer's pilgrimage, is of course to be a rascal and
a rogue. T o be a god cyning in Beowulf is to rule well. Whereas
Chaucer's praise can rarely be taken innocently, the Beowulf narrator
seems incapable of speaking with the ironist's wink. The many super-
latives of Beowulf might likewise call to mind the frequent superlatives
that Chaucer applies to his gallery of pilgrims, each of whom seems to
be the best or the worthiest or the most notable of his kind, but the
strategies of the two poets are utterly opposed. Although Chaucer
often damns with praise, as when he calls the Friar "the beste beggere
in his hous," the words of the Old English poem can be taken at face
value, with only a normal allowance for narrative hyperbole.
In Beowulf, everything seems larger or better or more terrible than
life. Heorot is "the most illustrious building under the sky"
(309-310). If Beowulf's hall is likewise "the best of buildings"
(2326a), there is no contradiction here but only a plethora of praise.
The lord who rules from Heorot is appropriately "the best of worldly
kings between the two seas" (i684b-85), and again there is no con-
tradiction with either Beowulf or King Offa, "the best of all mankind
between the two seas" (1955-56), for these men ruled at different
times, between different seas. The Danes are said to flock about their
king in a bigger, more decorous retinue than any other of which the
202 INTERPRETATION
narrator has heard (1011-12). They enjoy "the choicest of feasts"
(1232b), and their merriment as they flock about their king and queen
is greater than any other the narrator has seen (20i4.b-i6a). Hroth-
gar's gifts to Beowulf are unparalleled for their generosity (1027-29).
The necklace that Wealhtheow gives the hero is the best treasure of
which the narrator has heard, barring only the Brosinga mene
(1197-99). Scyld's funeral ship is decked out more beautifully with
weapons, clothes, and other treasures than any other known to the
speaker (38-403). Unferth's sword is "the best of blades" (1144a).
The sword that Hygelac presents to Beowulf as a reward for his vic-
tories is better than any other among the Geats (2i92b-93). The
hero's corselet, another heirloom, is "the best of battle-shirts" (453a).
Even the minor characters are painted in the strongest colors,
äschere is the "best," the "most beloved" of all Hrothgar's retainers
(1406a, 1296b). Wiglaf is "an immeasurably good thane" (2721b).
The seven Geats who rifle the barrow are "the finest" of them all
(3122b).
The referent of many different superlatives in the poem is, of
course, Beowulf, model hero and king. His physical attributes are de-
scribed first. The narrator introduces him as "the strongest of all
mankind in that day of this life" (196-197). The guard of the Danish
coast notes his singular appearance and confesses that he has never
seen a bigger man on earth (247b-25i). After the hero's reception in
Heorot, Hrothgar remarks that he has never heard a young man speak
so wisely (18420-43). Beowulf's actions in Denmark evoke further
superlatives. The Danes call him the finest warrior on earth and the
one most worthy of kingship (857b-61), while Wealhtheow says that
people will praise him as far as the sea encircles the earth (1221-243).
At the end of his life, not his strength or ferocious deeds, but the ex-
cellence of his character is praised. T o Wiglaf, he is the "most be-
loved" of men (2823), the "most worthy warrior over the whole
earth" (3099). T o the Geats who circle the barrow he is the "mildest"
and "gentlest" of men and the "kindest to his people" (3181-82).
The barrow the tribe builds for him is constructed with such care that
knowledgeable people will find it "most worthy" (3i6ib-62), and the
flames that consume his corpse make up "the greatest of pyres"
(3143b).
If the narrator is not stingy in bestowing praise, neither does he
withhold blame. Many of his judgments concern patterns of conduct
that deviate from the ideal values represented by such people as Scyld,
T H E N A R R A T O R ' S VOICE 203

Hrothgar, Wealhtheow, and Beowulf. He is emphatic in denouncing


the pagan rites of the Danes; he makes no secret of his feelings toward
Grendel and the antediluvian giants as enemies of the true Lord; and
he holds up the conduct of Heremod and Modthryth as examples of all
that a king or queen should avoid. He explicitly points out that Un-
ferth "lost his good name" (1470b) by declining the chance to fight
Grendel's mother, and he specifies that Hygelac "asked for trouble"
when he attacked the Franks and Frisians "in his arrogance" (1206).
In these and other ways the narrator does not refrain from adopting a
partisan voice. He lets the listening audience know exactly what he
thinks of the conduct of the characters he describes, and he expresses
his judgments in such a confident tone that they need no further com-
ment or defense. Instead of trying to persuade or influence his listen-
ers, he speaks with the absolute authority of their spokesman.
Perhaps the narrator's voice stands out most clearly by comparison
with what it is not.
His judgments do not extend freely to all human affairs, unlike the
judgments in a gnomic poem such as "Hávamál," but tend to be re-
stricted to matters pertaining to the proper behavior of a lord or thane.
He is not chauvinistic, unlike the author of such a piece of propaganda
as " T h e Battle of Brunanburh," and seems to owe special allegiance to
no tribe. Nowhere does he speak ill of material treasure, only of
hoarding it;6 and unlike the author of "The Soul's Address to the
Body," he makes no issue of the horrors of the grave and the corrup-
tion of all flesh. Although he implicitly warns against Hygelac's type
of arrogance, he does not praise humility or advocate loving one's en-
emies, as does the author of "Vainglory." Most clearly, he never
adopts a Cynewulfian voice, telling just who he is so that others will
pray for him and, possibly, praise him by name. He does not thank
God for having helped him tell the story, as the author of a saint's life
might have done, nor does he urge us all to thank the Lord for His
mercies, as does the author of " T h e Fortunes of Men." In general, he
refrains from exhorting his audience as if from a pulpit, as do the au-
thors of the Old English homilies with their direct address to the lis-
tener {Hœlep min se leofa, " M y dear man") or as does the speaker of
" T h e Seafarer" with his final attempts at persuasion (Uton we hycgan,
"Let us consider," 117). He does not have to exhort his listeners, for
he and they already see eye to eye—or, at any rate, that is the effect
his voice is designed to create.
Thus the narrator is a significant presence in Beowulf, even though
204 INTERPRETATION
he entirely avoids calling attention to himself except to claim the au-
thority of oral tradition for details of his song. Although his mask is
almost featureless, as befits the voice of a collective tradition, he has
the important function of channeling audience response by articulating
certain timeless truths and by authenticating what constitutes praise-
worthy behavior. Of the many attitudes that were current in Anglo-
Saxon England among different people—kings, thanes, priests, monks,
nuns, farmers, craftsmen, and so on—he "activates" those basic
Christian and secular values that have relevance for his story. In this
way he helps create an audience that will judge the work most fit-
tingly, without reference to inappropriate standards. As his song pro-
ceeded, one can imagine that the thoughts of his listeners merged
with his until little distance between them remained.
II. THE LISTENING AUDIENCE

C LEARLY critics need to take into account the audience of


Beowulf, given the assumption that the poem was meant to be
performed before some sort of group. Attempts to identify the exact
nature of these performances, however, are never likely to be more
than guesses in the dark. Did the audience consist of a band of pious
thanes, of secularly oriented monks, or some mixture of the two? Did
it consist of men only or of both sexes? Of young, of old, or of all ages?
Was the poem designed for the education of a prince? Did the per-
formance take place continuously or on two or three successive occa-
sions? Was it performed indoors or outdoors? By day or by night? On
a high feast day or major state occasion, or on just any day?
Each reader of the poem may have a favorite response to these
questions, but no response can be proved. Matters are complicated by
the possibility that the poem had different audiences at different times,
like recent South Slavic epic songs.1
One may be tempted to imagine an audience that resembles, in its
essentials, the audience in Heorot that listens to the song of Finn and
Hengest. An image could come to mind of an Anglo-Saxon singer
chanting or singing in the midst of warriors in bright tunics, each with
his seax hung at his side and his weapons close at hand, while a woman
silently walks through the great hall filling the cups with beer. From
time to time men come and go, but softly, out of respect for the singer
who recites the tales of old, fingers hovering over the strings, occa-
sionally plucking a chord or run. Perhaps a fire is blazing, while out-
side the wind blows from the sea . . .
Colorful though such a picture is, it will not help reconstruct the
milieu in which the surviving text of Beowulf was performed. For one
thing, the audience in Heorot includes no ecclesiastics, while the
courts and monasteries of the later Anglo-Saxon period assuredly did.
For another, if our exact text of the poem was performed in such an
environment, a learned cleric must have read it from a book, for a sec-

205
2o6 INTERPRETATION
ular text of this sort is not likely to have been memorized. Alterna-
tively, if the poem was recomposed in the act of oral performance,
then such a public performance could not have generated the text.
Only a singer's private, leisurely dictation before a scribe or a team of
scribes could have done so. The poem would thus already have been
divorced from its natural function and setting, like most oral poetry
collected in our own day.
Instead of advancing my own hypothesis about the probable audi-
ence of the poem, I prefer to direct attention to the more fruitful
question of the nature of the audience in the poem. In what ways is
audience response important in this work? By what rhetorical strate-
gies is the audience made to participate? Such an approach renders
Beowulf less of an artifact, like a piece of goldwork on display in a mu-
seum, and more of a semidramatic song.
Such a phenomenological approach is demanded by the evidence
pointing to the poem's relation to the oral verse-making tradition of
early Germanic scops. Apart from the thorny question how the poem
was composed, an approach focusing on the audience's response can be
fruitful if one simply starts from the assumption that the text was pri-
marily intended to be declaimed or sung aloud rather than read pri-
vately. When readers pick up Beowulf privately today and study it as it
was never studied in Anglo-Saxon times, they can perhaps gain some
additional insight into it by putting themselves in the place of original
listeners, who did not have the text before them but entered an arena
in which speaker and audience participated in a game of the imagina-
tion.2 T o experience the poem in this way is more complicated than
either listening to it or reading it. It is to read it as a means of listening
to it in the mind's ear, past a gap of many centuries and momentous
social changes. While such an approach to the work may seem arbi-
trary, it is really far less so than approaching it as if it were meant to be
perused in an armchair or read in a university classroom.
I have already discussed how the poem presupposes a narrator who
validates the story and establishes it within a framework of belief. The
audience is assumed to share certain values to which the narrator al-
ludes from time to time as a way to reinforce the exemplary aspect of
the tale. The term lof "praise" or "glory," for example, is clearly ex-
pected to reverberate with positive connotations rather than with the
negative ones that might be appropriate to more sternly devotional
literature. By saying that a person will always prosper through
T H E LISTENING A U D I E N C E 207

lofdœdum, "praiseworthy deeds," such as the generous acts performed


by Scyld's young son (20-25), the narrator predisposes the listeners to
nod their heads in agreement when he later praises Beowulf's actions
with the words, "So should a man act when he hopes to gain lasting lof
in combat (i534b-36a). When the hero is finally praised for being
lofgeornost, "most eager for praise" (3182b), in a summary judgment
of his career, it is clear that a high compliment is intended for a man
who has directed his life to lofty ends. Even if hypothetical clergymen
in the audience were accustomed to regarding the pursuit of lof as an
idle occupation when compared with the pursuit of salvation, they
might thus be encouraged to suspend their usual strict values and unite
with the rest of the audience in admiration of a hero who seeks lof very
nearly in the Seafarer's sense; that is, by warring against the enemies
of God on earth.3
Besides assuming that his audience has certain values, the narrator
assumes that it has a certain, fundamental knowledge. The listeners do
not have to be told who Cain and Abel were, and knowledge of the
Creation, the Flood, Doomsday, heaven, hell, and salvation is taken
for granted. On the other hand there are no direct quotations from
Scripture, as there are in such a poem as Elene, which at one point in-
cludes three biblical quotations within twenty lines (345-363). The
audience needs no more detailed religious knowledge than any layman
of the time possessed.
The sophisticated knowledge that the narrator assumes on the
part of the audience concerns not scriptural history but Germanic lore.
Such kings as Ongentheow, Onela, and Offa are introduced as if, like
Cain and Abel, they were known to all. Offa's less famous kinsmen
Eomer, Hemming, and Garmund are assumed to be so familiar that
the poet need not tell what they did. The story of Scyld's arrival
among the Danes as an infant is also introduced allusively, as if the au-
dience knew it well. Only modern readers who do not know the story
well will wonder whether he arrived surrounded by precious gifts or as
a helpless foundling.4 The Beowulf audience knew whether Hengest
spent the winter in Finn's land willingly or unwillingly, whereas mod-
ern readers are in doubt as to how to reconstruct the story.5 The story
of Hama and his apparent theft of the Brosinga mene from the court of
Eormenric was known well enough to allow the poet to introduce it
through a cryptic allusion, and today we will never know if Hama was
thought to have entered a monastery, as he did in late Scandinavian
208 INTERPRETATION
6
tradition. Nor will we ever know if Hama's necklace was identi-
cal with the goddess Freya's Brisinga men, known to us from
"trymskviSa." If so, then perhaps in this instance the poet's cryptic
style results from his desire to suppress materials repugnant because of
their association with pagan mythology.
Besides this kind of substantive knowledge, the audience is assumed
to be familiar with the poetic medium itself. This assumption is so
basic that it is easy to overlook. The kennings, though not nearly as
recondite as the Chinese boxes of skaldic metaphor, depend for their
effect on the audience's familiarity with the idiosyncrasies of the poetic
language. The large proportion of the vocabulary that is virtually un-
known in prose leads one to posit an audience of connoisseurs. This
does not go far toward narrowing one's conception of who constituted
the audience, because probably all aristocratic Anglo-Saxons (except
possibly those who lived their whole lives in a cloister) heard native po-
etry by the time they could walk or run. Still, one can be sure that the
audience brought with it the linguistic and cultural knowledge it
needed for the words to make sense. With regard to diction as well as
the material of Germanic legendry, listeners would have been able to
appreciate the nuances of a story that takes for granted a cultivated
ear.

if The audience not only brings its own knowledge and beliefs to the
poem but sometimes is drawn into the action by the presence of an au-
dience within the poem. So regularly does the hero appear accompa-
nied by others that a listening audience could identify with almost all
his movements by reference to those people around him. Whereas the
hero approaches the superhuman, these anonymous Danes or Geats
are ordinary souls. T o a certain extent their role resembles that of the
chorus in a classical tragedy, for they both witness the action and, oc-
casionally, comment on it. Often they function as a sort of dramatic
audience, for one sees and hears the action as if through their eyes and
ears. Their emotional reactions can thus shape ours, and the poet fre-
quently exploits this possibility for aesthetic effect.
One critic has identified the dramatic audience in each of the hero's
three great fights as a means by which "the poet establishes suspense
in spite of anticipatory comment." Even though readers are made to
know in advance how the fight will turn out, they are encouraged to
identify with the situation of a group of Danes or Geats who serve as
T H E LISTENING AUDIENCE 209
"functional onlookers" of the narrative event and who are ignorant of
its outcome.7 Doubtless the use of such a dramatic audience does en-
hance suspense for readers, as has been claimed. In addition, it can
serve other, equally important purposes, especially when one regards
the poem not as a text to be read at home but as a public event shared
by a performer and his audience.
The scene in Heorot shortly after Beowulf has returned in triumph
from Grendel's mere provides examples of the importance of such
functional onlookers. Hrothgar and the Danes have been drinking as
usual. The doors open and their eyes grow large when Beowulf—
whom they had not expected to see again—walks in with his band of
Geats, several of whom carry Grendel's severed head by the hair.
There is an obvious use of the device of the audience within the poem
here, but more interesting is what happens when Beowulf tells Hroth-
gar of his success and presents him with a second token of victory, the
hilt of the giant sword that he found in the monster's hall. For a long
moment the Danish king examines the hilt and the ancient runes with
which it is inscribed. No one speaks. Although by this stage in the
narrative the Danes' propensity for noisy merriment has been well es-
tablished, here the narrator pointedly says that "they all fell silent"
(1699b). Hrothgar then begins his address before what seems to be a
spellbound audience.
The narrator's aside (swigedon ealle) is not exactly a means of creat-
ing suspense in this situation. Nothing in the immediate plot hinges on
Hrothgar's words, and the very real suspense of the underwater fight
is now resolved. Rather, the aside is a means by which listeners are
prepared for a speech of great thematic importance. It is a signifier, a
signpost, that tells us to prick up our ears. By making an issue of the
Danes' falling silent at this moment, the narrator does what he can to
encourage the members of his own audience to follow suit. By this
means the narrator's audience is put into a situation very much like
that of the dramatic audience within the poem, and the two groups
begin to merge. Even more, the narrator himself then begins to merge
with Hrothgar, for it is through his voice that the fictive Danish king
speaks. Hrothgar's wisdom thus leaps past normal distinctions of time
and space: it is addressed as much to the listening Anglo-Saxons as to
the listening Danes.
Somewhat later in the same speech, as the king turns to address
Beowulf directly, the relation of speaker to listener is made yet more
210 INTERPRETATION
intimate. It is as if each member of the listening audience were being
encouraged to take the king's wisdom personally to heart. "You take
heed by this," Hrothgar says. "In the wisdom of my old age, I have
spoken these words concerning you!" (i722b-24a). T o any young
man in the audience, particularly if he identified himself at all with the
hero (as who would not?), the speaker's paternal admonition would
seem to be directed precisely at himself. In oral performance, Hroth-
gar's homiletic address would have an immediacy that goes beyond its
possible effect on most people encountering the written text.
A dramatic audience of a similar kind functions in many different
parts of the narrative, not merely in the three scenes of combat. T h e
funeral of Scyld is seen as if through the eyes of his followers, his "own
dear companions" (29a). As the king's ship departs over the waves, lis-
teners know no more of its destination than do the retainers left griev-
ing on the shore. At the end of the poem, the listening audience can
again imagine itself standing by the shore of the sea as mute witnesses
to the funeral of a glorious king. The last words of the poem represent
a collective eulogy in his behalf. The Geats who circle the barrow
speak with a single voice in praise of their king, and any listener who
so wishes is encouraged to join his voice with theirs in imagination "as
is fitting" (3174b).
T h e collective voice of the dramatic audience is also heard just after
the Grendel fight, when people come from all over to look on the
monster's trail and trace it to the mere. Again one sees the scene
through the eyes of participants in the poem: the bloody tracks, the
water mingled with gore, the fair paths leading back through the
wastes to Heorot. The men unite in high praise of Beowulf, thus tak-
ing the active role of a chorus (850b-86i). They then revert to their
usual passive role of dramatic audience as the king's thane strikes up a
song of Sigemund. Once again the narrator and the narrator's fictive
speaker merge for a while, just as the listening audience may find itself
modulating toward the group of listening Danes. After praising
Beowulf, the Danes now hear a singer celebrate his praises. In either
way, listeners are stirred from their impassivity and encouraged to
share the emotional response of actors in the poem.
During the three fights, the device of the dramatic audience not
only creates suspense but helps to condition the listeners' emotional
response. When the Danes feel "terrible fear" as they hear Grendel
howl in Heorot (784a), their reaction magnifies the sense of terror and
THE LISTENING AUDIENCE 211

wonder that any imaginative listener might feel at this point in the ac-
tion. A similar sense of horror is evoked when the men solemnly ven-
ture out along the narrow path that leads to Grendel's mere and come
to a halt where /Eschere's head is lying on a cliff. T h e pool wells with
gore. " T h e men looked on," the poet tersely adds (1422b). No fur-
ther description is necessary, for the listeners are encouraged to use
their own powers of imagination to visualize the scene just as it would
appear to the Danes and Geats on the shore. Later, after Beowulf has
descended into the waters and the Danes have given him up for dead,
any listener would be able to share in the reversal of emotion that the
Geats feel as they see him emerge unharmed. From being "sick at
heart" (1603a), they are suddenly rejoicing (1633a), and their reac-
tions would be capable of triggering corresponding ones on the part of
any listener who participated in the creation of the poem by permitting
his or her own feelings to be engaged.
It would be a mistake to conclude that these corresponding emo-
tions would necessarily be identical. T h e device of the dramatic audi-
ence can also lend itself toward irony, as happens in Greek tragedy
when the chorus is ignorant of the true situation facing the characters.
T o return to the previous example, when the Geats look on the wa-
ters of Grendel's mere "sick at heart," there is an important difference
between their reaction and what a listener's would be. T h e listener
knows that the blood welling to the surface of the mere is that of
Grendel and his mother. The dramatic audience thinks it is Beowulf's.
By establishing a distance between the two points of view, the poet is
able to put his listeners into a slightly superior and more detached po-
sition than that held by any of the actors in the narrative. The listen-
ers, but not Beowulf, the Danes, or the Geats, know more or less what
the outcome of each fight will be. T h e listeners, but not the Danes,
know that Heorot is vulnerable to destruction and that the marriage
between Ingeld and Freawaru is not destined to be blissful. On the sec-
ond night in Heorot, the listeners know that one of the Danes or Geats
will fall victim to Grendel's mother, but the men themselves sleep in
ignorance of her approach. More significant, the listeners know that
Grendel is part of the brood of Cain, but the actors in the narrative do
not. T h e listeners know that the Danes' religious devotions are no
other than devil-worship, but the Danes know no better. T h e listeners
are told that Beowulf's soul is saved, but his companions have no such
knowledge.
212 INTERPRETATION
Ultimately, despite all the ways in which it is drawn into active par-
ticipation, the listening audience remains somewhat aloof. Its percep-
tions are not necessarily the same as those of the dramatic audience,
though the two may sometimes coincide. In this way a complex inter-
play is established between the audience in the poem—the chorus, as it
were—and the audience of the poem, which sometimes sees what the
chorus sees and sometimes has superior knowledge. A similar interplay
exists between the narrator's voice and the various voices he imper-
sonates, several of which (Unferth's, for example) obviously speak in
foreign accents and others of which (Hrothgar's in the "sermon," for
example) sound very much like his, in that they express traditional
wisdom that is not conditioned by boundaries of time and space.

flln this chapter I have called attention to a few of the ways in


which the poet "seems to call upon its audience to take an active part
in the composition of the narrative," in the words of one critic.8 With
Beowulf, as with the Homeric poems, there is some justification for
supposing that the act of oral performance would have set up "a kind
of common 'field' in which poet, audience, and the characters within
the poems are all defined, with some blurring of the boundaries that
normally separate the three." 9 According to the view presented here,
this "blurring of the boundaries" between the actors within the poem
and the participants in its live semidramatic enactment is what chiefly
creates the excitement of the oral form. Although a portion of this ex-
citement can be reconstructed by a reader who approaches the poem
as a text, the poem becomes most nearly its true self when readers read
through the text to place themselves in the position of a hypothetical
Anglo-Saxon listener. They will then fully take part in the poem's
game of the imagination, as any listener is meant to do.
12. RECIPROCITY

B E F O R E setting out to challenge the dragon, Beowulf pledges to


win its gold or die. He succeeds in gaining the gold, which he then
looks on with some satisfaction, but his victory costs his life, and with-
out him his people will suffer. Instead of being kept by his tribe, the
treasure goes back into the earth as gifts for the dead king's funeral,
"as useless to men as it had been before" (3168).
The role of the "useless" treasure has been a major problem of in-
terpretation, to the point that conflicting responses to the poem's end-
ing have emerged depending on how one views the gold. Either the
treasure represents something positive and Beowulf is justified in
seeking it, in which case his death is heroic, or it is a snare and he is
deluded by a desire for it, in which case his actions are rash and his
victory a hollow triumph.1
Since the text has been cited to support both views, I shall try to
shed light on the problem by seeing how in Anglo-Saxon society, as
well as in the literature that validated this society's institutions, mate-
rial objects functioned as part of a complex system of exchange that
was at the heart of the social order. The winning of the hoard ceases to
appear so problematical when one sees how the exchange of material
things, as part of a general concept of reciprocity, plays a commanding
role throughout much of Beowulf.

TJ The function of precious objects in Old English heroic poetry has


been lucidly expressed by Michael D. Cherniss: "The primary as-
sumption about those materials which we have designated as "trea-
sure" is that they give moral value to their possessors; that they are, in
fact, the material manifestations or representations of the proven or in-
herent worthiness of whoever possesses them. We may define the
function of treasure as that of a tangible, material symbol of the intan-
gible, abstract qualities of virtue in a warrior."2 In early Germanic so-
ciety, as in the world of Odysseus,3 a hero who does not win treasure

213
214 INTERPRETATION
does not deserve to be called a hero; a king who does not distribute
treasure scarcely deserves the title of king. Giving gifts is an act of the
highest social importance. It is an act governed by a threefold reci-
procity, for equal with the obligation to give and the obligation to re-
ceive is the obligation to pass on gifts to a third person.4 In Beowulf,
the archetypal bad ruler is Heremod, who "gave no treasures to the
Danes in pursuit of glory" (1719b-20) and lived out the end of his life
in misery after a period of national disaster. In the collection of Old
English maxims known as the "Cotton Gnomes," all that is requisite
of a king is reduced to a single essential: " A king is to distribute trea-
sure in the hall" (28b-29a). In the concluding verses of the collection
known as the "Exeter Gnomes," the idea is expressed that material
things stand in a one-to-one relationship to their possessors. " T h e
brave have helmets," we are told, "and the craven always have least
treasure" (203b-204). Also in the "Exeter Gnomes," the reciprocity
that is an accepted part of gift giving is expressed in brief: "One trea-
sure deserves a return; gold is to be given away" (i54b-i55a). A wry
maxim of the late Old English period, "Every gift looks over its shoul-
der," 5 expresses the nearly universal truth that gifts are given as one
part of a two-way exchange.
The institution of gift giving can thus be seen as a public ceremony
of rich symbolism. Precious gifts clearly reflect the glory of the givers,
for only people of worth could afford to present them.6 In addition,
they reflect the glory of the recipients, who would not be given some-
thing precious if they had not also proven themselves worthy. T h e
glory of the recipients shines at its brightest, however, when they in
turn present the gifts to others, for at this time both their personal
glory and their observance of the social code are manifest.
T h e concepts of treasure and reciprocity illustrated in Old English
literature were not the invention of poets but grew out of the realities
of Anglo-Saxon social life. The feud, for example, represents reciproc-
ity reduced to its most grim level. Injury demands injury; blood asks
for blood. Reciprocity at this level was the bane of Germanic society
from an early period, as is well documented in The Anglo-Saxon Chron-
icle and the Old Norse kings' sagas. Also from an early period, how-
ever, a more abstract system of reciprocity was sometimes able to put
an end to what otherwise would have been endless cycles of violence.
The institution of wergild was the great internal peacemaker of Ger-
manic society during a time when courts, judges, police, and jails, not
to mention the Sermon on the Mount, were virtually unknown.
RECIPROCITY 215
T h e one understanding that made possible wergild—"in its purest
form the blood-price, the sum paid in just compensation for a slay-
ing" 7 —was the notion that living people could be valued in terms of
material things, so that for legal purposes the two could be equated.
Each man had his price. What is more, each woman or slave also had a
price, in a hierarchical arrangement that fit the stratification of society.
While such a blunt way of reckoning the value of human beings is ab-
horrent today to those who believe in the sacredness of life, it was
taken for granted in Anglo-Saxon England. A man could even take his
price as a matter of pride. A person who climbed to a higher social
rank, and hence graduated to a higher wergild, would not only con-
gratulate himself for his improved statute but could feel more secure.
T h e higher a person's wergild, the greater incentive others would
have not to harm him, for they could rest assured that his relatives
would pursue the case until they obtained his price.
Although the laws concerning wergild varied from time to time and
area to area in Anglo-Saxon England, the mentality that sustained
them remained fairly constant. T h e introduction of Christianity not
only failed to dislodge this mentality, it never seems to have tried to do
so. Clergymen were given their own handsome wergild. Rather than
opposing "man-price" as inegalitarian or materialistic, the new reli-
gion promoted it as a way of settling feuds with a minimum of vio-
lence.
T h e institution of the heriot (from heregeatu "war gear") also seems
to have remained intact until the late Anglo-Saxon period. 8 This was a
strictly reciprocal relationship whereby every thane received his weap-
ons when he entered his lord's service. T h e wills of Anglo-Saxon no-
blemen indicate that the heriot normally consisted of a helmet, a coat
of mail, a sword, a shield, and one spear. By the time of Cnut it also
consisted of one horse with its gear. Upon the thane's death, this
equipment reverted to the lord, normally in kind, although occasion-
ally in its cash equivalent. T h e lord's presentation of the heriot was not
a gift outright but was contingent on the thane's providing military
service under terms clearly spelled out in the laws. A man's weapons
were what identified his status most visibly: a thane would possess the
full heriot, while an ordinary freeman would normally have just the
spear and shield. T h e material weapons thus virtually stood for the ab-
stract quality of being a thane, even though legally a freeman could
not claim the wergild of a thane until he owned five hides of land.
Whereas the heriot reverted to the lord who ultimately owned it,
2i6 INTERPRETATION
the lord himself, originally, was buried with weapons and treasure.
The "treasure drain" or "arms drain" that was thus inherent in Ger-
manic society could be remedied only through the lord's acquisition of
new treasures while he lived.9 He could not do this by stripping the
tombs of the dead, the most easily available means, because wœlreaf
was prohibited by law. Grave-goods were useless to men by common
assent. Treasure acquired through raiding other tribes provided a le-
gitimate alternative. Even better was the receipt of tribute, if treasure
could be obtained through the threat of force rather than its use.
The "treasure drain" that tended to promote a strong degree of bel-
licosity among the Germanic tribes ceased to be important after
Christian rites became the norm and the custom of burying grave-
goods ceased. At the same time, the ethic of war and the deadly reci-
procity of revenge were discouraged for doctrinal reasons. Peace be-
came economically feasible as well as morally advisable. In a poem like
Beowulf, set in the pre-Christian past, one thus finds the apparent
anomaly of a eulogy for a king who is buried with grave-goods and yet
did not go raiding.
This anomaly arises from a simple conjunction of artistic purposes.
In brief, the grave-goods are an essential part of the historical coloring
of the tale, while the absence of raiding pertains to the Christian au-
thor's living values. The dragon's treasure serves as an attractive way
of bridging the gap between ancient heroic ideals and the more tem-
perate ones of the poet's day, for the hoard provides magnificent
grave-goods without the moral cost that raiding would entail.
One can now understand how, far from being despised, precious
material possessions such as swords, armor, horses, tapestries, gold
cups, and necklaces evoke the poet's superlative praise. In Beowulf,
the sun itself is "heaven's gem" (2072b). Treasure giving and joy in
one's native home are equated (2884-863), while to be deprived of
treasure means to suffer the utmost wretchedness (3 015b-19).
In part I, Scyld Scefing is seen as the type of king who gains trea-
sure through his warlike acts or through the threat of force once his
reputation is established. The magnificence of his funeral, with its
multitude of treasures gathered from distant lands, befits a life lived in
fulfillment of the old heroic ideal. In accord with the code of reciproc-
ity, the lord who won great tribute for his people is given great tribute
at his passing.
Scyld's son Beow illustrates the workings of reciprocity in a differ-
RECIPROCITY 217

ent way. Thanks to his generosity while young, he wins the allegiance
of retainers who flock about him as voluntary companions in later
times of war. He shows how a lord prospers and wins praise through
faithful gifts to those who serve him.
While Hrothgar's martial success is passed over in a bare three
verses (64-653), his generosity occasions comment after comment.
From his gift-throne in Heorot he lives up to his promise to distribute
treasure to young and old, just as he won it through God's grace
( 7 1 - 7 2 , 8o-8ia). Parts of his hall are literally gilded. 10 His queen,
Wealhtheow, is also conspicuously adorned with gold. His gifts to
Beowulf are such that no one will ever find fault with them (1046-49).
His earlier treatment of the hero's father, Ecgtheow, illustrates the
complexities of how wergild can settle a feud whose violence might
otherwise keep escalating.
After Ecgtheow killed an important member of the tribe of Wylf-
ings, for reasons not told, he and his kinsmen either could not or
would not pay the slain man's wergild. Rather than staying home and
rendering his whole family vulnerable to the feud, he chose exile and
came to the young Hrothgar for shelter (or perhaps his tribe chose this
path for him—we are not told). Hrothgar resolved the feud by send-
ing the Wylfings treasure that probably more than equaled the price of
the slain man. By settling the feud, Hrothgar thus established a new
reciprocal tie with Ecgtheow, who "swore oaths" (472b) to him. Very
likely these oaths included the promise of future support should the
Dane ever need it. Such oaths would have been most welcome in view
of Ecgtheow's position as son-in-law to the reigning Geatish king. If
so, then it is owing to this incident that, years later, Hrothgar even-
tually succeeds in putting an end to the threat of the Grendel creatures
through the services of Beowulf, whose offer of help is based in the
code of reciprocity. The ties that bound Ecgtheow to Hrothgar are
inherited by Ecgtheow's son. Beowulf comes to Denmark not just to
prove his manhood but to settle family debts.
The workings of wergild are also illustrated by Hrothgar's response
to the death of Hondscioh, the Geat who is devoured by Grendel in
Heorot a few moments before the monster reaches for Beowulf. On
the next day, when the Danish king rewards each of Beowulf's com-
panions with an ancient treasure, he orders Hondscioh's wergild to be
paid in gold (1050-553). We are not told of the fate of the money, but
presumably Beowulf brought it back to distribute to the dead man's
2Iδ INTERPRETATION
kin according to the usual custom, whereby the closest kindred would
receive most. Since Beowulf introduces himself and his men as the
personal companions of the Geatish king, Hondscioh's price would
have been that of a thane, or the equivalent of twelve hundred West
Saxon shillings.
T h e other Geats would have been pleased by a gift that added visi-
bly to their stature. They are first introduced as a band of warriors
who are "rendered worthy by their weapons" (331a). Their swords,
helmets, and byrnies immediately identify them as thanes rather than
ordinary freemen, and the poet makes much of the way that their
gilded boar's-head helmets shine over their cheek-guards and their
coats of mail glisten and rustle. As the king's thane Wulfgar reports to
Hrothgar, "Dressed in their war gear, they seem worthy to be es-
teemed noblemen" (368-3693).
T h e hero's own possessions play a complex role that is worth trac-
ing. When Beowulf arrives in Denmark, his mail coat seems to be his
most precious possession. It is Weland's work and is said to be "the
best of all battle shirts" (453-4553). Just before the hero delivers his
first speech to Hrothgar, the narrator suspends the action for a mo-
ment to call attention to its radiance (4050-406). On at least two oc-
casions it saves his life: once during his swimming match with Breca
(549-558) and, more directly, at a critical moment of his fight with
Grendel's mother (1545-49). In the catalogue of weapons that imme-
diately precedes Beowulf's descent into Grendel's mere, a description
of the byrnie takes first place (1443-47). Before fighting Grendel,
Beowulf makes no arrangements concerning his sword or other weap-
ons if he should die, but he takes care to ask that his mail coat be sent
back to Hygelac (452-4553).
He takes similar precautions for the precious gifts he receives from
Hrothgar, which are not introduced casually but at length, as if the
listening audience were expected to take a connoisseur's interest in
them. They include 3 gilded boar's-head standard, a helmet, a byrnie,
and 3 precious sword that once belonged to Hrothgar's brother
Heorogar, if it was not once Healfdane's own. 1 1 T o these gifts the
king adds eight horses, one of which wears his own war saddle, and,
somewhat later, twelve other unspecified treasures (1866-67).
Wealhtheow adds 3 robe, two gold arm-bsnds, an unspecified number
of rings, 3nd a magnificent necklace ( 1 1 9 3 0 - 9 6 ) . Before plunging into
the mere, Beowulf asks that if he dies, the treasures be sent to Hyge-
RECIPROCITY 219

lac. His desire to have his ornamented sword given to Unferth follows
from the demands of reciprocity. He is taking Unferth's sword
Hrunting into the depths of the mere, and if he should not return, the
Dane deserves exact recompense.
At the conclusion of the Danish episodes, Hrothgar and Beowulf
exchange offers of friendship and support for the future, and the Geat
sails home with his treasures. T o Hygelac he gives the standard, hel-
met, mail coat, and sword, together with four horses, and to Hygd he
presents the necklace and three other horses. In this way he fulfills the
demands of thaneship, by which the great part of what he wins reverts
to his lord. Hygelac reciprocates in proper royal fashion by rewarding
him with seven thousand hides of land (or, very roughly, eleven hun-
dred square miles), together with a hall and throne, to be held in com-
mon with the king himself. He also bestows upon Beowulf an extraor-
dinary honor by giving him the most precious sword among the Geats,
one that had belonged to King Hrethel. Presumably the gift of land
was not entirely unexpected, for as the son of Ecgtheow and grandson
of Hrethel, Beowulf would scarcely have grown up landless. Now,
thanks to his success abroad, he has come into an inheritance that
leaves him one of the great noblemen of the realm.
In richer detail than any other pre-Conquest text, the first part of
the poem thus affords a window on the economic foundation of early
Germanic society. Although the view the author permits one to see is
idealized, it is not falsified, as comparing it with the information pro-
vided by law codes, charters, and wills of the period shows. The poem
brings these terse historical documents to life by showing us men and
women who put their mutual social obligations into practice in accord
with the demands of reciprocity. Arms, precious ornaments, human
lives, and human services can be equated in this society, pragmatically
speaking. They are functionally equivalent, for they can be exchanged
in a variety of ways spelled out by law and custom. The poet's praise of
material things should not be taken as mere ornamentation. It is a way
of identifying the stature of the persons who figure in the poem, the
kings and queens who give gifts as well as the people who receive and
use them. More important, precious material things identify the value
of the services performed by those who offer one another aid in fulfill-
ment of past debts and who do so not under compulsion but cheerfully,
as if fully aware that gifts bring gifts.
The way that I have taken to reach the meaning of the dragon's
220 INTERPRETATION
treasure may seem roundabout, but perhaps it is less subject to pitfalls
than any direct approach.
The thief who steals the flagon, to begin with, is not guilty of
wœlreaf because the treasures were not part of a funeral offering; they
were buried as a hoard. Still, the gold is explicitly called "heathen"
(2216a), and the people who buried it put a curse on it that was in-
tended to keep it undisturbed forever (3051-75). More important—
whether or not misconduct was involved in seeking out heathen trea-
sure, and leaving the curse aside—the thief may be considered to have
committed a gross practical error for which he deserves no sympathy.
Acting out of pure self-will, he has aroused a creature who seeks dam-
ages for the theft through an immediate and deadly sort of reciprocity.
After the dragon is aroused, Beowulf inherits a feud that only vio-
lence can settle. Although he did not provoke the fight, as the de-
fender of his people he has the obligation to see it through to comple-
tion. His primary purpose is to kill the dragon, not to win the hoard,
though he knows that a magnificent prize will fall to his tribe if he
succeeds. Just as the legendary Sigemund won "no little honor"
(885b) for having killed a dragon and gained its hoard, Beowulf can
expect to win lasting praise for winning both the victory and its mate-
rial tokens.
The hero's supposed "greed" is a false issue, to my mind, unless one
starts from the premise that all treasure is evil, a point of view that was
not common in Anglo-Saxon England and that the poet did not share.
Unlike the selfish Heremod or the hypothetical covetous ruler imag-
ined by Hrothgar in his "sermon," Beowulf has ruled as a model king
for fifty years. He has avoided the example of Hygelac and has never
set out raiding for gold. Three times toward the end of the poem he is
seen as one who gave his people gifts (2Ó35b-40, 3009b, 3034^-353).
It is clear that he did not manipulate his way to the throne for the sake
of the riches it might confer, for he once turned down Hygd's offer of
the kingship and preferred to take the part of guardian for her son
Heardred. Just before his death, in what fittingly has been called "a
most moving expression of willing self-sacrifice,"12 he thanks the Lord
that he could win great treasure "for my people," not for himself
(2797b). He bestows his necklace, helmet, and byrnie on Wiglaf—he
cannot give his sword, for it is broken—and he asks his young kins-
man to care for the needs of the tribe (28oob-28oia). Taken to-
gether, these passages scarcely suggest a man driven by greed. They
RECIPROCITY 221

confirm a view of Beowulf as a ruler who consistently took pains to


look after the welfare of his people.
Toward the end of the poem reciprocity breaks down through
blind self-seeking, but not on the part of the king. T h e self-seeking is
that of the ten Geats who flee from the hill overlooking the dragon's
barrow in a flight reminiscent of that of Godric and his brothers in
" T h e Battle of Maldon." In both poems, disaster follows on the heels
of an act of cowardice by thanes who betray their obligations to their
lord and gift-giver. Wiglaf berates them in no uncertain terms for
their failure to repay Beowulf for their receipt of the heriot:

Paet, la, maeg secgan se S e wyle soS specan


J)aet se mondryhten se eow fia maSmas geaf,
eoredgeatwe J)e ge Jwer on standaS . . .
jDaet he genunga guSgewaedu
w r a S e forwurpe S a hyne wig beget. (2864-72)

L o , one who wishes to speak the truth


can say that the lord who gave you these treasures,
the fine war gear you stand in there . . .
straight threw away those armaments
to his distress when the fight was on.

By the laws of reciprocity, even a failure to observe reciprocity will in-


vite appropriate retribution. T h e Geats' weapons are too good for
them, and a new balance must be found between outer appearance and
inner reality. T h e men can rest assured that their violation of the ties
that bind society together will mean an end to the life of the hall as
they had known it. The exchange of treasure will cease, and their
countrymen will go bereft of the gold to which they had made false
claim.
One critic has seen "irony" and "extreme bitterness" associated
with the "incongruous wealth" that surrounds the dead Beowulf. T h e
burial of the treasure with the dead king "as useless to men as it had
been before" (3168), in his view, represents "the supreme irony" of
the poem's close. 13
If there is any irony here, I would suggest, it lies in the Geats' not
getting the treasure rather than in the king's getting it. Beowulf died
in the belief that he had won the hoard for his people. In fact, as Wig-
laf makes clear, they have proven themselves unworthy to keep it.
222 INTERPRETATION
Only Wiglaf deserves a reward for his part in the fight, and he has al-
ready received a handsome one in the form of the king's necklace,
helmet, and byrnie. As for the hoard's lying useless, the treasures are
now grave-goods, and that is what grave-goods are meant to do. The
same objects that were useless when hidden are useless again—to the
living, that is. 14 According to the pagan philosophy that the poet does
not stress, they are meant for the comfort of the dead in the next
world. In the terms of the implicit theory of reciprocity that long sur-
vived the demise of pagan beliefs, they are a material counterpart to
the abstract qualities of the person at whose side they lie. In this sense
they are functional. They are Beowulf's price. In their refulgent
splendor, they are the material equivalent to the life he sacrificed for
his people. Like the glorious barrow in which they lie at Hronesnaess,
the treasures are now lof made visible.
Although the language of material exchange is important through-
out the last part of the poem, there is only slight verbal irony in the
gold's being "grimly purchased" (3012b) with the hero's life. T o gain
the gold from the dragon was "no easy bargain for any man"
(2415 b-16), the poet tells us, while the king himself speaks of having
"sold my long allotment of days for the treasure hoard"
(2799-28003). The messenger later speaks of Beowulf having
"bought the rings with his own life" (30i3b-i4a). The notion of reci-
procity is here somewhat wryly cast into a metaphoric diction drawn
from the marketplace, where hard bargains are common. There is a
kind of "rugged economics" here, 15 one might say, but the books bal-
ance. The dead king and the dead dragon lie equal in the scales. The
Geats will have the troubles they have earned. The hoard lies as use-
less as always. The difference is that instead of being lost in a nameless
hill, it now serves to honor a known man and, by extension, the ideals
by which he lived.

In a letter to a young friend written in 716 or 717, St. Boniface


voices his contempt for delights that "melt away like shadows, vanish
like smoke, dissolve like foam on the seas." His words have been taken
to sum up the attitude of the Beowulf poet to the kind of treasures that
kings like Beowulf and Hrothgar gain and give out to their people.16
Given the ways in which material wealth underpins the society de-
picted in Beowulf, such a view does not do justice to the true and es-
sential dynamics of this poem, which have to do far more with the
RECIPROCITY 223

need of rulers to distribute treasure for communal good than with the
need of people to renounce it for their salvation. In his "sermon,"
Hrothgar could have made much of the vanity of earthly goods. In-
stead, he stresses the danger of a king's bottling up wealth. Rather
than exhort his audience to forego material goods, time and again the
poet dwells lovingly on the beauty or value of precious objects and
speaks of the honor they lend their possessors.
Some readers might reject the poet's wisdom on this account. That
is fair. What is less defensible is to ignore the open and manifest
meaning of the poet's words and to read the work as if it were penned
by someone with Boniface's mentality. A poem about Germanic
heroes that evaluated the materialistic ethic of reciprocity from a spir-
itual standpoint would indeed be interesting, but this is not the text we
have. The hero of Beowulf participates with good faith in a social sys-
tem whose materialistic basis is largely sanctioned by the poet, and he
does what he can to help his tribe. Though he dies in the attempt, he
meets a magnificent death. T o read the poem as if it were meant to
illustrate the delusions of gold is to read it in the spirit of Chaucer's
"Pardoner's Tale" rather than of, say, the noblemen and artisans
(whether laymen or clergy) whose collaboration resulted in the glori-
ous material artifacts of the Anglo-Saxon period. In the Pardoner's
moral tale, three comrades find a treasure hoard, betray one another in
their greed, and discover death. In Beowulf, a king wins a hoard at ut-
most personal cost because he sets his people's needs above his own.
The Pardoner's exemplum shows what results when normal human ties
of reciprocity are defiled, so that God's stern justice is the only justice
that remains. The Anglo-Saxon poem shows how a person who both
wins gifts and gives them earns a good name on earth and final recom-
pense in heaven.
ΐ3· THE CONTROLLING THEME

A L T H O U G H Beowulf continues to inspire a fair amount of criti-


cal literature from year to year, few critics have attempted to in-
terpret the poem as a whole. Most articles and monographs have of-
fered light bearing on particular problems, while even the books that
occasionally appear have tended to shy away from an overall interpre-
tation. There have been many studies of special aspects of the poem,
but few studies of Beowulf.
In an article that is the exception to this rule, Robert Kaske has ac-
cepted the generally acknowledged proposition that the poem is "es-
sentially about a hero and heroism" and has gone on to suggest that
the poem borrowed from medieval Latin critical theory the concept of
sapientia et fortitudo, "wisdom and fortitude," as the defining charac-
teristic of heroism. He claims that the poet used this concept "with a
high degree of consciousness" as the controlling theme of his narra-
tive. Kaske shows the applicability of this concept to each of the lead-
ing characters of the poem, and in addition he shows how Grendel,
Grendel's mother, and the dragon represent varying degrees of mali-
tia, "the greatest of internal evils and the perversion of the mind and
will."1
Unfortunately for this view, the net cast by sapientia etfortitudo and
malitia is wide enough to catch practically any story within its folds, as
Kaske himself grants. The Danes are not very brave and the Geats not
very wise, for example, but such distinctions are practically inevitable
in a long heroic narrative. Any hero will manifest wisdom and forti-
tude and other good qualities, at least from time to time, and the vari-
ous nonheroes, antiheroes, and villains will lack these qualities or will
be positively evil to different degrees. Even the concept of fortitude
does not stand fast. According to the late Anglo-Saxon homilist Wulf-
stan, a person who has fortitudo (which he glosses as modes strength,
"strength of mind," or "spiritual backbone") is one "who can forbear
and endure much and is always patient in adversity . . . so that he is

224
T H E CONTROLLING T H E M E 225
neither too flushed with joy nor too despairing in wretchedness."2
Such a description may match the long-suffering saints of hagiographie
literature. It may match the patient Hrothgar (who is said by Kaske,
on the contrary, to represent all sapientia and no fortitudo). It has little
to do with Beowulf, whose fortitude is of a different sort. Rather than
exhibiting patience in adversity, Beowulf lives by a credo of action and
seems to be happiest when engaged in a struggle against adverse
powers.3
Other attempts to account for the controlling theme of Beowulf
have been no more successful. The poem has been read as an allegory
of salvation,4 but most of the narrative reflects such a sustained inter-
est in kinship ties, loyalty, revenge, courtly behavior, and Germanic
tribal history that to speak of salvation as the "controlling" theme
would be to emphasize it more than the poet does. A view of the poem
as an exemplary tale exhibiting, through the hero, the dangers of pride
and avarice has little to recommend it. Even if it were attractive as an
account of the dragon fight, it does not speak to the poet's concerns
during the first two episodes, in which almost all critics see the hero as
unaffected by pride or avarice.
Perhaps we have gone wrong, however, by assuming that the poem
has a controlling theme. Is there a controlling theme for the Canter-
bury Tales, Wordsworth's Prelude, or Pound's Cantos? Can a major lit-
erary work have a controlling subject, or, lacking even this, a control-
ling author, but no controlling theme?
Let us return to the proposition that the poem is "essentially about
a hero and heroism." Certainly Beowulf is the figure who dominates
one's interest from the early stages of the narrative to the end, and the
poem is built around his three heroic fights. Still, to consider Beowulf
as a controlling subject fails to take account of the large amount of ma-
terial that concerns other characters and events. The hero is not intro-
duced until line 194, where he is not yet named. In the meantime one
has heard much of the dynastic history of the Danes, including the
story of Scyld's fate and of Hrothgar's prosperous youth and the
building of Heorot. As time goes on one is told of Sigemund, Finn,
and Hengest; one hears an elaborate description of Grendel's mere;
one hears Hrothgar (not Beowulf) deliver a long discourse on the sub-
ject of pride and reversal in human affairs; one hears of Offa and
Thryth, of Freawaru and Ingeld and the Heathobards; one is shown an
imaginative portrait of the last survivor of a vanished race, and one
22Ó INTERPRETATION
hears his lament; one learns more than some readers would wish con-
cerning Scandinavian tribal history; and one is told much of Wiglaf s
background and heroism and of the future troubles of the Geats. All
this concerns the hero only indirectly if at all.
In addition, great parts of Beowulf's life remain untold. His biogra-
phy never unfolds sequentially. His fifty-year rule is passed over with
the briefest of summaries. Was he ever married? Was he educated?
Did he like to ride, to hawk, to hunt, to read or tell stories? One is
never told. Concerning his inner thoughts, aspirations, or anxieties, if
he ever had any, one knows almost nothing.
If the statement that the poem is essentially about a hero cannot
command full assent, then, consider the more attractive idea that it is
essentially about heroism. Not only Beowulf but Scyld, Beow, Hroth-
gar, Sigemund, Hygelac, Hengest, Ingeld, and Wiglaf fall under the
general rubric of "hero," whatever their differences may be. Taken
together, they would seem to define by example the concept of hero-
ism as it was understood within the context of early Germanic life.
And yet even to say that the controlling subject of the poem is hero-
ism leaves too much unexplained. Why does one find such an emphasis
on tribal history? What do the Danes or Geats collectively have to do
with the concept of heroism? Why does the major speech of the poem,
Hrothgar's "sermon," take as its chief theme not the desirability of he-
roic action, but the propensity of heroes to get into trouble? Why does
the poem introduce the last survivor, who is no hero? Why the "Fa-
ther's Lament," a purely elegiac passage?

If At this point one might throw up one's hands and conclude that if
there ever was a controlling theme or subject to the poem, it cannot be
determined today. My own view is that the poem does possess the-
matic unity, but a somewhat different unity than has been proposed by
those who look on wisdom and fortitude, salvation, pride, the hero, or
even the concept of heroism as what the work is most about. T h e
poem's controlling theme is community: its nature, its occasional
breakdown, and the qualities that are necessary to maintain it. Since
such a view is not likely to strike a reader as obvious, perhaps it de-
serves brief justification.
Beowulf is a heroic poem, true; but to say that the work is essen-
tially about heroism implies that the poet wished to exhibit heroic en-
deavor for its own sake as embodying the highest human aspirations
THE CONTROLLING THEME 227

and capabilities. He could have done but so, but he did not. He could
have shown us a hero engaged in three successive life-and-death fights,
each one of which illustrated the man's exceptional qualities of
strength and courage, so that by the end of the poem the audience
could have marveled at what a person can achieve in the course of a
heroic life. Some readers approach the poem as if it were composed
this way. They see in it "[no] higher theme than the life and death of
its hero." 5 They thereby disregard many indications that the poet was
as interested in the social context and consequences of heroic deeds as
in the deeds themselves. Beowulf's adventures are not recounted in a
vacuum, as they might have been. They do not take place on a de-
serted mountain or on an island at the world's end. From the begin-
ning, they are embedded in a historical context that relates them to the
time of ancestral kings. They are located geographically in the two
neighboring courts of Denmark and Geatland, each of which provides
examples of gracious social behavior and serves as a nexus of kinship
ties and reciprocal obligations among a variety of people. The setting
of the poem contributes to its theme by showing the why and where-
fore of heroic action. It shows us heroic action as a method, a means to
an end, rather than as an end in itself. The end to which Beowulf's ac-
tions are directed is community—peaceful human community among
kin and neighbors—and much more of the poem deals with this col-
lective issue than with any individual heroics.
One scholar, Kathryn Hume, has argued against a hero-centered
approach to the poem and sees its controlling theme as threats to social
order—specifically, "troublemaking, revenge, and war—problems in-
escapably inherent in this kind of heroic society, yet profoundly inimi-
cal to its existence."6 While such an approach hits close to mine, one
might question if this theme is developed so systematically that it is
"controlling." Feasting, gift giving, and the exchange of ceremonious
speeches all have to do with social order, for example, but they do not
constitute threats. Such an approach would be attractive if one could
accept Hume's view that the firedrake represents war, but if the
dragon represents anything, it is also first and foremost a dragon. Nei-
ther is it clear that the poet depicts troublemaking, revenge, and war
as problems inescapably inherent in heroic society. Beowulf rules the
Geats in peace for fifty years. Blood-feuds were potentially subject to
settlement through payment of wergild, if they could not be resolved
by force (as the Grendel feud was). As for troublemaking, it unfortu-
228 INTERPRETATION
nately seems endemic not only to heroic society but to societies in gen-
eral, hence the universal existence of laws and systems of punishment
to deal with it. All in all, this approach shifts the poem's emphases by
making too much of war and feuding and too little of the author's in-
terest in dynastic history, genealogies, gift giving, courtly etiquette,
song, and other forms of nonviolent communal interaction. T o reduce
Beowulf to a series of threats is to forget that life, to this poet, is also
seen as seledream, "joy in the hall" (2252a). Death is not only a re-
lease from troubles; it is also the end of "laughter . . . play, and merri-
ment" in the company of others (3020b-2ia). When the community
is split apart by war and feuding, the possibility of such joy vanishes.
For this reason the poet puts much stress not only on threats to social
order, but on the nature of social order and the importance of people
directing their energies to communal ends.
If one views the poem as centrally concerned with collective issues
as well as with individual heroism, some of its structural anomalies
cease to appear very puzzling. Its digressive method can be seen to
have a certain rationale, for the digressions are always directed to an
elucidation of the social context of the action and away from a simple
narrative of "what happens next." The slow development of the first
episode, with all its attention to courtly etiquette in Heorot, can be
seen not only as a sort of retardando of the main business at hand but
as a necessary identification of what it is that Beowulf is fighting for.
This is not etiquette, exactly, but something much more: the possibil-
ity of peaceful human interaction in a world frequently subject to vio-
lence. The poet's failure to mention Beowulf or the monsters in the
prelude to his poem—a curious omission if one remembers the speci-
ficity with which classical epics identify their subject in the first few
lines—thus guides the audience at once to the poet's true interests.
The early Scylding kings enter the narrative only to leave it, but they
embody qualities of leadership and munificence to which the poet will
allude many times. These qualities and others akin to them, such as
unflinching courage and unwavering loyalty to one's oaths and kinship
ties, are what hold society together. With greater precision than the
virtues of wisdom and fortitude, they sum up what is asked of men and
women in Germanic tribal society. Everything that the poet has to say
that bears on these qualities and their opposites is equally relevant to
his main theme of community, whether or not any hero commands the
spotlight.
THE CONTROLLING THEME 229

Such a concept of the controlling theme of the poem accounts fairly


well for the way in which the three great fights that constitute the plot
are narrated. Grendel, the angenga ("lone-goer"), obviously stands
apart from human community. He wars "one against all" (145a). He
is more than a simple enemy or obstacle, but like Cain, represents the
denial of the bonds that hold society together. He hates Heorot and
the noisy merriment that fills it. He knows nothing of human lan-
guage, joy, or gift giving, and he refuses to settle his feud by wergild.
Beowulf's decision to meet him in single combat restores the possibil-
ity of order to a society broken apart. What inspires the hero to act is
not the monster's mere existence. He sets forth from home because he
knows that Hrothgar has need of good men ( I99b-20i ). He does not
act from impulsive self-will, but because the best and wisest people of
his tribe urge him on ( 4 1 5 - 4 1 8 ) . T h e y know his strength, and he
himself is aware of the debt toward Hrothgar that he has inherited
through his father Ecgtheow. From the beginning, the hero's actions
are tied into a network of reciprocal social obligations rather than nar-
rated for their own sake. T h e period of celebration that follows the
fight is likewise no narrative filler. Like the long prelude to the fight, it
shows the audience what Grendel tried to negate: human joy in the
group, free of outside threats or treachery from within.
T h e hero takes on the second fight, too, not simply to engage in an
adventure that will prove his manhood but because of certain demands
that are set on him. Here the demands are explicit and are put into the
mouth of Hrothgar: " N o w once again you are our only hope . . . seek
[her out] if you dare!" (i376b~79). A s before, more is made of the
prelude and aftermath to the fight than of the fight itself. T h e rela-
tively brief account of the combat in the underwater hall is followed by
nearly six hundred lines of speeches and renewed gift giving, together
with a few narrative links that bring the Geats back home ( 1 6 2 3 -
2199).
While the dragon is another loner, its threat to society is more im-
personal than Grendel's. As far as one can tell, it bears no malice to-
ward human beings until the theft of the cup from the hoard, when its
full fury is aroused. Beowulf fights it because it represents so profound
a threat to his people that, as their leader, he cannot abdicate responsi-
bility. Even more than before, his choice is determined by an irresist-
ible social need. In addition, the dragon is a hoarder. Its fury is
directed specifically against the gift-throne of the Geats (2324-263).
230 INTERPRETATION
By guarding its hoard it locks up the wealth that holds society to-
gether. Through his victory Beowulf makes this wealth available for
use by his people, even though they prove themselves unfit to keep it
through their cowardice. By killing the dragon, he does what he can to
restore the stability of society and create the conditions under which a
successor could rule in peace from a new gift-throne. Again through
no fault of the king's, his people will have more difficulty defending
themselves than he could have foreseen. T h e aftermath of the third
fight differs from the earlier ones in that the continuing vulnerability
of human society, rather than the restoration of communal order, is
emphasized. One is left not only contemplating the dead king's
achievement but wondering what history will hold in store for tribes
who must make do without heroes.
T h e influence of the theme of community on the large amount of
digressive material should be evident without belaboring. At the be-
ginning and toward the end of the poem, the celebration of heroes
takes second place to the exposition of tribal history, by which the poet
shows how a stable dynasty was first established in Denmark and,
later, how a stable society will degenerate into chaos. What the Danes
had been before Scyld, the Geats will be after Beowulf. T h e funerals
of these two kings serve as resting points in this great scheme of rising
and falling. They occur at key moments of transition and provide a
focus for the listening audience to contemplate what constitutes effec-
tive leadership. They also serve to remind one of the impermanence of
any social system that is based on personal heroism alone, or that rests
on the illusion that the things of this world are immutable.
Dynastic history reenters the narrative from time to time, usually
with the same message of impermanence. One is shown examples of a
society's breaking down through people's greed, intemperate anger, or
self-will (as of Heremod or Offa's queen) or through deliberate acts of
war (such as Hygelac's Rhineland raid). One hears the scop sing of
how the oaths of in-laws could not prevent violence from taking the
life of Hildeburh's brother Hnaef, her husband Finn, and her child.
One is told of the similar breakdown of an arranged peace between the
Danes and Ingeld's Heathobards, and of wars between Geats and
Swedes that extend over three generations and result in the deaths of
four Geatish and Swedish kings in succession (HaeÖcynn, Ongen-
theow, Heardred, and Onela). The recurrent references to these
events may in part deserve the name of "digressions," yet they are
THE CONTROLLING THEME 231

scarcely peripheral to what the poem is essentially about. Their place


in the narrative is considerable. T h e scop's song of Finn and Hengest
takes almost as many lines to recount as the fight between Beowulf
and Grendel, and the dynastic material relating to Geats and Swedes
takes many more lines than the dragon fight.
W i g l a f s important role at the end of the poem emphasizes that her-
oism is a way of binding society together rather than an end in itself.
More than anyone else in the poem, Wiglaf embodies the principle of
loyalty to one's kinsman and lord. His willingness to sacrifice his life
for his lord calls to mind the similar selflessness of Byrhtnoth's loyal
retainers in " T h e Battle of Maldon," a poem in which the concept of
duty is elevated into the highest of ideals. W i g l a f s appearance in the
narrative is accompanied by a ringing reminder of the duty of thanes
to reciprocate for the gifts they have received. More than either of the
other two fights, the dragon fight is made into an ethical showpiece. It
is no single combat, as were the first two fights, but illustrates the
paired cooperation between thane and lord that permits society to sur-
vive threats that would overwhelm anyone standing alone.
T h e nonnarrative passages that constitute such a significant part of
the poem likewise have little bearing on the hero or heroism, but much
on the theme of community.
T h e account of the building of Heorot (6yb-85 ) and the detailed
description of Grendel's mere ( i 3 5 7 b - 7 6 ) take on complementary
roles suggesting the joys of communal solidarity as opposed to the
gloom of life apart from others. Heorot is constructed by royal decree
as a collective enterprise of many tribes. It is meant as a physical re-
minder of the triumphant rule of the Scyldings. It is the site where the
gifts that hold society together are distributed, and people flock to it
from many lands. T h e mere, a kind of anti-Heorot, negates the values
that Hrothgar's hall represents. Nothing is known of its origins. T h e
path to it is unfamiliar. It is a place of mists and swirling waters, and no
one knows its depth. Only Grendel and Grendel's mother dwell in it,
like an incestuous primal couple who have no further need of compan-
ionship. T h e y suggest what human beings could be like in the absence
of the joys of the group, in the absence of all obligations except the ties
of blood. T h e picture is not attractive.
T h e three elegiac passages that set the tone for part II of the poem
present images of society breaking down in the face of physical disas-
ters. T h e "Lament of the Last Survivor" ( 2 2 4 7 - 6 6 ) builds up an
232 INTERPRETATION
image of bleak privation through the use of one negative after an-
other. All but one of the warriors of the ancient tribe evoked by this
lament have died. No one is left to wear and display the weapons that
link generations together, to polish the cup that carried mead at the
feast, to play the harp and sing the songs that knit human beings to-
gether in a shared history, to hawk with tamed falcons, to ride the
tamed horse. One by one, the items that the speaker names call up as-
sociations of joyful human community only to deny its continuing ex-
istence. Like Grendel or the dragon, the last survivor lives without
human companionship. He utters his lament "alone, concerning all"
(2268a). His solitary existence is reduced to an unbroken cycle of sor-
row until death comes as a relief.
The "Father's Lament" (2444-623) calls up a similar picture of
desolation. Hrethel's sorrow after the accidental killing of his son
Herebeald is likened to the grief of a father who lives to see his son
hung on the gallows, in a death that must remain unavenged. Such a
man has seen the end of his hopes for a joyful old age in the company
of his heir. T h e continuity of family life is broken. T h e harp is silent,
and the wine hall that had been a place of feasting and gift giving is
now empty and desolate. Hrethel prefers death to an old age of this
kind.
T h e gloomy tone struck in the "Lament of the Last Survivor" and
confirmed by the "Father's Lament" comes to its most unmitigated
expression toward the end of the "Messenger's Prophecy," which soon
follows the hero's death ( 3 0 i 4 b - 2 7 ) . T h e killing of the dragon will
scarcely usher in a period of peace and prosperity for the Geats. Their
cowardice and disobedience have shown the response that can be ex-
pected of them when they are next called on to defend themselves. In
the messenger's vision, Geatish women will walk the paths of exile,
perhaps in slavery. Men will wake to battle and to the cries of carrion
birds. T h e two most manifest symbols of communal life will vanish or
be stilled: gold ornaments will be stripped away, and the harp will be
unheard.
Hrothgar's long address to the hero ( 1 7 0 0 - 8 4 ) , finally, avoids the
theme of personal heroics almost completely so as to address, more
pointedly than any other passage of the poem, the question of how
leaders must act if human society is to be held together. The speech
poses the problem of what will result if fortitude exists for its own sake
rather than for the common good. Unless subordinated to collective
THE CONTROLLING THEME 233
ends, Hrothgar reminds Beowulf, a hero's desire for fame can be as
self-seeking as a king's desire for personal wealth. Ultimately it is God
who allots all good things to human beings, whether fame, wealth,
power, wisdom, strength, or life itself. Life is on loan; exceptional
strength will fade; good fortune will turn to bad, just as happened in
Heorot. The busy man who forgets these things out of pride or spir-
itual torpor will soon live and learn them again. Through Hrothgar,
the poet explicitly takes on the role of spiritual teacher and declares
the truth of matters left implicit elsewhere. The relevance of the
king's speech to Beowulf's situation should be clear. A man may be
granted great strength, like Heremod, but unless it is directed to the
common good, it is no more than an affliction to others. A person may
have wealth or fame in surpassing measure, but if he forgets that these
things come from God, he is all the more likely to lose them. The
wealth that is given to one person will eventually be passed on to
others, whether willingly or unwillingly. Hrothgar has given Beowulf
magnificent gifts, and more treasures will follow. The hero will soon
depart for home "proud in his gold . . . exultant in his treasure"
(i88i-82a). In the meantime he is reminded that heroes and kings
are subject to the same process of reversal that is endemic in human
affairs.

Κ Throughout Beowulf, interest centers not on man as solitary hero


but on people and what holds them together. The poet did not give us
an Anglo-Saxon variant of the story of Prometheus or Faust. He was
not interested in exhibiting a person's blind heroic enterprise in defi-
ance of the gods or the constraints that govern normal existence. Most
emphatically he did not show us a hero in rebellion against oppressive
social conventions. He gave us a document every part of which either
stresses the joys of harmonious living among the group, or brings out
the gloom of life lived apart from the group, or develops the way in
which people can contribute to the stability of the group by leading
lives free from arrogance and greed and by directing their energies
against external threats. The poet's ethical concerns surface con-
stantly, not only in speeches and gnomic comments but in the main
narrative as well. Thus Beowulf fulfills its author's purpose of illustrat-
ing, in manifold ways, how societies are held together and how they
fall apart.
In the end, unlike the author of "The Wanderer," the Beowulf poet
234 INTERPRETATION
does not turn away from human society to contemplate an eternal
world immune to change. He ends his poem with an image of tribal
solidarity in a typically hierarchical structure that moves outward from
the one, the dead king, to the few, the twelve chosen Geats who circle
his barrow, to the many, the multitude of others who lament his pass-
ing. All share one tribal history and are knit together by a common set
of values, and all share in a common loss.
ΐ4· THE FATAL CONTRADICTION

e ARLY readers of Beowulf seem to have been untroubled by


suspicions that the poem's surface simplicity is undercut by
moral ambiguities. Scholars assumed with some unanimity that the
hero's life is intended to exemplify qualities deemed worthy of imita-
tion in the kind of society that the poem describes and, presumably,
from which it came. Klaeber refers to Beowulf as a "warrior brave and
gentle, blameless in thought and deed," for example, a "singularly
spotless hero" who in the end "dies for his people (p. li). Not all earlier
readers were willing to go so far as Klaeber in his willingness to find
"features of the Christian Savior" in the hero and to understand the
plot as "suggesting the most exalted hero-life known to Christians,"
but hardly a voice was raised in dissent from the proposition that the
hero represents something good, in a value system where good and
bad stand opposite with very little shading in between.
During the past thirty years or so, readings of Beowulf have been
proposed that depart so profoundly from such assumptions that one
wonders if the same poem is being discussed. The hero has been seen
as a "benighted pagan" who capitulates to his desire for the gold and is
damned.1 His entire life has been seen as "a falling off from . . . one
moment of triumph," the Grendel fight, so that in the end he meets
with "utter defeat" and dies "in vain."2 At best, the heroic ideal that
motivates the hero's behavior is seen as something "splendid but im-
practical" that does not, in the end, bear imitating.3
Such disagreements concerning the core issues of the poem not only
reflect a restless discomfort with easy answers, they suggest the rough
interpretive parameters within which the text may have functioned
from the beginning. The original audience of Beowulf is not likely to
have been uniform in either social standing or values. It may have in-
cluded thanes and monks, men and women, noblemen and common-
ers, young and old. Even if it consisted entirely of monks, some may
have been aristocratic in background and orientation; if it consisted
entirely of noblemen, some may have lived lives of Christian piety.

235
236 INTERPRETATION
Not only modern readers have a right to disagree about the meaning
of a literary work from the past. From an early time, the work may
have meant different things to different listeners.
The existence of more than one judgment concerning the signifi-
cance of a work need not condemn it to oblivion, nor does such dis-
agreement necessarily turn it into a battleground wherein reader is set
off against reader or listener against listener. On the contrary, un-
ambiguous works sometimes divide an audience by their polemical
nature. One could argue that the Beowulf poet steers such an even-
handed and, ultimately, ambiguous course between tragedy and cele-
bration, between secular and religous ideals, that almost all members
of his audience would have been able to unite in admiration of the
poem and its articulation of certain general truths.
My remarks might seem to be leading to the conclusion that those
who praise the hero and those who damn him are equally justified,
given the possibility of medieval precedent for either view. This is not
my point. Critical relativism is not such an attractive refuge that one
must opt for it at the earliest opportunity, as if there were no way to
evaluate the likelihood that a particular judgment accords with an au-
thor's primary intentions. While ultimately an author's intentions may
be irrecoverable, the text is not lost, and one can tell what it says, al-
ways allowing for the possibility of honest disagreement about the
meaning of certain words and phrases.
In my own view, Beowulf expresses an essentially conservative im-
pulse. First and foremost, it praises a life lived in accord with ideals
that help perpetuate the best features of the kind of society it depicts.
The ideals deserve the name "heroic," but they are of Christian and
well-nigh universal significance as well. Most notably they include the
notions of unflinching courage in the face of adversity; unswerving
loyalty in fulfilling one's duty to one's king, one's kindred, and one's
word, and in carrying out one's earned or inherited social obligations
in general; and unsparing generosity, particularly on the part of kings
and queens. While these ideals motivate the conduct of many people in
the poem, they find most consistent expression in the life of Beowulf,
who is depicted at various stages of life and whose great adventures
successively exemplify praiseworthy conduct in a young warrior and
an aged king. The heroic code by which Beowulf lives is not presented
as something splendid and impractical, but as splendid and eminently
practical, in that societies are shown to stand or fall in accord with their
ability to sustain it.
T H E F A T A L CONTRADICTION 237

f In a pivotal article published in 1965 under the title "Beowulf the


Hero and the King," John Leyerle sets forth a series of judgments
that, while never before voiced, have been accepted in much subse-
quent criticism and that effectively undermine the value of the hero's
self-sacrificing death.4 In Leyerle's view, "The poem presents a criti-
cism of the essential weakness of the society it portrays." Its major
theme is not individual heroism but "the fatal contradiction at the core
of heroic society":

The hero follows a code that exalts indomitable will and valour in the
individual, but society requires a king who acts for the common good,
not for his own glory. The greater the hero, the more likely his ten-
dency to imprudent action as king. The three battles with the monsters,
the central episodes in the poem, reveal a pattern in which Beowulf's
preeminence as a hero leads to the destruction of the Geats when he be-
comes king . . . All turns on the figure of Beowulf, a man of magnifi-
cence, whose understandable, almost inevitable pride commits him to in-
dividual, heroic action and leads to a national calamity by leaving his race
without mature leadership at a time of extreme crisis, facing human en-
emies much more destructive than the dragon (pp. 89, 101-102).

While such a point of view is foreshadowed in Tolkien's mistransla-


tion of the poem's last word, lofgeornost ("most eager for praise"), as
"too eager for praise," 5 Leyerle goes beyond Tolkien in developing a
comprehensive theory of the poem based on the notion of the hero's
faults. Among critics who have accepted the theory is Margaret E.
Goldsmith, who has sought to distinguish the good hero of part I of
the poem from the flawed hero of part II. 6 In her view, which goes
beyond Leyerle's in its emphasis on the poem's religiosity, the aged
Beowulf suffers from "the spiritual deterioration described by Hroth-
gar." In the end, the king's pride and self-will lead not only to his own
death but to the destruction of his people. According to this reasoning,
the hero, by being heroic, fails to fulfill his proper duties as king.
Leyerle goes so far as to extend this literary interpretation to the
sphere of history. In his view ("Hero and King," p. 98), the hero's
conduct exemplifies the inherent instability in Germanic heroic society
that led to its eventual demise and its replacement by something more
closely resembling the modern nation-state.
Leaving historical conclusions aside (for no one can say whether or
not the heroic age ever existed except in the minds of poets, let alone
how and when it died), such negative verdicts concerning the value of
238 INTERPRETATION

the hero's final self-sacrifice maintain an appeal whose attractiveness is


chiefly a priori rather than based on the text. Perhaps I should say
"what the text says most clearly and emphatically," for to a limited
extent, the disparate judgments of modern critics are voiced in the text
by characters with different points of view, among which the narrator
occasionally shifts. All in all, however, the mood of gloom is tempered
by exultation. Any incidental or unspoken criticism of the hero is far
outweighed by emphatic praise, while the "fatal contradiction at the
core of heroic society" boils down to no more than the recognition
that the kind of action that holds society together in times of crisis is
not met with frequently, hence human life in general tends to be un-
stable. T o justify this view, let me take up, one by one, the key ques-
tions on which a judgment of the hero's actions must be based.
ι . Is Beowulf's decision to fight the dragon imprudent? Many critics
say yes: the dragon should have been left alone. This is Wiglafs wis-
dom, as expressed in a speech that some readers take as the poet's final
word on the question of the hero's prudence (3077-84a):

O f t sceall eorl monig anes willan


wraec adreogan, swa us geworden is.
N e meahton we gelaeran leofne Jieoden,
rices hyrde rad zenigne,
Jjset he ne grette goldweard J)one,
lete hyne licgean, Jjaer he longe waes,
wicum wunian oS woruldende.
Heold on heahgesceap . . .

O f t e n must many men suffer misery


through one man's will as has happened with us.
W e could not give our beloved ruler,
shepherd of the realm, any advice
not to seek out the guard o f the gold
but let him be where he long had lain
dwelling at home till the world's end.
H e kept to his high destiny . . .

Although the gist of Wiglafs speech is clear, its details are fraught
with uncertainties, and the translation I have offered must be taken as
tentative.
First, does anes willan mean "through one man's will," or "for the
sake of one [person]," as Klaeber glosses the words?' If the latter,
THE FATAL CONTRADICTION 239
Wiglaf means only that the Geats are lamenting Beowulf's death; if
the former, he means to say that Beowulf's stubborn decision to fight
the dragon led to their misery. Grammar will not determine the mat-
ter. Given the speaker's emphasis in the next lines on the hero's refusal
to accept any moderating advice, however, I discern a note of criticism
as well as regret in W i g l a f s words.
Then again, what is the wrœc, or "misery," to which the speaker
refers—the Geats' present grief, or the future troubles that the mes-
senger predicts they will suffer? Since Wiglaf refers to the Geats' mis-
ery as something that has already come about, one cannot conclude
that he is blaming Beowulf for bringing about hypothetical future di-
sasters. Wiglaf regrets that the king left himself vulnerable to being
killed, and that is the wrœc in question.
These questions of words and their meaning do not resolve a more
general question. Why are we told only at this point, after the fight,
that the hero went against the advice of his counselors? The poet's
practice here calls to mind an earlier passage when, long after the fact,
Hygelac mentions to Beowulf that he had opposed the hero's journey
to Denmark (1994^-98). In that prior instance the introduction of the
motif of "stubborn action against contrary advice" served to raise the
hero in the estimation of the audience by showing how he achieved his
victory in spite of timid counsel. Here much the same end is achieved,
for Beowulf has won even greater glory than before. Even while
dwelling on the cost of the king's achievement, Wiglaf pays tribute to
the man who alone "kept to his high destiny" when his countrymen
were urging him to evade it. A wholly different effect would have re-
sulted had the poet chronologically shown first the dragon's attack,
then the counselors' advice to the king, then Beowulf's defiance of this
advice. Such a sequence would have underscored the king's propensity
for headstrong action in much the same way as the author of The Song
of Roland highlights the arrogant confidence of Roland by showing
him defy prudent counsels in the course of a dramatic public debate.
This the poet refrains from doing, not merely out of a desire to break
up sequential chronology but to show the king as having kept to a
"high destiny" when with only slight loss of honor, as one discovers in
retrospect, he could have taken a more timid course.
W i g l a f s speech raises still another question. Can one assume, with
the counselors, that the dragon was going to lie quiet in its barrow "till
the world's end"? If so, then they were right, and Beowulf's contrary
240 INTERPRETATION

decision to counterattack was the height of folly. Unfortunately the


poet does not specify the dragon's intentions. Perhaps the counselors
were right; perhaps they engaged in wishful thinking. All one knows is
that the dragon burned down the Geats' stronghold and fully intended
to leave nothing alive (23140-15). Because it has already tried to do
this once, Beowulf scarcely seems rash in seeking to prevent it from
making a renewed attack. In a crisis like this, taking action can be
more prudent than hiding one's head in the sand. Hrothgar responded
passively to Grendel's threat, and his troubles continued for twelve
years. As folces weard, "guardian of the tribe," Beowulf is aware of his
responsibility to exercise leadership. He still possesses the cup whose
theft, as he now knows (2403-2405), incited the dragon's ire. He has
no way of knowing whether or not this ire has ceased, and so, with lit-
tle hesitation, he offers his own life in exchange for the dragon's. His
people therefore honor him "as is proper" for what the narrator calls
his "courageous deed" (3173-74), and there is no reason why critics
should fail to do the same.
2. Should the hero have accepted help? Here interpretation seems to
be on solid ground. According to every dictate of military science, the
king was foolish not to have surrounded himself with able warriors
once he had reached his decision, so that he could fight with the most
chance for success. His choice of single combat seems an act of arro-
gance based on a serious underestimation of the dragon's power. The
key lines are 2345-50:

Oferhogode Sa hringa fengel,


]oaet he f)one widflogan weorode gesohte,
sidan herge; no he him J)a saecce ondred,
ne him £>aes wyrmes wig for wiht dyde,
eafoS ond eilen, forSon he aer fela
nearo neSende niöa gedigde . . .

Then the lord of rings scorned to seek out


that far-flier with a troop of men,
an ample host; he did not fear the fight
or value in the least the dragon's power
or strength in battle because he earlier had come
through many a combat taking dire risks . . .

In reading this passage, critics have called to mind analogous head-


strong acts: Roland's high pride in refusing Charlemagne's offer of
troops to augment the Frankish rear guard, or Byrhtnoth's overconfi-
THE FATAL CONTRADICTION 241

dence in offering a fair fight to a band of deadly Vikings. If Beowulf


did not worry about the dragon's power, he was foolish. T h e dragon
itself settles this question. If Wiglaf had not come to offer help,
the king would have died in the dragon's jaws without ever having
killed it.
Y e t the matter is not so simple. T o what extent should the hero be
blamed for not counting on the help of people who were opposed to
the fight in the first place, as Wiglaf later tells us the Geats were?
Even the hand-picked companions whom Beowulf had stationed near
the barrow turn and run for the woods as soon as the dragon gives a
good snort. O f these eleven men, presumably those with the closest
ties of duty to their king, only Wiglaf turns out to be of the least use,
and he is an untried warrior. Leaving aside his extraordinary act of
courage, which even Wiglaf admits went ofer min gemet, "beyond my
normal power" (2879a), Beowulf takes the measure of his men with a
realism unclouded by false hopes. They even betray the little faith he
puts in them. If he had depended on their direct support, his situation
would have been still more desperate. When he excludes them from
direct participation in the fight with the words, "That is not your busi-
ness, nor is any man suited for it except myself" (25320-33), he is
expressing, without false modesty, the unfortunate truth. 7
In addition, the narrator's statement that Beowulf did not fear the
fight or respect the dragon's power cannot be accepted without qualifi-
cation, for to a certain extent these words are contradicted by state-
ments elsewhere. If the hero truly expected no trouble in the fight, he
would not have made special preparations for it by forging an iron
shield. His spirit would not have been "restless" and "gloomy"
(24i9b-2oa) as he wished his companions farewell before the fight.
He would not have regretted having to use his weapons, as he had not
had to do against Grendel; and he would not have mentioned the
wounds that he expected both opponents to suffer (25i8b-32a). T h e
king's courage in the face of his probable death is of course commend-
able, and it is what permits him to kill his enemy. His supposed un-
derestimation of the dragon's power is counterweighed by signs of his
awareness that any victory could not be achieved lightly. A s Beowulf
sets out for the barrow, the poet therefore does not condemn him for
making light of the encounter but praises him for undertaking it de-
spite its known risks. " H e trusted in his solitary strength," the poet
says, and adds, "that is no coward's way!" (25410-42).
3. Does the hero act for his own glory, out of pride? By calling the
242 INTERPRETATION
hero's pride "understandable, almost inevitable," one is freed from the
constraint of having to show evidence that it exists—exists in the sense
of "arrogance," that is, for a certain amount of pride can be a good
thing. It can keep a person like Wiglaf from running for the woods,
for example, when others are doing so. The chief question is whether
the king's motive was a desire for personal glory rather than the com-
mon good.
After Beowulf learns of the damage wrought by the dragon, his
breast swells "with dark thoughts, as was not his custom" (2332). He
fears that he has offended the Lord by having violated ealde riht—
presumably the "ancient law" of the Jewish and Christian faiths.8 His
reaction shows not pride, but a realistic awareness that God sometimes
punishes people and nations for the sins of their leaders. Such a belief
was commonplace among men and women of the Middle Ages and has
not lost all its force today.
Beowulf is wrong, of course. The Lord has not sent the dragon to
punish the Geats for their leader's sins. The dragon has emerged on its
own initiative, angered by someone else's theft of a cup. Later
Beowulf learns this fact, as we in the audience have known it all along.
In the meantime, his reaction confirms that he knows that good things
as well as bad are allotted by God for His own reasons, which are not
always manifest. Beowulf's thoughts are troubled not only because of
the destruction of the royal hall, but because he does not yet know if
he himself is to blame for this loss. His immediate response—to pre-
pare an iron shield so that he may fight the dragon alone—shows his
unhesitating willingness to remove the presumed source of pollution
by offering his own life, if necessary, to the terrible creature who may
have been sent by an angry God, for all he knows.
As the king continues to make ready for the fight, the narrator's
asides confirm that such an attitude was justified to the extent that
God, or fate, did have a hand in events. One is told that Beowulf "was
destined to suffer" the end of his life side by side with the dragon
(234ib-44). Somewhat later one is reminded that the fate that "was
destined to fall" on the old man was near (242ob-23a). Still later the
narrator confirms that Beowulf died in accord with "the judgment of
God" (2858b), just as everyone does. Such terms imply that the king
had little choice in avoiding either the fight or its outcome. Although
the dragon was not sent by God, God as ultimate disposer of human
fates had determined that the king's life was to come to an end, and to
do so in triumph, not in shame or silence.
THE FATAL CONTRADICTION 243
Nothing in the fight suggests that the king enters it as a way of
winning personal glory rather than as (in Garmonsway's well-chosen
words) "a moral act which his honor compels him to undertake."9 Be-
fore the fight he declares himself willing to accept whatever outcome
the Lord sees fit to grant (25250-273). Afterward he gives thanks to
"the Lord of all, the King of glory, eternal God" for having been
"permitted"—the phrasing is again significant because it reflects the
king's respect for the source of his fortune—to gain such a magnifi-
cent hoard for his people (2794-98). He does not exult in the hoard
for himself, for he will have no need of it. He rejoices in having won
great treasure for his people as an incidental outcome of having killed
the dragon, and he urges Wiglaf to continue to act for the need of the
tribe (28oob-28oia). He reviews the conduct of his past life without
regrets, for he has kept the peace, has not sought out trouble, has not
sworn false oaths, has not persecuted his kinsmen, and in general has
refrained from the type of behavior that Hrothgar had warned him
against with reference to Heremod. At the same time, he refrains from
exulting in his personal riches or achievements, and his last words are a
model of restraint.
The Old English poem known as "Vainglory," which follows "The
Seafarer" in the Exeter Book, presents a fairly detailed account of
what in Anglo-Saxon clerical circles was thought to constitute ofer-
hygd, or "arrogance." The arrogant man is filled with envy, boasts of
himself, cheats and snipes at his fellow men, hates his betters, and pro-
vokes drunken quarrels. He is likened to the angels who rebelled
against God in heaven, and as "a child of the devil wrapped in flesh"
he is destined to suffer torment in hell.10 Beowulf's pride, insofar as he
has any, cannot be called oferhygd in this sense. The king conducts
himself with the dignity that one expects of persons of rank. He does
not abdicate his royal robes for sackcloth and ashes; the poet does not
celebrate that kind of king. On the contrary, he rules with strength
and with a constant regard for the needs of his people. When he dies,
he thus meets the judgment that awaits the righteous, while his people
praise his kindness above all his other virtues (3180-82).
4. Is the hero defeated, and does he die in vain? Despite the contrary
opinions of others, I fail to see how Beowulf can be considered to meet
with "utter defeat" at the end of his life in a "losing battle against the
evil powers" when he accomplishes what he had set out to do. 11 The
cost of his success is high, from one point of view, but he and Wiglaf
succeed in killing an enemy that had visited the Geats with unparal-
244 INTERPRETATION
leled destruction and that posed a continuing threat. He wins a magnif-
icent hoard for his people, they suffer not a single casualty, and he is
able to accomplish these things while living up to his pledge not to flee
one foot from the barrow (2524b-27a). If the narrator had meant us
to consider the fight a defeat, it is hard to see why he refers to it as the
hero's "last triumph" (2710a) and speaks of Wiglaf as "exultant in
victory" (2756a). In any event there is little point in transforming the
dragon into vaguely plural "evil powers." The dragon is bad, but it is
not therefore evil. Even if it were one of the evil powers, there would
be all the more reason to rejoice in its demise.
I therefore cannot see that the victory is won in vain. Beowulf wants
only one thing, to kill the dragon, and he succeeds. Saving his own life
is not the point. Winning the gold is incidental. Since the Geats de-
posit the dragon's gold in the dead king's barrow in lieu of tribal trea-
sures, from a purely pragmatic standpoint they are spared having to
make a great material sacrifice at their king's funeral. They are no
poorer after the funeral than before. The gold from the hoard lies in
the ground "as useless to human beings as it was before" (3168), just
like the precious objects that accompany any funeral. The objects are
not therefore without a function; it is just that their function is to com-
memorate the dead rather than serve the living. Winning treasure is
never made into a dominant theme in Beowulf; how men act is more
important than what they win. Earlier, when the hero saw precious
treasures in Grendel's underwater hall, he likewise left them lying un-
used, with the single exception of the sword hilt, and his victory was
not therefore thought to be won in vain.
The winning of the treasure skirts the main issue, however, which is
the fate of the Geats. Does Beowulf's preeminence as a hero lead to
the ruin of his tribe when he becomes king, as is claimed by Leyerle?
Does his recklessness destroy the Geats, as Goldsmith holds? These
charges are serious but unfounded. On the contrary, his preeminence
as a hero leads to fifty years of peace when he becomes king. The poet
tells us this fact once (2208b-2209a) and Beowulf himself speaks of it
with some pride later on (2732b~38a). He adds that not a single
neighboring king dared attack him during this period, while he never
sought out a fight himself.
Fifty years is of course a round number, like the fifty years that
Hrothgar had ruled the Danes in peace (1769-73) or the fifty years
that Grendel's mother had lived undisturbed in the deep (1497-98).
THE FATAL CONTRADICTION 245
Still, the number is worth contemplating, given average life expec-
tancy during the Anglo-Saxon period. Among rulers in particular, lon-
gevity was rare. No historical Anglo-Saxon king ruled longer than
Offa of Mercia, I believe, who held the throne for forty years; the
reign of most was considerably shorter. 12 T h e magnitude of Beowulf's
accomplishment as king of the Geats is not to be taken lightly, even
though the poet does not choose to make a great issue of these years of
peace. After all, peace is not a promising subject for a heroic poem.
One should not judge his success by the events of a single last day.
Even on this day, if his conduct were such as to destroy his people
one would have to judge him severely, but he does not cause the trou-
bles that the Geats are soon to suffer. They bring these troubles on
themselves. T h e poet makes this point clear in W i g l a f s speech to the
ten cowardly Geats, when they emerge from the woods "shame-faced"
(2850a) to face his tongue-lashing. After remarking that "too few
warriors thronged about the king" during the fight, Wiglaf tells the
Geats what they can expect to result from their cowardice:

N u sceal sincjaego ond swyrdgifu,


eall eSelwynn eowrum cynne,
lufen alicgean; londrihtes mot
fwere maegburge monna aeghwylc
idei hweorfan, s y S S a n aeSelingas
feorran gefricgean fleam eowerne,
domleasan daed. (2884-903)

N o w the parting of treasure and gifts of swords,


all joy and love in your native land
will cease for your people; every man
will go bereft of his rightful domains
among the tribe once noblemen
hear from afar the news of your flight,
your inglorious deed.

Wiglaf does not say that the joys of the tribe will cease once hostile
tribes hear the news of Beowulf's death. He singles out the Geats'
cowardice, not their hero's death, as the source of their approaching
misfortunes. Those who condemn the king for dying seem to assume
that he was going to live forever. T h e important question is: Will the
king leave behind him leaders capable of defending the realm with
courage and strength like his? T h e Geats have provided a visible an-
246 INTERPRETATION
swer to this question by running away. Not only will they decline to
fight a formidable enemy, they will violate their most compelling du-
ties and desert their king to save their skins. They prefer edwitlif, "a
life of shame," to the possibility of death in battle, for Wiglaf showed
that one could stand against the dragon and survive. Wiglaf emphati-
cally tells them what their conduct will mean in the eyes of others. The
Geats' cowardice serves as an open invitation to invade the realm.
Both for its inherent shamefulness and for its practical effects, the
Geats' behavior represents all that is to be avoided in the society de-
picted in the poem, and Wiglaf reduces matters to their essentials
when he says that "death is preferable" (2890b).
I cannot see, then, that Beowulf destroys the Geats or in any other
way acts out the role of an irresponsible leader who acts only for per-
sonal glory. Such behavior is indeed criticized in the poem, but not by
his example. On the contrary, Beowulf is so concerned for the safety
of his people that he forbids them to risk their lives even when one
might think that their help would be welcome. During his long reign,
he never sought out quarrels and thus was able to preserve his people
in a peace uncharacteristic of their age.
If the behavior of anyone in the poem is to be considered irrespon-
sible and impractical, it is that of the Geats, whose failure to live by the
heroic ideal proves to be impractical in the extreme, even to the point
of leading to their ruin as soon as they no longer have a hero to protect
them. Rather than suffering spiritual deterioration, Beowulf ends his
mature life as he had begun it years before in Hrothgar's court, with
acts of splendid and uncompromising devotion to a code of conduct
that places the good of others above oneself. O f all the persons in the
poem it is he who most commands admiration, for he wins not only
fame for his personal heroism and salvation for a life lived justly, but
the name of a good king for having directed his energies for the wel-
fare of society rather than for his own advantage.
There is thus no need to look for a tragic flaw in either the hero or
his society. In this poem, as has been wisely remarked, "the tragic ele-
ment is built into the very fabric of life itself and is as natural as the
coming of spring or of a dragon." 13 As for the hero's death, without
perhaps being a "triumph" 14 it can hardly be considered a defeat that
indicates that his actions were foolish or that he had somehow fallen
from grace. As one critic has put it, "That sinners live and saints die is
a fact of every-day experience which does not prove that God is with
THE F A T A L CONTRADICTION 247
15
the former and against the latter." Beowulf went into battle fully
cognizant that he might die, and the prospect did not make him
cringe. He shows a Christian readiness for death and an awareness that
all things are in divine dispensation. His last words express neither re-
gret nor self-incrimination, but only a quiet satisfaction that he has ac-
complished what he set out to do.
Does the poem then present "a criticism of the essential weakness
of the society it portrays"? In a certain way, yes: not by showing how a
decision to act by the heroic ideal can lead to disaster, but by showing
how a failure to act by the heroic ideal can do so. If the society por-
trayed in Beowulf is weak, its weakness can be ascribed to the too-
frequent failure of people to live by the ethics that, when put into
practice, hold society together. The fatal contradiction developed
through the narrative of Beowulf is nothing inherent in heroic society,
feudal society, capitalist or Marxist society, or any other social system.
It is lodged within the recalcitrant breasts of human beings who in
times of crisis find themselves unable to live up to the ideals to which
their lips give assent. The poem does not criticize the hero for being
unlike the Geats. It criticizes all of us for not being more like the hero.
AFTERWORD:
THE EXCELLENCE OF BEOWULF

O F the many curious features of Beowulf, one has escaped direct


attention up to now: the poem's excellence. There is nothing
quite like Beowulf in the narrative verse of the period, or of any period
for that matter. " T h e Battle of Maldon" comes close, but it lacks com-
parable depth. Its style and story are simpler, it lacks a many-tiered
temporal dimension, and it has no room for the monsters of popular
belief. Much the same is true of the "Hildebrandslied" and the Old
Norse heroic lays. "Judith," Genesis B, and the first part of "The
Dream of the Rood" are brilliant narratives, but of narrower scope
and more exclusively devotional aims. They lack the brooding melan-
choly and the secular, ethical bias that distinguish Beowulf. The other
Anglo-Saxon religious narratives have their moments, but too often
these are lost among long passages of derivative or uninspired verse.
T o find excellence of an equivalent kind in early medieval literature
one has to go to the Old English elegies, which give expression to a
kindred spirit despite their lyric and sometimes enigmatic mode. Al-
though " T h e Seafarer" has an otherworldly orientation that is foreign
to heroic verse, one sees in it a similar stoic delight in adversity, and its
verbal richness is comparable. Even closer to parts of Beowulf is "The
Wanderer," with its images of winter and the ruined hall and its unre-
lenting message of transience. Artistically the poem's dignity and seri-
ousness of purpose are equally impressive. Its technique is professional
in the best sense. And yet the Wanderer's gloom knows no bounds.
The joys of the hall that he calls to mind survive only in waking
dreams. Through much of Beowulf such joys are a living reality, not
merely a memory. The poem is more complete in its depiction of life
because it combines celebration and lament; it shows us both the flow-
ering and withering of heroic society, both youth and old age.
The excellence of Beowulf has been used as an argument for its mo-

248
T H E EXCELLENCE OF BEOWULF 249
nastic origins, under the theory that only a cleric would have had the
learning and cultivation to compose a poem of this kind. For reasons
already presented, I find it likely that much of this excellence derives
from native sources somewhat removed from monastic libraries and
the pens of clerics. The manifest superiority of Beowulf to Heliand,
Genesis A, Andreas, and the other Old Germanic religious epic poetry
is a plausible argument for its nonmonastic origin.1 There are no real
models in the Bible or in classical or patristic literature for Beowulf. As
for the tenth-century Walthariipoesis, its narrative technique is so infe-
rior as to suggest that however the Beowulf poet learned his craft, he
did not do so by imitating Latin hexameters.
My point is not simply that the poem is excellent. Any reader is free
to make this discovery without a critical guidebook. I wish to empha-
size that the poem's alien kind of excellence could not be predicted on
the basis of the other literature of the period. If the Beowulf manu-
script had been destroyed instead of only singed in the fire that swept
through Ashburnham House in 1731, no one could guess that a poem
of such quality once existed. There would be no compelling reason to
believe that any Germanic people had developed the art of secular he-
roic poetry to epic proportions, or if it had, that such an epic would
deviate so sharply from the classical tradition as well as from most cur-
rent aesthetic norms.
I have stressed the poem's debt to the oral traditions of the early
Germanic aristocracy in part because I suspect that modern readers
have erred not only in finding many attitudes nongermane to the poem
but in having concentrated on individual heroism in it when the poet
was also concerned with communal issues. The hero Beowulf was not a
real king calling for flattery, after all. He was an invention, a fictive
person set in motion through such acts as were believed to help hold
society together.
Some readers have seen Beowulf as a hero whose character deterio-
rates after his promising youth. Others regard him as an insolent
youth who grows more perfect with age. My own view is that the hero
progressively represents an ideal that corresponds to each stage of
human development from childhood to old age. Because children are
not expected to behave like old men, there seems to be some growth in
his character; but this is not psychological growth of the kind that one
sees in realistic novels. Rather than welling from within, it is imposed
from without, for as the hero grows older, he acts according to a dif-
250 AFTERWORD
ferent model. As his role matures, so do the man's actions, for his
identity consists of fulfilling one or another set of expectations con-
cerning the behavior appropriate to the different stages of life.
First is childhood, the period of dormancy, of slow growth that
occurs away from public eyes. The child's father has left him aban-
doned, in effect, so that he is raised by his maternal grandfather
Hrethel. T o the relatively stern and demanding eyes of others he ap-
pears lazy, like the "Ash-boy" hero of many folktales. He does noth-
ing; he watches and listens.
Next comes youth, the time of venturing and testing. He has grown
strong. For no other reason than an excess of high spirits he and Breca
challenge one another to a contest on the seas. The fame he wins pre-
cedes him to Denmark. Unferth claims that the two youths risked
their lives "out of pride" and "for a foolish boast." Beowulf does not
deny the accusation; he only stresses that they were then no more than
boys, and this, together with his success, is defense enough.
Third is early manhood. The time has come for him to put his
strength to use in the service of society. Hrothgar's officer Wulfgar
confesses his belief that Beowulf has undertaken the journey to Den-
mark "out of pride," but the words now have a positive connotation:
they are set into apposition with the phrase for higej^rymmum, "out of
greatness of spirit" (338-3393). Far from taking on the adventure as a
lark, Beowulf has chosen to risk his life in a matter of the highest con-
sequence. Although strong enough to wrestle Grendel into submis-
sion, he is no mere muscled champion. He has the wits to put Unferth
to shame in a verbal flyting, the cunning to take Grendel by surprise,
the endurance to withstand the worst that Grendel's mother can serve
him, and sufficient graciousness in all his dealings to earn Hrothgar's
praise as a young man whose strength is equaled by good judgment.
The next stage is that of the mature adult. Although the poet omits
any direct treatment of the hero's middle years, one learns enough
from retrospective comments to know how well they confirm his ear-
lier promise. During the battle in which Hygelac falls in the Rhine-
land, Beowulf distinguishes himself by killing Daeghrefn and winning
thirty sets of arms. At home he restrains the great gift of strength that
the Lord has given him. Instead of accepting the throne for himself,
he helps his nephew Heardred rule. After Heardred's death he rules in
peace for fifty years. No tribe dares attack him, and he seeks out no
fights. Nothing is said of his trying to prove his strength or manhood
further.
T H E E X C E L L E N C E OF BEOWULF 251
2
Last is old age. When called on to fight his most formidable adver-
sary of all, Beowulf shows the same indomitable will that enabled him
to defeat the Grendel creatures many years before. With calm resigna-
tion, in a gesture that has been seen as foolhardy but that is based on
an accurate assessment of the dependability of his thanes, he sets out to
fight the dragon alone and kills it at the cost of his life. He speaks his
last words with the quiet dignity of one who dies with no remorse.
These are the five stages of life that one sees illustrated by a man
whom the narrator calls Beowulf, but who represents a particular type
of heroism rather than any idiosyncratic human being. If one adds to
these stages the period of infancy and the state of death, one arrives at
a pattern that calls to mind the familiar theme of the seven ages of
man. Probably the resemblance is coincidental. The seven ages of
Beowulf are not presented in chronological sequence but must be re-
constructed from scattered references. In addition, while the usual
point of this topos is to exhibit the vanity of earthly ambitions, the
Anglo-Saxon poet stresses the hero's final glory rather than his decline
and fall.
Nevertheless, the analogy lets us see that the poet does not simply
present "two moments in a great life, rising and setting; an elaboration
of the ancient and intensely moving contrast between youth and age,
first achievement and final death." 3 Besides this, he introduces enough
details from the hero's life to permit one to see it as a gradual matura-
tion. One sees Beowulf's strength and courage grow great from inaus-
picious beginnings. One sees his energy turn outward, away from triv-
ial displays, until it is directed against forces that threaten the social
order. Just as important, one also sees this energy held in check when
the crisis that provoked its use has passed. Beowulf not only acts, he
also knows that in any good warrior "thought should be restrained, the
hand controlled" ("Exeter Gnomes," 1 2 1 ) . Altogether, one witnesses
the type of life of one who consistently "strove for good repute"
(2179a). Unwilling to abide by the limits that most people allow to be
set on their search for personal excellence, Beowulf declines to com-
promise with his own potential weakness. " H e kept to his high des-
tiny" (3084a), as Wiglaf remarks in what can be taken as a capsule
summary of his lord's career.
Significantly, this destiny did not encompass warlike deeds of the
kind celebrated in many epics. In Beowulf the pagan heroic virtues are
tempered by the Christian virtues of selflessness and restraint. If the
poem was meant to facilitate the enculturation of a warrior class, as it
252 AFTERWORD
may in part have been, then this class did not live by the crusader's
creed.4 The poem would not have made patriots' hearts beat faster.
Winding persistently through the last thousand lines is a melancholy
music to which warriors' feet could not march. From beginning to
end, the hero shuns unnecessary violence. Unlike many in the poem,
he makes no raids and starts no feuds.5 Hrothgar takes Beowulf to be
an agent of God, and neither implicitly nor explicitly does the poet
contradict this judgment. It is not by chance that the hero wins final
praise as manna mildust ond mowSwcerust, "most mild and gentle of
men" (3181). 6 In the West Saxon translation of the Vulgate Gospel of
Matthew, monpwœre translates mansuetus and is used of Christ on His
entry to Jerusalem. In Psalms 77 and 146 the word is used of God in
His merciful aspect. jElfric attributes a similar quality to David, who is
said to be pleasing to God for his manpwœrnysse.7 It is safe to say that
the word had positive connotations. Consciously or unconsciously the
author may have used it as a way of letting the hero modulate closer to
the ranks of the saints and Old Testament prophets celebrated in the
devotional literature of the age. Such associations would not have hurt
the poem's chances for survival in the monastic setting where virtually
all Anglo-Saxon literature was preserved.
All the same, few readers confuse the hero with the speaker of the
Sermon on the Mount. Beowulf is also praised for his ellenweorc, "he-
roic deeds" (3173). He is a type of the active hero, not the contempla-
tive one. There is a toughness in him that is not the same as the forti-
tude of a saint or of the Christian Savior, although he has these
reserves of inner strength in ample measure too. One should not for-
get that the same man who is praised as a model of kindness crushes
Daeghrefn with his bare hands and takes pride in having fought in Hy-
gelac's vanguard.
Rather than being either a call to arms or a treatise on the subject of
nonviolence, the poem celebrates a man of the pre-Christian past who
also, without any awareness of the fact, leads a life with which few
Christian Englishmen could have found fault. There is a point in
human affairs at which Christian piety and enlightened secular wisdom
can begin to look alike. The poet was less interested in distinguishing
between the two sets of values than in allowing them to reinforce one
another. By celebrating the less brutal aspects of the heroic way of life
and by portraying his main characters as pious monotheists, the author
established a common ground between fifth- and sixth-century Scan-
T H E E X C E L L E N C E OF BEOWULF 253

dinavia and the England of his own day.8 He did so not only to pro-
mote the poem's survival in monastic scriptoria, I suspect, but to
express an attitude toward the world that he found noble and humane.

^ At the outset of this study I referred to Beowulf as the first great


work of English literature. Some of the justification for this claim
should be evident by now. The poem has its flaws, but its excellence is
astonishing when one compares it to the sermons, saints' lives, chroni-
cles, and biblical paraphrases that make up the bulk of the literature of
the period. The poet was no naive genius fumbling toward a fluent
narrative technique. He was a master craftsman working in a poetic
tradition that had attained an impressive degree of sophistication. Par-
ticularly when one imagines the poem in its primary context, as a per-
formance shared among a singer and the members of a listening audi-
ence, its appeal is persuasive even over a gap of many centuries. In its
own way it sums up an aristocratic, tradition-bound culture that no one
need look upon with condescension. W . W . Lawrence expresses the
character of this culture well when he calls it "highly civilized . . .
conscious of etiquette, and with well-formulated and gentle ideals."9
This culture was not necessarily self-destructive. It was capable of
growth and change, within limits, during the six centuries of the
Anglo-Saxon period. In the end its continuity was broken by a military
conquest that introduced a new ruling class with its own language,
laws, and literature; but the earlier culture did not die out entirely even
then. For a thousand years it has existed as a subcurrent whose influ-
ence has sometimes shaped the attitudes and actions of people from
the various English-speaking parts of the world. Now that the philo-
logical work of the past two hundred years is done, the heritage of this
period can be renewed among those who undertake the study neces-
sary for first-hand knowledge of a treasure that must otherwise lie
useless.
This book will have succeeded in one of its chief aims if it has called
attention to Beowulf as a work that asks to be read in its own terms, in
accord with an aesthetics that is not our own. This point is worth
stressing, because often the poem is read in prose translation, so that
like the sagas of the Norsemen, it might be taken to be a prototype of
the modern novel when its art is of another kind altogether.
Even with its unfamiliar technique, however, the poem expresses
themes that are capable of speaking across the lapse of years. Ulti-
254 AFTERWORD
mately this is the most essential aspect of its excellence, for, in time, a
work that speaks only to its own age is a mere curiosity, worth shelv-
ing but not using. Anyone, perhaps, needs to know how to fight mon-
sters. In addition, the poet's basic themes of power and restraint, hero-
ism and community are as relevant to our own age as to England of a
thousand years ago. At present, when the power of most people is
dwarfed by that of giant institutions, the poem has a double message of
encouragement and warning. T o all those who feel powerless to shape
the world around them, it offers the hope that the resolute pursuit of
excellence can result in a life well lived and of benefit to one's fellow
human beings. T o the few in positions of power, it offers the warning
that power can claim legitimacy only when it knows humane restraint.
ABBREVIATIONS

ASE Anglo-Saxon England


ASPR The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (6 vols.), ed. George
Philip Krapp and Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie (New York:
Columbia University Press, 1 9 3 1 - 1 9 5 3 )
Beiträge Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Litera-
tur
Bessinger Essential Articlesfor the Study of Old English Poetry, ed. Jess
and Kahrl B. Bessinger, Jr., and Stanley J. Kahrl (Hamden, Conn.:
Archon, 1968)
Bessinger A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, ed. Jess
and Smith B. Bessinger, Jr., and programmed by Philip H. Smith,
Jr. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978)
Bosworth An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, ed. T . Northcote Toller from
and Toller the manuscript collections of Joseph Bosworth (London:
Oxford University Press, 1898); with Supplement by
Toller (1921), and Revised and Enlarged Addenda by
Alistair Campbell (1972)
Brodeur Studies Studies in Old English Literature in Honor of Arthur G.
Brodeur, ed. Stanley Β. Greenfield (Eugene: University
of Oregon, 1963)
Chambers R. W. Chambers, "Beowulf": An Introduction to the Study
of the Poem, 3rd ed. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1959)
CL Comparative Literature
CPh Classical Philology
Creed Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Robert P. Creed
(Providence: Brown University Press, 1967)
EETS Early English Text Society
EHD English Historical Documents, vol. I: c. 500-1042, ed.
Dorothy Whitelock, 2nd ed. (New York: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1979)
ELH ELH (sometimes referred to as ELH: A Journal of English
Literary History)

257
258 ABBREVIATIONS

ELN English Language Notes


ES English Studies
FMLS Forum for Modern Language Studies
Fry The "Beowulf" Poet: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed.
Donald K. Fry (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall,
1968)
H SC Ρ Harvard Studies in Classical Philology
JAF Journal of American Folklore
JEGPh Journal of English and Germanic Philology
Klaeber Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Frederick Klaeber,
3rd ed. with ist and 2nd supplements (Boston: Heath,
1950)
Lord Studies Oral Traditional Literature: A Festschrift for Albert Bates
Lord, ed. John Miles Foley (Columbus, Ohio: Slavica
Press, 1981)
MAL Medium ALvum
MB Meters of Boethius
Magoun Studies Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of
Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., ed. Jess B. Bessinger, Jr.,
and Robert P. Creed (New York: New York University
Press, 1965)
MGH Monumenta Germaniae histórica
MHG The Making of Homeric Verse: The Collected Papers of Mil-
man Parry, ed. Adam Parry (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1972)
MLR Modern Language Review
MPh Modern Philology
MS Mediaeval Studies
Neoph. Neophilologus
Nicholson An Anthology of "Beowulf' Criticism, ed. Lewis E. Nichol-
son (Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press,
1963)
NM Neuphilologische Mitteilungen
OE Old English
OEL Old English Literature in Context: Ten Essays, ed. John D.
Niles (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1980)
OHG Old High German
ON Old Norse
OSax Old Saxon
PB A Proceedings of the British Academy
PMLA PMLA (sometimes referred to as Proceedings of the Modern
language Association)
ABBREVIATIONS 259
Pope Studies Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Robert
B. Burlin and Edward B. Irving, Jr. (Toronto: Univer-
sity of Toronto Press, 1974)
PQ Philological Quarterly
RES Review of English Studies
SPh Studies in Philology
TAPA Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological As-
sociation
TRHS Transactions of the Royal Historical Society
UTQ University of Toronto Quarterly
ZfdA Zeitschrift für deutsches Altertum und deutsche Literatur
NOTES

1. T H E MARVELOUS
1. J. R. R. Tolkien, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," PBA, 22
(1936): 245-295.
2. Robert E. Kaske, "The Eotenas in Beowulf" in Creed, p. 300, and
"Beowulf," in Critical Approaches to Six Major English Works, ed. R. M. Lu-
miansky and Herschel Baker (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press,
1968), pp. 4-5.
3. Karl P. Wentersdorf, "Beowulf's Withdrawal from Frisia: A Recon-
sideration," SPh, 68 (1971): 395-415. On this problem of interpretation,
note further Earl R. Anderson, "Beowulf s Retreat from Frisia: Analogues
from the Fifth and Eighth Centuries," ELN, 19 (1981): 89-93 (with addi-
tional bibliographical citations).
4. James W. Earl, "Beowulf's Rowing-Match," Neoph., 63 (1979):
285-290.
5. Fred C. Robinson, "Elements of the Marvellous in the Characteriza-
tion of Beowulf," in Pope Studies, pp. 119-137. For an earlier, less successful
attempt to do away with marvelous elements in the poem see Signe M. Carl-
son, "The Monsters of Beowulf: Creations of Literary Scholars," JAF, 80
(1967): 357-464.
6. See Friedrich Panzer, Studien zur germanischen Sagengeschichte, vol. I:
Beowulf (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1910). Panzer based his study on the Grimm
tale "Der starke Hans" and its numerous analogues, some of which are listed
under type 650A ("Strong John") and some under type 301 ("The Three
Stolen Princesses") in the standard index by Antti Aarne and Stith Thomp-
son, The Types of the Folktale, 2nd revision, FF Communications no. 184
(Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia, 1961). For further discussion see
Gwyn Jones, Kings, Beasts, and Heroes (London: Oxford University Press,
1972), pp. 6-19. Robert A. Barakat, "John of the Bear and Beowulf, " West-
ern Folklore, 26 (1967): 1-11, discusses parallel elements in Beowulf and a
Mexican version of the "Bear's Son" folktale. For a wonderfully American-
ized analogue to the Grendel episode, see Vance Randolph, Sticks in the
Knapsack and Other Ozark Folktales (New York: Columbia University Press,
1958), pp. 17-18.
7. In making the following distinctions between Märchen and Sage I am
indebted particularly to two books by the Swiss folklorist Max Lüthi: Das
europäische Volksmärchen, translated by John D. Niles as The European

261
2Ó2 N O T E S T O PAGES 6 - 1 2
Folktale: Form and Nature (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human
Issues, 1982), esp. pp. 4-12 and 21-23, and Volksmärchen und Volkssage:
Zwei Grundformen erzählender Dichtung, 2nd ed. (Munich: Francke, 1966).
8. The subject of the attitude of legend tellers to the stories they re-
count is taken up in detail by Linda Dégh and Andrew Vázsonyi, "Legend
and Belief," Genre, 4 (1971): 281-304.
9. The bibliography for such creatures of popular belief is extensive and
ranges from studies that attempt to prove their existence, for example, John
Willison Green, On the Track of the Sasquatch (Agassiz, British Columbia:
Cheam Publishing, 1968); to others that accept the possibility of their exis-
tence, for example, John R. Napier, Bigfoot: The Yeti and Sasquatch in Myth
and Reality (London: Jonathan Cape, 1972); to others that take a skeptical
view, such as M. Carole Henderson, "Monsters of the West: The Sasquatch
and the Ogopogo," in Folklore of Canada, ed. Edith Fowke (Toronto:
McClelland and Steward, 1976), pp. 251-262. Articles representing many
different points of view are included in Manlike Monsters on Trial: Early
Records and Modern Evidence, ed. Marjorie M. Halpin and Michael M.
Ames (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1980).
10. Alain Renoir, "Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf,"
NM, 63 (1962), rpt. in Fry, p. 164.
11. See Nora K. Chadwick, "Norse Ghosts," Folk-Lore, 57 (1946):
50-65 and 106-127. On the draugr and other monstrous creatures of the
Norsemen, see also Kathryn Hume, "From Saga to Romance: The Use of
Monsters in Old Norse Literature," SPh, 77 (1980): 1-25.
12. Nora K. Chadwick, "The Monsters and Beowulf," in The Anglo-
Saxons: Studies . . . Bruce Dickins, ed. Peter Clemoes (London: Bowes and
Bowes, 1959), pp. 178-190, passim.
13. Extracts from the story are given in Old Norse and modern English
translation in Chambers, pp. 186-192.
14. R. C. Boer, ed., Qrvar-Odds Saga (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1888), pp.
125-137, version A; compare Paul Edwards and Hermann Pálsson, trans.,
"Arrow-Odd": A Medieval Novel (New York: New York University Press,
1970), chaps. 19-23; quotation from Edwards and Pálsson, p. 68.
15. See Lars Malmberg, "Grendel and the Devil," NM, 78 (1977):
241-243, and Tolkien, appendix A ("Grendel's Titles"), in Nicholson, pp.
88-91.
16. See Oliver F. Emerson, "Legends of Cain, Especially in Old and
Middle English," PMLA, 21 (1906): 831-929; note also S. J. Crawford,
"Grendel's Descent from Cain," MLR, 23 (1928): 207-208; and 24 (1929):
63; Marie P. Hamilton, "The Religious Principle in Beowulf," PMLA, 61
(1946): 309-330; Evelyn Lohr, "Patristic Demonology in Old English Lit-
erature" (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1947), a seventeen-page sum-
mary of which has been published under the same title as a pamphlet (New
York: New York University Press, 1949); Robert E. Kaske, "Beowulf and
the Book of Enoch," Speculum, 46 (1971): 427-428; Niilo Peltola, "Gren-
del's Descent from Cain Reconsidered," NM, 73 (1972): 284-291; Ruth
NOTES T O PAGES 1 2 - 1 7 263
Mellinkoff, "Cain's Monstrous Progeny in Beowulf: Part I, Noachic Tradi-
t i o n , " ^ ^ , 8 (1979): 143-162, and "Cain's Monstrous Progeny in Beowulf:
Part II, Post-Diluvian Survival," ASE, 9 (1981): 183-197; and M. Andrew,
"Grendel in Hell," ES, 62 (1981): 401-410.
17. See Benjamin Thorpe, ed., fiilfric's Catholic Homilies, I (London:
/Elfric Society, 1844), 22-25; John C. Pope, ed., Homilies of M/fric: A Sup-
plementary Collection, II, EETS no. 260 (London: Oxford University Press,
1968), pp. 687-688 (lines 197-201); and Paris Psalter 95:5, "syndon ealle
hae£)enu godu hildedeoful."
18. See Kenneth Sisam, "The Compilation of the Beowulf Manuscript"
in his Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon,
1953), pp. 65-96.
19. Montague Rhodes James, Marvels of the East (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1929), p. 9. Medieval monster-lore is taken up in general terms
by Rudolph Wittkower, "Marvels of the East: A Study in the History of
Monsters," Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institute, 5 (1942):
159-197, and John Block Friedman, The Monstrous Races in Medieval Art
and Thought (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1981). The rela-
tionship between Beowulf and the compendium known as the Liber mon-
strorum is taken up by Dorothy Whitelock, The Audience of "Beowulf" (Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1951), pp. 46-53, and, with more speculative conclusions,
by L. G. Whitbread, "The Liber monstrorum and Beowulf," MS, 36 (1974):
434-471. Ann Knock, "The Liber monstrorum: An Unpublished Manuscript
and Some Reconsiderations," Scriptorium, 32 (1978): 19-28, doubts the
Anglo-Saxon origin of the Liber, which has recently been reedited by Franco
Porsia (Bari: Dedalo Libri, 1976).
20. Stanley Rypins, ed., Three Old English Prose Texts in MS. Cotton
Vitellius A. XV, EETS no. 161 (London: Oxford University Press, 1924),
p. 62.
21. Ibid., pp. 62-63.
22. Ibid., p. 53.
23. James, Marvels, p. 51.
24. Hell is described as grundleas, "bottomless," in Christ 1544-45 and
"The Whale" 45-46.
25. See W. W. Lawrence, "The Haunted Mere in BeowulfPMLA,
27 (1912): 208-220 (esp. p. 219). Kemp Malone, "Grendel and His
Abode," in Studia philologica et litteraria in honorem L. Spitzer, ed. A. G.
Hatcher and K.-L. Selig (Bern: Francke, 1958), pp. 297-308, identifies the
pool strictly as part of the ocean. He succeeds in clarifying several obscurities
of the description, but in his search for consistency he perhaps minimizes the
fantastic nature of this imaginative landscape.
26. See Lowry Charles Wimberly, Folklore in the English and Scottish
Ballads (1928; rpt. New York: Dover, 1965), pp. 121-138 ("Locality of the
Otherworld").
27. For bibliographical citations relating to this commonplace of folk
belief see Stith Thompson, Motif Index of Folk Literature, 6 vols. (Blooming-
264 N O T E S T O PAGES 17-23
ton: Indiana University Press, 1955-1958), motifs F141, "Waterbarrier to
otherworld"; F133, "Submarine otherworld"; F134, "Otherworld on is-
land"; and related motifs in this part of the index. See further Howard Rollin
Patch, The Other World, According to Descriptions in Medieval Literature
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1950).
28. R. Morris, ed., The Bückling Homilies, EETS nos. 58, 63, 73 (Lon-
don: Oxford University Press, 1874-1880; rpt. in one vol. 1967), pp.
209-211 (my translation).
29. For a variety of reasons I take the homilist to be the later author.
His description of hell's mouth is introduced with the most perfunctory of
transitions; in the words of Morris (p. vi), it "seems out of place" in a sermon
whose avowed subject is the angels and "is evidently borrowed from an older
source." The description of Grendel's mere, on the other hand, is integrated
organically into the surrounding narrative as one of the most effective pas-
sages in which the poet pauses for a moment to exploit the emotional over-
tones of the action. It has every appearance of being a carefully planned part
of the design for terror of the poem. I see no reason to doubt the conclusion
of Carleton Brown, "Beowulf and the Blickling Homilies, and Some Textual
Notes," PMLA, 53 (1938): 905-916, as confirmed by Antonette di Paolo
Healey, The Old English Vision of St. Paul, Speculum Anniversary Mono-
graphs, 2 (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of America, 1978), p. 52,
that the Blickling homilist knew Beowulf and that in following the Visio Pauli,
he modified his description of hell under the influence of the Anglo-Saxon
poem. If so, we cannot conclude that the Visio was a source for the descrip-
tion of Grendel's mere, as sometimes has been claimed. About the Beowulf
poet's sources we know next to nothing.
30. Alan Cabaniss, "Beowulf and the Liturgy," JEGPh, 54 (1955):
195-201, and Maurice B. McNamee, "Beowulf—An Allegory of Salva-
tion?" JEGPh, 59 (I960): 190-207.
31. Edward B. Irving, Jr., A Reading of "Beowulf" (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1968), p. 15.
32. Joseph Fontenrose, Python: A Study of Delphic Myth and Its Origins
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 258-259.
33. See Lewis E. Nicholson, "Hunlafing and the Point of the Sword,"
in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation for John C. McGalliard, ed.
Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick Frese (Notre Dame: University of
Notre Dame Press, 1975), pp. 50-61, and M. F. Vaughan, "A Reconsidera-
tion of 'Unferö,' " NM, 77 (1976): 32-48. While several of Nicholson's
suggestions are too speculative to command assent, there is good reason to
follow both authors in holding that the consistent manuscript reading
HunfertS, which if it is a significant name means "the one of Hunnish spirit,"
is acceptable as it stands and deserves restoration in editions and critical com-
mentaries. In this book I keep to the time-honored form "Unferth" so as not
to force an issue that is beside my main concerns.
34. For example, T. M. Gang, "Approaches to Beowulf," RES, n.s. 3
(1952): 1-12; Kenneth Sisam, "Beowulf's Fight with the Dragon," RES,
NOTES T O PAGES 1 3 - 3 2 265

n.s. 9 (1958): 129-140; and Jones, Kings, Beasts, and Heroes, pp. 16-17.
35. Whitelock, Audience, pp. 73-74; see also Frank M. Stenton, "The
Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies: Anglo-Saxon Heathenism," in
Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank
Merry Stenton, ed. Doris Mary Stenton (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), pp.
284-285, and Kenneth Cameron, English Place-Names, 2nd ed. (London:
Batsford, 1963), p. 124. A dozen British dragon legends are assembled by
Katharine M. Briggs in A Dictionary of British Folk-Tales, pt. B, vol. 1
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1971), pp. 159-172.
36. See Sir Edmund Chambers, The English Folk-Play (Oxford: Claren-
don, 1933), pp. 28-29, 87, 106, and 177-178.
37. Arthur E. Du Bois, "The Dragon in Beowulf'' PMLA, 72 (1957):
822. On the dragon and its background see W. W. Lawrence, "The Dragon
and His Lair in Beowulf " PMLA, 33 (1918): 547-583; Hilda R. Ellis Da-
vidson, "The Hill of the Dragon: Anglo-Saxon Burial Mounds in Literature
and Archaeology," Folk-Lore, 61 (1950): 169-185; Friedrich Wild, Drachen
im "Beowulf" und andere Drachen, Osterreichische Akademie der Wissen-
schaften, philosophisch-historische Klasse, vol. 238, pt. 5 (Vienna, 1962);
Claude Lecouteux, "Der Drache," ZfdA, 108 (1979): 13-31; and Alan K.
Brown, "The Firedrake in Beowulf " Neoph., 64 (1980): 439-460.
38. Lawrence, "Beowulf" and Epic Tradition, pp. 207-208, finds the
dragon "invulnerable to ordinary swords," but this view entails both consid-
ering Wiglafs sword to be of "supernatural" powers and ignoring the good
use that Beowulf makes of his short-sword (2703b-05).
39. See John C. McGalliard, "The Poet's Comment in Beowulf " SPh,
75 (1978): 252.
40. Emerson, "Legends of Cain," p. 882, notes, "No single phrase or
descriptive epithet applied to the firedrake can be tortured into any connec-
tion with devils, or creatures of evil in the Christian sense." The dragon is
called a feondin 2706a, but in the sense of "enemy" rather than "fiend" (just
as Beowulf and Wiglaf are called fionda\s] in 2671b, when considered from
the dragon's point of view).
41. Andreas Haarder, "Beowulf": The Appeal of a Poem (Vibourg:
Akademisk Forlag, 1975), p. 263.

2. T H E A R T OF T H E GERMANIC SCOP
1. Derek Pearsall, Old and Middle English Poetry (London: Routledge,
1977), p. 19.
2. Even such an outline of possibilities represents an oversimplification.
Joseph Harris, "Eddie Poetry as Oral Poetry: The Evidence of Parallel Pas-
sages in the Helgi Poems for Questions of Composition and Performance,"
forthcoming in "Edda": A Collection of Essays, ed. Haraldur Bessason and
Robert Glendinning (Winnipeg: Manitoba University Press), points out that
the term "oral composition" embraces both improvisation and deliberative
composition, while a poem composed by any method could have been subject
266 N O T E S T O PAGES 3 2 - 3 5
to a period of oral transmission during which it was reproduced either me-
moriter or by improvising.
3. The basic reference works here are MHV and Albert B. Lord, The
Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1960). For a
general bibliography of works by Milman Parry, Lord, and many scholars
who have been influenced by their research see Edward R. Haymes, A Bibli-
ography of Studies Relating to Parry's and Lord's Oral Theory (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Printing Office, 1973). In lieu of reviewing the
many applications of Parry's and Lord's work to the study of Old English po-
etry since the publication of Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "Oral-Formulaic Char-
acter of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry," Speculum, 28 (1953): 446-467, I
cite a single comprehensive survey: John Miles Foley, "The Oral Theory
and Old English Poetry," pp. 51-91 of his introduction to Lord Studies.
4. Pearsall, Old and Middle English Poetry, p. 17.
5. The assertive tone of some recent writing on the subject is struck by
W. F. Bolton, who states that "the theory does not merit a place in discus-
sions of Beowulf criticism, since by its very tenets it abdicates from criticism,"
and who adds, without further explanation, that "both the theory and the bib-
liography of oral-formulism are, in their different ways, unreal"; (see his Al-
cuin and "Beowulf": An Eighth-Century View (New Brunswick, N.J.:
Rutgers University Press, 1978), p. 4 and p. 62 n. 12, respectively.
6. Here and in the next sentence I am paraphrasing from David E.
Bynum, "The Generic Nature of Oral Epic Poetry," Genre, 2 (1969): 255.
7. On the career of Donnchadh Ban Macantsaoir (1724-1812), alias
Duncan Macintyre, see Douglas Young, "Never Blotted a Line? Formula
and Premeditation in Homer and Hesiod," in Essays on Classical Literature,
ed. Niall Rudd (New York: Barnes and Noble, 1972), pp. 38-39 and 51-52,
and John Maclnnes, "The Oral Tradition in Scottish Gaelic Poetry," Scottish
Studies, 12 (1968): 29-30.
8. See Albert B. Lord, "Avdo Mededovic, Guslar," JAF, 69 (1956):
318-330. Medjedovic's song The Wedding of Smailagic Meho has been pub-
lished, together with useful biographical information, as vols. 3-4 of Serbo-
Croatian Heroic Songs, collected by Milman Parry and edited and translated
by Lord (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1974); three others of his
songs are published in vol. 6 of the same series, ed. David E. Bynum (1980).
9. See, for example, Kemp Malone, untitled review in ES, 41 (1960):
204: "The Beowulf poet was no minstrel, strumming a harp and composing
verse as he strummed. He was a sophisticated literary artist, who gave careful
thought to what he was doing."
10. Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, eds., Bede's "Ecclesiastical
History of the English People" (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), pp. 414-421. The
Old English translation of this part of Bede's history is given parallel to the
Latin in Bright's Old English Grammar and Reader, ed. Frederic G. Cassidy
and Richard N. Ringler, 3rd ed. (New York: Holt, 1971), pp. 126-134.
11. Donald K. Fry, "Caedmon as a Formulaic Poet," in Oral Literature:
Seven Essays, ed. Joseph J. Duggan (Edinburgh: Scottish Academic Press,
N O T E S T O PAGES 3 5 - 4 1
1975), pp. 45-46, takes the translator's words to mean that the monks first
wrote down Caedmon's words and then memorized them. Possibly this is
what is meant, but I think it more likely that the word leornodon has a general
sense and the translator wished simply to emphasize the paradox that edu-
cated men could learn from an illiterate cowherd.
12. Lord, The Singer of Tales, p. 132, notes that of nineteenth-century
Serbo-Croatian songs, "those which begin with the date are invariably from
the hand of a writer and not from the lips of a singer."
13. Ic . . . leotS somnige, / write woiScrœfte ("I gather the song, write it
with poetic art"). "The Phoenix," 547-548a.
14. See Robert P. Creed, "The Singer Looks at His Sources," in Bro-
deur Studies, pp. 44-52. Jeff Opland has discussed the passage in his articles
Beowulf on the Poet," MS, 38 (1976): 442-467, and "From Horseback to
Monastic Cell: The Impact on English Literature of the Introduction of
Writing," in OEL, pp. 30-43, as well as in his major study, Anglo-Saxon Oral
Poetry: A Study of the Traditions (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980),
pp. 202-205. Opland sees the performance as primarily eulogistic. Although
Norman E. Eliason, "The 'Improvised Lay' in Beowulf," PQ, 31 (1952),
171-179, doubts that the scop is imagined to be singing an improvised lay, to
me there is little question that the performance includes at least some narra-
tive element, and it could not have been prepared long in advance. I am not
adopting the suggestion of Barbara Nolan and Morton W. Bloomfield,
"Beotword, Gilpcwidas, and the Gilphlœden Scop of Beowulf"' JEGPh, 79
(1980): 499-516, that gilphlœden in this passage means something as specific
as "endowed with speeches expressing formal boasts."
15. MHV, p. 377 (emphasis Parry's).
16. Parry's definition, MHV, p. 272.
17. To qualify this assessment somewhat, the fixity of the formula and
the stability of the theme are better established for the songs of Homer than
for Serbo-Croatian heroic song. Perhaps "relative fixity" and "relative stabil-
ity" would be more precise terms. Parry's statistics show the usefulness of the
concept of the fixed formula in early Greek epic poetry, yet this usefulness
has its limits as well, as is pointed out in different ways by Joseph A. Russo,
"A Closer Look at Homeric Formulas," TAPA, 94 (1963): 235-247, and
"The Structural Formula in Homeric Verse," Yale Classical Studies, 20
(1966): 219-240; J. B. Hainsworth, The Flexibility of the Homeric Formula
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1968); and Michael N. Nagler, "Towards a Generative
View of the Oral Formula," TAPA, 98 (1967): 269-311, and Spontaneity
and Tradition: A Study in the Oral Art of Homer (Berkeley: University of Cal-
ifornia Press, 1974), pp. 1-26.
18. See Joseph J. Duggan, "The Song of Roland": Formulaic Style and
Poetic Craft, Publications of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Stud-
ies, UCLA, 6 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973), pp. 10-11.
19. Maclnnes, "The Oral Tradition," p. 40.
20. See Jeff Opland, "Imbongi Nezibongo: The Xhosa Tribal Poet and
the Contemporary Poetic Tradition," PMLA, 90 (1975): 195-196.
268 N O T E S T O PAGES 4 1 - 4 3
21. This essential point has been made by Ruth Finnegan, "What Is
Oral Literature Anyway? Comments in the Light of Some African and Other
Comparative Material," in Oral Literature and the Formula, ed. Benjamin A.
Stolz and Richard S. Shannon (Ann Arbor: Center for the Coordination of
Ancient and Modern Studies, The University of Michigan, 1976), pp.
127-166, with response and discussion on pp. 167-176; and by John Miles
Foley, "Beowulf and Traditional Narrative Song: The Potential and Limits
of Comparison," in OEL, pp. 117-136, and "Tradition-dependent and
-independent Features in Oral Literature: A Comparative View of the For-
mula," in Lord Studies, pp. 262-281.
22. David Buchan, "Oral Tradition and Literary Tradition: The Scot-
tish Ballads," in Oral Tradition, Literary Tradition: A Symposium, ed. Hans
Bekker-Nielsen et al. (Odense: Odense University Press, 1977), p. 57.
23. This account is simplified for obvious reasons. Readers who wish to
explore the complexities of the meter may compare the three different
theories set forth in Eduard Sievers, Altgermanische Metrik (Halle, 1893);
Andreas Heusler, Deutsche Versgeschichte mit Einschluss des altenglischen und
altnordischen Stabreimverses, I (Berlin: W. de Gruyter, 1925); and John Col-
lins Pope, The Rhythm of "Beowulf, " 2nd ed. (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1966). See Pope, pp. 6-37, for a summary of the theories of his prede-
cessors. A summary of Sievers's system is presented in translation under the
title "Old Germanic Metrics and Old English Metrics" in Bessinger and
Kahrl, pp. 267-288. Marjorie Daunt argues intelligently against all three
systems in "Old English Verse and English Speech Rhythms," Transactions
of the Philological Society (1946), pp. 56-72. More recent studies include
Alan J. Bliss, The Metre of "Beowulf" 2nd ed. (Oxford: Blackwell, 1967), a
corroboration of Sievers's system; Robert P. Creed, "A New Approach to
the Rhythm of Beowulf ' PMLA, 81 (1966): 23-33, a development of
Pope's theory; Thomas Cable, The Meter and Melody of "Beowulf, " Illinois
Studies in Language and Literature, 64 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press,
1974), a refinement of Sievers's system; and Jane-Marie Luecke, Measuring
Old English Rhythm: An Application of the Principles of Gregorian Chant
Rhythm to the Meter of "Beowulf" (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press,
1978), a work whose title explains its approach. Any reader of Old English
poetry will be aware that within the half-line, certain arrangements of
stressed and unstressed syllables occur often, others seldom or not at all.
Sievers attempts to describe these favored arrangements; Heusler attempts to
fit them within a single isochronous scheme; and Pope offers a modification of
Heusler's theory based on an ingenious but speculative hypothesis concerning
the use of the lyre to mark time.
24. Calvin B. Kendall, "The Prefix Un- and the Metrical Grammar of
Beowulf" ASE, 10 (1982): 39.
25. Since I am not concerned with establishing scholarly texts, I quote
from editions on my shelf: "AtlakviSa" from Ursula Dronke, ed., The Poetic
Edda, I: Heroic Poems (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969); the "Hildebrandslied"
from Klaeber, pp. 290-292; Heliand from Otto Behagel, ed., Heliand und
NOTES T O PAGES 4 3 - 5 1 269

Genesis, 8th ed., revised by Walther Mitzka (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1965);


Î>rymskviSa" from E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse, 2nd ed., re-
vised by A. R. Taylor (Oxford: Clarendon, 1957), p. 138.
26. Winfred P. Lehmann, The Development of Germanic Verse Form
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1956), p. 72, also quotes the line. Leh-
mann's book offers a full discussion of points that I treat lightly or not at all.
27. See my article "The Old Alliterative Verse Form as a Medium for
Poetry," Mosaic, 11 (1978): 26-30, for a review of poems in the alliterative
meter by C. S. Lewis, J. R. R. Tolkien, W. H. Auden, and Richard Wilbur;
and note further Raymond Oliver, "Old English Verse and Modern Poets,"
Allegorica, 5 (1980): 141-148.
28. In very brief terms, "Grimm's Law" accounts for the development
of Indo-European [bh, dh, gh], [b, d, g], and [p, t, k] into Germanic [b, d, g],
[p, t, k], and [f, θ, χ], respectively. "Verner's Law" accounts for the further
development of Germanic [f, θ, χ, s] to [ν, d, g, ζ] except at the beginning of
a word and immediately after a stressed vowel. From a study of these excep-
tions one can see that at the time that the sound changes described by Verner
took place, stress had not yet settled on the root syllable of a word.
29. Quoted (with English translation) by Chambers, p. 22.
30. And riht is pœt man geswice freolsdagum hœSenra leoda and deofles
gomena ("And it is the law that on holy days people cease from heathen songs
and the devil's pastimes"). Roger Fowler, ed., ÌVulfstan's Canons of Edgar,
EETS no. 266 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), p. 7.
31. Albert B. Lord, "Homer's Originality: Oral Dictated Texts,"
TAPA, 84 (1953): 131: "They are not the improvised text of normal oral
performance; without recording apparatus it is impossible to obtain such
texts." Note further the cautionary remarks of Adam Parry, "Have We
Homer's Iliad?" Yale Classical Studies, 20 (1966): 177-216.
32. See Lord, The Singer of Tales, chap. 6, "Writing and Oral Tradi-
tion," esp. pp. 135-136, where Lord notes that songs written by the Fran-
ciscan monk Andrija Kacic-Miosic and published in a popular edition in the
mid-eighteenth century "could still be collected from singers in the 1930's
and probably even today."
33. Ruth Finnegan, Oral Poetry: Its Nature, Significance, and Social Con-
text (London: Cambridge University Press, 1977), p. 160. The persistence of
memorially-transmitted oral poetry in Anglo-Saxon England is stressed by
Donald K. Fry, "The Memory of Caedmon," in Lord Studies, pp. 282-293.
34. Available commercially is Modern Greek Heroic Oral Poetry, re-
corded by James Notopoulos, Ethnic Folkways album FE 4468 (1959). No-
topoulos's extensive collection of recordings forms part of the Milman Parry
Collection of Oral Literature, Widener Library, Harvard University.
35. See Lord, "Homer's Originality," p. 129.
36. Because the evidence for the existence of early Germanic lays on a
variety of heroic themes has been summarized elsewhere, I omit repeating it
here. Convenient sources are R. M. Wilson, The Lost Literature of Medieval
England, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1970), pp. 1-23; and L. F. Anderson,
270 N O T E S T O PAGES 51-54
The Anglo-Saxon Scop, University of Toronto Studies, Philological Series, no.
1 (Toronto: The University Library, 1903), pp. 7-11. A still classic treat-
ment is Andreas Heusler, Die altgermanische Dichtung, 2nd ed. (Potsdam:
Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1941), esp. chap. 15: "Das
Erzähllied: Die gemeingermanische Form des Heldenliedes." Three useful
general studies are Frederick Norman, "The Early Germanic Background of
Old English Verse," in Medieval Literature and Civilization: Studies in Mem-
ory of G. N. Garmonsway (London: Athlone, 1969), pp. 3-27; Klaus von See,
Germanische Heldensage: Stoffe, Probleme, Methoden (Frankfurt-am-Main:
Athenäum, 1971); and Heiko Uecker, Germanische Heldensage (Stuttgart:
Metzler, 1972). Recently Opland, Anglo-Saxon Oral Poetry, pp. 40-73, has
suggested that early Germanic songs were primarily eulogistic rather than
narrative in content. Space does not permit a long evaluation of this thesis
here. My view is that such lays doubtless included encomiums but did not
stop there. They also told stories. They were meant to inspire emulation as
well as admiration, and they showed the consequences of rash acts.
37. See Bishop Asser's Life of King Alfred, chap. 22, in EHD, p. 291.
38. See Jess B. Bessinger, Jr., "Beowulf and the Harp at Sutton Hoo,"
UTQ, 27 (1958): 159-160.
39. See Robert P. Creed, "The Andswarode-Sysiem in Old English Po-
etry," Speculum, 32 (1957): 523-528.
40. Note Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "Two Verses in the Old English
'Waldere' Characteristic of Oral Poetry," Beiträge, 80 (1958): 214-218 (on
the formula wine Burgenda / vin Borgunda).
41. See Albert B. Lord, "Composition by Theme in Homer and
Southslavic Epos," TAPA, 82 (1951): 71-80, and The Singer of Tales, pp.
68-98. Studies of composition by theme in Old English poetry include
Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "The Theme of the Beasts of Battle in Anglo-Saxon
Poetry," NM, 56 (1955): 81-90; Stanley B. Greenfield, "The Formulaic
Expression of the Theme of 'Exile' in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," Speculum, 30
(1955): 200-206; David K. Crowne, "The Hero on the Beach: An Example
of Composition by Theme in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," NM, 61 (1960):
362-372; Robert E. Diamond, "Theme as Ornament in Anglo-Saxon Po-
etry," PMLA, 76 (1961): 461-468; George Clark, "Some Traditional
Scenes and Situations in Anglo-Saxon Poetry" (Ph.D. diss., Harvard Univer-
sity, 1961), and "The Traveller Recognizes His Goal: A Theme in Anglo-
Saxon Poetry," JEGPh, 64 (1965): 645-659; Lee Carter Ramsey, "The
Theme of Battle in Old English Poetry" (Ph.D. diss., Indiana University,
1965), and "The Sea-Voyages in Beowulf," NM, 72 (1971): 51-59; Paul
Beekman Taylor, "Themes of Death in Beowulf" in Creed, pp. 249-274;
and Donald K. Fry, "The Hero on the Beach in Finnsburh," NM, 67
(1966): 27-31; "The Heroine on the Beach in Judith" NM, 68 (1967):
168-184; "Themes and Type-Scenes in Elene 1-113," Speculum, 44 (1969):
35-45; and "Type-Scene Composition in JudithAnnuale mediaevale, 12
(1972): 100-119. On the theme of flyting see Carol J. Clover, "The Ger-
manic Context of the UnferJj Episode," Speculum, 55 (1980): 444-468;
N O T E S T O PAGE 54

on the thematic inventory of the Beowulf poet see Theodore M. Andersson,


"Tradition and Design in Beowulf" in OEL, pp. 90-106.
42. For a well-documented example of memorial powers on the part of a
storyteller see Maartje Draak, "Duncan Macdonald of South Uist," Fabula,
1 (1957): 47-58 (with photo facing p. 1). Before his death in 1954, Mac-
donald recorded about 120 tales for the Irish Folklore Commission and many
songs, lays, and tales for the Folklore Institute of Scotland. On this per-
former see also D. A. Macdonald, "A Visual Memory," Scottish Studies, 22
(1978): 1-26, and on the different roles of memorization and recreation in
Gaelic storytelling see Alan Bruford, "Recitation or Re-creation? Examples
from South Uist Storytelling," Scottish Studies, 22 (1978): 27-44.
43. Lars Lönnroth, "Hjalmar's Death Song and the Delivery of Eddie
Poetry," Speculum, 46 (1971): 1-20, suggests that the Eddie lays were
memorized, and he calls attention to the clear distinction made in Old Norse
between composing (yrkja) and reciting (flytja,fœra fram, kve<5a). See also
Alan Jabbour, "Memorial Transmission in Old English Poetry," Chaucer
Review, 3 (1969): 174-190; Donald K. Fry, "The Memory of Caedmon";
and Albert B. Lord, "Memory, Fixity, and Genre," in Lord Studies, pp.
451-461.
44. See John Quincy Wolf, "Folksingers and the Re-creation of Folk-
song," Western Folklore, 26 (1967): 101-111. Wolf stresses that different
singers view and practice their art differently, so that it is difficult to general-
ize as to how important a role is played by memorization in ballad transmis-
sion as a whole. Some singers, "the timid, the unimaginative, and the unin-
ventive ones," make few or no important changes from what they have
learned; others, "independent and discriminating," edit their songs at need;
still others, "the most inventive," adapt the songs to their own artistic judg-
ments (pp. 110-111). Roger D. Abrahams, "Creativity, Individuality, and
the Traditional Singer," Studies in the Literary Imagination, 3 (1970): 5-34,
contrasts the art of two fine singers, one uninventive and one who edits.
Henry Glassie, " 'Take That Night Train to Selma': An Excursion to the
Outskirts of Scholarship," in Glassie, Edward D. Ives, and John F. Szwed,
Folksongs and Their Makers (Bowling Green, Ohio: Bowling Green Univer-
sity Popular Press, 1979), p. 31, compares versions of five ballads sung by a
Virginia singer in an interval of thirty years and finds only trivial changes. In
general, anglophone ballad singers claim to be following tradition whether or
not they are, unlike most black American blue singers, who claim originality
even when they are closely imitative: see David Evans, "Techniques of Blues
Composition among Black Folksingers," JAF, 87 (1974): 240-249, and Big
Road Blues: Tradition and Creativity in the Folk Blues (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1982). On the oral-improvisational character of blues
performances see also William Ferris, Blues from the Delta (New York:
Doubleday, 1978), pp. 42-55.
45. As can be verified by leafing through the pages of Bertrand Harris
Bronson, The Traditional Tunes of the Child Ballads, 4 vols. (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1959-1972). The standard treatment of textual
272 N O T E S T O PAGES 5 5 - 6 0
variation is Tristram P. Coffin, "A Description of Variation in the Tradi-
tional Ballad of America," in his The British Traditional Ballad in North
America, 2nd ed., supplemented by Roger deV. Renwick (Austin: University
of Texas Press, 1977), pp. 1-19, with an additional note by Renwick, pp.
195-205.
46. On the shifting, maturing, but always tradition-bound art of a great
Scottish ballad singer, for example, see James Porter, "Jeannie Robertson's
'My Son David': A Conceptual Performance Model," JAF, 89 (1976): 7-26.
47. See Chapter 3, esp. pp. 74-79. Among those who have accepted
this idea are W. P. Ker, The Dark Ages (Edinburgh: Blackwood, 1904), pp.
251-252; Heusler, Die altgermanische Dichtung, p. 192; Lehmann, The De-
velopment of Germanic Verse Form, pp. 164-169; and Opland, "From Horse-
back to Monastic Cell," in OEL, pp. 30-43. Since poems of epic length need
not have been composed in writing, as used to be assumed, there is no need to
accept Alistair Campbell's conclusion that the epic arose as a result of the
growth of Anglo-Saxon monasticism and always remained a monastic form
that did not reach the secular hall; see his "The Old English Epic Style," in
English and Medieval Studies Presented to J. R. R. Tolkien, ed. Ν. Davis and
C. L. Wrenn (London: Allen and Unwin, 1962), pp. 13-15. Oral poetic tra-
dition had a long-lasting effect on poetry composed in the monasteries, as is
pointed out by Richard C. Payne, "Formulaic Poetry in Old English and Its
Backgrounds," Studies in Medieval Culture, 11 (1978): 41-49.
48. F. Klaeber, "A Note on Brunanburh," Anglica, 2 (1925): 7.
49. Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, ed., The Anglo-Saxon Minor Poems, ASPR,
VI, xxvi.
50. Karl Müllenhof, "Die innere Geschichte des Beovulfs," ZfdA, 14
(1869); rpt. in his Beowulf: Untersuchungen über das angelsächsische Epos und
die älteste Geschichte der germanischen Seevölker (Berlin, 1899), pp. 110-160.
For references to the work of Müllenhof's followers see Klaeber, pp.
clv-clvi.
51. See Andreas Heusler, Lied und Epos in germanischer Sagendichtung
(Dortmund: Ruhfus, 1905), esp. chap. 3: "Liedhafte Knappheit und epische
Breite." On the style of the lay, note additionally Donald K. Fry, ed., Finns-
burh: Fragment and Episode (London: Methuen, 1974), pp. 25-29.
52. Some of the history of scholarship on the use of appositive devices in
Old English poetry is reviewed by Fred C. Robinson in the early pages of his
study "Two Aspects of Variation in Old English Poetry," in Old English Po-
etry: Essays on Style, ed. Daniel G. Calder (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1979), pp. 127-145. See also Stanley B. Greenfield, The Interpretation
of Old English Poems (London: Routledge, 1972), chap. 3: "The Uses of
Variation."
53. Critics who have mechanically applied the work of Parry and Lord
to the study of Old English have missed this important point. To note that an
Old English poem has many enjambed lines tells nothing about its oral or
written origin. From an early period, Germanic poets favored using the cae-
sura between the a and b verses as a major syntactic break. The relatively
short Old English line does not often lend itself to complete syntactic units,
NOTES T O PAGES 60-68 273
and the need to satisfy the demands of one line's alliteration often leads the
poet to suspend his thought between this line and the next. The basic syntac-
tic unit is not the line but the verse, and verse is simply added to verse until a
clause is complete. Particularly when the poet makes use of the favorite de-
vice of variation, a syntactic period may not come to its end until a few ap-
positive verses have intervened. The concept of enjambement does not well
address how Old English poets formed sentences using the alliterative verse
form.
54. OferySa gewealc, / of er gañotes bœ <5.. . ofer wœteragetSring, / of er
hwœles eìSel: ASPR, VI, 23.
55. These are the compounds eorlgewœde, herebyrne, searofah, hilde-
grap, inwitfeng, meregrund, sundgebland, freawrasn, swinlica, beadomece, maeg-
enfultum, hœftmece, aterían, and he aposwat. According to the count of
Arthur G. Brodeur, The Art of "Beowulf" (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1959), p. 7, 57 percent of the 903 substantive compounds in the
poem occur nowhere else.
56. These are sweordwund, ordwyga, sweordplega, edwitscype, wigrœd-
en, stanfat, iulean, hildefrofor, heaftuwerig, and geapneb.
57. The classic treatment is by Adrien Bonjour, The Digressions in
"Beowulf" Medium /Evum Monographs, 5 (Oxford: Blackwell, 1950).
58. See Blanche Colton Williams, Gnomic Poetry in Anglo-Saxon, Co-
lumbia University Studies in English and Comparative Literature, 49 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1914). Some of the more recent scholar-
ship on this aspect of the scop's art is cited by T. A. Shippey, "Maxims in
Old English Narrative: Literary Art or Traditional Wisdom?" in Oral Tra-
dition, Literary Tradition, ed. Bekker-Nielsen, pp. 28-46.

3. LATIN CHRISTIAN L E T T E R S
1. This history of misreading on the part of early scholars has been
written by E. G. Stanley, The Search for Anglo-Saxon Paganism (Cambridge:
D. S. Brewer, 1975).
2. See James E. Cross, "On the Genre of 'The Wanderer,' " Neoph.,
45 (1961): 63-75.
3. See Dorothy Whitelock, "The Interpretation of'The Seafarer,' " in
The Early Cultures of North-West Europe, ed. Sir Cyril Fox and Bruce
Dickins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1950), pp. 259-272.
4. See John V. Fleming, " 'The Dream of the Rood' and Anglo-Saxon
Monasticism," Traditio, 22 (1966): 43-72 (esp. p. 53).
5. See Thomas D. Hill, "Figurai Narrative in Andreas: The Conversion
of the Mermedonians," NM, 70 (1969): 261-273, and James W. Earl, "The
Typological Structure of Andreas," in OEL, pp. 66-89.
6. See Kenneth Sisam, "The Publication of Alfred's Pastoral Care," in
his Studies in the History of Old English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953),
pp. 141-142, on the probable recipients of the preface and the book. The
274 N O T E S T O PAGES 68-69
key sentences bearing on the proposed educational reform are: "Therefore it
seems better to me, if it seems so to you, that we also should turn into the
language that we can all understand some books, which may be most neces-
sary for all men to know; and bring it to pass, as we can very easily with
God's help, if we have the peace, that all the youth now in England, born of
free men who have the means that they can apply to it, may be devoted to
learning as long as they cannot be of use in any other employment, until such
time as they can read well what is written in English. One may then teach
further in the Latin language those whom one wishes to teach further and to
bring to holy orders" ( E H D , p. 889).
7. Listhendig / to awritanne wordgeryno: "Gifts of Men," 95b-96. To
judge from a letter of Bede addressed to Egbert, archbishop of York, in 734,
not all the "good and wise men" who were thought by Alfred to have filled
the churches of England in former times were either good or wise, and some
of them were less than learned. Bede speaks of certain bishops said to
"have with them no men of any religion or continence, but rather those who
are given to laughter, jests, tales, feasting and drunkenness, and the other
attractions of a lax life." He goes on to describe the care that should be taken
for the ignorant people, by whom he means, he makes clear, not only laymen
but "those clerics or monks who are ignorant of the Latin language," and he
adds that in the interests of serving the needs of the faithful he has "often
given to many ignorant priests both . . . the Creed and the Lord's Prayer,
translated into the English language" (EHD, p. 801).
8. C. P. Wormald, "The Uses of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon England and
Its Neighbours," TRHS, 5th ser., 27 (1977): 95-114. Wormald doubts that
cultured literacy was ever widely established in Anglo-Saxon England; he also
suggests that even the literacy of the clergy could never be taken for granted.
9. Asset's "Life of King Alfred" ed. W. H. Stevenson (1904; rpt. Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1959), chaps. 75-76 and 102, trans, in EHD, pp. 292-294
and 301.
10. See D. A. Bullough, "The Educational Tradition in England from
Alfred to /Elfric: Teaching Utriusque linguae, " in La scuola nell'occidente la-
tino dell'alto medioevo, 2 vols., Settimane di studio del Centro italiano di studi
sull'alto medioevo (hereafter: Settimane), 19 (Spoleto: Presso la Sede del
Centro, 1972), II, 453-494; and Connie C. Eble, "yElfric and Bilingualism
in Anglo-Saxon England," in The Fourth LACUS Forum, ed. Michel Paradis
(Columbia, S.C.: Hornbeam Press, 1978), pp. 423-431. The very different
educational system of the newly converted English is reconstructed by Put-
nam Fennell Jones, "The Gregorian Mission and English Education," Spec-
ulum, 3 (1928): 335-348.
11. See Peter Clemoes, "Late Old English Literature," in Tenth-Cen-
tury Studies, ed. David Parsons (London: Phillimore, 1975), pp. 103-114, on
the range and high quality of English prose between the reform and the
Conquest. Even as late as the twelfth century, in the view of T. J. Brown,
"An Historical Introduction to the Use of Classical Latin Authors in the Brit-
ish Isles from the Fifth to the Eleventh Century," in La cultura antica
nell'occidente latino dal VII all'XI secolo, 2 vols., Settimane, 22 (Spoleto:
N O T E S T O PAGES 69-74 275
Presso la Sede del Centro, 1975), I, 291, "the English monks were as back-
ward in their Latin reading as they were advanced in their adherence to
Alfred's radical plan for education based on the vernacular."
12. The reader who wishes to delve more deeply into the subject may
start with such standard works as John Godfrey, The Church in Anglo-Saxon
England (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962); Margaret Dean-
esley, The Pre-Conquest Church in England, 2nd ed. (London: A. and C.
Black, 1964); and Henry Mayr-Harting, The Coming of Christianity to Anglo-
Saxon England (London: Batsford, 1972). A number of essays bearing on the
learning of Bede and his teachers and followers are included in Famulus
Christi: Essays in Commemoration of the Thirteenth Centenary of the Birth of
the Venerable Bede, ed. Gerald Bonner (London: Society for the Promulga-
tion of Christian Knowledge, 1976). Also of interest are the Jarrow Lectures
published by J . and P. Bealls, Newcastle, including Bertram Colgrave, The
Venerable Bede and His Times (1958); J. D. A. Ogilvy, The Place of Wear-
mouth and Jarrow in Western Cultural History (1970); and Henry Mayr-
Harting, The Venerable Bede, The Rule of St. Benedict, and Social Class
(1976). The subject of books and libraries, touched on by all these authors, is
the main concern of M. L. W. Laistner, " T h e Library of the Venerable
Bede," in Bede: His Life, Times, and Writings, ed. A. Hamilton Thompson
(Oxford: Clarendon, 1935), pp. 237-266, and of J . D. A. Ogilvy, Books
Known to the English, 597-1066 (Cambridge, Mass.: Mediaeval Academy of
America, 1967). T . J. Brown, "Historical Introduction," pp. 273-276, re-
views Ogilvy's findings with emphasis on the scantness of the evidence for
some titles. Richard J . Schräder, "Caedmon and the Monks, the Beowulf-
Poet, and Literary Continuity in the Early Middle Ages," American Benedic-
tine Review, 31 (1980): 39-69, offers a view of Anglo-Saxon learning that is
based on assumptions different from those adopted here.
13. For Alcuin's "Versus de sanctis Eboracensis ecclesiae" see MGH:
Poetae latini aevi Carolini, I, ed. Ernst Dümmler (Berlin: Weidmann, 1881),
201.
14. Although we know of this story only on the twelfth-century au-
thority of William of Malmesbury (Gesta pontificum Anglorum, 5.190), the
account has often been repeated as if it were of some historical value. It is
accepted as historical, for example, by L. F. Anderson, The Anglo-Saxon Scop
(Toronto: The University Library, 1903), p. 12, but then Anderson also
seems to believe in the historicity of Gunnar's performance in the snake pit
(p. 7).
15. As Bertram Colgrave and R. A. B. Mynors, eds., Bede's "Ecclesiasti-
cal History of the English People" (Oxford: Clarendon, 1969), pp. 580-581 n.
4, remark, "Only a comparatively small group of the MSS. of the Letter [of
Cuthbert on the death of Bede] attribute the composition of the poem to
Bede himself, and those the later ones. So the evidence for Bede's authorship
is by no means strong."
16. Richard J . Schräder, "Beowulf s Obsequies and the Roman Epic,"
CL 24 (1972): 237-259.
17. Hector Munro Chadwick, The Heroic Age (Cambridge: Cambridge
276 N O T E S T O PAGES 74-79
University Press, 1912), pp. 73-76; Ritchie Girvan, untitled review in
MLR, 27 (1932): 466-470; John Nist, "Beowulf and the Classical Epics,"
College English, 24 (1963): 257-262.
18. The most important studies are Frederick Klaeber, "Aeneis und
Beowulf," Archiv, 126 (1911): 40-48 and 339-359; Rudolph Imelmann,
Forschungen zur altenglischen Poesie (Berlin: Weidmann, 1920); Tom Burns
Haber, A Comparative Study of the "Beowulf' and the "Aeneid" (Princeton:
Princeton University Press, 1931); and Alois Brandl, "Beowulf-Epos und
Aeneis in systematischer Vergleichung," Archiv, 171 (1937): 161-173.
19. Alain Renoir, "The Terror of the Dark Waters: A Note on Virgil-
ian and Beowulfian Techniques," Harvard English Studies, 5 (1974):
147-160. Renoir's caution recalls that of James Hulbert, "Beowulf and the
Classical Epic," MPh, 44 (1946): 65-75.
20. Klaeber, "Beowulfiana," Anglia, 50 (1926): 202.
21.1 follow most readers in taking Hrothgar to the œpelinga bearn who
leads the Danes and Geats to the mere, just as he is the wisa fengel ("wise
lord") who sets out in the lead at the beginning of the journey (1399-1402a)
and as he seems to be the unnamed "he" who scouts out the ground in
1412-16a. Klaeber's interpretation of bearn as plural has not been generally
accepted.
22. Here and elsewhere, unless otherwise noted, quotations and transla-
tions from Virgil are from the revised Loeb edition by H. Rushton Fair-
clough, 2 vols. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1934).
23. Aeneid 11.491—494, trans. W. F. Jackson Knight (Baltimore: Pen-
guin, 1956).
24. See David M. Gaunt, "The Creation Theme in Epic Poetry," CL,
29 (1977): 213-220.
25. J. R. R. Tolkien, for example, speaks of the "stern and noble melan-
choly" of the two poets, together with their "sense of many-storied anti-
quity": "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in Nicholson, p. 75 n. 21.
He wisely stresses that this likeness is "due to certain qualities in the authors
independent of the question whether the Anglo-Saxon had read Virgil or
not" (p. 74).
26. See Theodore M. Andersson, Early Epic Scenery: Homer, Virgil,
and the Medieval Legacy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1976), chap. 4,
"The Virgilian Heritage in Beowulf." While Andersson believes that the
likenesses point toward Virgilian influence, he does not claim that such influ-
ence is subject to proof.
27. See Jessie Crosland, "Virgil and the Old French Epic," MLR, 23
(1928): 164-173. Many of the parallels between the Aeneid and The Song of
Roland pointed out by Crosland, even if valid, cannot be extended to
Beowulf.
28. There remains a possibility that the Beowulf poet knew the Aeneid
not directly but as the Roman epic was interpreted and allegorized by medie-
val commentators, particularly by Fabius Fulgentius in his Mitologiarum and
his Expositio vergiliana continentia: see John Gardner, The Construction of
N O T E S T O PAGES 79-83 277

Christian Poetry in Old English (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University


Press, 1975), chap. 4: "Beowulf." Fulgentius was not well known to the
Anglo-Saxons, however, and Gardner's attempt to show his influence is too
complex, confusing, and willful to be convincing.
29. See Jackson J. Campbell, "Learned Rhetoric in Old English Po-
etry," MPh, 63 (1966): 189-201; "Knowledge of Rhetorical Figures in
Anglo-Saxon England," JEGPh, 66 (1967): 1-20; and "Adaptation of Clas-
sical Rhetoric in Old English Literature," in Medieval Eloquence, ed. James
J. Murphy (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), pp. 173-197.
René Derolez, "Anglo-Saxon Literature: 'Attic' or 'Asiatic'? Old English
Poetry and Its Latin Background," English Studies Today, 2nd ser. (1961),
pp. 93-105, discusses the use of rhetorical figures by Old English poets with
incidental reference to Beowulf. Clair Wade McPherson, "The Influence of
Latin Rhetoric on Old English Poetry" (Ph.D. diss., Washington University,
1980), reads the Old English "Advent," "Judith," "Doomsday," and "The
Seafarer" in the light of various rhetorical manuals, including Bede's.
30. See Joshua H. Bonner, "Toward a Unified Critical Approach to Old
English Poetic Composition," MPh, 73 (1975-1976): 219-228.
31. Adeline Courtney Bartlett, The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-
Saxon Poetry, Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Lit-
erature, 122 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), points out cer-
tain favored rhetorical patterns in the organization of blocks of verse without
any presumption as to whether they were the product of conscious or uncon-
scious artistry. Klaeber in his notes points out occasional examples of poly-
syndeton, asyndetic parataxis, and such devices, but he seems to use such
terms for their descriptive convenience without assuming direct knowledge of
Latin rhetoric on the part of the poet.
32. George J. Engelhardt, "Beowulf: A Study in Dilatation," PMLA,
70 (1955): 825-852.
33. See Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard University Press, 1960), pp. 78-81. On pp. 223-234, Lord reproduces
the two versions as examples of how an epic song differs from a shorter song
not by its extension of the plot but its ornamentation.
34. The progymnasmata were simple exercises designed to teach school-
boys the arts of composition. De differentibus topicis is one of Engelhardt's
sources of rhetorical terminology.
35. Donald W . Lee, "Lactantius and Beowulf in Studies in Linguistics
in Honor of Raven I. McDavid, Jr., ed. Lawrence M. Davis (University,
Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1972), pp. 397-413.
36. In C. verrem II.v.33, sec. 86, in M. Tulli Ciceronis scripta quae man-
suerunt, ed. A. Klotz (Leipzig: Teubner, 1923).
37. Morton W. Bloomfield, "Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An In-
terpretation of Unferth," Traditio, 7 (1951): 410-415.
38. See Fred C. Robinson, "Personal Names in Medieval Narrative and
the Name of Unferth in Beowulf ¡" in Essays in Honor of Richebourg Gaillard
McWilliams, ed. Howard Creed (Birmingham, Ala.: Birmingham Southern
278 NOTES T O PAGES 83-86
College, 1970), pp. 43-48. See also Stanley B. Greenfield, The Interpretation
of Old English Poems (London: Routledge, 1972), pp. 101-107, for a thor-
ough critique of the equation "Unferth" = "Mar-peace."
39. See Ogilvy, Books Known, pp. 101-102; and Diane K. Bolton,
"The Study of The Consolation of Philosophy in Anglo-Saxon England," Ar-
chives d'histoire doctrinale et littéraire du Moyen Âge, 44 (1977): 33-78. Bol-
ton notes that Alfred's commentary on Boethius "clearly had antecedents"
(p. 35), but if these antecedents were English it is not clear what they were.
40. Alan Roper, "Boethius and the Three Fates of Beowulf," PQ, 41
(1962): 386-400.
41. W. F. Bolton, "Boethius and a Topos in Beowulf," in Saints, Schol-
ars, and Heroes: Studies in Medieval Culture in Honour of Charles IV. Jones,
ed. Margot H. King and Wesley M. Stevens (Collegeville, Minn.: Hill Mo-
nastic Manuscript Library, 1979), I, 15-43, makes a "chiefly speculative"
attempt to trace the influence of the Consolatio on the poet's use of the oppe
. . . oppe, "either . . . or," construction used to refer to one of two things.
Such a commonplace feature of the language is not likely to derive from
Boethius or any other single author, however. Its virtual ubiquity among the
various Old Germanic dialects suggests that it was formerly, as it is today, a
simple contrastive frame that any author or speaker could use without literary
echoes. Because this is Bolton's chief exhibit, his claim that Beowulf is "a
surrogate non-classical vehicle for the dominant conceptual preoccupations of
the Consolatio" (p. 39) seems exaggerated.
42. The following discussion can be supplemented by reference to
Philip B. Rollinson, "The Influence of Christian Doctrine and Exegesis on
Old English Poetry: An Estimate of the Current State of Scholarship," ASE,
2 (1973): 276-280; and David Berkeley, "Some Misapprehensions of Chris-
tian Typology in Recent Literary Scholarship," Studies in English Literature,
1500-1900, 18 (1978): 10-11.
43. Margaret E. Goldsmith, The Mode and Meaning of "Beowulf'
(London: Athlone, 1970), pp. 255-256.
44. Stephen C. Bandy, "Christliche Eschatologie und altenglische
Dichtung, dargestellt am Beispiel des Beowulf'" Germanisch-romanische
Monatschrift, 26 (1976): 14-25; "Beowulf• The Defense of Heorot," Neoph.,
56 (1972): 86-92 (esp. p. 91); and "Cain, Grendel, and the Giants of
Beowulf," Papers on Language and Literature, 9 (1973): 235-249. Compare
Margaret E. Goldsmith, "The Christian Perspective in Beowulf," in Brodeur
Studies, pp. 74-75 and 89. The validity of this approach is undermined by
disagreement among typologists as to how to interpret the materials of analy-
sis. John Golden, "A Typological Approach to the 'Gifstol' of Beowulf 168,"
NM, 77 (1976): 190-204, sees Heorot as a type not of the earthly city but of
its heavenly counterpart.
45. See Kathryn Hume, "The Concept of the Hall in Old English Po-
etry," ASE, 3 (1974): 73.
46. Judson Boyce Allen, "God's Society and Grendel's Shoulder Joint:
Gregory and the Poet of the Beowulf," NM, 78 (1977): 239-240.
47. Thomas D. Hill, "The Tropologica! Context of Heat and Cold Im-
N O T E S T O PAGES 86-96 279

agery in Anglo-Saxon Poetry," NM, 69 (1968): 531. Hill offers a differ-


ent suggestion concerning patristic influence on Beowulf in " 'Hwyrftum
Scri{)aS': Beowulf, Line 163," MS, 33 (1971): 379-381, to which Stanley B.
Greenfield has offered an effective rejoinder, "Old English Words and Pa-
tristic Exegesis—Hwyrftum ScripacS: A Caveat," MPh, 75 (1977): 44-48.
48. Niilo Peltola, "Grendel's Descent from Cain Reconsidered," NM,
73 (1972): 284-291.
49. Dorothy Whitelock, The Audience of "Beowulf' (Oxford: Claren-
don, 1951), pp. 80-81.
50. W. F. Bolton, Alcuin and Beowulf: An Eighth-Century View (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1978).
51. See Klaeber's note to lines 942 ff, and Goldsmith, "The Christian
Perspective," p. 89.
52. C. L. Wrenn, ed., "Beowulf' with the Finnesburg Fragment, 3rd ed.
rev. W. F. Bolton (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1973), p. 133.
53. Willem Helder, "Beowulf and the Plundered Hoard," NM, 78
(1977): 317-325.
54. On the apparent indebtedness of Csedmon to patristic modes of
thought, see Morton W. Bloomfield, "Patristics and Old English Literature:
Notes on Some Poems," in Brodeur Studies, pp. 41-43; Bernard F. Huppé,
Doctrine and Poetry: Augustine's Influence on Old English Poetry (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1959), pp. 99-130; and D. R. Howlett,
"The Theology of Caedmon's Hymn," Leeds Studies in English, 1
(1973-74): 1-12.
55. Frederick Klaeber, "Die christlichen Elemente im Beowulf," Anglia,
35 (1911): 111-136, 249-270, 453-482; and 36 (1912): 169-199. On ma-
terial relating to Hrothgar's "sermon" see especially 35: 474-480. Learned
Christian material with a possible relation to the speech is also reviewed by
Goldsmith, Mode and Meaning, pp. 183-209.
56. See Klaeber, "Die christlichen Elemente," 35: 269.
57. For example, by P. G. Thomas, "Beowulf and Daniel A," MLR, 8
(1913): 537-539.
58. Larry D. Benson, "The Pagan Coloring of Beowulf in Creed, pp.
200-202. Compare the similar judgments by Arthur Gilchrist Brodeur, The
Art of "Beowulf' (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp.
205-211; and by Goldsmith, "The Christian Perspective," p. 83.
59. Whitelock, Audience, p. 78. Whitelock here follows the judgment of
Tolkien, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in Nicholson, pp.
101-103.
60. See Klaeber, "Die christlichen Elemente," 35: 454-455.
61. The Homilies of fVulfstan, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (Oxford: Claren-
don, 1957), pp. 162-163 (my translation).

4. T H E D A N E S AND T H E D A T E
1. A shorter version of this chapter was presented at the joint meeting
of the Medieval Academy of America and the Medieval Association of the
28ο N O T E S T O PAGES 96-97

Pacific held in Los Angeles in March 1980. Some of its points have since
been anticipated in the welcome volume The Dating of "Beowulf, " ed. Colin
Chase (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1981), as well as by Kevin S.
Kiernan in his provocative study "Beowulf' and the "Beowulf Manuscript
(New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1981); Patricia Poussa in her
article " T h e Date of Beowulf Reconsidered: The Tenth Century?" NM, 82
(1981): 276-288; and, to some extent, by W. G. Busse and R. Holtei,
"Beowulf and the Tenth Century," Bulletin of the John Rylands University
Library, 63 (1981): 285-329. The notion of a post-Viking Beowulf clearly
an idea whose time has come. Since as yet no new consensus has evolved
concerning this point, however, I have thought it best to leave my remarks
essentially as written, with the addition of a few footnotes, as one contribution
to what has become a fruitful debate.
2. Dorothy Whitelock, The Audience of "Beowulf " (Oxford: Clarendon,
1951'), esp. pp. 22-29 and 99-105.
3. Kenneth Sisam, "Cynewulf and His Poetry," in his Studies in the His-
tory of Old English Literature (Oxford: Clarendon, 1953), pp. 2-7. In view of
scholars' regular tendency to date Cynewulf no later than the mid-ninth cen-
tury, it should be emphasized that the grounds for assigning him a date no
earlier than the tenth century (apart from the linguistic tests, which I discuss
below) depend on largely unverifiable theories of the author's identity or of
the relative chronology of Old English poetry. The fact is, we do not know
who Cynewulf was or where or when he lived.
4. For example, " T h e Old English Advent," also known as "Christ,"
dated after 940 by Milton McC. Gatch, Loyalties and Traditions: Man and
His World in Old English Literature (New York: Bobbs-Merrill, 1971), pp.
95-96.
5. T . P. Dunning and A. J. Bliss, eds., The Wanderer (London: Me-
thuen, 1969), p. 104, conclude that there is "no foundation" for the assump-
tion that this masterwork is of an early date and conclude that "the supposi-
tion that it was written in the first half of the tenth century would solve many
literary problems." Their view represents a break with the views of prior
editors.
6. T . A. Shippey, Old English Verse (London: Hutchinson, 1972), p.
210.
7. Derek Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry (London:
Routledge, 1977), pp. 57-66. Pearsall's judgments appear to be based on the
view of later Old English poetic history expressed by Shippey, Old English
Verse, chap. 8 ("The Decline: King Alfred and After"), as well as by many
authors before him. R. W. Chambers, On the Continuity of English Prose from
Alfred to More and His School\ E E T S no. 191A (London: Oxford University
Press, 1932), pp. lx-lxxxi, speaks vigorously against the doctrine of the deca-
dence of Anglo-Saxon prose and civilization before the Conquest and sug-
gests that there may have been life left in the poetry too at this late date.
Compare the similar view of Peter Clemoes, "Late Old English Literature,"
in Tenth-Century Studies, ed. David Parsons (London: Phillimore, 1975), pp.
103-104.
N O T E S T O PAGES 97-100 281
8. Pearsall, Old English and Middle English Poetry, pp. 66, 60, 57, and
32, respectively.
9. Among scholars who have been unimpressed by facile arguments for
dating are Aldo Ricci, "The Chronology of Anglo-Saxon Poetry," RES, 5
(1929): 257-266 (although Ricci proposes some facile criteria of his own),
and Frederick Tupper, Jr., "The Philological Legend of Cynewulf," PMLA,
26 (1911): 270-278 (chiefly on the linguistic "tests"). Dorothy Whitelock
provides a good, brief survey of problems in the dating of Old English poetry
in "Anglo-Saxon Poetry and the Historian," TRHS, 4th ser., 31 (1949):
79-88. She concludes that "objections can be raised to all arguments that
claim to establish precise dates for Old English poetry" (p. 88). In his "Note
on Beowulf's Date and Economic-Social History," in Studi in onore di Ar-
mando Sapori (Milan: Instituto editoriale Cisalpino, 1957), pp. 175-178,
Robert L. Reynolds claims that "reconsideration of the evidence for the dates
to be assigned most Old English items is overdue" (p. 178) and suggests that
Beowulf may have been composed after the Viking invasions. Doubts as to
the assumption that most Old English poetry is pre-Alfredian are voiced by
Norman F. Blake, "The Dating of Old English Poetry," in An English Mis-
cellany Presented to W. S. Mackie, ed. Brian S. Lee (London: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1977), pp. 14-27. Many points raised by these authors are taken
up by Nicholas Jacobs in his excellent study "Anglo-Danish Relations, Poetic
Archaism, and the Date of Beowulf," Poetica (Tokyo), 8 (1977): 23-43.
Jacobs opens the door to our attributing the poem to almost any period from
the early eighth to the late tenth century, with some evidence favoring Mer-
da in the age of Athelstan or somewhat earlier. The publication of Chase's
volume The Dating of "Beowulf" has added fuel to the controversy. Of the
thirteen contributions to this volume, nine leave open the possibility of a
ninth- or tenth-century date. Among these, four argue positively for the
tenth century and one author (Kiernan) favors the early eleventh. While this
last proposal strikes me as unlikely (see my forthcoming review of Kiernan's
book in Speculum), one can safely say that the old consensus concerning an
early Beowulf his crumbled.
10. Linguistic Means of Determining the Dates of Old English Literary
Texts (Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of America, 1980). I am grate-
ful to Amos for having furnished me with an advance copy of her book. The
linguistic tests are the subject of a briefer review by Kiernan, "Beowulf' and
the "Beowulf" Manuscript, pp. 23-27.
11. John McKinnell, "On the Date of'The Battle of Maldon,' " M/E,
44 (1975): 121-136, argues for a date as late as 1030 on the basis of the
poet's consistent use of the word eorl in the sense of Old Norse jarl rather
than as a synonym for "warrior." N. F. Blake, "The Genesis of'The Battle
of Maldon,' " ASE, 7 (1978): 119-129, accepts a late date and takes the
Latin Vita Oswaldi (995-1005) as the poem's chief source. Historical verisi-
militude in this poem cannot be taken as a criterion for dating, for verisimili-
tude can be an aspect of literary style.
12. Karl Luick, Historische Grammatik der englischen Sprache, I (Leip-
282 N O T E S T O PAGES 1 0 0 - 1 0 3
zig: Tauchnitz, 1921), sec. 320; A. Campbell, Old English Grammar (Ox-
ford: Clarendon, 1959), sec. 363.
13. Winfrid P. Lehmann, "Post-Consonantal l m η r and Metrical
Practice in Beowulf.in Nordica et anglica: Studies in Honor of Stefán Einars-
son, ed. Allan H. Orrick (The Hague: Mouton, 1968), pp. 148-167.
14. See Amos, Linguistic Means, p. 121. Similar variability can be ob-
served among multiple versions of two prose texts analyzed by Amos in an
appendix (pp. 171-196).
15. I leave out of this discussion the putative manuscript reading wun-
dini in line 1382, for the validity of this reading has been undermined by
Kenneth Sisam, Studies in the History, p. 36 n. 1, and destroyed by Kiernan,
"Beowulf" and the "Beowulf" Manuscript, pp. 31-37. The correct reading is
wundmi, an evident minim error for wundnü (= wundnum).
16. R. T. Farrell, "Beowulf" Swedes, and Geats (London: Viking So-
ciety for Northern Research, 1972), p. 53. Farrell speaks against the judg-
ments of Rupert Bruce-Mitford, "Sutton Hoo and the Background to the
Poem," in Ritchie Girvan, "Beowulf" and the Seventh Century: Language and
Content, 2nd ed. (London: Methuen, 1971), pp. 85-98. Girvan's grounds for
attributing the poem to the last decades of the seventh century in Northum-
bria also carry little or no weight. To cite two examples: "In Beowulf. . .
ships are everywhere conceived as propelled by sails, and such was the famil-
iar practice of late seventh-century England" (p. 35), and "One characteristic
of Beowulf which cannot easily be separated from the English environment,
and at that precise time, is the atmosphere of pensive melancholy, a mood of
sorrow excited by the decay of the splendours of the past, by the destruction
which attends mortality and the works of man" (p. 50, my italics). Ships with
sails, an attitude of melancholy, and the mutability of earthly things have
been known in more than one time and place since the human race emerged
into history.
17. See, however, the Chronicle entry for the year 876: "Healfdene
shared out the land of the Northumbrians, and they proceeded to plough and
to support themselves" ( E H D , p. 195).
18. Sisam, "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies," PBA, 39 (1953): 341.
19. F. M. Stenton, "The Danes in England," in Preparatory to Anglo-
Saxon England: Being the Collected Papers of Frank Merry Stenton, ed. Doris
Mary Stenton (Oxford: Clarendon, 1970), p. 139. C. D. Morris, "North-
umbria and the Viking Settlement: The Evidence for Land-holding," Ar-
chaeologia Aeliana, 5 (1977): 81-103, points out the orderly and peaceful way
in which the Vikings settled the north of England and suggests that "in some
cases, the Scandinavians took over blocks of land as going concerns" (p. 101).
20. F. T. Wainwright, "The Scandinavians in Lancashire," in Scandi-
navian England: Collected Papers of F. T. Wainwright, ed. H. P. R. Finberg
(Chichester, Sussex: Phillimore, 1975), p. 195.
21. See D. M. Wilson, "The Vikings' Relationship with Christianity in
Northern England," Journal of the British Archaeological Association, 3rd ser.,
30 (1967): 37-46, and "The Scandinavians in England," in The Archaeology
N O T E S T O PAGES 1 0 3 - 1 0 6 283
of Anglo-Saxon England, ed. D. M. Wilson (London: Methuen, 1976), pp.
393-403.
22. F. M. Stenton, "The Historical Bearing of Place-Name Studies:
The Danish Settlement of Eastern England," in Preparatory to Anglo-Saxon
England, pp. 298-313.
23. The affirmative conclusions of Wainwright and Stenton now seem
somewhat exaggerated; on the other hand, so do the strongly negative judg-
ments of Peter H. Sawyer, as expressed in "The Density of the Danish Set-
tlement in England," University of Birmingham Historical Journal, 6 (1958):
1-17, and The Age of the Vikings, 2nd ed. (London: Edward Arnold, 1971).
See "The Two Viking Ages of Britain: A Discussion," Mediaeval Scandina-
via, 2 (1969): 163-207. For a review of scholarship on the question, see Gil-
lian Fellows Jensen, "The Vikings in England: A Review," ASE, 4 (1975):
181-206. Kenneth Cameron, "The Scandinavian Settlement of Eastern
England," Ortnamnssällskapets i Uppsala Ârsskrift (1978), pp. 7-17, has re-
cently reaffirmed his plausible view that while the micel here ("great host")
that warred against Alfred may have numbered in the hundreds rather than
the thousands, the original division of eastern England by the host was fol-
lowed by a substantial secondary migration from Scandinavia.
24. Note particularly Dorothy Whitelock, "The Conversion of the
Eastern Danelaw," Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 12 (1941): 159-176. On
the subject of the Danish conversion, as well as on other subjects discussed
here, see also H. R. Loyn, The Vikings in Britain (London: Batsford, 1977).
25. See Roger Fowler, ed., Wulfstan's "Canons of Edgar," EETS no.
266 (London: Oxford University Press, 1972), sec. 16; and Law of the
Northumbrian Priests 47-54.1, and Laws of Cnut 5 and 5.1, cited in EHD,
pp. 474-475 and 455, respectively.
26. EHD, p. 216. See Margaret Ashdown, "The Attitude of the
Anglo-Saxons to Their Scandinavian Invaders," Saga-Book of the Viking So-
ciety, 10 (1928-29): 88.
27. F. M. Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, 3rd ed. (Oxford: Clarendon,
1971), p. 323.
28. Ibid., p. 353 n. 1; Walter de Gray Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, 3
vols. (London: Whiting and Co., 1885-1893), no. 648.
29. Egil's Saga, chaps. 50-55; a convenient translation is by Gwyn Jones
(New York: Twayne, 1960), pp. 120-135.
30. See Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 702, and note further EHD,
pp. 548-551 (a translation of Birch, no. 703). See also R. L. Reynolds, "An
Echo of Beowulf in ^Ethelstan's Charters of 931-933 A . D . ? " Mr.E, 24 (1955):
103. Onomastic evidence alone cannot yield a clear picture of the extent of
Scandinavian influence in England at this time, for many Norsemen took on
English names when they were baptized.
31. See Allen Mawer, "The Redemption of the Five Boroughs,"
English Historical Review, 38 (1923): 551-557.
32. EHD, pp. 436-437; and see Niels Lund, "King Edgar and the
Danelaw," Medieval Scandinavia, 9 (1976): 181-195.
284 N O T E S T O PAGES 106-112
33. W. Dunn Macray, ed., Chronicon abbatiae Rameseiensis, Rolls Series
83 (London, 1886), p. 11.
34. See Whitelock, "The Dealings of the Kings of England with
Northumbria in the Tenth and Eleventh Centuries," in The Anglo-Saxons:
Studies . . . Bruce Dickens, ed. Peter Clemoes (London: Bowes and Bowes,
1959), pp. 75-76.
35. See the Chronicle entry for the year 959 ( E H D , p. 225).
36. According to William of Malmesbury, De gestis regum Anglorum,
ed. William Stubbs, Rolls Series 90 (London, 1887), I, 207.
37. Chambers, p. 327; F. Liebermann, "Ort und Zeit der Beowulfdich-
tung," Nachrichten von Königlichen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Göttin-
gen, Philologisch-historische Klasse (1920), pp. 225-256. More recent at-
tempts to cast the Danes in a disparaging light are polemically rejected by A.
P. Campbell, "The Decline and Fall of Hrothgar and His Danes," Revue de
l'Université d'Ottawa, 45 (1975): 417-429.
38. See Sisam, "Anglo-Saxon Royal Genealogies," pp. 339-345. For
convenient translations of the documents in question see G. N. Garmonsway
and Jacqueline Simpson, trans., "Beowulf" and Its Analogues (New York:
Dutton, 1971), pp. 118-119. Alexander Callander Murray, 1 Beowulf, the
Danish Invasions, and Royal Genealogy," in The Dating of "Beowulf," ed.
Chase, pp. 101-111, points out the significance of the genealogies to dating
Beowulf
39. L. L. Schücking, Beiträge, 42 (1917): 347-410. R. I. Page, "The
Audience of Beowulf and the Vikings," in The Dating of "Beowulf" pp.
113-122, provides convincing new arguments for the possibility of a post-
Viking Beowulf, while Poussa, "The Date of Beowulf Reconsidered," renews
the argument in favor of the Danelaw as the place of origin.
40. Erik Björkman, Studien über die Eigennamen im "Beowulf, " Studien
zur englischen Philologie, 58 (Halle, 1920), p. 77; Chambers, pp. 322-323.
Cf. Kemp Malone, untitled review in Speculum, 6 (1931): 149-150. Lieber-
mann, "Ort und Zeit der Beowulfdichtung," pp. 255-276, rejects
Schücking's proposal on a variety of grounds, none of them weighty. The
Beowulf poet makes no mention of the battle-ax, for example—the Vikings'
pet weapon—but any such allusion would have been an anachronism in a
poem set in fifth- or sixth-century Scandinavia. Even the late poem "The
Battle of Maldon" makes no mention of the ax. There are descriptions of
heathen funerals in Beowulf, and the Church was opposed to such funerals,
but can such opposition be a criterion for dating? Pagan customs were con-
stantly being reintroduced to England. The ideals honored in Beowulf (for
example, personal loyalty to a chieftain or king) evidently derive from an
early period. By the tenth century had they ceased to be valued, especially by
conservators of an aristocratic poetic tradition? The poet's knowledge of leg-
ends of the Age of Migrations has been held to be evidence for an early date,
but such legends survived tenaciously in oral tradition and, suitably romanti-
cized, inspired poets long after Beowulf was forgotten.
N O T E S T O PAGES 1 1 2 - 1 1 6 285

41. L. L. Schücking, "Die Beowulfdatierung: Eine Replik," Beiträge,


47 (1923): 293-311.
42. See Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England, pp. 353-354.
43. Dom David Knowles, The Monastic Order in England, 2nd ed.
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), p. 36.
44. Liber Eliensis, ed. Ε. O. Blake (London: Royal Historical Society,
1962), p. 56.
45. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 1276 (my translation).
46. Dom Thomas Symons, ed., Regularis concordia (London: Thomas
Nelson, 1953), sec. 10 (p. 7).
47. Eric John, "The King and the Monks in the Tenth-Century Refor-
mation," in his Orbis Britanniae (Bristol: Leicester University Press, 1966),
pp. 154-180.
48. J. Raine, ed., Historians of the Church of York, Rolls Series 71 (Lon-
don, 1879), I, 411, cited by John, p. 170.
49. Henry Mayr-Harting, The Venerable Bede, the Rule of St. Benedict,
and Social Class (Newcastle: J. and P. Bealls, 1976), points out that the first
monasteries in England were virtually family possessions and that even
Alfred took for granted the desirability of aristocratic connections with mon-
asteries. What was revolutionary about the Benedictine reform was its at-
tempt to create "an educational and community tradition . . . in which all re-
flections of the worldly social structure [were] irrelevant" (p. 18).
50. The bitter character of the struggle between the two factions is
brought out by D. J. V. Fisher, "The Anti-Monastic Reaction in the Reign
of Edward the Martyr," The Cambridge Historical Journal, 10 (1950-52):
254-270, who stresses the political rather than religious nature of the dis-
pute, and by Daniel Sheerin, "The Dedication of the Old Minster, Winches-
ter, in 980," Revue bénédictine, 88 (1978): 261-273, who calls attention to
the eventual "positive reconciliation and compromise" effected by the two
factions.
51. Patrick Wormald, "Bede, Beowulf, and the Conversion of the
Anglo-Saxon Aristocracy," in Bede and Anglo-Saxon England, ed. Robert T .
Farrell, British Archaeological Reports 46 (Oxford 1978), esp. pp. 50-58,
comes to similar conclusions concerning the aristocratic context of Christian-
ity in Anglo-Saxon England but restricts his remarks to the period of the
conversion, well before the first Viking raids. I have tried to extend the valid-
ity of such an approach through the period of the raids and their aftermath.
Wormald argues against a post-Viking date on the grounds that whereas the
poet "is celebrating apparent heathens," Alfred the Great and his successors
"were trying to create a 'crusading' atmosphere," at least in Wessex and
southern Mercia. Both these propositions are open to doubt. The chief per-
sons the poet celebrates (including Beowulf and Hrothgar) behave and speak
in all respects like pious monotheists, not heathens, and any such "crusading"
atmosphere in the England of Alfred and of Edward the Elder had spent it-
self by the reign of Athelstan.
52. If the Hengest of the "Song of Finn and Hengest" is the same
286 N O T E S T O PAGES 116-125

chieftain who, with his brother Horsa, led the Jutes to England in 449, then
he has been made a champion of the Danes. The prominence given his song
is thus understandable: Englishmen and Danes could unite in praising their
ancestral hero.
53. See Chapter 1, note 29. The tenth homily declares that the date is
971 years after the Incarnation. Stanley B. Greenfield, A Critical History of
Old English Literature (New York: New York University Press, 1965), p.
59, accepts this as the date of compilation of the homiliary and leaves open
the possibility of an earlier date of composition.
54. See Stenton, Anglo-Saxon England\ p. 349.
55. Birch, Cartularium Saxonicum, no. 677; and see Chambers, pp.
42-45, and Reynolds, "An Echo."

5. F O R M U L A A N D F O R M U L A I C SYSTEM
1. This chapter should be read in conjunction with much of Chapter 2.
In slightly different form it first appeared in Lord Studies, pp. 394-415, and
in my "Aspects of the Oral Art of Beowulf: A Comparative Investigation"
(Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1972), pp. 1-37.
2. See Donald K. Fry, "Variation and Economy in Beowulf," MPh, 65
(1968): 353-356.
3. By George Calhoun, "The Art of the Formula in Homer—έ'πεα
πτερόεντα," CPh, 30 (1935): 215-227.
4. Milman Parry, "About Winged Words," CPh, 32 (1937): 59. Parry
is quoting his own words in "The Traditional Metaphor in Homer," CPh, 28
(1933): 39.
5. In this chapter and the next, all references to the text of Beowulf are
to the edition by Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie, Beowulf and Judith, ASPR, IV. I
make this change because the Dobbie edition is the basis of the fundamental
reference tools for research into the formulaic language of the poem, A Con-
cordance to "Beowulf' and A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records,
ed. J. B. Bessinger, Jr., and programmed by Philip H. Smith, Jr. (Ithaca:
Cornell University Press, 1969 and 1978, respectively).
6. In "Beowulf431-32 and the Hero's Civility in Denmark," Notesand
Queries, n.s. 27 (1980): 99-100, I propose that the word ond ("and") sup-
plied by editors to fill a lacuna in line 431 should be replaced by mid ("with").
If this suggestion is accepted, the formulaic resemblance between the five
verses is even stronger.
7. Donald K. Fry, "Old English Formulas and Systems," ES, 48
(1967): 203. Note also Fry's subsequent article "Some Aesthetic Implica-
tions of a New Definition of the Formula," NM, 69 (1968): 516-522, in
which he slightly rephrases his definition, omitting the word "loosely."
8. Frederick G. Cassidy, "How Free Was the Anglo-Saxon Scop?" in
Magoun Studies, pp. 75-85, maintains that of greater importance to a scop
than either fixed formulas or formulaic systems were abstract "archetypal
NOTES T O PAGES 1 2 5 - 1 2 7
syntactic patterns," of which he finds twenty-five in Beowulf. To judge from
Cassidy's examples, these syntactic frames include widely disparate verses.
He œt wige gecrang (1337b) and of er sa sohtan (2380a) are both examples of
the "PV frame," for example, while breostgewœdu (1211a) and we synt gum-
cynnes (260a) are both examples of the "N frame" (pp. 79-80). It is hard to
see how such syntactic frames would have helped the scop a great deal in the
process of rapid composition before an audience. In his discussion of the oral-
formulaic theory in his revision of Bright's Old English Grammar and Reader
(New York: Holt, 1971), pp. 270-272, Cassidy appears to abandon the con-
cept of syntactic frames in favor of a concept of the formula much like what is
advocated here.
9. See the studies by Nagler cited in Chap. 2, n. 17.
10. See Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Har-
vard University Press, 1960), chap. 2: "Singers: Performance and Training."
11. Lord, "The Role of Sound-Patterns in Serbo-Croatian Epic," in For
Roman Jakobson: Essays on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday (The Hague:
Mouton, 1956), p. 302.
12. This wealth of recorded song is now the core of the Milman Parry
Collection of Oral Literature, Harvard University. I have arrived at the
rough estimate of 700,000 lines by multiplying the number of discs of epic po-
etry that Lord personally recorded by the playing time per disc, then multi-
plying the resulting sum by the estimated average number of lines sung by an
epic singer per minute.
13. Lord, The Singer of Tales, pp. 30 and 31, respectively.
14. Robert L. Kellogg, "The South Germanic Oral Tradition," in Ma-
goun Studies, pp. 67-68. Patrick W. Conner, "Schematization of Oral-
Formulaic Processes in Old English Poetry," Language and Style, 5 (1972):
204-220, has carried the observations of Lord and Kellogg one step further.
Using a concept of the formula as "the product—one half-line in length—of
a grammar of poetic diction superimposed upon the grammar of the spoken
language," Conner has developed a structural model of the "grammar of po-
etic diction" of Old English poetry that is a refinement of Chomsky's de-
scription of the grammar of a natural language. John Miles Foley has added
his voice to those of Lord and Kellogg in urging that scholars turn their at-
tention away from the surface phenomenon of the repeated phrase toward
the more abstract form that underlies both repeated and nonrepeated
phrases. According to Foley, "what we read—the formula—is only the foot-
print, the verbal trace" of the underlying form, which he sees as chiefly met-
rical: "Formula and Theme in Old English Poetry," in Oral Literature and
the Formula, ed. Benjamin A. Stolz and Richard S. Shannon (Ann Arbor:
Center for the Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, The University
of Michigan, 1976), p. 212.
15. Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-
Saxon Narrative Poetry," Speculum, 28 (1953): 446-467.
16. For a discussion of this point see Joseph J. Duggan, "The Song of
Roland": Formulaic Style and Poetic Craft, Publications of the Center for Me-
288 N O T E S T O PAGES 1 2 7 - 1 4 0
dieval and Renaissance Studies, 6 (Berkeley: University of California Press,
1973), pp. 17-25.
17. The main contention of Ann Chalmers Watts in her study The Lyre
and the Harp: A Comparative Reconsideration of Oral Tradition in Homer and
Old English Epic Poetry (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1969)—that
when closely scrutinized, Anglo-Saxon narrative poetry is not highly formu-
laic and therefore has no claim to be called oral—therefore cannot be ac-
cepted, because it is based on a concept of the formula as a fixed phrase.
Watts rightly discards Parry's definition of the formula as inapplicable to Old
English poetry, but her own definition is no more helpful. To Watts, a for-
mula in Old English is "a repeated sequence that fills one of Sievers's five
basic rhythmical types" (p. 90), or, in other words, a repeated verse. She
correctly concludes that the formula thus defined is not important in Beowulf.

6. C O M P O U N D D I C T I O N
1. This chapter is based on my article "Compound Diction and the Style
of BeowulfEnglish Studies, 62 (1981): 489-503. See Otto Krackow, Die
Nominalcomposita als Kunstmittel im altenglischen Epos (Weimar, 1903), pp.
55-56, for data indicating the frequency of occurrence of nominal com-
pounds in the poems of the Anglo-Saxon corpus. Note also the thorough
work by C. T. Carr, Nominal Compounds in Germanic (London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1939). An excellent literary study of compounding in Beowulf
is Arthur G. Brodeur, The Art of "Beowulf" (Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1959), chap. 1, "The Diction of Beowulf" together with Appen-
dix B.
2. With the first verse of my hypothetical pair of lines may be compared
Beowulf 116b, hu hit Hringdene; 1279b, Sœr Hringdene; and 1769a, Swa ic
Hringdena. With the second verse may be compared 1039b, heahcyninges. In
Beowulf the compound œrdœg occurs only in the singular in the sense of
"early morning"; elsewhere in Old English poetry it occurs four times in the
phrase on œrdagum, "in former days"). For a more extended example of how
Beowulf might be rewritten using the poet's own formulaic diction, see Rob-
ert P. Creed, "The Making of an Anglo-Saxon Poem," ELH, 26 (1959):
445-454.
3. See Milman Parry, MHV\ p. 226 and passim.
4. Klaeber, pp. lxix and lxv, respectively. See also Donald K. Fry,
"Variation and Economy in Beowulf," MPh, 65 (1968): 353-356; and Wil-
liam Whallon, Formula, Character, and Context: Studies in Homeric, Old
English, and Old Testament Poetry (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University
Press, 1969), pp. 113-116. By failing to note the uselessness of thrift to a
poet composing in Old English, both Whallon, "The Diction of Beowulf
PMLA, 76 (1961): 309-319, and Michael Capek, "A Note on Formula De-
velopment in Old Saxon," MPh, 67 (1970): 357-363, misjudge the oral ele-
ment in Old English poetic diction. Whallon concludes that because the dic-
tion of Beowulf is "much less completely stereotyped" than the diction of the
N O T E S T O PAGES 140-146 289

Homeric epics, the Anglo-Saxon poem may be taken as representing "an


earlier stage in the development of an oral poem" (p. 319). Capek concludes
that because Old English and Old Saxon poetry does not exhibit thrift, none
of it is oral. Both authors assume that thrift of formulaic diction would have
been just as useful to a Germanic scop as to a Greek epic singer or a Serbo-
Croatian guslar.
5. My statistics are drawn from Parry, in MHV, p. 39.
6. I count only the more significant nominal expressions. In the follow-
ing table, I pass over orthographical variations silently and level inflectional
variations to the nominative case. The reader may wish to compare Ann
Chalmers Watts, The Lyre and the Harp (New Haven: Yale University
Press, 1969), appended chart II: "Epithets for Hrothgar."
7. In addition, see Whallon, "The Diction of Beowulf" pp. 316-317
(on epithets for Beowulf); Whallon, "Formulas for Heroes in the Iliad and in
Beowulf," MPh, 63 (1965): 97-98; Thalia Feldman, "Terminology for
Kingship and God in BeowulfLiterary Onomastics Studies, 2 (1975):
100-115; and James Walter Rankin, "A Study of the Kennings in Anglo-
Saxon Poetry," JEGPh, 8 (1909): 400-403 (on terms for earthly ruler in
Beowulf and Old English nonreligious poems).
8. For many other examples of compound diction held in common
among the different early Germanic dialects, see Carr, Nominal Compounds.
Also note Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "A Note on Old West Germanic Poetic
Unity," MPh, 43 (1945): 77-82; and Robert L. Kellogg, "The South Ger-
manic Oral Tradition," in Magoun Studies, pp. 66-74. Whereas Magoun
stresses the unity of the Old English, Old Saxon, and Old High German po-
etic traditions, as distinct from the Old Norse, Kellogg cites six poetic com-
pounds that are unique to Beowulf m Old English but are paralleled exactly in
Old Icelandic. On parallels in compound diction between Beowulf and the
poems of the Elder Edda see Magoun, "Recurring First Elements in Differ-
ent Nominal Compounds in Beowulf and in the Elder Edda," in Studies in
English Philology: A Miscellany in Honor of Frederick Klaeber, ed. Kemp Ma-
lone and Martin B. Ruud (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
1929), pp. 73-78.
9. Godfrid Storms, Compounded Names of Peoples in "Beowulf": A Study
in the Diction of a Great Poet (Utrecht: Dekker and Van de Vegt, 1957), p.
22. Storms's conclusions are in keeping with those of William Frank Bryan,
"Epithetic Compound Folk-Names in Beowulf" in Studies . . . Frederick
Klaeber, pp. 120-134. Arnold V. Talentino takes a similar approach to a dif-
ferent set of compounds in "Fitting Gu <5gewœde: Use of Compounds in
Beowulf," Neoph., 63 (1979): 592-596. For an opposing view, see Francis P.
Magoun, Jr., "Danes, North, South, East, and West in Beowulf" in Patolo-
gica: The Malone Anniversary Studies, ed. T. A. Kirby and Η. Β. Woolf (Bal-
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1949), pp. 20-24. See also T. A.
Shippey, Old English Verse (London: Hutchinson, 1972), pp. 98-100, on the
elements of compounds as dead (or moribund) metaphors.
10. Nothing in this study therefore contradicts the basic achievement of
290 N O T E S T O PAGES 146-149

Caroline Brady in her essay "Weapons in Beowulf: An Analysis of the Nomi-


nal Compounds and an Evaluation of the Poet's Use of Them," ASE, 8
(1979): 79-141. Brady analyzes in detail the Beowulf poet's use of nominal
compounds to designate the military apparatus of helmets, swords, byrnies,
shields, and spears. As a study of the meaning of particular words, her essay is
a model of precision and illustrates how cooperative the disciplines of philol-
ogy and archaelogy can be. She shows that in Old English poetry there are
few if any exact synonyms, just as there are few if any exact synonyms in
English today. The different members of the various beadu-, heatSu-, hild-,
wig-, and guS- compound systems, for example, may all have had slightly dif-
ferent meanings, and it is the scholar's task to try to distinguish these as accu-
rately as possible from each other. Where Brady's study (like Storms's)
should be questioned is in the implied claim that the poet uses a particular
compound because of its exact shade of meaning, rather than its convenience.
In prose or in daily speech, a distinction may possibly have been made be-
tween beadu and hea<5u, between hild, wig, and gu<5. In poetry, if I am not
mistaken, one simplex is functionally interchangeable with another. T o put
matters another way: an audience accustomed to hearing much alliterative
poetry would have learned to close its ears momentarily to the distinction be-
tween certain lexical terms. A guìSbyrne is a byrnie that alliterates in [g]; a
keatSobyrne is a byrnie that alliterates in [h].
11. The contrast between the Beowulf poet's and the Exodus poet's use
of compound diction is made clear by James Hulbert, "A Note on Com-
pounds in Beowulf" JEGPh, 31 (1932): 506-507. "From this comparison,"
Hulbert finds (p. 507), "it appears reasonable to conclude that the author of
Beowulf in making these compounds was not straining the language or using
it in any unaccustomed way." Brodeur, The Art of "Beowulf," p. 270, simi-
larly concludes that "many of the compounds in Beowulf are literal, or em-
body simple figures; whereas a disproportionately large number of the com-
pounds formed on the same base-words in other poems are figurative, and
often embody strained figures; the language of Beowulf is richer, and at the
same time more temperate, than that of most other poems."
12. See Brodeur, The Art of "Beowulf," pp. 90-91; Alain Renoir,
"Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf" NM, 63 (1962):
154-167; and Stanley B. Greenfield, "Grendel's Approach to Heorot: Syn-
tax and Poetry," in Creed, pp. 275-284.
13. On this point of method see Chap. 5, at n. 16. The objection could
be made that in the interest of a fair comparison, supporting evidence from
only the first 1,750 lines of Beowulf should be admitted. If this were done the
results would be essentially the same, with the difference that no clear com-
pound system for bealohydig (723a) would be attested, since two of the four
members of this system occur only after line 1750.
14. Larry D. Benson, " T h e Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon For-
mulaic Poetry," PMLA, 81 (1966): 334-341. As its title suggests, Benson's
essay is a response to Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "Oral-Formulaic Character of
Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry," Speculum, 28 (1953): 446-467.
N O T E S T O PAGES 149-152 291
15. The prose source and the poetic paraphrase are printed en face in
Benson, "Literary Character," p. 338. The poet fashioning the Meters did
not work directly from the Latin but from an Old English prose interme-
diary. On the technique of the Meters see John W. Conlee, "A Note on
Verse Composition in the Meters of BoethiusNM, 71 (1970): 576-585;
Allan A. Metcalf, Poetic Diction in the Old English "Meters of Boethius" (The
Hague: Mouton, 1973); and Pierre Eric Monnin, "The Making of the Old
English Meters of Boethius: Studies in Traditional Art and Aesthetics" (Ph.D.
diss., University of Massachusetts, Amherst, 1975). On the facility with
which Latin or Old English prose could be turned into Old English poetry
with the aid of "fillers," see F. H. Whitman, "The Meaning of 'Formulaic'
in Old English Verse Composition," NM, 76 (1975): 529-537. With little
purpose, Whitijian would restrict the term formulaic, in the Old English con-
text, to such fillers alone.
16. Krackow, Die Nominalcomposita, p. 56.
17. Brodeur, The Art of "Beowulf," ψ. 70.

7. RING C O M P O S I T I O N
1. This chapter is based on my article "Ring Composition and the
Structure oí Beowulf" PMLA, 94 (1979): 924-935, which in turn is based
on chapter 5 of my "Aspects of the Oral Art of Beowulf: A Comparative In-
vestigation" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, Berkeley, 1972), pp.
154-190.
2. For studies illustrating the workings of ring composition in early
Greek literature see W. A. A. van Otterlo, "Untersuchungen über Begriff,
Anwendung, und Entstehung der griechischen Ringkomposition," Mededel-
ingen der Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeling Letter-
kunde, n.s. 7, no. 3 (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers Maatschap-
pij, 1944); "Eine merkwürdige Kompositionsform der älteren griechischen
Literatur," Mnemosyne, 3rd ser., 12 (1944): 192-207, and De Ringcomposi-
tie als Opbuowprincipe in de epische Gedichten van Homerus, Verhandelingen
der Koninklijke Nederlandsche Akademie van Wetenschappen, Afdeling
Letterkunde, n.s. 51, no. 1 (Amsterdam: Noord-Hollandsche Uitgevers
Maatschappij, 1948). Cedric Whitman develops and refines Otterlo's
methods of structural analysis in his book Homer and the Heroic Tradition
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1958), pp. 87-101,
249-284, 287-290, and the chart at the end of the book. Further, see Ste-
phen Bertman, "The Telemachy and Structural Symmetry," TAPA, 97
(1966): 15-27, and "Structural Symmetry at the End of the Odyssey," Greek,
Roman and Byzantine Studies, 9 (1968): 115-123; Julie Haig Gaisser, "A
Structural Analysis of the Digressions in the Iliad and the Odyssey," HSCP,
73 (1969): 1-44; and my note "On the Design of the Hymn to Delian
ApolloClassical Journal, 75 (1979): 36-39. For examples of the extension
of similar methods of analysis to literatures other than early Greek, see Bert-
man, "Symmetrical Design in the Book of Ruth," Journal of Biblical Litera-
292 N O T E S T O PAGES 1 5 2 - 1 5 3
ture, 84 (1965): 165-168; Michael Fishbane, "Composition and Structure in
the Jacob Cycle (Gen. 25:19-35:22)," Journal of Jewish Studies, 36 (1975):
19-32; David Buchan, The Ballad and the Folk (London: Routledge, 1972),
pp. 87-144 and 230; and my "Ring-Composition in La Chanson de Roland
and La Chançun de Willame," Olifant, 1 (Dec. 1973): 4-12.
3. Adeline Courtney Bartlett, The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-
Saxon Poetry, Columbia University Studies in English and Comparative Lit-
erature, no. 122 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), pp. 9-29.
Bartlett cites the following lines from Beowulf as exhibiting simple or com-
plex envelope patterning: 115-125, 129-193, 237-257, 491a-646a,
767-770, 837-924, 1063-1162a, 1323b-29, 1384b-89, 1425-41a,
1441b-72, 1591-1622, 2247-66, and (depending on the emendation
"nsefne" for "naes he" in 3074b) 3051-75. See also Constance B. Hieatt,
"Envelope Patterns and the Structure of Beowulf, " English Studies in Canada,
1 (1975): 249-265. In developing Bartlett's mode of analysis, Hieatt pays
close attention to the echoing of isolated words. On verbal echo see also J. O.
Beaty, "The Echo-Word in Beowulf with a Note on the Finnsburg Frag-
ment'," PMLA, 49 (1934): 365-373, and James L. Rosier, "Generative
Composition in Beowulf" ES, 58 (1977), 193-203. Two other recent stud-
ies of structural patterning in Beowulf are David R. Howlett, "Form and
Genre in Beowulf," Studia neophilologica, 46 (1974): 309-325 (esp. pp.
318-325), and H. Ward Tonsfeldt, "Ring Structure in Beowulf¡" Neoph., 61
(1977): 443-452. Tonsfeldt analyzes the ring structure of lines 129b-149a,
237-270, 1017-1168, 1885b-1924, 2355-72, and 2426-2512a. Howlett
attempts to identify a number of examples of thematic envelopment in
Beowulf In his close attention to the line numeration of the text and to the
division of the text into numbered fitts, he appears to be influenced by the
numerological analyses of Thomas E. Hart, "Ellen: Some Tectonic Relation-
ships in Beowulf and Their Formal Resemblance to Anglo-Saxon Art,"
Papers on Language and Literature, 6 (1970): 263-290, and "Tectonic De-
sign, Formulaic Craft, and Literary Execution: The Episodes of Finn and
Ingeld in Beowulf " Amsterdamer Beiträge zur älteren Germanistik, 2 (1972):
1-61. In two more recent studies, Hart has continued this line of approach:
see his "Tectonic Methodology and an Application to Beowulf," in Essays in
the Numerical Criticism of Medieval Literature, ed. Caroline D. Eckhardt
(Lewisburg, Pa.: Bucknell University Press, 1980), pp. 185-210, and "Cal-
culated Casualties in Beowulf: Geometrical Scaffolding and Verbal Symbol,"
Studia neophilologica, 53 (1981): 3-35. Space does not permit a review of the
dangers attendant upon the numerological analyses of medieval texts. Unlike
the fitt division, the line numeration of Beowulf is a modern invention. In the
manuscript, as in all Old English manuscripts, the lines are written out not
separately but continuously, like prose. Given the presence of lacunae in the
text, the modern lineation of the poem is arbitrary and devoid of significance.
4. For a discussion of the symmetry of the two sea voyages see Lee
Carter Ramsey, "The Sea-Voyages in Beowulf," NM, 72 (1971): 51-59; and
Tonsfeldt, "Ring Structure," p. 445.
N O T E S T O PAGES 1 5 3 - 1 5 9 293
5. Bartlett, Rhetorical Patterns, pp. 19-22; Hieatt, "Envelope Pat-
terns," pp. 250-251, 254-256, 258-259, and the diagram on p. 260; and
Howlett, "Form and Genre," diagram on p. 324.
6. It may be useful to relate my concerns in this chapter to those of John
Nist, "The Structure of Beowulf," Papers of the Michigan Academy of Sci-
ence, Arts, and Letters, 43 (1958): 307-314; Thomas E. Carrigan, "Structure
and Thematic Development in Beowulf" Proceedings of the Royal Irish Acad-
emy, 66 (1967), sec. C, pp. 1-51; and John Leyerle, "The Interlace Struc-
ture οϊ Beowulf" UTQ, 37 (1967): 1-17. All three authors find evidence of
detailed structural parallelism and balance in the poem. Nist shows how cer-
tain themes (such as "Grendel motifs" or "details of Beowulf's life") recur in
a complex and apparently meaningful sequence that he calls "spiral" design.
Carrigan analyzes the poem into a discrete number of fitt groupings and
shows how thematically they balance one another. In addition, he shows that
one such grouping (covering the events of the dragon fight) has such a bal-
anced structure of its own, albeit on a smaller scale. Leyerle points out how
certain themes (for example, the Frisian raid, monsters, or women as the
bond of kinship) interweave with one another in a manner that he finds analo-
gous to the interlace design characteristic of much Anglo-Saxon art. Of the
three studies, Leyerle's seems to me the most rewarding, and yet both his and
Nist's are open to the objection that the recurrence of certain themes is in
itself of little significance. In such a long and complex work, some themes are
bound to recur. What one wants to know is, is there a meaningful pattern to
this recurrence? Leyerle would say yes, but he does not identify this pattern
except in general terms. This chapter attempts to supplement Leyerle's case
for the interlaced structure of Beowulf by reference to the specific structure
of the hero's three great fights. From this point of view, ring composition
(like parallel composition) might be regarded as one special type of interlace
design.
7. On the interplay of the images of äschere's head and Grendel's, see
Hieatt, "Envelope Patterns," p. 257, writing in response to Stanley B.
Greenfield, The Interpretation of Old English Poems (London: Routledge,
1972), pp. 58-59.
8. See Christopher Knipp, "Beowulf 2210b—2323: Repetition in the
Description of the Dragon's Hoard," NM, Ti (1972): 783; and Carrigan,
"Structure and Thematic Development," p. 44. In figure 2 of a plate ap-
pended to the end of his essay, Carrigan diagrams his conception of the de-
sign of the episode of the dragon fight (lines 2221-3182) with particular ref-
erence to speeches before and after the fight, to the roles of Wiglaf and the
last survivor, and to allusions to Beowulf's peaceful reign; see also pp. 30-49
of his essay. On how the "Lament of the Last Survivor" helps prepare the
way for the dominant mood of the end of the poem, see also Bonjour, The
Digressions in Beowulf, Medium /Evum Monographs, 5 (Oxford: Blackwell,
1950), pp. 68-69.
9. J. R. R. Tolkien, "Beowulf.': The Monsters and the Critics," in Ni-
cholson, p. 81.
294 N O T E S T O PAGES 1 5 9 - 1 6 4
10. Albert Β. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1960), p. 201.
11. Gabriel Germain, Genèse de l'Odyssée (Paris: Presses Universitaires
de France, 1954), p. 333; Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition, p. 288.
12. For a tenth-century Latin version, see H. C. Kim, ed., The Gospel of
Nicodemus: Gesta salvatoris (Toronto: Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Stud-
ies, 1973). There is also an Old English version dating from the tenth or
eleventh century: The Gospel of Nicodemus, ed. S. J. Crawford (Edinburgh:
Hutchen, 1927). The theme of the descensus, which probably was widely
known in Anglo-Saxon England by the early eighth century, recurs fre-
quently in Old English devotional literature, notably in the poem known as
"The Descent into Hell" included on fols. 119b—12 lb of the Exeter Book.
13. For a revival of the analytical heresy concerning the structure of
Beowulf, see Francis P. Magoun, Jr., "BéowulfA': A Folk-Variant," Arv, 14
(1958): 95-101, and "Béowulf Β: A Folk-Poem on Béowulf's Death," in
Early English and Norse Studies Presented to Hugh Smith, ed. A. Brown and P.
Foote (London: Methuen, 1963), pp. 127-140. That the action of the poem
falls into two great parts is beyond dispute. Few scholars follow Magoun,
however, in seeing the extant text as the work of two or three authors.
14. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition, p. 98.
15. R. G. Peterson calls attention to various examples of such pattern-
ing, with appropriate bibliographical citations, in "Critical Calculations:
Measure and Symmetry in Literature," PMLA, 91 (1976): 367-375. Any-
one who wished to make a case for the specifically oral character of the ring
structure of Beowulf would have to make a distinction between the sorts of
patterning found in this poem and in, for example, Tom Jones.
16. Whitman, Homer and the Heroic Tradition, p. 256.
17. See Herbert G. Wright, "Good and Evil; Light and Darkness; Joy
and Sorrow in Beowulf," RES, n.s. 8 (1957): 1-11, and Jerome Mandel,
"Contrast in Old English Poetry," Chaucer Review, 6 (1971): 1-13.
18. Norman E. Eliason, "The Burning of Heorot," Speculum, 55
(1980): 75-83, has shaken the time-honored belief that the hall is burnt by
Ingeld's Heathobards. The poet tells us only that the hall "awaited its inevita-
ble fate—destruction by war or by fire" (82b-83a), without specifying how
this fate is to come about.
19. Joan Blomfield, "The Style and Structure of Beowulf in Fry, p.
58.
20. Leyerle, "Interlace Structure," pp. 14-15.

8. BARBARIC STYLE
1. Stanley B. Greenfield, The Interpretation of Old English Poems (Lon-
don: Routledge, 1972), p. 1.
2. R. M. Lumiansky, "The Dramatic Audience in Beowulf in Fry, pp.
79-80.
N O T E S T O PAGES 1 6 4 - 1 6 9 295
3. Ibid., p. 81. Lumiansky reiterates this view in his article "Wiglaf,"
College English, 14 (1953): 202-206.
4. Compare the analogous suspension of verisimilitude in "The Battle of
Maldon," lines 205-325, when various followers of the dead Byrhtnoth
ceremoniously declare their intentions before entering into the battle that
surges around them but that is suspended, as it were, for the duration of each
speech.
5. Gilbert Highet, The Classical Tradition: Greek and Roman Influences
on Western Literature (New York: Oxford University Press, 1949), p. 24.
6. In his standard studies Anglo-Saxon Art to A.D. 900 (London: Me-
thuen, 1938) and Late Saxon and Viking Art (London: Methuen, 1949), pp.
1-22, for example, T. D. Kendrick contrasts insular "barbaric" illumination
with its gentler classical counterpart. While the term is not now much used it
serves my purposes because it decisively sums up an aesthetics that stands
apart from the main Western tradition.
7. John Leyerle, "The Interlace Structure of Beowulf," UTQ, 37
(1967): 1-17. See Chap. 7, n. 6.
8. Peter R. Schroeder, "Stylistic Analogies between Old English Art
and Poetry," Viator, 5 (1974): 185-198. Schroeder uses the term barbaric
abstraction to refer to this sort of art. See also Stefán Einarsson, "Anti-Natu-
ralism, Tough Composition, and Punning in Skaldic Poetry and Modern
Painting," Saga-Book of the Viking Society, 16 (1963-64): 124-143. Accord-
ing to Einarsson, the deliberate deformation or distortion of nature character-
istic of much modern art is found in skaldic poetry as well. "This principle of
distortion makes modern art—like Skaldic poetry—as unclassical, unnatu-
ralistic and unrealistic as possible" (p. 132). if the secretive, contorted poetry
of the skalds represents an extreme of anti-naturalism, then Beowulf occupies
a middle ground wherein the natural world, while always recognizable as
such, is sometimes rearranged for poetic purposes. The relatively straight-
forward stylization of Beowulf could likewise be distinguished from what
Thomas D. Hill refers to as the "learned exuberance" of the Old English Ex-
odus, a poem that he sees as verbally "baroque," like the "hermeneutic"
Latin of Aldhelm. In his eyes both Exodus and Aldhelm reflect "a specifically
'barbarian' Old English sensibility." See his "The Virga of Moses and the
Old English Exodus," in OEL, pp. 63-65.
9. Joan Blomfield, "The Style and Structure of Beowulf, " in Fry, pp.
64-65.
10. The best comment on this passage that I have seen is by Michael
Swanton, ed., Beowulf (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1978), p.
192: "That Beowulf's comitatus should all fall asleep under those circum-
stances is strange; possibly they had been entertained too well!"
11. See Albert B. Lord, "Homer and Huso II: Narrative Inconsistencies
in Homer and Oral Poetry," TAPA, 69 (1938): 439-445; and David M.
Gunn, "Narrative Inconsistency and the Oral Dictated Text in the Homeric
Epic," American Journal of Philology, 91 (1970): 192-203. In "Narrative
Anomalies in La Chançun de Willame," Viator, 9 (1978): 251-264, I have
296 N O T E S T O PAGES 169-175
shown how the anomalous structure of one Old French chanson de geste may
have its origin in an oral narrative technique. In his excellent article
''''Beowulf: Oral Presentation and the Criterion of Immediate Rhetorical Ef-
fect," Genre, 3 (1970): 214-228, Michael D. Cherniss offers a series of sug-
gestions concerning how a work composed for oral performance is to be read;
he then discusses specific examples of inconsistency, digression, and moralis-
tic commentary that cease to appear puzzling when each passage is read with
reference to its immediate narrative context. His article pursues a few com-
ments made by Robert P. Creed, "On the Possibility of Criticizing Old
English Poetry," Texas Studies in Language and Literature, 3 (1961):
97-106, regarding the inutility of approaching Beowulf-with expectations ap-
propriate to works composed for an audience of readers.
12. In making this statement I do not wish to suggest that modern
works of fiction either do not strive for thematic unity or generally fail to at-
tain it. I mean that whereas a modern author's failure to achieve unity of plot
will strike most readers as anomalous, as a "mistake," his failure to achieve
unity of theme will only be taken as an artistic shortcoming. In much oral
narrative, priorities are the reverse.
13. Kemp Malone, "Beowulf the Headstrong," ASE, 1 (1972): 140.
Compare Kenneth Sisam, "Beowulf's Fight with the Dragon," RES, n.s. 9
(1958): 129: "[The audience] could not study a long poem minutely as they
heard it read or recited. Even if the delivery was slow, they had no opportu-
nity to examine any verse or sentence closely, comparing what had been said
already and what came later."
- 14. See the similar opinions of Cherniss, "Oral Presentation," pp.
218-220; and Adrien Bonjour, "Jottings on Beowulf and the Aesthetic Ap-
proach," in Creed, pp. 182-183. For different views see Kemp Malone,
"Young Beowulf," JEGPh, 36 (1937): 21-23, and Norman E. Eliason,
"Beowulf's Inglorious Youth," SPh, 76 (1979): 101-108.
15. See Magoun's two articles cited in Chap. 7, n. 13.
16. See R. L. S. Bruce-Mitford, The Sutton Hoo Ship-Burial: A Hand-
book, 2nd ed. (London: British Museum, 1968), plate D (facing p. 81).
17. See Max Lüthi, The European Folktale: Form and Nature, trans. J.
Niles (Philadelphia: Institute for the Study of Human Issues, 1982), p. 40. I
have borrowed the term truncated motif from Liithi's stumpfes Motiv, dis-
cussed on pp. 60-64 of this English edition.
18. Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1960), pp. 94-95.
19. This latter possibility has been argued forcefully by Kenneth Sisam,
The Structure of "Beowulf" (Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 80-82.
Sisam points out that any such treachery is not verified by sources outside the
poem and is never mentioned explicitly by the Beowulf poet, who, on the
contrary, chooses to depict the Danes as a united people who (with the ex-
ception of Unferth) behave civilly to one another and to their guest. Such a
view is supported by Gerald Morgan, "The Treachery of Hrothulf," ES, 53
(1972): 23-39.
N O T E S T O PAGES 1 8 0 - 1 9 3 297
9. T H E D I M E N S I O N O F T I M E

1. A good review of the subject is offered by Hâkan Ringbom, Studies in


the Narrative Technique of "Beowulf" and Lawman's "Brut," Acta Acade-
miae Aboensis, ser. À (Humaniora), vol. 36, no. 2 (Âbo: Abo Akademie,
1968), chap. 3: "Time Scheme, Scale of Treatment, and Narrative Tempo in
Beowulf"
2. See Marijane Osborn, "The Great Feud: Scriptural History and
Strife in Beowulf," PMLA, 93 (1978): 973-981.
3. The classic treatment of the subject is Robert E. Kaske, "Sapientia et
fortitudo as the Controlling Theme of Beowulf" SPh, 55 (1958): 423-457.
4. Barbara Raw, The Art and Background of Old English Poetry (New
York: St. Martin's, 1978), p. 37, aptly quotes by way of contrast Guthlac A
752-754a: Hwœt. . . Eall pas geeodon in ussera / ttda timan, "Lo! . . . All
these things took place during our own times."
5. This essential point is made by Stanley B. Greenfield, "The Authen-
ticating Voice in Beowulf," ASE, 5 (1976): 51-62, and John M. Hill,
"Beowulf, Value, and the Frame of Time," Modern Language Quarterly, 40
(1979): 3-16.
6. On the special point of view of modern readers see Andreas Haarder,
"Beowulf": The Appeal of a Poem (Viborg: Akademisk Forlag, 1975), chap.
10: "The Second Audience."
7. Such a point of view is implicit or explicit in most readings of the
poem's close as relentlessly tragic (for example, the studies by Leyerle, Gold-
smith, and Lee cited in Chapter 14).
8. Kenneth Sisam, The Structure of "Beowulf" (Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1965), pp. 51-59.
9. Eall here byp hwœt ponne se lateow byp hwœt: Olof Arngart, "The
Durham Proverbs," Speculum, 56 (1981): 294.
10. Richard M. Bridges, "Teaching Literature through Beowulf" Mas-
sachusetts Studies in English, 7.2 (1979): 2.
11. The Christian, almost hagiographical overtones of this phrasing
have been dismissed by critics who do not believe that Beowulf's soul is
saved; see, for example, E. G. Stanley, "HaeJ)enra Hyht in Beowulf" in Bro-
deur Studies, pp. 142-143. On the contrary, the parallels cited by Frederick
Klaeber, "Die christlichen Elemente im Beowulf" Anglia, 35 (1911):
453-455, make clear that to meet so <5fœstra dom or Godes dom is to find sal-
vation. P. O. E. Gradon, ed., Cynewulf's "Elene" (London: Methuen, 1958),
p. 22, likewise notes that in Elene 1286 ff. the solfaste are the saved, and
they correspond to the justi whom Ambrose distinguishes from the peccatores
and impii.
12. On Heremod's damnation see N. F. Blake, "The Heremod Digres-
sions in Beowulf" JEGPh, 51 (1962): 278-287.
13. See Paul Beekman Taylor, "Heorot, Earth, and Asgard: Christian
Poetry and Pagan Myth," Tennessee Studies in Literature, 11 (1966):
119-130, and Ursula Dronke, "Beowulf and Ragnarçk," Saga-Book of the
298 N O T E S T O PAGES 1 9 3 - 2 0 0
Viking Society, 17 (1969-70): 302-325. Daniel G. Calder, "Setting and
Ethos: The Pattern of Measure and Limit in Beowulf, " SPh, 69 (1972): 36,
likewise sees an "unmistakable parallel between the end of Beowulf and the
pagan Germanic vision of Ragnarok," but Arthur G. Brodeur, The Art of
"Beowulf" (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), pp. 188-189,
stresses the differences between the two visions.
14. Geoffrey Helterman, "Beowulf The Archetype Enters History,"
ELH, 35 (1968): 3. Calder, "Setting and Ethos," pp. 36-37, also finds "an
elemental human despair" at the end of the poem: "By this time the Christian
framework has receded so dimly into the background that only the vision of
genocide and the negation of all life within time persists." Martin Green,
"Man, Time, and Apocalypse in 'The Wanderer,' 'The Seafarer,' and
Beowulf," JEGPh, 74 (1975): 502-518, sees "imagery reminiscent of . . .
doomsday" in part II of the poem. He plausibly suggests that rather than
building up an allegory of the apocalypse, these reminiscences simply "un-
derscore 'the sense of an ending' that readers of the poem have always felt"
(p. 518).
15. I quote from Howell D. Chickering, ed., "Beowulf": A Dual-Lan-
guage Edition (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1977), p. 359; Stanley
B. Greenfield, "Geatish History: Poetic Art and Epic Quality in Beowulf"
Neoph., 47 (1963): 216; and Edward B. Irving, Jr., A Reading of "Beowulf"
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 201, respectively.
16. This is the view of Helterman, "Beowulf: The Archetype," pp.
16-17.

10. T H E N A R R A T O R ' S VOICE


1. Here I am assuming nothing about the poem's mode of performance.
The "voice of the poet's alter ego" could have been spoken by either a reciter
or the poet himself acting as narrator. My point does not depend on either
supposition.
2. See Stanley B. Greenfield, "The Authenticating Voice in Beowulf,"
ASE, 5 (1976): 51-62. Greenfield identifies four ways the narrator's voice
responds to the events and characters of the poem: by distancing them, by
contemporizing them, by making ethical judgments, and by stressing the lim-
itations of human knowledge. My remarks concerning the narrator as spokes-
man for the group draws on this important article and is meant to supplement
it in a few small ways.
3. Barbara Raw, The Art and Background of Old English Poetry (New
York: St. Martin's, 1978), p. 33. For further discussion of the poet's voice
see Hâkon Ringbom, Studies in the Narrative Technique of "Beowulf" and
Lawman's "Brut" (Abo: Âbo Akademi, 1968), pp. 45-54, and John C.
McGalliard, "The Poet's Comment in Beowulf," SPh, 75 (1978): 243-251.
4. See Taylor Culbert, "Narrative Technique in BeowulfNeoph., 47
(1963): 50-61.
5. T. A. Shippey, Beowulf (London: Edward Arnold, 1978), pp. 25-26.
N O T E S T O PAGES 2 0 3 - 2 1 2 299

6. See Chapter 12. Although as a rule I have tried to avoid basing my


understanding of Beowulf on disputed passages that lend themselves to spe-
cial pleading, I must forestall the objection that I have ignored lines
2764b-66: Sine eaSe m<zg, /gold on grund(e) gumcynnes gehwone / oferhig-
ian, hyde se & wylle! Certain readers, for example H. B. Woolf, "A Note on
the Hoard in Beowulf" MLN, 58 (1943): 113-115, understand the other-
wise unattested word oferhigian to mean "get the better of," "overpower," or
"overwhelm" and take hydan in the sense of "heed." Woolf translates,
"Treasure may easily, gold in the ground, overwhelm each one of men; let
him heed it who will!" He sees a "cultural primitivism" in the passage, a dis-
content of the civilized with civilization, even a specific opposition to mining.
Given the context of the passage, I take oferhigian rather in the sense of "out-
smart." The treasure is just about to be brought out into the light, despite the
efforts of a previous tribe of men to keep it hidden in the earth forever.
Hydan means "hide," as it should. The lines amount to no more than a brief
aside concerning the futility of burying riches: "Treasure, gold in the ground,
can easily outsmart anyone, no matter who hides it!" This is essentially the
reading of Bosworth and Toller, s.v. "oferhigian. "

11. T H E L I S T E N I N G A U D I E N C E
1. See Albert B. Lord, The Singer of Tales (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard
University Press, 1960), pp. 14-16.
2. Here I am adapting to new purposes the phrasing of Wolfgang Iser,
"The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach," in his The Implied
Reader (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974), p. 275.
3. "The Seafarer," lines 72-80a. On the positive connotations of lof in
Beowulf see Stanley B. Greenfield, The Interpretation of Old English Poems
(London: Routledge, 1972), pp. 40-43.
4. See Klaeber, p. 122 (note to lines 4-52).
5. See Donald K. Fry, ed., Finnsburh: Fragment and Episode (London:
Methuen, 1974), p. 22, as well as John F. Vickrey, "The Narrative Structure
of Hengest's Revenge in Beowulf," ASE, 6 (1977): 91-103.
6. See Klaeber, pp. 178-179 (note to lines 1197-1201).
7. R. M. Lumiansky, "The Dramatic Audience in BeowulfJEGPh,
51 (1952): 545-550. On ways in which the poet maintains dramatic interest
in the absence of suspense, see also Adrien Bonjour, "The Use of Anticipa-
tion in Beowulfin his Twelve "Beowulf" Papers, 1940-1960 (Neuchâtel:
Faculté des Lettres, 1962), pp. 11-28, and Charles Moorman's lighter
piece "Suspense and Foreknowledge in BeowulfCollege English, 15
(1953-1954): 379-383.
8. Alain Renoir, "Beowulf A Contextual Introduction to Its Contents
and Techniques," in Heroic Epic and Saga, ed. Felix J. Oinas (Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1978), p. 114.
9. Joseph Russo and Bennett Simon, "Homeric Psychology and the
Oral Epic Tradition," Journal of the History of Ideas, 29 (1968): 492. John
300 N O T E S T O PAGES 212-214
Miles Foley calls attention to the work of Russo and Simon with additional
pertinent comments in "The Traditional Oral Audience," Balkan Studies, 18
(1977): 149.

12. RECIPROCITY
1. Among those who have seen treasure as representing something posi-
tive in Beowulf are Edward B. Irving, Jr., A Reading of "Beowulf" (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1968) ("To express the very highest ideals of
fidelity and sacrifice in terms of material things is more than frequent in Ger-
manic heroic poetry, it is inevitable," p. 208); Alvin A. Lee, The Guest-Hall
of Eden: Four Essays on the Design of Old English Poetry (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1972), pp. 171-223 ("The symbols of life and divinely
sanctioned human activity are the gold-hall, circulating treasures, and the
hero," p. 221); and John C. McGalliard, "The Poet's Comment in Beowulf,"
SPh, 75 (1978): 243-270 (wealth is "celebrated, even gloried in," p. 251).
Among those who have seen it as negative are H. L. Rogers, "Beowulf's
Three Great Fights," in Nicholson, pp. 233-256 ("to the poet treasure was
evil," p. 252); Randolph Quirk, "Poetic Language and Old English Metre,"
in Early English and Norse Studies Presented to Hugh Smith, ed. Arthur Brown
and Peter Foote (London: Methuen, 1963), pp. 150-171 ("Surely the most
important thematic undercurrent in the poem" is "an undermining of the he-
roic values attached to gold," p. 168); and Margaret E. Goldsmith, The
Mode and Meaning of "Beowulf" (London: Athlone, 1970) (the gold repre-
sents all temporalia, "the things that must die,"p. 255). Patricia Silber, "Gold
and Its Significance in Beowulf," Annuale mediaevale, 18 (1977): 5-19, sees
the poet's attitude toward treasure as shifting from positive to negative from
part I to part II. Stanley B. Greenfield, "Gifstol and Goldhoard in Beowulf,"
in Pope Studies, pp. 107-117, takes a middle stance and concludes that the
dragon's hoard represents "a contrariety of functions." In his subsequent dis-
cussion in The Interpretation of Old English Poems (London: Routledge,
1972), pp. 10-11 and 115-117, Greenfield suggests (speaking against Quirk
and Goldsmith) that the poet does not condemn all gold, only hoarded gold.
In his eyes, the poet's values put a premium on generosity and are consistent
throughout.
2. Michael D. Cherniss, "The Progress of the Hoard in Beowulf¡" PQ,
47 (1968): 475-476. See further his Ingeld and Christ: Heroic Concepts and
Values in Old English Christian Poetry (The Hague: Mouton, 1972), chap. 4:
"Treasure: The Material Symbol of Human Worth." Cherniss acknowl-
edges his debt to Ernst Leisi, "Gold und Manneswert im Beowulf" Anglia,
71 (1953): 259-273. On material objects as emblems of worth, see also
T. A. Shippey, Beowulf (London: Edward Arnold, 1978), pp. 18-22.
3. See M. I. Finley, The World of Odysseus, 2nd ed. (1956; rpt. Har-
mondsworth, Middlesex: Penguin, 1972), pp. 131-143, on treasure as a
symbol of prestige in early Greek society.
4. See the classic study by Marcel Mauss, Essai sur le don (1925), trans.
N O T E S T O PAGES 2 1 4 - 2 2 2 301

Ian Cunnison as The Gift: Forms and Functions of Exchange in Archaic Society
(New York: Norton, 1967), especially pp. 37-41. Charles Donahue, "Pot-
latch and Charity: Notes on the Heroic in Beowulf," in Anglo-Saxon Poetry
. . . for John C. McGalliard\ ed. Lewis E. Nicholson and Dolores Warwick
Frese (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1975), pp. 23-40,
offers a reading of the poem that takes its departure from Mauss and that fo-
cuses on gifts and counter-gifts.
5. Gyfena gehwilc unde[r] bœc besih]>: Olof Arngart, "The Durham
Proverbs," Speculum, 56 (1981): 293 (maxim 28).
6. For example, Marie Nelson, "It Is More Honorific to Give . . . , "
NM, 74 (1973): 624-629, argues that by showing how Hrothgar gives gifts
to Beowulf, the poet honors the Dane as much as the Geat.
7. H. R. Loyn, "Kinship in Anglo-Saxon England," ASE, 3 (1974):
203.
8. See N. P. Brooks, "Arms, Status, and Warfare in Late-Saxon
England," in Ethelred the Unready: Papers from the Millenary Conference,
ed. David Hill, British Archaeological Reports, British Series 59 (Oxford,
1978), pp. 81-103, and "The Development of Military Obligations in
Eighth- and Ninth-Century England," in England before the Conquest: Studies
in Primary Sources Presented to Dorothy JVhitelock, ed. Peter Clemoes and
Kathleen Hughes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1971), pp.
69-84.
9. This point is made by Brooks, "Arms, Status, and Warfare," p. 92.
10. See Rosemary Cramp, "Beowulf and Archaeology," in Fry, pp.
135-136. Regardless of whether or not decorative gilding was a feature of
any actual Germanic halls, the poet is explicit on the subject of the use of gold
to adorn Heorot (lines 308, 715-716, and 926-927).
11. The manuscript reading brand Healfdenes ("Healfdene's sword,"
1020b) is usually emended to beam Healfdenes ("Healfdene's son") or, alter-
natively, brand Healfdenes is kept and is taken to be a half-kenning for
"Hrothgar," but the literal meaning of the verse is worth saving: see Sher-
man M. Kuhn, "Further Thoughts on Brand Healfdenes," JEGPh, lb
(1977): 231-237.
12. Alain Renoir, "The Heroic Oath in Beowulf, the Chanson de Ro-
land, and the Nibelungenlied" in Brodeur Studies, p. 249.
13. Quirk, "Poetic Language," pp. 165-170. On the possible pitfalls of
reading this kind of irony into the text, see Greenfield, The Interpretation, p.
158, and Shippey, Beowulf, pp. 34-41. As Thomas G. Rosenmeyer has re-
marked in "Irony and Tragic Choruses," in Ancient and Modern: Essays in
Honor of Gerald F. Else, ed. John D'Arms and John W. Eadle (Michigan:
Center for Coordination of Ancient and Modern Studies, 1977), p. 31,
"There is very little in a good piece of writing that cannot, with some tug-
ging and stretching, be called 'ironical' in one way or another."
14. On the sense of "useless" in this context, see Edward I. Condren,
"Unnyt Gold in Beowulf 3168" PQ, 52 (1973): 296-299.
15. Irving, A Reading of "Beowulf", p. 181.
302 N O T E S T O PAGES 2 2 2 - 2 3 5
16. Eugene J. Crook, "Pagan Gold in Beowulf" American Benedictine
Review, 25 (1974): 233. See Michael Tangl, ed., Die Briefe des Heiligen
Bonifatius undLullus, MGH, Epistolae selectae, I (Berlin: Weidmann, 1916),
5: "Et universa mundi huius pretiosa . . . ut umbra pretereunt, ut fumus fati-
scunt, ut spuma marcescunt."

13. T H E C O N T R O L L I N G T H E M E
1. Robert E. Kaske, " Sapientia et fortitudo as the Controlling Theme of
Beowulf " SPh, 55 (1958): 423-457. Also see Kaske, "Beowulf " in Critical
Approaches to Six Major English Works, ed. R. M. Lumiansky and Herschel
Baker (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1968), pp. 18-31.
2. The Homilies of IVulfstan, ed. Dorothy Bethurum (Oxford: Claren-
don, 1957), homily 9 (pp. 185-186).
3. Kaske's case seems to be strengthened at several points when words
denoting "brave" and "wise" are juxtaposed, as when Hrothgar speaks high
praise of Beowulf shortly before the young Geat departs for home: Ou eart
nuzgenes Strang, ond on modefrod, "You are strong of might and discerning of
mind" (1844). Hrothgar's words do not stop here, however, but continue im-
mediately with a third term of praise, wis wordcwida, "wise in speech"
(1845a). The poet's threefold distinction between bodily strength, mental
wisdom, and wise speech goes back to good medieval precedent, for example
Bede's reference in Historia ecclesiastica 5.12 to those who in omni verbo et
opere et cogitationeperfecti sunt. One may compare the conventional threefold
division of sins into those of thought, word, and deed (cogitatione, locutione, et
operatione). The twofold theme of sapientia etfortitudo is therefore present in
the poem, but not necessarily as a controlling force.
4. Maurice B. McNamee, "Beowulf—An Allegory of Salvation?"
JEGPh, 59 (1960): 190-207.
5. H. L. Rogers, "Beowulf's Three Great Fights," in Nicholson, p.
236.
6. Kathryn Hume, "The Theme and Structure of Beowulf" SPh, 72
(1975): 1-27 (quotation from p. 5).

14. T H E F A T A L C O N T R A D I C T I O N
1. W. F. Bolton, Alcuin and Beowulf: An Eighth-Century View (New
Brunswick, N.J.: Rutgers University Press, 1978), pp. 149-150, 166-167.
Bolton develops points made by E. G. Stanley, "Haejjenra Hyht in Beowulf "
in Brodeur Studies, pp. 136-151. It is a long way from this to the view of
Maurice B. McNamee as set forth in chap. 6 of his Honor and the Epic Hero
(New York: Holt, 1960): "The character of Beowulf is such a complete veri-
fication of the Christian notion of the heroic or the magnanimous that it
would almost seem to have been created to exemplify the virtue as St. Paul
and the early Church fathers sketched it—limited by the virtues of humility
and charity" (p. 109).
N O T E S T O PAGES 2 3 5 - 2 4 3 303
2. Larry D. Benson, "The Originality of Beowulf" Harvard English
Studies, 1 (1970), esp. pp. 31-33. Cf. the view of Arthur G. Brodeur, The
Art of "Beowulf " (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1959), p. 76: "It
is more than the death of Beowulf which constitutes the tragedy of Part II,
and so of the whole work; in death he is victorious; and he is old enough and
sufficiently full of honors, to die happily. His tragedy is that he dies in vain—
indeed that his death brings in his train the overthrow of his people."
3. Barbara Raw, The Art and Background of Old English Poetry (New
York: St. Martin's, 1978), p. 96.
4. John Leyerle, "Beowulf the Hero and the King," MM, 34 (1965):
89-102. Compare Harry Berger, Jr., and H. Marshall Leicester, Jr., "Social
Structure as Doom: The Limits of Heroism in Beowulf," in Pope Studies, pp.
37-79. Berger and Leicester discern an ambivalent attitude in Beowulf to-
ward the institutions of heroic society and hear "the sounds of doom working
within"—not against—"the social order" (p. 74).
5. See Tolkien's study "Ofermod" following his poem "The Homecom-
ing of Beorhtnoth Beorhthelm's Son," Essays and Studies (1953), 13-18.
Leyerle, "Beowulf the Hero and the King," p. 97 n. 13, observes that this
study was the genesis of his own article.
6. Margaret E. Goldsmith, "The Christian Theme of Beowulf MAL,
29 (1960): 81-101; "The Christian Perspective in Beowulf"' in Brodeur
Studies, pp. 71-90; "The Choice in Beowulf," Neoph., 48 (1964): 60-72;
The Mode and Meaning of "Beowulf" (London: Athlone, 1970).
7. Compare the pointed remark of Kemp Malone, "Beowulf the Head-
strong," ASE, 1 (1972), p. 143: "How well he took the measure of his retain-
ers!
8. I am taking this much-disputed term in the general sense of "God's
eternal law" rather than in the specific sense of lex naturae that is proposed by
Charles Donahue, "Beowulf, Ireland, and the Natural Good," Traditio, 7
(1949-51): 263-277; and Morton W. Bloomfield, "Patristics and Old
English Literature: Notes on Some Poems," in Brodeur Studies, pp. 39-41.
For a defense of the former reading see Adelaide Hardy, "Historical Per-
spective and the Beowulf Poet," Neoph., 63 (1979): 437. My point does not
depend on either interpretation.
9. G. N. Garmonsway, "Anglo-Saxon Heroic Attitudes," in Magoun
Studies, p. 145. John C. McGalliard, "The Poet's Comment in Beowulf,"
SPh, 75 (1978): 269, likewise sees the hero's actions as both "objectively ra-
tional" and "a courageous but thoroughly responsible e f f o r t . . . to protect his
people from the ravages of the dragon and to win treasure for their benefit."
10. ASPR, III, 147-149; for alternative editions with translations, see
Bernard F. Huppé, The Web of Words (Albany: State University of New
York Press, 1970), pp. 2-26, and T. A. Shippey, ed., Poems of Wisdom and
Learning in Old English (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 1976), pp. 54-57.
11. With these judgments by Benson and Goldsmith compare Lee's un-
compromisingly pessimistic view of the poem's close in The Guest-Hall of
Eden (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1972). Lee speaks of the poet and
304 N O T E S T O PAGES 2 4 3 - 2 5 2

"his theme of human defeat in time-dominated middle-earth" (p. 212); "The


dominant vision . . . is of the defeat of man in the kingdoms of this world by
the powers of darkness" (p. 171). The theme of the "inevitable overthrow"
of "man at war with the hostile world" was already identified by J. R. R.
Tolkien in his essay "Beowulf.: The Monsters and the Critics," PBA, 22
(1936): 245-295, and Kenneth Sisam speaks forcefully against imposing
such romantic ideas on the poem in The Structure of "Beowulf" (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1965), pp. 24-26.
12. T o cite a few examples from the West Saxon royal house: Alfred
the Great ruled for twenty-eight years, his father /Ethelwulf for nineteen, his
brothers /Ethelbald, Ethelbert, and Ethelred for two, five, and six, respec-
tively. Edward the Elder ruled for twenty-five years, Athelstan for fifteen,
and Edmund for six and a half before being murdered. Edmund's brother
Eadred ruled for nine years and his son Eadwig for four. Edgar the Peaceful
ruled for sixteen years, his son Edward for three before being murdered.
Among the kings of this line, Ethelred the Unready ruled the longest, for
thirty-eight years, but they were not years of peace, and he ended them in
exile. His son Edmund Ironside ruled only seven months before he died.
13. Robert B. Burlin, "Inner Weather and Interlace: A Note on the
Semantic Value of Structure in Beowulf " in Pope Studies, p. 88.
14. Peter F. Fisher, "The Trials of the Epic Hero in Beowulf" PMLA,
73 (1958): 183.
15. Bruce Mitchell, " 'Until the Dragon Comes . . .': Some Thoughts
on Beowulf" Neoph., 47 (1963): 138 n. 33.

AFTERWORD
1. See Godfrid Storms, "The Author of Beowulf" NM, 75 (1974): 23
and 39.
2. John C. Pope, "Beowulf's Old Age," in Philological Essays: Studies
. . . in Honour of Herbert Dean Meriti, ed. James L. Rosier (The Hague:
Mouton, 1970), pp. 55-64, discusses this stage with sympathetic insight.
3. J. R. R. Tolkien, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in Ni-
cholson, p. 81.
4. One may compare The Song of Roland, an epic of militant Christian-
ity that assuredly played a part in the enculturation of the knights who were
spearheading the first crusades: see John F. Benton, " 'Nostre Franceis n'unt
talent de fuïr': The Song of Roland and the Enculturation of a Warrior
Class," Olifant, 6 (1979): 237-258.
5. As Edward B. Irving, Jr., points out in A Reading of "Beowulf" (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1968), p. 190, "Consistently Beowulf's ener-
gies are directed outward and away from the world of human violence and
warfare, directed outward with the purpose of preserving human community
by fending off threats from the outside." Margaret E. Goldsmith, "The
Christian Perspective in Beowulf" in Brodeur Studies, p. 72, notes "the ex-
traordinary way in which the poet has avoided writing an epic about a martial
N O T E S T O PAGES 2 5 2 - 2 5 3 305
hero." Dorothy Whitelock, The Audience of "Beowulf" (Oxford: Clarendon,
1951), suggests that the poet made a deliberate distinction between
Beowulf's kinds of fights, which are directed against inhuman enemies, and
the other heroes' kinds of fights, which provoke violence among tribes. Stan-
ley J. Kahrl, "Feuds in Beowulf: A Tragic Necessity?" MPh, 69 (1972):
189-192, likewise calls attention to the way that the hero steers away from
the violent feuding practiced by others. In general the poet loses few oppor-
tunities to undercut or excoriate the vicious circle of man's violence toward
man.
6. Mary P. Richards, "A Reexamination of Beowulf 11. 3180-3182,"
ELN, 10 (1973): 163-167, supports Kemp Malone's reading of mannum for
manna in 3181a; the translation would then be "most mild and gentle to
men." Either reading is consistent with my point.
7. See Bosworth and Toller, s.v. "mannpware" (p. 670) and "mann-
pwœrness" (supplement, p. 632).
8. For the similar achievement of the authors of some Icelandic sagas,
see Lars Lönnroth, "The Noble Heathen: A Theme in the Sagas," Scandi-
navian Studies, 41 (1969): 1-29. Cf. Claiborne W. Thompson, "Moral
Values in the Icelandic Sagas: Recent Re-evaluations," in The Epic in Medie-
val Society: Aesthetic and Moral Values, ed. Harald Scholler (Tübingen: Nie-
meyer, 1977), pp. 347-360; and see the related thesis of Charles J. Donahue,
"Social Function and Literary Value in Beowulf " ibid., pp. 382-390, to the
effect that the poem would have helped thoughtful warriors reconcile their
Christian faith with an admiration for their ancestors.
9. W. W. Lawrence, "Beowulf" and Epic Tradition (Cambridge,
Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1928), p. 231.
INDEX

^ l f r i c , 12, 69, 70, 79, 252 Beow (Scyld's son), 107, 152-153,
Aeneid, see Virgil 216-217
Age of Migrations, 51, 56 Beowulf (the hero): marvelous charac-
Alcuin, 46, 47, 71, 73, 74, 79, 89-90 teristics, 19-23, 27-29; active char-
Aldhelm, 71, 72, 79, 80 acter, 108-111, 201; unpromising
Alfred the Great, 51; program of edu- youth, 171, 250; faith in God, 185,
cational reform, 67-69, 72, 243; tragedy of, 187-188; death,
273-274n6 191, 193, 246-247; fate of soul,
Allegory, 26, 83; in Beowulf, 12, 19, 192, 200, 211; exemplary charac-
27, 225 ter, 202, 220, 223, 236-247; as
"Alliterative Revival," 46 controlling subject, 225-226, 227;
Andreas, 66, 249 pride, 241-243, 250; long rule,
Anglo-Latin literature, 70, 71, 87-90. 244-245; stages of life, 249-251;
See also Alcuin; Aldhelm; Asser; gentleness, 251-252
Bede; Felix of Croyland Beowulf codex, 13, 249
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, 61, 69, 72, Bible, 90-91, 249, 252; Genesis, 77,
103, 105, 106, 214 87, 90; Job, 86; Psalms, 86
Antihero, 21 Bückling homilies, 17-19, 20, 116
Apollonius of Tyre, 69 Boethius, 68, 71, 79, 83, 146,
Art (Anglo-Saxon), 14-15, 102, 278n41. See also Meters of Boethius
165-167, 173, 223 Boniface, 71, 222-223
^ssc j. η2
Athelstan' 72, 97, 105, 112, 116-117 Caedmon, 34-35, 38-39, 56, 96;
Audience of Beowulf, 112, 146, "Caedmon's Hymn," 35, 48, 71,
161-162, 197, 198, 199, 204, 81, 92
205-206, 235, 253; present audi- Chansons de geste, 40. See also Song of
ence, 189-190, 192; as active par- Roland
ticipants, 206-207, 212; special Charters, 105, 117
knowledge of, 207-208; dramatic Chaucer, 46, 198, 201, 223, 225
audience, 208-212 Christ and Satan, 12
Augustine, St., 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, Christian elements, 16-20, 26-27,
90; Soliloquies, 68 73, 81-95, 182-183, 188, 235,
236, 237, 242, 247, 251-252;
"Battle of Brunanburh," 56, 117, 203 brood of Cain, 11, 12-13, 184;
"Battle of Finnsburh," 36, 47, 50, Flood, 12, 13, 88, 183, 184; hell,
56, 58, 64, 115 15, 16, 17-19, 26, 159, 193; terms
"Battle of Maldon," 47, 64, 97, 117, for devil, 92-93; harrowing of hell,
150, 221, 231, 240-241, 248 159-160; Last Judgment,
Bede, 68, 71, 73, 79, 87-88, 113, 192-193. See also Allegory; Hroth-
274n7; Ecclesiastical History, 34-35, gar's "sermon"; Patristics
68; "Death Song," 71-72 Community, 226-234

307
3O8 INDEX

Compound diction, 61-63, 138-151 Fatalism, in Beowulf, 162


Contrast, 168, 171 "Father's Lament," 226, 232
"Cotton Gnomes," 214 Felix of Croyland, 87-89
Cynewulf, 36, 96, 203. See also Elene Feud, 183, 214, 217, 220, 227, 228
Folktale, see Fairy tales
Danes in Anglo-Saxon England, 46, Formulaic diction, 110, 121-137,
72-73, 96, 102-107 138-151, 163-164
Danes in Beowulf: idolatry, 93-94, "Fortunes of Men," 203
108, 211; poet's view of, 107-112, Fulgentius, 276-277n28
187, 201-202; as dramatic audi-
ence, 208-212 Geats, 190, 218, 244; cowardly flight,
Daniel, 93 174, 221, 241, 245-246
Date of Beowulf, 73, 92-95, 96-117, Genealogies: Anglo-Saxon, 107-108;
188; linguistic tests, 98-101; cul- in Beowulf 179-180
tural criteria, 101-117 Genesis A, 35, 81, 88, 90, 199, 249
"Deor," 47, 51-52, 57, 115, 185, Genesis B, 97, 248
186 Giants, 87-88, 90, 183. See also
Digressions, 228, 230-231. See also Grendel
"Lament of the Last Survivor"; Gifts, see Treasure
Song of Finn and Hengest; Time Gilgamesh epic, 5
Dragon, 23-28, 220, 221-222, Gregory the Great, 83-84, 86, 87,
229-230, 239-240, 241; combat of 90; Pastoral Care, 67-68; Dialogues,
Beowulf with, 30, 156-157, 174, 68
184, 191, 193; allegorized, 84, Grendel, 20-22, 29, 86, 108, 224,
89-90, 91, 227, 244 229; physical appearance, 7-9, 15;
Dragon's hoard, see Treasure troll-like character, 10-11; demonic
"Dream of the Rood," 66, 72, 97, character, 11-12, 88; descent from
248 Cain, 11-12, 85, 88-89; approach
"Durham Proverbs," 214 to Heorot, 146-148, 167-168;
fight with hero, 154, 158, 161,
Edgar the Peaceful, 106, 113-114 183; dragonskin glove, 172;
Edward the Elder, 69, 105 damned, 193
Egil's Saga, 105 Grendel's mere, 5, 16-19, 30, 75,
Elder Edda, 45, 50, 53, 142, 187; 159, 182, 231, 264n29; journey to,
"AtlakviSa," 43, 50, 57, 179; 76, 155-156, 170-171
"f}rymskvi(5a," 43, 186, 208; Grendel's mother, 14, 224, 231;
"HamSismál," 50, 186; "Atlamál physical appearance, 9-10; resem-
in Grœnlenzko," 51, 57; "Vglun- blance to ketta, 11; fight with hero,
darkviföa," 57, 185; "Hávamál," 29-30, 86-87, 154-156, 159, 182.
203 See also Grendel
Elene, 36, 38, 180, 207 Grettir's Saga, 10, 155
Epic poetry, 78; as native develop-
ment, 55-56, 63, 249; style of, Heliand, 43, 45, 142
58-63, 80, 195-196 Heorot, 85-86, 89, 158, 201, 231
Ethelred, 106, 116 Heriot, 215-216
"Exeter Gnomes," 214, 251 Heroic lay, 50-56, 63-64, 179, 194.
Exodus, 138, 146, 199 See also "Battle of Finnsburh";
Elder Edda; "Hildebrandslied"
Fairy tales, 3, 7, 21, 173; the other- Heroic legends, 38, 52, 57, 185-186,
world, 6; "Ash-boy" motif, 171, 194, 207, 230
250; and time, 179 Heroic society, 237-238, 246-247
INDEX 309

Heroism, in Beowulf, 20, 21-23, 272n47; Benedictine reform of, 47,


226-227, 232-233, 235-238, 69, 72, 114-115. See also Literacy
246-247, 252-253. See also Monster-lore, 13-16, 18. See also
Beowulf (the hero) Marvels of the East
"Hildebrandslied," 43, 45, 50, 51, 53, Monsters: in Beowulf, 4, 7, 12-13; in
56, 57, 64, 142, 179, 248 Old Norse literature, 10-11, 14.
Homer, 42, 80, 121-122, 139, 140, See also Dragon; Giants; Grendel;
212, 213; Odyssey, 3, 5, 39, 48, Grendel's mother
159; Iliad, 39, 48, 161
Homilies, 70, 92, 203. See also /Elfric; Narrative inconsistencies, 168-174
Bückling homilies; Hrothgar's "ser- Narrator's voice, 197-204, 206-207,
mon"; Wulfstan 212, 238; asides, 188, 189, 200,
Hrothgar, 29, 200-201, 225; passiv- 209, 242; gnomic wisdom,
ity, 108-111, 186, 240; epithets
200-201
for, 140-142; generosity, 217
Naturalism (lack of), 3, 4-5, 163-176
Hrothgar's "sermon," 78, 187,
209-210, 223, 226, 232-233; Nibelungenlied, 57
Christian elements, 87, 88, 92, 183 Njal'sSaga, 187
Hrothulfs treachery, 174-175 Norman Conquest, 45, 46, 48, 72

Interpolation, 94-95 Oral-formulaic theory, 33, 39-42,


Irony, 145, 197-198, 201, 211, 121-129, 139-142. See also For-
221-222 mulaic diction
Oral poetry, 33, 34; South Slavic, 33,
"Judith," 93, 97, 248 34, 39-40, 49, 53, 54, 80, 121,
169, 173, 205; Greek, 34, 39-40,
Kennings, 208 49, 60, 121-122; oral dictation, 35,
48, 206; style of, 36-37, 160, 169,
Lactantius, 81-82 173, 197-198; Old French, 40;
"Lament of the Last Survivor," 157, Germanic, 40, 53, 176, 206, 249;
231-232 Scots Gaelic, 41; African, 41, 53;
Laws (Anglo-Saxon), 93, 106; Canons function of, 53; British balladry,
of Edgar, 47, 104; Law of the 54-55, 271n44. See also Formulaic
Northumbrian Priests, 47, 104; diction; Homer; Oral-formulaic the-
Laws of Cnut, 94-95, 104 ory; Scop
Legends, 6-7. See also Heroic lay; Qrvar-Odd's Saga, 11
Heroic legends Otherworld journey, 17, 19, 159-160
Liedertheorie, 57-58
Literacy, 48, 49-50, 68-73 "The Panther," 26
Lof, 206-207, 222, 237 Patristics, 12, 83-87, 91-92. See also
Lyre, 54 Allegory; Augustine; Gregory the
Great
Marvelous elements, see Dragon; Patronage, 97, 112, 115
Grendel; Grendel's mother; Leg- "Phoenix," 36
ends; Monsters; Miracles Poetic diction, see Compound diction;
Marvels of the East, 13-14, 16, 69 Formulaic diction; Kennings
"Messenger's Prophecy," 157, 158, Prudentius, 82-83
174, 190, 222, 232
Meters of Boethius, 72, 79, 146-150 Ragnarçk, 193
Miracles, 182 Regularis concordia, 114, 115
Monasteries, 32, 46, 113-115, 252, Rhetoric, 79-81; rhetorical technique
310 INDEX

in Beowulf, 56, 58-63. See also 220-222, 229-230, 243, 244,


Style of Beowulf 299n6; allegorized, 90-91; cursed,
Runes, 70, 71 93, 220; gifts, 110, 202, 214,
218-219, 220, 227, 231, 233;
Sage, see Legends value of, 213-214, 219, 222-223
Saints' lives, 203, 225
Sapientia et fortitude, 224-225 patir of Ormr Stórólfsson, 11
Scop, 37-39, 53, 54, 139-140,
142-145, 150, 210; creation song piSrik's Saga, 57
of, 76-77, 81, 88, 158. See also
Heroic lay; Oral poetry; Song of Unferth, 21, 108-109, 110, 187,
Finn and Hengest 193, 219; name, 82-83, 264n33
Scyld Scefing, 107, 158, 186, 207,
210, 216, 230 "Vainglory," 203, 243
"Seafarer," 66, 85, 97, 203, 207 Variation, 60-61, 124, 139-143
Serbo-Croatian poetry, see Oral po- Verse form (Old English), 40, 42-46,
etry, South Slavic 121
Sermons, see Homilies Virgil, 56, 74-79, 159
Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 8 Vita Oswaldi, 114
Snorri Sturluson, 23-24, 193 Vqlsungasaga, 186
Song of Finn and Hengest, 38, 116,
205, 207 "Waldere," 36, 47, 57, 58, 61,
Song of Roland, 79, 239 62-63, 64, 115, 150
"Soul's Address to the Body," 203 IValthariipoesis, 65, 249
Statius, 74 "Wanderer," 66, 96, 233, 248
Structure of Beowulf 152-162, 166 Wergild, 22, 214-215, 217-218
Style of Beowulf 54, 58-63, "Widsith," 47, 52-53, 61, 115
163-176; see also Compound dic- "Wife's Lament," 47
tion; Contrast; Epic poetry; Formu- Wiglaf, 157, 185, 187, 200-201,
laic diction; Narrative inconsisten- 222, 231, 238-239, 241; berates
cies; Naturalism (lack of); Variation Geats, 156, 164-165, 221,
Sutton Hoo ship burial, 102, 166, 245-246
173, 176 Wisdom and fortitude, see Sapientia et
fortitude
Time, 165, 166, 179-196 "Wulf and Eadwacer," 47
Treasure, 157, 189, 194, 213, 216, Wulfstan, 70, 94, 224-225

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