Практическое занятие. Тема № 1. Anglo-Saxon epic "Beowulf" Main points

Практическое занятие. Тема № 1.
Anglo-Saxon epic “Beowulf”
Main points:
1. The concept of the folk epic
2. Peculiarities of the epic: oral basis, collective creative work, universality
3. The epic poem “Beowulf”:
a) chronology of its creation;
b) story and structure of the epic;
c) the personality of the epic protagonist;
d) priority of collective values;
e) combination of pagan and Christian worldviews in “Beowulf”;
f) artistic and aesthetic features of the epic language
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend
consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often
translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of
contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which
was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the
"Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf,
a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose
mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf
slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious,
Beowulf goes home to Geatland (Götaland in modern Sweden) and becomes king
of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded
in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a tower on a
headland in his memory.
Scholars have debated whether Beowulf was transmitted orally, affecting its
interpretation: if it was composed early, in pagan times, then the paganism is
central and the Christian elements were added later, whereas if it was composed
later, in writing, by a Christian, then the pagan elements could be decorative
archaising; some scholars also hold an intermediate position. Beowulf is written
mostly in the West Saxon dialect of Old English, but many other dialectal forms
are present, suggesting that the poem may have had a long and complex
transmission throughout the dialect areas of England.
Anglo-Saxon poetry is constructed very differently from a modern poem. There
is little use of rhyme, and no fixed number of beats or syllables; the verse is
alliterative, meaning that each line is in two halves, separated by a caesura, and
linked by the presence of stressed syllables with similar sounds. The poet often
used formulaic phrases for half-lines, including kennings, evocative poetic
descriptions compressed into a single compound word. No definite sources or
analogues of the poem can be proven, but many suggestions have been made,
including the Icelandic Grettis saga, the Norse story of Hrolf Kraki and his bear-
shapeshifting servant Bodvar Bjarki, the international folktale the Bear's Son Tale,
and the Irish folktale of the Hand and the Child. Persistent attempts have been
made to link Beowulf to tales from Homer's Odyssey or Virgil's Aeneid. More
definite are Biblical parallels, with clear allusions to the books of Genesis, Exodus,
and Daniel.
The poem survives in a single copy in the manuscript known as the Nowell
Codex. It has no title in the original manuscript, but has become known by the
name of the story's protagonist. In 1731, the manuscript was damaged by a fire that
swept through Ashburnham House in London, which was housing Sir Robert
Cotton's collection of medieval manuscripts. It survived, but the margins were
charred, and some readings were lost.[4] The Nowell Codex is housed in the
British Library. The poem was first transcribed in 1786; some verses were first
translated into modern English in 1805, and nine complete translations were made
in the 19th century, including those by John Mitchell Kemble and William Morris.
After 1900, hundreds of translations, whether into prose, rhyming verse, or
alliterative verse were made, some relatively faithful, some archaising, some
attempting to domesticate the work. Among the best-known modern translations
are those of Edwin Morgan, Burton Raffel, Michael J. Alexander, Roy Liuzza, and
Seamus Heaney. The difficulty of translating Beowulf has been explored by
scholars including J. R. R. Tolkien (in his essay "On Translating Beowulf"), who
worked on a verse and a prose translation of his own.
The events in the poem take place over most of the sixth century, and feature no
English characters. Some suggest that Beowulf was first composed in the 7th
century at Rendlesham in East Anglia, as the Sutton Hoo ship-burial shows close
connections with Scandinavia, and the East Anglian royal dynasty, the Wuffingas,
may have been descendants of the Geatish Wulfings. Others have associated this
poem with the court of King Alfred the Great or with the court of King Cnut the
Great.
The poem blends fictional, legendary and historic elements. Although Beowulf
himself is not mentioned in any other Anglo-Saxon manuscript,many of the other
figures named in Beowulf appear in Scandinavian sources. This concerns not only
individuals (e.g., Healfdene, Hroðgar, Halga, Hroðulf, Eadgils and Ohthere), but
also clans (e.g., Scyldings, Scylfings and Wulfings) and certain events (e.g., the
battle between Eadgils and Onela). The raid by King Hygelac into Frisia is
mentioned by Gregory of Tours in his History of the Franks and can be dated to
around 521.
The majority view appears to be that figures such as King Hroðgar and the
Scyldings in Beowulf are based on historical people from 6th-century Scandinavia.
Like the Finnesburg Fragment and several shorter surviving poems, Beowulf has
consequently been used as a source of information about Scandinavian figures such
as Eadgils and Hygelac, and about continental Germanic figures such as Offa, king
of the continental Angles.
Finds from Gamla Uppsala's western mound, left, excavated in 1874, support
Beowulf and the sagas.
19th-century archaeological evidence may confirm elements of the Beowulf
story. Eadgils was buried at Uppsala (Gamla Uppsala, Sweden) according to Snorri
Sturluson. When the western mound (to the left in the photo) was excavated in
1874, the finds showed that a powerful man was buried in a large barrow, c. 575,
on a bear skin with two dogs and rich grave offerings. The eastern mound was
excavated in 1854, and contained the remains of a woman, or a woman and a
young man. The middle barrow has not been excavated.
In Denmark, recent archaeological excavations at Lejre, where Scandinavian
tradition located the seat of the Scyldings, Heorot, have revealed that a hall was
built in the mid-6th century, matching the period described in Beowulf, some
centuries before the poem was composed.Three halls, each about 50 metres (160
ft) long, were found during the excavation.

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Anglo-Saxon epic “Beowulf”

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