BEOWULF

þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon,

hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon!

oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum,

monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah,

egsode eorlas, syððanærest wearð

feasceaft funden; he þæs frofre gebad,

weox under wolcnum weorðmyndum þah,

oð þæt him æghwylc ymbsittendra

ofer hronrade hyran scolde,

gomban gyldan; þæt wæs god cyning!

Outline

II. Discussion

1. Literary Techniques ( sentence structure; alliteration; kenning)

2. Content (comparison with Old Germanic literature; connections with Christianity; criticism of Beowulf's characters as flat)

3. Summary

· Beowulf is the major production of Old English (hereafter, OE) literature.

· OE was the first of the European vernaculars to be put into writing.

· The earliest form of Beowulf was an oral poem of Danish, or more generally, Germanic, origin dating back to at least c. 500AD. It was recited by a specially trained minstrel called a scop, who possibly also employed a harp-like instrument during his performance. Beowulf was written into OE c. 800AD; the author is unknown; the area was, most probably, Mercia.

1. Literary Techniques

Beowulf is, as we shall see, one of the most controversial and difficult works of English literature. As professor A. Kent Hieatt (1) has written, "…Beowulf even today is the most drastically misunderstood of all the monuments of English literature." This being so, I will begin my discussion with the least disputed aspects of the poem, its literary techniques.

The general structure of the poem is as follows: 3182 lines are divided into roughly 43 sections (called fitts in OE). Although the fitts receive no further grouping in the original text (of which, incidentally, but one survives), plainly there are three: a prologue or introduction giving some slight background; part one dealing, primarily, with Beowulf's battles with Grendel and the monster's mother; and part two, wherein Beowulf slays a dragon, and then dies from wounds inflicted by the creature. The time-sequence of the story is chronological (although there is a gap of some many years between the end of part one and the start of part two).

Woven throughout the poem, however, is an extremely complex network of references and allusions to past and future events. Oftentimes the modern reader, wholly ignorant of the cultural milieu of Germania, far from finding these associations foreboding or referential (as they would have been for a medieval audience of the poem), is merely confused by them.

Turning now to the specific literary techniques of Beowulf, four are of particular note: 1) the special sentence structure, 2) the linking of the parts of this structure by alliteration, 3) kenning, and 4) the baroque vocabulary.

Beginning with the sentence structure, nearly all the sentences of the poem are paired (i.e., work in units of two). Each individual sentence of this pair is divided into two parts, between which is a verbal gap (termed caesura in Latin); lastly, each half sentence is, generally, of two feet. Here is an example from Beowulf (lines 26 - 27).

Him ða Scyld gewat to gescæphwile

felahror feran on Frean wære

You will note that the divided sentences are internally linked by alliteration. In line 26, Scyld and scaeph; in 27, fela, feran, and Frean. Finally, this pattern of two alliterations in the first line followed by three in the second is the standard method.

You should understand that this type of sentence structure is not unique to Beowulf, but rather is a common practice in Old Germanic poetry. In Beowulf, however, this technique does reach a new height.

Kenning, the next important technique, is defined by the Encyclopædia Britannica (CD version, 1999 edition), as follows: a concise compound or figurative phrase replacing a common noun, especially in Old Germanic, Old Norse, and Old English poetry. A kenning is commonly a simple stock compound such as "whale-path" or "swan road" for "sea"; "God's beacon" for "sun"; or "ring-giver" for "king".

Again, as stated above, a customary device of Old Germanic verse, which, once again, in Beowulf attains a greater level. Two examples will suffice: a certain queen in section 28 is "the people's peacemaker", whereas the dragon which Beowulf fights is "the old oppressor of the night".

Lastly, regarding the vocabulary of Beowulf, which is often termed baroque, meaning brilliantly unusual in usage, I mention this merely for the student's general reference, for although this aspect is of tremendous significance in the historical development of the English language to actually grasp this point requires specialist knowledge of OE.

It was often the practice of previous generations of Beowulf commentators to praise the poem's literary techniques (which, as we have seen, are undoubtedly of a high level), while dismissing the story itself as basically primitive and confused. Recent investigations, however, have given us a much deeper, although at times still tentative, understanding of this complex work.

Now, for the modern reader to know something of what the poem was meant to convey to its original readers (or listeners), some knowledge of the culture world of those people is indispensable. In short, context.

One possible means to this end is a literary comparison and contrast of Beowulf to other key works of the Old Germanic tradition. Research of this type, of which recent years has seen much, has yielded at least four points of similarity, and one important contrast (which will lead us on to two further, related matters).

Beowulf's first connection with Old Germanic literature is its method of versification (already described); this form of alliterative couplets is far older than Beowulf. Second, many of the motifs or themes of the poem (e.g., the evil dragon guarding buried treasure) are drawn from an age-old common stock of Germanic myth and legend; these are, therefore, in no way unique to Beowulf. Third, throughout the work stress is placed on tribal and family loyalty (e.g., at the end of section 35 we read, "Ties of kinship can never be put aside by a right-thinking man."). In view of the nearly constant state of warfare in the ancient and medieval worlds, such an emphasis is easily understandable.

The fourth similarity I will delay for a moment, and now introduce the unique characteristic of Beowulf, which is ethical in nature. Question: what does the typical Old Germanic hero fight against, and why? Answer: either another group who has wronged his group or a certain man who has wronged him personally. In short, his enemies are human, and his motivation is tribal or personal vengeance. With the hero Beowulf, however, the situation is different: his enemies are monsters (i.e., abstract representations of evil), who prey on all humanity , and not simply his tribe. Thus in the poem Beowulf we have not the glorification of tribal or personal vengeance, but rather an example of a fight against universal evil. This is the defining characteristic of the poem.

I come now to the fourth connecting point, which I believe is of great importance. The essential nature of the Old Germanic spirit (perhaps most beautifully expressed in the Poetic Edda, of Iceland, c. 1200), is what I will term "active pessimism". On this view, life, in its most basic character, is suffering, anguish - and this is a state-of-affairs which no amount of human effort can change; and yet, paradoxically, man must actively confront the evil that faces him, trying to change what he knows he cannot. This relentless, though futile, fight is what defines man's existence. It is his sole reason for being.

Most interestingly, traditional Christianity (i.e., what was taught by Jesus), teaches fundamentally the same doctrine (with the important addition of the happy ending of Heaven). Now, I would suggest, it was this deep, underlying connection of the active pessimism of both the Old Germanic spirit and original Christianity that allowed all of Anglo-Saxon England to be converted to the new religion in a scant 100 years.

In relation to this an interesting question (basically overlooked in the research) may be asked: why, from the entire stock of Old Germanic tales available to our (unknown) 800AD author, did he chose to put Beowulf into OE? We have no evidence that this story was in any way more highly regarded than others (in fact, it is almost certain, several others were more widely known). And yet, Beowulf was chosen? Why?

The answer, I would suggest, is that the defining characteristic of this Old Germanic, pre-Christian story made it, and no other, a particularly suitable vehicle to carry the essentially similar ideas of the newly introduced religion.

My final point on the content is to address the common criticism that the main characters of the poem (i.e., Beowulf, and the three monsters) are flat or one-sided (i.e., the hero is all good, while his enemies are totally bad) and thus have no depth and cannot be believed in. This criticism is understandable, in that traditionally, western literature, from Homer to Joyce, has often seen complexity of characterization as the hallmark of serious art. One thinks of Achilles, Hamlet, Stephen Dedalus, and Humbert Humbert; for in human experience even the best seems to hold something negative, and even in the worst we can find something redeeming. Thus, this emphasis on complexity of character, to use the sweet prince's words, are "like a mirror held up to nature" - an accurate, realistic portrayal of human life.

However, as Prof. A. Kent Hieatt (2) has pointed out, this dogged insistence on realism is a misguided bias (in fact, some people today, so conditioned, and thus limited, by the pervasive realism of our times, cannot even accept the idea that any other art form than realism is to be taken seriously). In short, other forms are possible, and Beowulf is an example of one.

In sum, then, Beowulf uses a high level of literary technique and structure, simple characterization, and a complex network of allusions and references, with the intention of rendering an artistic effect of active pessimism.

1. Beowulf and Other Old English Poems. Hieatt, Constance B., Bantam, N.Y. 1988. P.xii.

2. ibid. P. xxiv.

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