Introduction to Old English Literature and Beowulf
Unit 2: Old English Literature
General Remarks
Approximately 30,000 lines of Old English poetry have survived from Anglo-Saxon times. Their alliterative form is also present in the oldest poetic remains of other early Germanic languages, such as Old Icelandic. Certain features of its diction, including verse formulas and themes, are similarly shared, revealing a common Germanic inheritance. In England, the earliest poetry of the Anglo-Saxon settlers was necessarily composed orally, often sung or chanted to the accompaniment of a stringed instrument. Oral composition remained prevalent throughout the period.
Writing as a literary art was introduced to the Anglo-Saxons in the seventh century by missionaries from the Mediterranean world. Englishmen began engaging in literary pursuits, writing in Latin or English, prose or verse, soon after the Conversion. Consequently, we have approximately four and a half centuries of writings in Old English before the Norman Conquest.
Poetic discourse in Old English is characterized by the use of poetic vocabulary. Many Old English words are found exclusively in verse, with the frequent occurrence of hapax legomena (words that occur only once in a given text). Everything in Old English verse encourages the use of a wide variety of poetic terms. The need to expand poetic diction leads to the widespread use of apposition as a rhetorical device. Much of the appeal of poetic vocabulary to the Anglo-Saxons stemmed from its traditional nature: poetic words are mostly archaic or dialectal terms that have fallen out of use, evoking a bygone era. The poets also consistently coined new poetic terms through compounding. This remains a vital process of word formation in all Germanic languages, with English examples like battleship and barefoot. A particular type of compound is characteristic of the traditional diction of heroic verse:
Neither element of the compound literally refers to the thing denoted, but meaning is derived from the juxtaposition of terms in a metaphoric or metonymic process. For example, feorh-hus literally means “life-house.” Compounds of this sort are known as kennings or kenningar.
The traditions of Old English verse composition are so conservative that the formal properties of Cædmon’s Hymn, composed between 657 and 680, are indistinguishable from those of The Battle of Brunanburh, written between 937 and 955. Due to this compositional uniformity, coupled with the Anglo-Saxon practice of anonymity, most Old English poems cannot be dated with precision.
Most Old English poetry is preserved in manuscripts datable to the second half of the tenth century, the time of the Benedictine reform, when monastic life experienced a resurgence throughout England. Scribes did not always treat vernacular verse texts with the same care as Latin texts, sometimes recomposing poems during the copying process. This virtually guarantees that the Old English poetic texts we know contain numerous manuscript readings that deviate from the original authors’ intentions.
An Introduction to Beowulf
Localization of the Text
Beowulf, the oldest surviving long poem in English, was likely composed over twelve hundred years ago, in the first half of the eighth century. Its author may have been a native of what was then West Mercia, corresponding to the West Midlands of England today. The text is preserved in a single manuscript, dating to the late tenth century, which originated in the south, in the kingdom of the West Saxons. In 1731, the manuscript suffered significant damage in a fire that destroyed the London building housing Sir Robert Bruce Cotton’s (1571-1631) collection of medieval English manuscripts. Consequently, several lines and words have been lost from the poem.
While the poem is English in language and origin, it focuses not on native Englishmen, but on their Germanic ancestors, particularly the Danes and the Geats, who inhabited the Danish island of Zealand and southern Sweden, respectively. The historical period it depicts is approximately two centuries before the poem’s composition, following the initial Germanic invasion of England in 449, but before the completion of the Anglo-Saxon migration. The audience may have considered themselves to be of the same Geatish stock as the hero, Beowulf.
The only datable historical event mentioned in the poem is a raid on the Franks by Hygelac, the Geatish king during Beowulf’s youth, which occurred in 520. Beowulf is not only unique as an example of the Old English epic but also the greatest surviving epic from the Germanic peoples.
The Author and the Christian Tradition
It is generally accepted that the poet who shaped the old materials into their present form was a Christian, and that his poem reflects a Christian tradition. The conversion of the Germanic settlers in England had largely been completed in the century preceding the poem’s composition. However, there is little consensus on the extent to which Beowulf reflects a Christian tradition or the specific nature of that tradition.
Many explicitly Christian references appear, particularly to the Old Testament:
- God is identified as the Creator of all things, and His will seems synonymous with Fate.
- Grendel is described as a descendant of Cain.
- The sword Beowulf discovers in Grendel’s mother’s lair bears engravings depicting the story of the giants and their destruction by the flood.
- The dead await God’s judgment.
Yet, there is no mention of the New Testament—Christ and His Sacrifice, the core tenets of Christianity. The poet also invokes values that seem to belong to an ancient, pagan warrior society, similar to the one described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his late first-century work Germania. One must conclude that while “Christian” accurately describes the religion of the poet and his audience, it was a Christianity that had not yet fully supplanted an older pagan tradition, which still resonated deeply within people’s hearts.
The Warrior Society
In the warrior society, the most important relationship was that between a warrior and his lord, based less on subordination than on mutual trust and respect. When a warrior pledged loyalty to his lord, he became less a servant and more a voluntary companion, taking pride in defending him and fighting in his wars. In return, the lord was expected to care for his thanes and reward them generously for their valor. A good king, like Hrothgar or Beowulf, is praised with poetic epithets such as “protector of warriors” and “dispenser of treasure” or “ring-giver.”
Kinship also held deep significance in this society and provides another emotional layer to Old English heroic poetry. If a kinsman was slain, a man was obligated to either kill the slayer or demand wergild (compensation). Relatives who failed to do either could never find peace, having found no practical way to reconcile their grief.
The need for vengeance inevitably led to endless feuds. Hrothgar attempts to make peace with the Heatho-Bards by marrying his daughter to their king, Ingeld, whose father was killed by the Danes. However, as Beowulf predicts, the Heatho-Bards’ desire for revenge will eventually resurface. The Danish princess Hildeburh, married to Finn of the Jutes, witnesses the deaths of both her son and brother.
Beowulf himself is primarily concerned not with tribal feuds but with existential evil. Grendel and the dragon threaten the security of the land but are not part of the social order and presumably have no one to avenge their deaths. It is the duty of the king and his companions to vanquish this evil. However, the Danish king Hrothgar is old and his companions lack initiative, and Hrothgar later encourages the aging Beowulf to fight the dragon that threatens his people.
Beowulf and Fate
In his quest to slay Grendel and later Grendel’s mother, Beowulf confronts his relationship with an unknowable destiny. At any moment, his luck may run out, and he may be killed, as he is in the otherwise successful encounter with the dragon. But whether he lives or dies, he will have done everything in his power to live a heroic life. Courage is the instrument by which the hero realizes his potential.
Fate does not entirely predetermine a man’s destiny; courage is the quality that can potentially influence Fate and defy its natural tendency to bring about his demise. Doom ultimately claims him, but not before he has fully realized the pagan ideal of a heroic life. And despite his frequent attempts to Christianize pagan virtues, the Christian poet remains true to the older tradition when, at the end of the poem, he leaves us with the impression that Beowulf’s ultimate reward is pagan immortality: the enduring memory of a hero’s heroic deeds in the minds of future generations.