This brings us onto 'Beowulf', possibly the earliest surviving
work of English Literature. We don't know who wrote it, or exactly when, but
it's estimated to have been first written down between the 8th and 10th
Centuries.
'Beowulf' began as one of these epic poems told by travelling Bards or 'Scops'. It seems that somebody had begun to write down a few of these oral
tales, however 'Beowulf' is the only one to survive from this same time. It's
important to remember that Britain was now a Christian country again, so the
pagan tales were re-worked as they were written in order to conform to
Christian ideals.
'Beowulf' is a heroic tale involving two Viking tribes; the Geats and the Danes. The Danes are being terrorised by a dragon (Grendel) and call in the noble Beowulf (a Geat) to help them. This was a tradition in this time period-the idea of Blood Feuds. This is the idea that every human life has a literal monetary value, so if you killed someone, so long as you paid their family the correct amount of money, you were ok. That's a very basic description but you get the idea. So, Beowulf's father was guilty of killing someone, but didn't pay the price. Beowulf comes to help the Danes as he is repaying the King (Hrothgar) for settling his father's debt all those years ago, and stopping him from becoming an outcast. Beowulf has to come back later to defeat Grendels' mother (a descendent of Cain from the Bible) too.
A piece of art based on the tale of 'Beowulf'. (Andrew Mayer.com)
Chivalry, nobility and heroism were big themes in these kinds of tales. 'Beowulf is an epic poem, meaning that it is hella long. Epic poems tended to contain elements of the supernatural, such as monsters, conflict, a hero, an adventure and a visit to the Underworld. You can see a clear link here between 'Beowulf' and Homer's 'Odyssey'.
'Beowulf' is written about the past, so although it was probably written between the 8th and the 10th Centuries, it is thought to be based in an earlier time. It is also thought that there were two writers, probably scribes of the same Abbey (remember, monks were the writers of the past).
The text is written in a three-part structure, in three different locations. As it was written in the Dark Ages, the scribes aimed to bring a Christian sensibility to this Pagan Tale (the Geats were Pagan). There is only one manuscript of the text in existence, and it has some fire damage.
The characters' names in this text are difficult to pronounce and they all look the same, so good luck with that! We were told to just pick one way of saying a name and stick to that, wrong or right! These names include: Heorogar, Hrothmund, Hrothulf, Hrethric, Haethcyn, Hygelac and Ongentheow. There are some easy ones though, like: Beowulf, Shield, Beow and Halfdane. I dare say they are easy to pronounce if you know how! But as an English person, I am more used to names like 'James' and 'Amy', so the names in Beowulf produce some awkward noises during our lectures as we try to sound them out! The names contain compound words, just like modern German names. So the name 'Beowulf' is a compound meaning 'glory' and 'spear', which excellently describes his heroic yet boastful character.
There are references to other Germanic-based tales in 'Beowulf', but the disillusion of the monasteries led to the destruction of post of the manuscripts. I remember being told that 'Beowulf' was thrown out of the window to save it.
An interesting part of 'Beowulf' is that the Scop actually appears in the story at one point, as he re-tells the story of the death of Grendel's mother, to entertain the other characters. Perhaps some similarities could be drawn here between the Scop in 'Beowulf' and Geoffrey Chaucer's character 'Chaucer' in 'The Canterbury Tales'...
Women didn't really play a big part in stories during this time period, although Grendel's Mother is a main character in this text (but note that she doesn't get her own name). There were 'peace-weaver' characters in 'Beowulf'; women who married between tribes to bring them together. Examples in 'Beowulf' are Freawaru and the Queen. The hostess women in the text have a very big and important ritual with the 'mead cup', where they use it to indicate the hierarchy within the tribe. People also inherited through the mother's line, so mothers were very important in this way. Grendel's Mother and Thrif are female characters, however as the evil characters they are anti-peace-weavers. They possess very masculine qualities and aim to kill anyone who enters the Halls. Thrif changes and becomes peaceful with her marriage to Offer, whereas Grendel's Mother is only tamed by death.
Angelina Jolie played 'Grendel's Mother' in the 2007 film 'Beowulf'.
Kennings play a large part in 'Beowulf'. A Kenning is a literary device which is so simple and yet so effective. It is also a convention of Anglo-Saxon poetry. So what is a Kenning? Well here are some examples: 'swan's-road' and 'ring-giver'. Got it yet? It's so simple...it's just another way to say a word. For example, instead of saying 'we crossed the sea', a scribe will write 'we crossed the swan's road', or instead of saying 'the King', they may say 'the ring-giver'. There are some well-known and some lesser known Kennings, but they are quite easy to figure out.
There are other conventions of Anglo-Saxon poetry besides Kennings. For example, each line will have two halves, with a strong caesura in the middle. Anglo-Saxon is a stressed language, so the meter is based on stresses and pitch. The mid-line pause organises the line and may have been marked by a harp (poetry was nearly-always read aloud in this time period, quite often to a large audience). The initial letter of the first stress of the second half of the line is key to the alliteration of the piece, but the last stress of the line mustn't alliterate. That sounds complicated, but it's not, I promise. What it means is that in this passage:
"monstrous hell-bride, brooded on her wrongs.
She had been forced down into fearful waters,
the cold depths, after Cain had killed
his father's son, felled his own
brother with a sword. Branded an outlaw,"
(lines 1259-1263, page 69, The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A)
all of the letters in bold alliterate, but the last words on each line don't. This was all done to create rhythm and therefore make the epic poem easier to remember and recite.
Seamus Heaney translated the text from its original Old English into a more understandable English. However, it is important to remember that every person who translates a text puts their own slight spin on it. For example, Heaney begins with the word 'So', as is traditional in Irish tales. He also links the story to the violence in Northern Ireland in the 1970s.
In the original Old English, the text would have looked something like this:
"frumsceaft fira feorran reccan,"
this translates to
"[the] origin [of] men from far [time] [to] recount,"
this is line 91 from the text. Obviously the alliteration is clearly visible in this language. I could include more lines in this form as it is quite interesting to try to read, however a lot of the language requires symbols which I do not have on my laptop!
The original 'Beowulf' manuscript, written in Old English.
That was a very quick and simple breakdown of what I have learned about 'Beowulf'. I hope it is helpful to anyone in search of some quick and simple notes on the subject. To me, the text was murder to read, but this is only because it is 3182 lines long and I was given two days to read it! But I would definitely recommend it to anyone interested in the classics, who can stick with the poem style and loves a good 'knight-in-shining-armour' tale. For me, the interesting part comes with the history and context of a piece of literature.
