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''Beowulf'' is an heroic poetry, the work — in spite of dealing primarily with Scandinavia n matters — has risen to such prominence that it has become " England 's National Epos ." In the poem, , who is destroying Heorot and its inhabitants in Denmark , Grendel's Mother , and later in life (after he is King) a Dragon . He is mortally wounded in the final battle, and after his death is buried in a Barrow by his retainers. Although one may find professors of Old English who informally pronounce the protagonist's name as "BAY-uh-WOLF", it should be noted that the "ēo" in ''Bēowulf'' is a Diphthong and that the name should therefore be pronounced as a two-syllable word with the stress on the first syllable.Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, ''A Guide to Old English'' (Blackwell, 1986), "Diphthongs", pp. 14-15. BACKGROUND AND ORIGINS The events described in the poem take place in the late . and that the East Anglian royal dynasty, the Wuffing s, were descendants of the Geat ish Wulfing s.Newton, S., 1993. ''The Origins of Beowulf and the Pre-Viking Kingdom of East Anglia''. Cambridge. The poem deals with , where Scandinavian tradition located the seat of the Scyldings, i.e. Heorot , have revealed that a hall was built in the mid- 6th Century , exactly the time period of ''Beowulf''.Niles, John D., "Beowulf's Great Hall , History Today, October 2006, 56 (10), pp. 40-44. All the three halls found during the excavation were about 50 metres long. The majority view appears to be that people such as king '' and several shorter surviving poems, ''Beowulf'' has consequently been used as a source of information about Scandinavian personalities such as Eadgils and Hygelac , and about continental Germanic personalities such as Offa , king of the continental Angles . was buried at While it could be said that Beowulf is the only substantial extant Old English poem that addresses matters Hero ic rather than Christian , there are nonetheless Christian viewpoints expressed within the poem, and the overall judgement on both Christian and heroic society is ambiguous. It can be argued that Grendel and his 'clan' represent evil, destructive forces; Grendel is actually introduced as a descendant of Cain . Some scholars have suggested that the Christian elements were inserted later, perhaps by the scribe or scribes copying the manuscript. A turning point in Beowulf scholarship came in 1936 with '' when, for the first time, the poem and Anglo-Saxon Literature were seriously examined for its literary merits—not just scholarship about the origins of the English language as was popular in the 19th century. THE HISTORY OF BEOWULF The poem is at least semi-historical. It is known to archæologists that the remains of Heorot Hall are situated on the island of Sjælland in Denmark. It is also known to historians that Hygelac was a southern Swedish King. Hygelac died in battle in the year AĐ 521, and this is documented in the epic. Hygelac is also mentioned by the 12th century historian William of Malmesbury, along with records in his genealogies many characters of the Beowulf bloodline. Beowulf’s uncle Hygelac is mentioned in a piece called, “Liber Mostrorum” by an unknown author, written in Latin in England. It says in the first chapter, “And there are monsters of an amazing size, like King Hygelac, who ruled the Geats and was killed by the Franks, whom no horse could carry from the age of twelve. His bones are preserved on an island in the river Rhine, where it breaks into the Ocean, and they are shown as a wonder to travelers from afar.” http://members.shaw.ca/sylviavolk/Beowulf3.htm This means that Hygelac was buried after he was killed by the Frisians at the mouth of the Rhine River , which opens into the ocean in the (former) Frankish kingdom. It is recorded in chronicles of the war between the Swedes and the Geats that there is a Geatish king Beowulf. The chronicle records in the war in five phases: (Phase 1) After the death of the Geatish patriarch, the sons of the Swedish king Ongentheow invade Geatland. (Phase 2) The Geats counterstrike, and invade Sweden, taking with them the Swedish king’s queen. The Swedes invade Geatland once more, and kill the king of Geat. Hygelac then becomes king of Geat, and kills the Swedish king (his son Onela becoming king). (Phase 3) Hygelac dies in Gaul in the war against Theodoric, and Hygelac’s son (Heardred) takes power. The Swedes invade Geat, and kill Heardred. After the Swedes withdraw, Beowulf is named king. (Phase 4) Men who are supported by Beowulf invades Sweden, and kills Onela. (Phase 5) The Swedes attack Geat when they find that Beowulf is dead.(From Heaney, pp. 94-95) Howell Đ. Chickering, in his translation of the poem, states that he thinks that Beowulf was a real person. Chickering believes that the Geatish people are the forebears of the Wuffingas line; among these forebears may have been Wiglaf, the man who Beowulf passed the Geatish kingship onto after he died. Seamus Heaney , a translator of Beowulf, said that he believes Beowulf to be a historical figure. THE BEOWULF MANUSCRIPT ''Beowulf'' was written in England but is set in Scandinavia. It is an epic poem told in historical perspective; a story of epic events of great people of a heroic past. Although the author is unknown its themes and subject matter are generally believed to be formed through Oral Tradition , the passing down of stories by Scop s (tale singers) and is considered partly historical. Originally thought to be a majority of oral tradition merely transcribed by a literate monk, the author is now understood to be an imaginative poet in his own right, who by taking the pagan elements, the traditional accounts of heroic events and combining them with his own imaginative ingenuity created a completely new work of his own, more unified than the originally oral stories.Heaney, Seamus. ''Beowulf: A New Verse Translation'' "Beowulf: The Poem" Norton: NY, 2000. (p xi) The poem is known only from a single manuscript, which is estimated to date from close to AD 1000 . Kiernan concluded from a detailed examination of the manuscript that it was the author's own working copy. He has dated the work to the reign of Canute The Great . The poem appears in what is today called the ''Beowulf'' manuscript or Nowell Codex (British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A.xv), along with other works. The manuscript is the product of two different Scribe s transcribing an earlier original, the second scribe taking over at line 1939 of ''Beowulf''. The spellings in the poem mix the West Saxon and Anglian Dialects of Old English, though they are predominantly West Saxon, as are other Old English poems copied at the time. The earliest known owner is the 16th Century scholar Laurence Nowell , after whom the manuscript is named, though its official designation is ''Cotton Vitellius A.XV'' due to its inclusion in the catalog of Robert Bruce Cotton 's holdings in the middle of the 17th century. It suffered damage in the Cotton Library fire at Ashburnham House in 1731 . Iceland ic scholar Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin made the first transcription of the manuscript in 1786 and published it in 1815 , working under a historical research commission of the Danish government. Since that time, the manuscript has suffered additional decay, and the Thorkelin transcripts remain a prized secondary source for Beowulf scholars. Their accuracy has been called into question, however (e.g., by Chauncey Brewster Tinker in ''The Translations of Beowulf'', a comprehensive survey of 19th Century translations and editions of ''Beowulf''), and the extent to which the manuscript was actually more readable in Thorkelin's time is unclear. AUTHORSHIP AND QUESTIONS According to the '', and share similarities with antagonists in medieval Christian stories. Since the ''Beowulf'' poet was also very knowledgeable about Pagan beliefs, the descriptions of Grendel and Grendel's Mother , for example, could owe as much to pagan beliefs about Trolls as they do to Christian beliefs about Demons . In addition, Beowulf 's cremation at the end of the poem also refers to a pagan practice. In one view, the problem is resolved by supposing that, even though Beowulf was a pagan, the poem's Christian audience could admire his heroic deeds. ''Beowulf'' may thus be a product of the poet's knowledge of both Christian beliefs and the ancient history of his people. However, this approach may overestimate the historical knowledge and multicultural tolerance of the poem's last redactor. A somewhat more complex view typical of oral traditional scholars, suggests that in the long history of the poem's transmission, a pre-Christian heroic narrative has been "baptised," perhaps superficially and with references only to those features of Christian tradition consistent with a Heroic Ethos . In whatever manner the two are combined, the result is a poem that seems to have appeal and to be intelligible outside of a Christian belief system. Professor Robert F. Yeager notes that the role of Christianity in a pagan context poses one of the mysteries surrounding ''Beowulf'': THEMES, CHARACTERS, AND STORY Themes The poem as we know it is filled with elements of the Norse Legendarium along with Christian statements. It is often assumed that the work was written by a Christian Monk , on the grounds that they were the only members of Anglo-Saxon society with access to writing materials. However, the example of King Alfred suggests the possibility of lay authorship. In historical terms the poem's characters would have been Pagans . The poem's narrator, however, places events into a Biblical context, casting Grendel and Grendel's Mother as the kin of Cain and placing monotheistic sentiments into the mouths of his characters. Although there are no direct references to Jesus in the text of the work, there are many indirect references. Also, the book of Genesis serves as a touchstone for the poem, since Grendel and Grendel's mother (due to their heritage) are seen as punished by the Curse And Mark Of Cain .Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library, ''Bible, King James. Genesis, from The holy Bible, King James version'' , Retrieved Dec. 4, 2006. Scholars disagree as to whether ''Beowulf'''s main thematic thrust is pagan or Christian in nature. Of particular note is the description of soldiers' helmets, decorated with boar-carvings, alongside references to God and Christ, such as when Beowulf is given up for lost in Grendel's Mere at the ninth hour, which was the time at which Christ dies on the cross in the Bible. This could possibly be evidence of Christian details being placed in the story alongside traditional accounts of ancient Germanic religious practices. However, the lack of a pre-Christian written version of the epic leaves the issue unresolved. Thus reflecting the above historical context, ''Beowulf'' depicts a Germanic warrior society, in which the relationship between the leader, or king, and his Thanes was of paramount importance. This relationship was defined in terms of provision and service; the thanes defended the interest of the king in return for material provisions: weapons, armor, gold, silver, food, and drinks. This society was strongly defined in terms of kinship; if a relative was killed it was the duty of surviving relatives to exact revenge upon his killer, either with his own life or with Weregild , a reparational payment. In fact, the hero's very existence owes itself to this fact, as his father Ecgþeow was banished for having killed Heaðolaf , a man from the prominent Wulfing Clan .Lines 460–1 He sought refuge at the court of Hroðgar who graciously paid the weregild. Ecgþeow did not return home, but became one of the Geatish King Hreðel 's housecarls and married his daughter, by whom he had Beowulf. The duty of avenging killed kinsmen became the undoing of king Hreðel, himself, because when his oldest son Herebeald was killed by his own brother Hæþcyn in a hunting accident, it was a death that could not be avenged. Hreðel died from the sorrow.Lines 2433–2471 Moreover, this is a world governed by fate and destiny. The belief that fate controls him is a central factor in all of Beowulf's actions. Beowulf (character)
See Also: Beowulf (hero) J. R. R. Tolkien argued that the name ''Beowulf'' means ''bee-hunter'' (literally, ''bee-wolf'') in Old English . The name ''Beowulf'' could therefore be a Kenning for " Bear " due to a bear's love of honey. Bees figure prominently in many mythologies in Europe and the Near East (see Bee (mythology) ). Jacob Grimm attributes the term "bee-hunter" to a type of woodpecker. Some scholars suggest that Beowulf could correspond to Bödvar Bjarki , the ''battle bear'', from Norse Sagas . Both left Geatland (where Bjarki's brother was king), arrived in Denmark and slew a beast that terrorized the Danish court. They also both helped the Swedish king Eadgils defeat his uncle Áli in the Battle On The Ice Of Lake Vänern . Author John Grigsby argued that the word ''Beowulf'' translates as 'Barley wolf' and links this character to ancient warrior cults of Indo-European tradition. R. D. Fulk and Joseph Harris suggest that the name is theophoric, related to the germanic god Beow, citing the rarity of kenning derived names and other similar names such as Gott-fried, Gott-lieb, Torsten(Thor-stone), the Norse þór-ólfr, and the English Tiu-wulf. Characters and objects as the hostess of the banquet]]
Story Jane Chance (Professor of English, '' in ''Proceedings of the British Academy 22'' (1936)." In contrast, she argued that the three-part structure has become "increasingly popular." First battle: Grendel ''Beowulf'' begins with the story of King Hroðgar , who built the great hall Heorot for his people. In it he, his wife Wealhþeow , and his warriors spend their time singing and celebrating, until Grendel , who is angered by the singing and an outcast from society, attacks the hall and kills and devours many of Hroðgar's warriors while they sleep. Hroðgar and his people, helpless against Grendel's attacks, abandon Heorot. Beowulf , a young warrior, hears of Hroðgar's troubles and with his king's permission then leaves his homeland to help Hroðgar. Beowulf and his men spend the night in Heorot . After they fall asleep, Grendel enters the hall and attacks, devouring one of Beowulf's men. But Grendel dare not touch the throne of Hroðgar, because he is protected by the almighty God. Beowulf, feigning sleep, leaps up and grabs Grendel's arm in a wrestling hold, and the two battle until it seems as though the hall might fall down due to their fighting. Beowulf's men draw their swords and rush to his help, but their swords break upon Grendel's arm due to the thorny spikes and iron-tough skin of the monster. Finally, Beowulf tears Grendel's arm from his body at the shoulder and Grendel runs to his home in the marshes to die. Second battle: Grendel's mother The next night, after celebrating Grendel's death, Hroðgar and his men sleep in Heorot. Grendel's Mother appears, however, and attacks the hall. She kills Hroðgar's most trusted warrior, Æschere , in revenge for Grendel's death. Hroðgar, Beowulf, and their men track Grendel's Mother to her lair under an eerie lake. Beowulf prepares himself for battle; he is presented with a sword, Hrunting , by a warrior called Unferð . After stipulating a number of conditions (upon his death) to Hroðgar (including the taking in of his kinsmen, and the inheritance by Unferð of Beowulf's estate), Beowulf dives into the lake. There, he is swiftly detected and attacked by Grendel's mother. Unable to harm Beowulf through his armour, Grendel's mother drags him to the bottom of the lake. There, in a cavern containing Grendel's body and the remains of many men that the two have killed, Grendel's mother and Beowulf engage in fierce combat. Grendel's mother at first prevails, after Beowulf, finding that the sword ( Hrunting ) given him by Unferð cannot harm his foe, discards it in fury. Again, Beowulf is saved from the effects of his opponent's attack by his armour and, grasping a mighty sword from Grendel's mother's armoury (which, the poem tells us, no other man could have hefted in battle), Beowulf beheads her. Travelling further into the lair, Beowulf discovers Grendel's corpse; he severs the head. Beowulf then returns to the surface and to his men at the "ninth hour" (l. 1600, "nōn", about 3pm). Jack, George. ''Beowulf: A Student Edition,'' p. 123 He returns to Heorot, where he is given many gifts by an even more grateful Hroðgar. Third battle: The dragon Beowulf returns home and eventually becomes king of his own people. One day, late in Beowulf's life, a slave steals a golden cup from a Dragon 's lair at Earnaness . When the dragon sees that the cup has been stolen, it leaves its cave in a rage, burning up everything in sight. Beowulf and his warriors come to fight the dragon, but only one of the warriors, a brave young man named Wiglaf , stays to help Beowulf, because the rest are too afraid. Beowulf kills the dragon with Wiglaf's help, but Beowulf dies from the wounds he has received. After he is Cremated , Beowulf is buried on a cliff overlooking the sea, where sailors are able to see his Barrow . The dragon's treasure is buried with him, rather than distributed to his people, as was Beowulf's wish, because of the curse associated with the hoard. LANGUAGE AND VERSE-FORM Beowulf is the longest poem that has come down to us from Old English, one of the languages ancestral to Modern English. It is seen as an Encomium , a song of praise for a great king: Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum In modern English: Lo! Of the Spear-Danes, in days of yore, Old English poetry such as Beowulf is very different from modern poetry. Although the Beowulf poem probably started out as an oral poem, the form we have today is highly literate and shows literary devices that only work for a literate audience. Instead of pairs of lines joined by rhyme (similarity of sounds at the ends of words), Anglo-Saxon poets typically used Alliteration - a technique in which the first half of the line (the a-verse) is linked to the second half (the b-verse) through similarity in initial sound. In addition, its use of Kennings is a literary concept as the wording can be poetic and difficult to understand when the poetry is being performed orally. Oft Scyld Scefing '''sc'''eaðena threatum A line of Old English poetry usually has three words that alliterate. The meter, or rhythm, of the poetry works together with the alliteration: The stress in a line falls on the first syllables of the words that alliterate, as in the line "weo'x under wo'lcnum, weo'rðmyndum þah." (He grew under the sky, he prospered in honours.) However, it must be noted that when alliterating, only stressed syllables are used, and thus, prefixes such as "ge-" do not count. For example, the word "gefrunon" might alliterate with "feond," but never with "gesyht." Also, the lines are divided into halves, and each half has two stressed syllables. There must be alliteration in the first half that carries over into the second half, but the fourth stressed syllable is never used for alliteration, though the first three stressed syllables will alliterate. Old English poets also used Kenning s, evocative poetic descriptions of everyday things, often created to fill the alliterative requirements of the meter. For example, a poet might call the sea the "swan-road" or the "whale-road"; a king might be called a "ring-giver." There are many kennings in Beowulf, and the device is typical of much of classic poetry in Old English, which is heavily formulaic. The name Beowulf itself may be a kenning, "bee-wolf," that is, "bear." These kennings work in much the same way as Epithet s and verbal formulae, as prefabricated diction for modular insertion into the basic structure of the Old English line. For example, in the speech-introducing-lines -- Beowulf maðelode bearn Ecgðeowes The poet has a choice of epithets or formulae to use in order to fulfill the alliteration. FORM The poem is in alliterative Measure , in which the alliterative unit is the line and the Metrical Unit is the half-line. Its poetic vocabulary included sets of metrical compounds that are varied according to alliterative needs. It also makes extensive use of Elided Metaphor s. The two halves of the poem are distinguished in many ways: youth, then age; Denmark, then Geatland ; the hall, then the barrow; public, then intimate; diverse, then focused. Here is a small sample including the first naming in the poem of Beowulf himself. After each line is translation to modern English. A freely-available translation of the poem, now out of copyright, is that of Francis Gummere. It can be had at Project Gutenberg . Project Gutenberg , ''Beowulf by Anonymous'' . Retrieved Dec. 4, 2006. OLD ENGLISH/GLOSSARIES AND MODERN ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS The first translation, by Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin and published in 1815, was to Latin , in connection with the first publication of his transcription. Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig , greatly unsatisfied with this translation, made the first translation into a modern language — Danish — which was published in 1820. After Grundtvig's travels to England came the first English translation, by J. M. Kemble in 1837. William Morris & A. J. Wyatt's translation was published in 1895. The next major translation, text on ''Beowulf'' consisting of the poem in Old English and an extensive glossary, is Frederick Klaeber 's classic ''Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg'' (first edition, 1922; last edition, 1950). Klaeber's edition is a "central source used by graduate students for the study of the poem and by scholars and teachers as the basis of their translations." Bloomfield, Josephine. Benevolent Authoritarianism in Klaeber's Beowulf: An Editorial Translation of Kingship. "Modern Language Quarterly 60:2, June 1999 Contemporary editions of the poem in Old English with glossaries include George Jack's ''Beowulf : A Student Edition'' (1997) and Bruce Mitchell's '' Beowulf: An Edition with Relevant Shorter Texts '' (1998). There have been numerous other translations of the poem in English. Some of the more well known include editions by Howell D. Chickering , E. Talbot Donaldson , C. L. Wrenn , Frederick Rebsamen , Burton Raffel , J. J. Earle , and R.M.Liuzza (2000). The poet Seamus Heaney published a popular poetic edition in 2000. J. R. R. Tolkien worked on both an incomplete verse translation and a complete prose translation of his own in the 1920s, but was satisfied with neither. There are also interpretations, if not translations, of Beowulf, including one written by Robert Nye . An online free verse translation was created by David Breeden {Link without Title} . BEOWULF IN ART See Also: List of artistic depictions of Beowulf ''Beowulf'' has been adapted a number of times for the cinema, the stage, and in books. Most recently, it was loosely adapted into the 2005 film '' Beowulf & Grendel '', and it will be the subject of an upcoming 2007 film, '' Beowulf '', written by Roger Avary and Neil Gaiman . While some of the film remains true to the original poem, other plot elements, such as those surrounding Grendel's Mother , deviate from the original poem. Director's interview FURTHER READING Scholarship:
Guides to Old English:
Versions in Old English:
Modern English translations:
Dual-Language Editions:
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