Where did the first events of Beowulf potentially occur?
The tradition of Germanic heroic legend consists of 3,182 alliterative lines in Beowulf.It is one of the most important 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.The anonymous author is called the "Beowulf poet".The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century.The king of the Danes, Hrothgar, is under attack by a monster, and Beowulf comes to his aid.After Beowulf slays him, his mother attacks the hall and is defeated.In modern Sweden, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats.Beowulf is mortally wounded in the battle fifty years later.His attendants erected a tower on a headland in his memory after he died.
If Beowulf was composed early in pagan times, the paganism is central and the Christian elements were added later, it would affect its interpretation.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.
Modern poetry is constructed very differently from Anglo-Saxon poetry.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 poetic descriptions were 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-shape servant Bodvar Bjarki, and the international folktale the Bear's SonThere are attempts to link Beowulf to stories from Homer's Odyssey and Aeneid.There are clear allusions to the books of Genesis, Exodus, and Daniel.
The Nowell Codex contains a single copy of the poem.It has no title in the original manuscript, but has become known by the name of the story's main character.Sir Robert Cotton's collection of medieval manuscripts was damaged in a fire in London in 1731.The margins were charred and some readings were lost.The British Library houses the Nowell Codex.The poem was first translated into English in 1805 and nine complete translations were made in the 19th century, including those by John Mitchell Kemble and William Morris.Hundreds of translations, whether into prose, rhyming verse or alliterative verse, were made from 1900 to 1900.Some of the best-known modern translations are those of Burton Raffel, Michael J. Alexander, Roy Liuzza, and Seamus Heaney.J.R. R. Tolkien worked on a verse and a prose translation of Beowulf.
There are no English characters in the poem, which takes place over most of the sixth century.The Wuffingas may have been descendants of the Geatish Wulfings, and it is thought that Beowulf was written in the 7th century at Rendlesham.The court of King Alfred the Great has been associated with this poem.[8]
The poem is made up of fictional, legendary and historic elements.Many of the figures named in Beowulf appear in Scandinavian sources, even though Beowulf himself is not mentioned in any other Anglo-Saxon manuscript.This concerns not only individuals, but also clans.Gregory of Tours in his History of the Franks mentions the raid by King Hygelac into Frisia.[2]
Recent archaeological excavations at Lejre, where the seat of the Scyldings, Heorot, is located, have shown that a hall was built in the 6th century, matching the period described in Beowulf.Three halls, each about 160 ft long, were found during the excavation.[13]
King Hrogar and the Scyldings in Beowulf are based on historical people from 6th-century Scandinavia, according to the majority view.Like the Finnesburg Fragment and several shorter surviving poems, Beowulf has been used as a source of information about continental Germanic figures such as Offa, king of the continental Angles.It was [13].
The Beowulf story may be confirmed by 19th-century archaeological evidence.Snorrilus Sturon said that Eadgils was buried in Sweden.When the western mound was excavated in 1874, it was found that a powerful man was buried in a large barrow with two dogs and rich grave offerings.The eastern mound was excavated in 1854 and contained the remains of a woman and a young man.The middle barrow has not been excavated.[15][14]
The hero of the Geats, Beowulf, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of Danes, who is fighting a monster in the great hall.Beowulf kills Grendel with his bare hands, then kills his mother with a giant's sword.
Beowulf became king of the Geats after a dragon stole some of his treasure from a burial mound.He attacks the dragon with the help of his thegns, but they don't succeed.Wiglaf, Beowulf's young Swedish relative, is the only one who dares to join him in following the dragon.Beowulf is mortally wounded in the battle to slay the dragon.A burial mound by the sea is built in his honor.
The main character in Beowulf is a hero who travels great distances to prove his strength against demons and beasts.The poem begins in the middle of things, a characteristic of the epics of antiquity.The poem begins with Beowulf's arrival.There is an elaborate history of characters and their families, as well as their interactions with each other, debts owed and repaid, and deeds of valour.The warriors are linked by loyalty to their lord.The poem begins and ends with funerals at the beginning and end.[20]
The poem is structured in a way that makes sense.In a model of its major components, E. Carrigan shows the symmetry of it's design, with examples of the killing of Grendel and the dragon matching accounts from the Danes and Geatish courts.[16]
The great hall, Heorot, was built by Hrothgar for himself and his warriors.He, his wife Wealhtheow, and his warriors celebrate in it.A troll-like monster is pained by the sounds of joy.Hrothgar's warriors are killed and eaten by Grendel while they sleep.Heorot was abandoned by Hrothgar and his people.
With his king's permission, Beowulf left his homeland to help Hrothgar.[22]
Heorot is where Beowulf and his men spend the night.Beowulf doesn't use a weapon because he holds himself to be the same as Grendel.When Grendel enters the hall, Beowulf, who has been faking sleep, leaps up and clenches his hand.The two Beowulfs battle each other violently.Beowulf's retainers rush to his aid, but their swords can't pierce his skin.After Beowulf tears Grendel's arm from his body, he runs to his home in the marsh where he dies.For all to see at Heorot, Beowulf displays the whole of Grendel's shoulder and arm.The display would make the mother angry.[28]
Hrothgar and his men sleep in Heorot the next night.The mother is angry that her son has been killed.Beowulf was somewhere else.The Geat was given another lodging after the award of treasure.schere is Hrothgar's most loyal fighter and his mother violently killed him.
Hrothgar, Beowulf, and their men are looking for Grendel's mother.Unfer presented Beowulf with his sword Hrunting.After stipulating a number of conditions to Hrothgar in case of his death (including taking in his kinsmen and the inheritance by Unferth of Beowulf's estate), Beowulf jumps into the lake.Beowulf and his mother engage in fierce combat as Grendel's mother pulls him in.
Hrunting tried to kill Beowulf with a short sword, but Beowulf was saved by his armour.Beowulf saw another sword hanging on the wall and cut her head off with it.Beowulf discovers the corpse of Grendel and severs his head with a sword.The blade melted because of the monster's hot blood.Beowulf swims up to the edge of the lake where his men are waiting.Upon his return to Heorot, he presents the sword and head to Hrothgar.The sword Ngling is one of the gifts Hrothgar gives Beowulf.The events prompt a long reflection by the king, in which he encourages Beowulf to be wary of pride and to reward his thegns.30
Beowulf becomes king of his own people when he returns home.Fifty years after Beowulf's battle with his mother, a slave stole a golden cup from a dragon.When the dragon sees that the cup has been taken, it burns everything in sight.Beowulf tells his men that he will fight the dragon alone and that they should wait on the barrow.Beowulf tries to fight the dragon, but is outmatched.His men retreat into the woods after seeing this and fearing for their lives.In distress at Beowulf's plight, one of his men, Wiglaf, came to his aid.Beowulf is mortally wounded as the two slay the dragon.Wiglaf is grieving after Beowulf dies.Wiglaf blamed their cowardice for Beowulf's death when the rest of the men returned.After Beowulf is ritually burned on a pyre in Geatland, his people wail and mourn him, fearing that they will not be protected against attacks from surrounding tribes.A barrow, visible from the sea, is built in his memory.[31][32]
The main story is apparent in the poem.They were found to be problematic by early Beowulf scholars such as W. P. Ker, who stated that they "clog the action and distract attention from it"."Intervals".For instance, Beowulf's swimming home across the sea from Frisia carrying thirty sets of armour can be explained as an introduction to the main story.The Scyld narrative at the start is one of the four groups that can be divided.In The Lord of the Rings, a work that embodies many other elements from the poem, the digressions provide a powerful impression of historical depth.[45]
There are differing opinions as to whether Beowulf was first written in the 8th century, whether it was nearly contemporary with its eleventh century manuscript, and whether a version of the Bear's Son Tale was transmitted before being written.Albert Lord felt that the manuscript was a representation of the performance that was taken more than one sitting.The poem is thought to have been written more than a few generations after the completion of the Christianisation of England around AD 700.It was Fulk.An analysis of several Old English poems by a team suggests that Beowulf is the work of a single author.[52]
The claim to an early 11th-century date depends on scholars who argue that Beowulf reflects an original interpretation of an earlier version of the story by the manuscript's two scribes.Some scholars argue that linguistic, palaeographical, metrical, and onomastic considerations align to support a date of composition in the first half of the eighth century.However, scholars disagree about whether the metrical phenomena described by Kaluza's Law prove an early date of composition or are evidence of a longer prehistory of the Beowulfmetre.Hutcheson doesn't believe Kaluza's Law can be used to date the poem, while claiming that the weight of all the evidence Fulk presents in his book tells strongly in favor of an eighth-century date.[57]
Craig R. Davis suggests a composition date in the AD 890s, when King Alfred of England secured the submission of Guthrum, leader of a division of the Great Heathen Army of Danes, and of Aethelred.The trend of appropriating Gothic royal ancestry, established in Francia during Charlemagne's reign, influenced the Anglian kingdoms of Britain to attribute to themselves a Geatish descent.In Alfred's policy of asserting authority over the Angelcynn, Scyldic descent was attributed to the West-Saxon royal family.The date of composition agrees with the idea of a West-Saxon example.[58]
The location of the poem is disputed.F.W. was born in 1914.E. Talbot Donaldson claims that Beowulf was written in the first half of the eighth century and that the author was a native of Yorkshire.The kingdom of the West Saxons is where the late tenth-century manuscript "which alone preserves the poem" originated.60
The manuscript Beowulf was written in was damaged by fire.The manuscript is more than 200 x 185 cm.61
The poem is only known from a single manuscript and appears with other works.The beginning of the reign of Sweyn's son Cnut the Great from 1016 is depicted in the manuscript.The Nowell Codex is the name of the Beowulf manuscript.The British Library was one of Sir Robert Bruce Cotton's holdings in the 17th century.Sir Robert Cotton used his own library classification systems.The bust of Roman Emperor Vitellius is on top of the bookcase in Cotton's collection.In 1563, Nowell entered Cecil's household as a tutor to Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, according to Kevin Kiernan.[62]
Franciscus Junius made the earliest reference to the Nowell Codex sometime between 1628 and 1650.A mystery surrounds the ownership of the codex before Nowell.[63]
The Cotton library was where the Nowell Codex was held.Wanley's catalogue appeared in 1705.In an exchange of letters between George Hickes and Wanley in 1700, the Beowulf manuscript was identified by name for the first time.Smith was accused by Wanley of failing to mention the Beowulf script when cataloging CottonMS.I can't find anything yet of Beowulph.According to Kiernan, Smith failed to mention the Beowulf manuscript because of his reliance on previous catalogues or because he had no idea how to describe it.66
The manuscript was passed to Crown ownership in 1702 after the death of its owner, Sir John Cotton.Around a quarter of Cotton's manuscripts were destroyed in a fire at Ashburnham House in 1731.The manuscript has crumbled along with many of the letters.Rebinding efforts have caused further loss by covering up other letters of the poem.In preparing his electronic edition of the manuscript, Kiernan used fibre-optic backlighting and ultraviolet lighting to reveal letters lost from binding, erasure, or ink blotting.[68]
The first 1939 lines of Beowulf were written by one of the two scribes who transcribed the original manuscript.The spelling of the original document was regularized in order to remove any archaic features.The second scribe, who wrote the rest with a different handwriting after line 1939, seems to have written more vigorously and with less interest.Modern scholars can ascribe the poem to a cultural context because the second scribe's script retains more archaic features.There are many errors in the work of both scribes.The second scribe was the more conservative copyist as he did not modify the spelling of the text but copied what he saw in front of him.The Beowulf manuscript is followed by the Old English poem Judith.The writing style of Judith is similar to that of Beowulf.There are holes in the last leaves of the Beowulf manuscript that are missing from the Judith manuscript.It is believed that the manuscript stood on a shelf unbound, as was the case with other Old English manuscripts.Knowledge of books held in the library at Malmesbury Abbey and available as source works, as well as the identification of certain words particular to the local dialect of the text, suggest that the transcription may have taken place there.71
The practice of oral poetry is invisible to history as evidence in writing.A vision of how an Anglo-Saxon singer-poet or scop may have practised is provided by comparison with other bodies of verse.The model shows that performance was based on traditional stories and word formulae.The basic story and style remained the same, as the scop moved through the scenes, such as putting on armour or crossing the sea, each one improvised at each telling with differing combinations of the stock phrases.In his translation, Beowulf describes the technique of a court poet in assembling materials, "full of grand stories, aware of songs, and found other words truly bound together.""The harp was touched, tales often told, when Hrothgar's scop was set to recite among the mead tables his hall-entertainment", states the poem.[74]
The question of whether Beowulf was passed down through oral tradition prior to its present manuscript form has been the subject of much debate.The question concerns how the poem is to be understood, and what sorts of interpretations are legitimate, given the implications of the theory of oral-formulaic composition and oral tradition.It was proven in Albert Lord's landmark 1960 work, The Singer of Tales, that Beowulf was composed orally.Some scholars believe that the "hero on the beach" and "arming the hero" are themes that exist across Germanic works.There are "kernels of tradition" which Beowulf expands upon in Germanic literature.The imperfect application of one theory to two different traditions was argued against by Ann Watts.The Beowulf text is too varied to be completely constructed from set formulae and themes according to Thomas Gardner.In his view, there was a fluid continuum from traditionality to textuality.[85]
The most influential editions of the Old English text of Beowulf have been published.
The first Beowulf-manuscript transcriptions were made by Grmur Jnsson Thorkelin in 1786.He made one himself, and had another done by a professional copyist who knew no Old English, but in other ways was more likely to copy exactly what he saw.These transcripts are prized witnesses to the text since the manuscript has crumbled further.While the recovery of at least 2000 letters can be attributed to them, their accuracy has been called into question and the extent to which the manuscript was actually more readable is uncertain.The first complete edition of Beowulf was based on these transcriptions.[88]
The central source used by graduate students for the study of the poem and by scholars and teachers as the basis of their translations was the 1922 edition of Beowulf and The Fight at Finnsburg.An extensive glossary of Old English terms was included in the edition.His third edition was published in 1936 and the last version in his lifetime was a revised edition in 1950.The text was re-presented in a fourth edition in 2008.92
Elliott Van Kirk Dobbie's edition was published in the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records series.The first and fourth editions of Electronic Beowulf were published by the British Library.[68]
The structure of Old English poetry makes it difficult to translate.There are many translations and adaptation in poetry and prose.The Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies published Marijane Osborn's annotated list of over 300 translations and adaptations in 2003 while Andy Orchard listed 33 "representative" translations in A Critical Companion to Beowulf.Beowulf has been translated many times in verse and prose.By 2020, the Beowulf's Afterlives Bibliographic Database had 688 translations and other versions of the poem.At least 38 other languages have been translated into Beowulf.97 and 96 were the years.
Sharon Turner translated selected verse into English in 1805.John Conybeare published an edition in English and Latin in 1814.The first complete verse translation in Danish was created in 1820.John Mitchell Kemble created a translation in English.The ninth English translation was published in 1895.[88]
The full translation of Francis Barton Gummere's "English imitative metre" was published in 1909 and used as the text of the graphic novel based on Beowulf.John Porter published the first complete verse translation of the poem in 1975.The 1999 translation of the poem "Heaneywulf" by Seamus Heaney was praised and criticized.The US publication was included in the anthology of English literature.There were many versions of Beowulf for children in the 20th century.100
In 2000 he published his own version of Beowulf in a parallel text with the Old English, with his analysis of the poem's historical, oral, religious and linguistic contexts.The entire Nowell Codex manuscript was translated and published by R. D. Fulk, of Indiana University.Hugh Magennis's Translating Beowulf: Modern Versions in English Verse discusses the challenges and history of translation, as well as the question of how to approach its poetry.Translating Beowulf is a subject of the 2012 publication Beowulf at Kalamazoo, which contains a section with 10 essays on translation, and one with 22 reviews of Heaney's translation.The translation was edited by Christopher, and was published as Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary.The incomplete and unpublished verse translation of the story of Beowulf is not included in the book.Maria Dahvana Headley wrote The Mere Wife.The action is relocated to a wealthy community in America in the 20th century and told from the point of view of the mother.Headley published a translation of the opening "Hwt!" in 2020.It is rendered as "Bro!".[118]
Many assumptions have been made about the sources and analogues of Beowulf.These are important in helping historians understand the Beowulf manuscript, as possible source-texts or influences would suggest time-frames of composition, geographic boundaries within which it could be composed, or range (both spatial and temporal) of influence.When it was popular and where it took it.The poem is related to several folkloric sources.[d][118]
According to 19th century studies, Beowulf was translated from a lost original Nordic work.In 1886, it was suggested that an Old Norse original version of Beowulf must have existed, but in 1914, Carl von Sydow pointed out that Beowulf was written at a time when any Norse tale would have been pagan.In 1998, Magns Fjalldal challenged that another proposal was a parallel to the Grettis Saga.The story of Bodvar Bjarki and his servant, the legendary bear-shapeshifter, has been suggested as a possible parallel to the tale of Hrolf Kraki.There are 122 and 123 words.
The Bear's Son Tale (Brensohnmrchen) type, which has surviving examples all over, was incorporated into the first part of Beowulf.The international folktale type 301 is now called "The Three Stolen Princesses", although the "Bear's Son" is still used in Beowulf criticism.Although this folkloristic approach was seen as a step in the right direction, "The Bear's Son" tale is not a viable choice.The two-troll tradition covers both Beowulf and Grettis saga, in which a hero enters a cave and kills two giants.128
The Irish folktale "The Hand and the Child" was noted by Albert S. Cook in 1899.The folktale type demonstrated a "monstrous arm" that was similar to Beowulf's wrenching.In the Bear's Son Tale and Grettis saga, no such correspondence could be seen.James and Martin agree with the "Hand and the Child" contextualisation.The "Hand and the Child" theory was supported by Puhvel through motifs such as the more powerful giant mother, mysterious light in the cave, the melting of the sword in blood, and battle rage.Pryderi, the main character of the cycle, was discovered by Teyrnon after cutting off the arm of a monstrous beast which was stealing foals from his stables.The medievalist notes that the tearing off of the monster's arm is only found in Beowulf, and that there are twelve parallels between the tale and Beowulf.[134]
Most attempts to find classical or Late Latin influence in Beowulf are linked to Homer's Odyssey or Aeneid.Albert S. Cook suggested a Homeric connection in the late 19th century.James A. was born in 1930.The Homeric influence was supported by the fact that the encounter between Beowulf and Unferth was similar to the one between Odysseus and Euryalus in the Odyssey.The theory of Homer's influence on Beowulf began to die out in the following decade when a handful of critics stated that the two works were merely "comparative literature".Bede claims that several English scholars and churchmen are proficient in Greek because they were taught by him.[137]
The very act of writing a secular epic in a Germanic world is believed to have influenced Beowulf.Latin was the dominant literary language of England at the time, so it's highly likely that Virgilian influence was present.The apologue technique used in Beowulf is so rare that the poet who composed the poem could not have written it in such a way without first reading Virgil's writings.[139]
Biblical parallels can be seen in the text, whether seen as a pagan work with Christian coloring, or a Christian historical novel, with selected bits of paganism deliberately laid on as 'local colour'.There are references to the Genesis creation narrative in Beowulf, as well as the story of Noah and the flood.[140]
Like other Old English poems copied at the time, Beowulf uses the West Saxon dialect.Some scholars believe that it has survived a long and complicated transmission through all the main dialect areas because it uses many other linguistic forms.It has a complicated mix of Saxon forms.It was 142, 63, and 141.
Modern poetry is very different from an Old English poem.Alliterative verse is a form of verse in which the first half of the line is linked to the second half through similarity in initial sound.The two halves are divided by a caesura.The metrical positions are mapped onto stressed and un stressed syllables.The first one has three beats, the second has two, but there is no fixed number of beats per line.[144]
The poet had a choice of formulae.A half-line of the chanted poem contained these memorised phrases that conveyed a general and commonly-occurring meaning."waxed under welkin" is an example of line 8's weox."He grew up under the heavens", line 11's gomban gyldan, "pay tribute" and "Young in the yards""Young in the courts", and line 14's "as a comfort to his people".146
There are significant techniques in Beowulf.They are evocative poetic descriptions of everyday things.A poet might call the sea the "swan's riding"; a king might be called a "ring-giver."The device used in the poem is typical of many of the classic poems in Old English.The poem uses a lot of elided metaphors.[148]
The history of modern Beowulf criticism is said to begin with the 1936 lecture to the British Academy by the author and Professor of Anglo-Saxon at the University of Oxford.In Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics, he argued that the poem's literary value had been largely overlooked because it was so powerful.[151]
The Christian Anglo-Saxons who recorded the poem mostly converted from their native paganism around the 7th century, despite the historical events that took place before the Christianisation of Scandinavia.The relationship between the lord of the region and those who served under him was of paramount importance in the depiction of a Germanic warrior society.[153]
The relationship between characters in Beowulf to God has a lot of paganism in it.Fred C. Robinson believes that Beowulf tries to send a message to readers about the state of Christianity during the Anglo-Saxon time period.Robinson believes that the way in which the poet alludes to paganism is shaped by the religious aspects of the Anglo-Saxon period.The poet wants Anglo-Saxon readers to be aware of the imperfect aspects of their supposed Christian lifestyles.The poet is referring to anglo-Saxon Heathenism.Robinson argues that readers are "impressed" by the bravery of Beowulf and the speeches of Hrothgar in the epic.One is left to feel sorry for the men as they are completely detached from the Christian truth.Readers and literary critics debate the relationship between the characters of Beowulf and the overall message of the poet.154
According to Richard North, the first audience of Beowulf liked to hear stories about people who were classified, as the poem would have served as a form of entertainment for a Christian audience.The Danes were seen as 'heathens' by the Anglo-Saxons rather than as foreigners.Donaldson wrote that the poet who put the materials into their present form was a Christian.60
Some scholars disagree as to whether Beowulf is a Christian work.The question suggests that the conversion from the Germanic pagan beliefs to Christian ones was a lengthy and gradual process over several centuries, and it remains unclear the ultimate nature of the poem's message in respect to religious belief at the time it was written.The basis for these questions is described by Robert F. Yeager.