Beowulf Flashcards
Why would the English compose a poem describing the valorous deeds of the Danes who began raiding England in 793, who later harried England again in the time of Alfred, who later conquered the English throne in 1016 (around the time of the MS’s production)?
One option: it was written earlier. But if it’s later, as many think it is, I believe it could have to do with the noble-pagan figure, to borrow from the idea of the noble savage.. A bit like the lion that guards Una in Book 1 of the Faerie Queene–limited to a lower law or a lesser spiritual light, the pagan capable of generosity or valor would be an excellent rebuke for a selfish or weak Christian king–who ought to know better.
Why does Beowulf get place of primacy when it survives in one MS when OE homilies or saints’ lives are noncanonical though we have numerous MSS for texts like these?
Maybe it’s the opposite of our experience with Shakespeare plays like Hamlet and Romeo & Juliet. With Shakespeare, when we’re working from divergent editions of a single play, there’s some permission for editors to mix and match and create Shakespeare. Beowulf, it turns out, doesn’t have quite the same mechanism to mask its distance from us. It can mean radically different things depending on when it was written, how the story developed, the sources used by the monks, even parts damaged by fire–it holds out so much but resists us. Speaking of it in strictly aesthetic terms, for me, this dramatically increases its power to haunt–because the poem itself is about loss and a kind of futility. The closest experience in my mind is the (CITE other medieval fragment)
Is this poem praising or condemning of the actions of Beowulf, etc.?
The poem? Now we’re speaking about the poem as an organic whole–something that seems to have started with Tolkien’s “The Monsters and the Critics.” Looking at it as an organic whole, then, I’ll say the poem is ultimately praising, but suffused with ambivalence that sometimes comes to the fore (he goes “to the judgment of the righteous”; or the way his mighty deeds seem doomed to ultimately come to naught). But if we’re looking the various possibilities of the work’s authorial history, we could think about a layering of affective sediment, in which an oral tale (originating perhaps before, during, or after Viking invasions 793-820’s) is praising–and the monkish transcriptions reigning some of that in. But if that’s the case, even the monks must have been somewhat fond of Beowulf–the transcription process was incredibly painstaking–it’s done with such care–there’s something tender in that. Beowulf seeks fame and ultimately a kind of immortality through great deeds (like Aeneas, although that story wasn’t known at the time) and the monks are helping him obtain that. They aren’t effacing him as punishment–condemnation for Beowulf’s character takes the form of OBLIVION and the monks stop that.
Beowulf: Bible, Christianity
- There are references to Old Testament/Hebrew Bible figures (Cain, the Flood, mainly), but no obvious reference to New Testament/Christian Bible figures. Some say this is an intentional representation of Hrothgar’s Danes/Beowulf’s Geats as pre-Christian societies (they are referred to as heathens within the poem).
Beowulf: Tolkien
“The Monsters and the Critics”; written on eve of WWII; the darkness will always return; treats as organic whole
Beowulf: material, textual culture of the time
Poetry is in full bloom throughout this period; we have a great number of lyrics (NEED example) surviving from this time, and there’s no question this is only the tip of the iceberg, so poetry in its various forms must have been absolutely everywhere. NEED more on source of surviving manuscripts.
Beowulf: women (not Grendel’s mother)
Hildeburh (the entire Finn’s episode is examined through her experience of it— losing husband, brother, son, adopted people, new home, place in society, etc), Weahltheow (name means ‘foreign slave,’ she is likely a peace-weaver wife, the wealh root is the same as Wales, meaning the place of the foreigner), the lady with bound hair at the end (who sings the funeral song and harbors the fear of annihilation in her heart), (Mod)Thryth (a mini-version of Taming of the Shrew within the poem).
Beowulf: women (Grendel’s mother)
She doesn’t transgress the law but she does transgress gender lines. She is a female monster–also a maternal monster. Her wer-gild [man-price, revenge price] for the arm of her son should be allowable by law, so her monstrosity comes from two places–she made Grendel, gave life to him–and she is a woman demanding her pound of flesh. She’s like SHYLOCK. Her demands conform to the letter of the law but the spirit of the law intervenes against the disenfranchised in both cases–Shylock the Jew and Grendel’s mother the woman. She doesn’t have a NAME, just Grendel’s mom.
Beowulf: monsters
This is not a period of history in which you can easily afford to take the idea of monsters lightly. Not just because there were less buffers between us and the types of immediate disaster or calamity that could befall (no modern medicine, less leisure time to fill with distractions from core human concerns, consistent concern about war, a strong religious ideology that consoles and uplifts and leverages and abuses, etc.) Monsters are threats at the borders of society, of what is established, of what is known.
Beowulf: storytelling and oral tradition
NEED: Look into Grendel’s categorization as monster—as he first appears and as he appears retrospectively, relative to the subsequent encounter(s).
Beowulf: nature
- Disorder and chaos of human nature, which social order cannot restrain or channel
- Monsters: forces going beyond your understanding
Beowulf: history, memory
- Nostalgia
- COMMEMORATING the past—we must remember the glories, everything comes to naught.
- Beowulf strives to gain immortality through deeds. Are the monks condemning? But they are ensuring that immortality–they are helping Beowulf obtain what he desires.
Beowulf: ideology
- Failure of social order
- Glory (countered by futility): extend your fame through deeds
Beowulf: community
- Meade Hall – HUEROT
- MONSTERS live on the edge of society
Beowulf: justice, law
- The dragon monstrous because it hoards; does not distribute wealth by giving gifts
- Grendel’s mother & Shylock
