Beowulf Epic Poem

Beowulf THE OLDEST ENGLISH EPIC

Translated into Alliterative Verse with a Critical Introduction by CHARLES W. KENNEDY
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS Oxford London New York

(The full version of Beowulf can be found at Questia's Online Libary by clicking here and searching for BEOWULF).

INTRODUCTION

THE Old English Beowulf holds a unique place as the oldest epic narrative in any modern European tongue. Of unknown authorship, and dating in all probability from the early eighth century, the poem gives brilliant presentment of the spirit and embodiment of the heroic tradition. Illuminating studies of the Beowulf , in comparatively recent years, by Ker, Lawrence, Chambers, Klaeber, Malone, and others, have brought increasing appraisal of the extent to which Scandinavian backgrounds are reflected in its material, literary tradition in its structure, and Christian influence in its spirit.

Of the circumstances under which the Beowulf was composed we actually know little, though it is possible to trace with some degree of clearness the evolution of the material from which the poem is shaped. Portions of this material must have originally circulated by oral transmission. The poem itself may well have been developed from an earlier series of epic lays, though no one of these lays has survived. In any case, as Ker has pointed out, the Beowulf , in the form in which it has come down to us, is a single, unified poem. It is, he writes, 1 'an extant book, whatever the history of its composition may have been; the book of the adventures of Beowulf, written out fair by two scribes in the tenth century; an epic poem, with a prologue at the beginning and a judgment pronounced on the life of the hero at the end; a single book, considered as such by its transcribers, and making a claim to be so considered.'

In the light which modern critical scholarship has focussed upon the Beowulf , it has come to be recognized that we have here a poem of cultivated craftsmanship, sophisticated rather than primitive in form, and definitely influenced by literary and religious tradition. The influence of the Christian faith is marked and pervasive. There are evidences, also, which seem to support opinion that the author of the Beowulf was familiar with the works of Virgil, and that the structure and development of the poem were influenced by epic tradition as illustrated in the Aeneid.

The material of which the narrative is shaped is, in large measure, the material not of primitive English, but of primitive Scandinavian life. In the weaving of the narrative the warp is, in part at least, fashioned from the stuff of Continental chronicle and legend. Names of early Swedish kings, repeatedly mentioned in the Beowulf , have correspondence to names of kings listed in the ninth-centuryYnglinga tal . Names and incidents in the poem relating to the ruling house of the Danes have their analogues in the Skjoldungasaga , and in the Gesta Danorum of Saxo Grammaticus. The disastrous expedition against the Franks of 516, in which Beowulf's uncle, Hygelac, was slain, is set forth in the Historia Francorum of Gregory of Tours, who wrote within seventy years of the events described, and in the eighth-centuryLiber Historiae Francorum .

Into this background are woven dark legends of savage feuds of the Continental tribes, feuds of the Danes and Frisians, the Danes and Heathobards, the Geats and Swedes. At Beowulf's death, the prophecy of Swedish dominion over the Geats derives its tragic foreboding from chanted memories of the bitter tribal battle at Ravenswood. The songs of the minstrel in Hrothgar's hall were fashioned from ancient Continental lays: the dragon-fight of Sigemund, the Volsung; the disastrous battle of Danes and Frisians at Finnsburg.

In a setting shaped of these elements the poet has developed a narrative, the material of which is derived from Continental folk-tale. The haunting of Hrothgar's hall by the night-prowling monster, Grendel, and the troll-wife, his mother; the adventurous journey of Beowulf, the Geat, to Dane-land, and his triumph over the monsters; these central themes in the narrative have their analogues in various versions of the European folk-tale of 'The Bear's Son.' Certain Scandinavian tales of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, the Grettissaga , the Samsonssaga , the Hrolfssaga , and others, include elements which show resemblance to this basic material of the Beowulf , and the resemblance is sufficiently unmistakable to indicate dependence of both the Beowulf and the sagas upon the same or similar Scandinavian sources.

(The full version of Beowulf''s Introduction can be found at Questia's Online Libary by clicking here and searching for BEOWULF).