More information on Beowulf

Beowulf and epics

• Answering the common assumption that the world must be protected in ways from evil

Celtic and Anglo-Saxon mythology

• All mythology is an answer to common human question or yearning - that is why it is all so similar in so many cultures• The movement to an Anglo-Saxon culture from a Celtic culture -

Middle Earth, Tom Bombadil indicates that something has gone before

Ubi Sunt

• One of the huge themes of Anglo-Saxon literature that is present in LOTR is the idea of Ubi Sunt – where are they now.

• Thus, through reading LOTR – Readers have an incentive to go back and read Beowulf and The Wanderer.

• Beowulf is called by Harold Bloom – The Fortunate Survivor

Writing of Beowulf

• Its story is the product of centuries – both before and following

• It was written and rewritten during the times of the Anglo-Saxons in Britain.

Ruins

• The Romans left many ruins – huge ruins when they fled the island and it is this that the writer of Beowulf refers to when he talks of buildings from the time of the giants.

Sutton Hoo

• When Rome left – there is still communication with England - evidence one of the oldest archaeological Anglo-Saxons ships uncovered at Sutton Hoo in England contained a Greek plate and Roman coins from the 600s

Anglo-Saxons - Pagan

• The Anglo-Saxons were pagan – thus the monk who wrote the Bible in Latin was descended very recently from Pagan ancestors.

Bede - Chronicle of England

• The most famous monk – Bede who wrote a history of Anglo-Saxon England and was the first to start dating historical events from the birth of Christ – explored this clash of civilizations between the pagans and the Christians.

Historical Evidence

• There is actual historical evidence that Beowulf may have been one of those histories that turned into a story to account actual events – Beowulf’s uncle – Higlac is mentioned by in a historical chronicle of the history of the Franks as having died in 520 AD.

• The only manuscript we have of Beowulf that survives is from the 900s – the gap of time between the actual events in Beowulf and the writing of the manuscript is a huge cultural gap – the writer went from having a mostly pagan audience to a mainly Christian one – but the heroes in Beowulf are still pagan.

• Hrothgar’s people in Beowulf are pagan and were the actual ancestors of the Anglo-Saxon kings. Epics usually follow nobility.

Melding

• The huge gap is that the poet of Beowulf would have had the enlightenment of Christianity

• But Beowulf is Old Testament

• Grendel descends from Cain

• Poet includes the northern virtues of warriors with the virtues of southern Christianity.

Beowulf is a quest romance

Starts out in a normal world – a court sometimes, all is well, usually people of some famous quality are mentioned – there is order, law, certainty

• Hero receives a challenge or quest

• Hero goes out into the wilderness to encounter the supernatural, monsters, all sorts of challenges

• Hero returns triumphant – but scarred, order is restored but following tradition of Beowulf – there is no happily ever after – life catches up in some sort of sadness. Beowulf dies at end.

Negative Impact on Fame

• In 800AD an Anglo-Saxon monk wrote to complain to Rome that his fellow monks were reading and singing songs from pagan books – specifically Beowulf – hence they believe that the poem was changed as the monks needed a good rationale for the poem – so there is emphasis in that last part on the transience, impermanent of power, wealth, and worldly fame.

• Beowulf offers a negative experience of fame – lessons from the Christian faith.

• The sadness is that Beowulf committed himself to a fame that doesn’t last.

• The theme in Anglo-Saxon poetry is again the theme of Ubi Sunt – where are they that have gone before.

• English poetry is the oldest and first vernacular poetry in Europe – Alfred the Great

Survival

• Beowulf only survives by accident as another example of Anglo-Saxon poetry called the Vercelli – which ended up in Italy – contains The Dream of the Rood. The idea is that a pilgrim traveling through Italy left the book and it ended up in an Italian monastery – Lucky accident.

• Many manuscripts were destroyed in England during the reformation in Henry VIII’s time.

History

• Beowulf has an interesting history – it was originally Mercian – the text that survives was written during Alfred the Great’s literary Renaissance in the 800s

• Beowulf ended up in a library that burnt in the 1700s. the manuscript is water stained and parts of it are unreadable due to the burns on it.

1833

• 1833 – first translation of Beowulf – due in part to the writing of the Oxford English Dictionary – Editors of the dictionary needed the old texts to be in print in order to cite them so many were published.

• This also made the manuscripts available for study and Beowulf was studied in three ways

• 1 – As a means of boosting nationalism

• 2 – an archive of Old English language

• 3 – following Jacob Grimm’s example in Germany – to preserve folklore

1936

• Tolkien changes all this in 1936 – literary appreciation

• Argued for it to be included in the syllabus

• Leapt from the preserve to readers

• Tolkien guaranteed the longevity of Beowulf

• Bilbo – Beowulf – fights the dragon

• Bjorn is a shape shifter in the Hobbit who too represent Beowulf – bee-wolf or bear

• LOTR contains recognizable characters from Beowulf

• Theoden – Hrothgar

• Gollum – Grendel

In film

• Michael Crichton recreated Beowulf in his book Eaters of the Dead – film was the 13th Warrior

• Film adaptations – Beowulf has been badly served.

Literature Now

• The difference in the literary tradition is that now much of what you read and see is tinged by the great classic poet Ovid – his idea was that every story must contain a love interest – Beowulf does not.

• Beowulf is also famous today in that in the 1990’s a translation came out that became a bestseller – Seamus Heaney.