“In Geár-dagum”: Beowulf as an Anglo-Saxon Fornaldarsaga

The genre of Beowulf is a topic that continues to be hotly debated, as Breizmann has already noted[1], and as any scholar working in the field will have already observed. Indeed, Beowulf scholarship concerning matters of genre goes way back to the “Age of Enlightenment” of Beowulf criticism when J.R.R. Tolkien opened the floodgates through his revolutionary essay, The Monsters and the Critics[2]. Breizmann thoroughly documents the developments after Tolkien, citing, on top of the innovative critic and author: Irving, Earl, Greenfield, and Klein; and recording their classifications of Beowulf as a “fairy tale, elegy, heroic lay, oral-formulaic poetry, historical and legendary narrative, and Christian allegory.”[3] She adds to this her own proposal of Beowulf as romance. Moreover, there are scholars such as Greenfield who have contemplated on Beowulf’s essence as a tragedy[4]. Such a variety leads one to ask whether there may be an all-encompassing label for Beowulf, one that includes every category in Breizmann’s critical compilation. In this paper, I wish to offer my own categorisation of Beowulf as an Anglo-Saxon fornaldarsaga by exploring the definition(s) of fornaldarsögur then positioning Beowulf in such a context.

What then, we may ask, are fornaldarsögur? The term fornaldarsögur (“sagas of ancient times”) is a modern term derived from Carl Christian Rafn’s original coinage, “foraldar sögur Norðurlanda,”[5] which means “sagas of ancient times in the North.” Stephen Mitchell attempts to give a very broad definition of fornaldarsögur, writing that they are “Old Icelandic prose narratives based on traditional heroic themes, whose numerous fabulous episodes and motifs create an atmosphere of unreality.”[6] Whilst such a definition agrees with the traditional opinion that “the fornaldarsögur are heroic,”[7] it falls short when tested against contemporary standards of specificity in that its description can be applied to any of five more subdivisions of the saga genre, which include: kings’ sagas, sagas of Icelanders, bishops’ sagas, Sturlunga sagas, and riddarasögur (“knightly romances”)[8]. What can be potentially ambiguous, and thus a matter of contention, in Mitchell’s definition is its lack of a hair-splitting distinction between fornaldarsögur and riddarasögur. Torfi Tulinius, however, allows for a distinct separation between the two categories, writing that

the fornaldarsögur all take place in the North and deal with Nordic heroes but the riddarasögur take place in the south of Europe or even more remote places, and the heroes are “valiant knights” who were infrequent visitors here in the North. Furthermore, some literary characteristics distinguish between these groups of sagas[9].

Jakobsson clarifies what exactly these distinguishing literary characteristics are: “The tragic end of traditional fornaldarsögur – e.g. Hálfs saga, Hrólfs saga kraka, and Völsunga saga – also distinguishes them from adventure sagas and romance in general.”[10] Hermann Pálsson further divides the fornaldarsögur into two categories: “heroic legend” and “adventure tales.”[11] Tulinius explains that “the former are based on the same ancient heroic tradition in the tragic mode as the lays of the Edda and have links with similar traditions in other Germanic languages”; the “‘adventure tales’ usually end well about heroes undertaking a quest or series of quests.”[12]  And while there is, as yet, and despite all the aforementioned criticisms, no clear-cut authoritative definition for fornaldarsögur, Clunies-Ross provides two essential characteristics that many works which are considered fornaldarsögur share. She posits that firstly, “a number of fornaldarsögur represent a world of Scandinavian royal and heroic dynasties”[13] and that, secondly, the characters in the stories “frequently interact with beings that are not fully human.”[14]

In Beowulf, the first point in Clunies-Ross’ characterization of fornaldarsögur ­– its depiction of Scandinavian royal and heroic dynasties – becomes a major axis upon which the work’s action revolves. The poem’s narrator begins with “Hwæt wé Gár-Dena,”[15] invoking, through the use of the first-person plural pronoun “wé,” the Danish identity of both the speaker and his audience. Magennis notes, moreover, of the emphatic placement of “Gár-Dena” in Beowulf’s opening line. In light of this, Howe explains that “the setting of Beowulf may be understood as the homeland before conversion,”[16] and thus the “stories about the Danes and the Geats could serve as a powerful reminder of the Anglo-Saxon’s origins, both geographically and religiously.”[17] And if we are to divide the poem into two halves based on setting, the first being in Denmark, and the second in Geatland, we may observe in the first half an almost panoramic attention to the house of the Scyldings, the descendants of “héah Healfdene” (“the great Halfdane”)[18]. Indeed, while the first half marks the actions of the poem’s titular hero, it also prefigures and laments the downfall of the Scylding household: “nalles fácen-stafas / Þéod-Scyldingas þenden fremedon” (“The Scylding nation / was not yet familiar with feud and betrayal,” ll. 1018-1019). Such events as are referred to in Beowulf thus accentuate its essence as a fornaldarsaga, in that it “display[s] a lengthy continuity within the Nordic cultural context.”[19] Consequently, the poem aligns itself not only with Icelandic kings’ sagas such as Heimskringla[20] and Skjöldunga saga, but, more importantly, with other fornaldarsögur as well, such as Hrólfs saga kraka and Völsunga saga.

It is not surprising then, that, as North argues, “…the poet appears to draw on the unquantifiable sources of a living Danish mythology. Respectively he plays on Freyja’s Brísinga men, Óðinn’s vengeance for Baldr, and Þórr’s death by the World Serpent.”[21] Along with the quasi-mythological atmosphere of Beowulf and fornaldarsögur come the monsters and otherwordly beings. The world that their presence invokes is a world “when Scandinavia was still pagan,” and thus “the action of [fornaldarsögur] was removed from the world of the everyday, at least in part, but not so fully removed that its subject-matter could not be meaningful to [the audience].”[22] In this sense, it is difficult to fully agree with Tolkien when he writes that “it is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant…It glimpses the cosmic and moves with the thought of all men concerning the fate of human life and efforts; it stands amid but above the petty wars of princes, and surpasses the dates and limits of historical periods, however important.”[23] In ignoring the antiquarian historicity—the reality of the pagan world—alluded to in the poem, we take away not only the full force of the Þórr myth as it is ascribed to Beowulf and his fight against the dragon[24], but also the pathos that the audience, the “Gár-Dena in géar-dagum,” are meant to feel towards their pagan ancestors. Black, et al. put the situation in a better perspective: “Whatever its underlying structural patterns, Beowulf is neither myth nor folktale; its stories of dragon-slaying and nocturnal struggles are set against a complex background of legendary history.”[25] This is what makes Beowulf a unique work of literature in the Old English tradition. Not only does it seem somewhat out of place with its “foreign-ness” (in terms of its Nordic connection) when compared with other Old English heroic poems like Judith (which stems from Biblical tradition) and The Battle of Maldon (which is set in Anglo-Saxon England), but the presence of the monsters, especially the dragon, invokes the mythic climate of the Eddas and other fornaldarsögur. Thus, it is easy to see how Richard North comes to observe there to be a growing consensus that the poet of Beowulf adapts tales connected with those of Norse mythology: Freyja’s Brísingamen; Höðr’s slaying of Baldr and Óðinn’s vengeance; and Þórr’s battle against the World Serpent,’’[26] since Beowulf belongs to what Tulinius calls “the Matter of the North” and its vast range of saga literature, as much as it belongs to the English—specifically Anglo-Saxon—tradition of poetry.

Categorising Beowulf as an Anglo-Saxon fornaldarsaga helps give us a wider perspective of the work’s historicity. It is among the many sagas that deal with Scandinavian heroic royalty, and one amongst many more that incorporate the mythic and legendary “past” of its contemporary audience, reworking themes and motifs that help(ed) shape their society and burgeoning nations. Such a grouping thus removes Beowulf from isolation and assimilates it into the wealth of Icelandic fornaldarsögur that give it context, removing our need to force it into labels which may undermine its historical and structural richness. Being a fornaldarsaga, it becomes at once a folktale, a tragedy, a romance, as well as a historical and legendary narrative.

 

 

Bibliography:

Beowulf, in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, eds. Joseph Black et al. (Toronto: Broadview                 Press, 2016), 65-116.

Breizmann, Natalia. “”Beowulf” as Romance: Literary Interpretation as Quest.” MLN 113, no. 5                   (1998): 1022-035.

Fjalldal, Magnus. “An Unnoticed “Beowulf” Analogue in “Heimskringla.”(Critical                             Essay).” Notes and Queries 60, no. 3 (2013): 341-43.

Greenfield, Stanley. “”Beowulf” and Epic Tragedy.” Comparative Literature 14 (1962): 91.

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. London: Faber and Faber, 1999.

Howe, Nicholas, “Beowulf and the Ancestral Homeland,” in The Postmodern Beowulf: A Critical                          Casebook, edited by Eileen A. Joy and Mary K. Ramsey, 49-89. Morgantown: West Virginia                University Press, 2006.

Jakobsson, Armann. “The Royal Ideology and Genre of Hrolfs Saga Kraka.” Scandinavian Studies 71,             no. 2 (1999): 139.

Magennis, Hugh. The Cambridge Introduction to Anglo-Saxon Literature. Cambridge Introductions to                    Literature. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2011.

Mitchell, Stephen A. Heroic Sagas and Ballads. Myth and Poetics. Ithaca: Cornell University Press,                   1991.

North, Richard. The Origins of Beowulf : From Vergil to Wiglaf. Oxford ; New York: Oxford University               Press, 2006.

Ross, Margaret Clunies. The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga. Cambridge                              Introductions to Literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.

—. A History of Old Norse Poetry and Poetics. Cambridge, UK ; Rochester, NY: D.S. Brewer, 2005.

—. Old Icelandic Literature and Society. Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature ; 42. Cambridge, U.K.             New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Stefán Einarsson. A History of Icelandic Literature. New York: Johns Hopkins Press for the American               -Scandinavian Foundation, 1957.

Tolkien, J. R. R., and Tolkien, Christopher. The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays. London ;                   Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983.

 

 

 

[1] Natalia Breizmann. “”Beowulf” as Romance: Literary Interpretation as Quest.” MLN 113, no. 5 (1998): 1022.

[2] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays. (London ; Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983).

[3] 1022.

[4] Stanley Greenfield, “”Beowulf” and Epic Tragedy.” Comparative Literature 14 (1962).

[5] Margaret Clunies-Ross, The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga. Cambridge Introductions to Literature. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 28.

[6] Stephen Mitchell, Heroic Sagas and Ballads. Myth and Poetics. (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991), 27.

[7] Ármann Jakobsson, “The Royal Ideology and Genre of Hrolfs Saga Kraka.” Scandinavian Studies 71,no. 2 (1999): 142.

[8] Cf. Ibid.

[9] Cf. Jakobsson, 143.

[10] Ibid.

[11] Torfi Tulinius, “The Matter of the North: fiction and uncertain identities in thirteenth century Iceland” in Margaret Clunies-Ross, Old Icelandic Literature and Society, Cambridge Studies in Medieval Literature ; 42. Cambridge, U.K. (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 243.

[12] Ibid.

[13] The Cambridge Introduction to the Old Norse-Icelandic Saga, 76.

[14] Ibid, 77.

[15] All lines from Beowulf here (in the original and in translation) are taken from Seamus Heaney’s version(1999).

[16] Nicholas Howe, “Beowulf and the Ancestral Homeland,” in The Postmodern Beowulf: A Critical Casebook, edited by Eileen A. Joy and Mary K. Ramse. (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 2006) 52.

[17] p. 53.

[18] line 57.

[19] Mitchell, 27.

[20] Cf. Magnus Fjalldal, “An Unnoticed “Beowulf” Analogue in “Heimskringla.”(Critical Essay).” Notes and Queries 60, no. 3 (2013): 341-43.

[21] Richard North, The Origins of Beowulf : From Vergil to Wiglaf. (Oxford ; New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), 194.

[22] Clunies-Ross, The Old Norse-Icelandic Saga, 58.

[23] J.R.R. Tolkien, The Monsters and the Critics, and Other Essays. (London ; Boston: Allen & Unwin, 1983), 33.

[24] Cf. North, 202.

[25] Beowulf, in The Broadview Anthology of British Literature, eds. Joseph Black et al. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2016), 66.

[26] And here North cites substantially: “Dronke, ‘Beowulf and Ragnarök’, 311—18. D.G. Calder, ‘Setting and Ethos: The Pattern of Measure and Limit in Beowulf’, SP 69 (1972), 21 – 37, esp. 36. Frank, ‘Skaldic Verse and the Date of Beowulf’, 132 (Baldr and Óðinn). Beowulf: A Student Edition, ed. Jack, 101 (Brísingamen). Beowulf, ed. Mitchell and Robinson, 134 (Baldr and Óðinn). Orchard, Companion, 114-23 (all three motifs). Rauer, Beowulf and the Dragon, 136-7 (Þórr and the World Serpent). Niles (Beowulf, 193) is against, albeit he believes Beowulf was composed partly for Anglicized tenth-century Danes” (Cf. North, p. 205).

An Introduction to Allusions in Beowulf

The Oxford English Dictionary defines allusion as “an implied, indirect, or passing reference to a person or thing” or “any reference to someone or something”. When it comes to literature, however, it becomes a difficult task to avoid accidentally falling into affective and intentional fallacies when exploring whether or not certain words, phrases, or narratives are meant by the author to be distinct and relevant allusions to particular people or events. In works such as Beowulf, moreover, the task of pointing out allusions and understanding their meaning becomes even more difficult due to the obscurity of their context and cultural situations. Nevertheless, what I aim to explore are some allusions to elements present in Old Norse literature which are readily available to us in the text:  elements which we may assume to have been passed down to Beowulf’s author(s) through the culture of the Danelaw.

The Scyldings

One of the most notable of these allusions is that of the Scyldings. A prominent family not only in Beowulf, their stories also appear in Snorra Edda (Snorri Sturluson’s Prose Edda) and Hrólfs saga kraka (The Saga of King Hrolf Kraki). In the Edda, Skjöldur (Scyld Scefing), the founder of the Skjöldungar (Scyldings), is portrayed as a descendant of the god Óðinn himself. The legends of his descendants are recorded in Beowulf and Hrólfs saga kraka. Being slightly different in perspective to Beowulf, the focus of Hrólfs saga kraka is more so on Hroðgar’s nephew Hrólfur than on himself. Both narratives however include a troll-like being terrorising the halls at nightfall and a hero that comes and eradicates such threats.

Eotenas ond ylfe and gígantas

J.R.R. Tolkien notes in lines 112-113 the author’s use of two culturally different etymological sources to describe the race of Grendel and the descendants of Cain. On the one hand, Tolkien observes the use of gígantas in line 113 as a word borrowed from the Latin version of the Bible. On the other hand, he marks the words eotenas and ylfe in line 112 as distinctly Norse, coming from the words jötnar (giants) and álfar (elves). These words not only depict the author’s blending of pagan and Christian elements into the story of Beowulf, but as cultural allusions they furthermore offer a twofold perspective on Grendel’s background as a fiend – that is, he not only is an enemy of the Christians, being a descendant of Cain and the giants, but also at the sight of the pagan heroes he is considered an outcast of the Norse gods and humanity.

Wæls and Sigemund

The bard in Hroðgar’s hall recounts the story of Sigemund the dragon-slayer in lines 883-915 as words of praise, encouragement, and admonition to Beowulf. Similar narratives can be found in the Snorra Edda and the Völsunga Saga where Völsungur’s (Wæl’s) descendant Sigurður slays a dragon and takes possession of a treasure hoard. Placing these narratives in the context of Beowulf allows its author to portray ironies foreshadowing Beowulf’s death, but also comparative praise, as Sigurður is and will ever be remembered in Northern legend as Fáfnisbani –  the slayer of the dragon Fáfnir – after his death.

Thus allusions such as these allow us to understand more comprehensively the story of Beowulf. They give the text particular shades which reflect dramatic ironies that are not always obvious when the allusions are missed. And although many of these allusions and possibly the text itself are rendered obscure to us as modern audiences, their importance to the Anglo-Saxon audience as antiquarian reflections and contemporary innovations should never be understated, wont as the Anglo-Saxons would have been to do so.

 

 

Works Consulted:

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London:        Harper Collins Publishers, 2014. Print.

— . The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London:                  George Allen & Unwin Publishers, 1983. Print.

 

 

 

 

The New Historicist Approach to Beowulf

In his revolutionary essay entitled “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”, Professor J.R.R. Tolkien remarked that “Beowulfiana is, while rich in many departments, specially poor in one. It is poor in criticism” (5). This comment certainly is not true of current Beowulfiana criticism anymore. It is no longer a question of approaching Beowulf as a poem instead of merely as an historical artifact, but a question of what works best in approaching and fully understanding the poem and the themes at work therein. This paper intends to analyze Beowulf through a New Historicist perspective, contextualizing the relevance of the poem’s author, readership, and of Anglo-Saxon England, and through this filter, to furthermore seek out themes and literary techniques that a modern audience may overlook.

The critical theory in question is indeed a useful tool for understanding Beowulf because it requires the readers to not only close-read the text, but also to make relevant cultural connections that would help them grasp the ideals and poetic techniques that the author has craftily weaved into the poem. What then is New Historicism? Stephen Greenblatt, in his introduction to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance explains that

…literary works are no longer regarded either as a fixed set of texts that are set apart from all other forms of expression and that contain their own determinate meanings or as a stable set of reflections of historical facts that lie beyond them. The [New Historicist] critical practice…challenges the assumptions that guarantee a secure distinction between ‘literary foreground’ and ‘political background’ or, more generally, between artistic production and other kinds of social production. Such distinctions do in fact exist, but they are not intrinsic to the texts; rather they are made up and constantly redrawn by artists, audiences, and readers. These collective social constructions on the one hand define the range of aesthetic possibilities within a given representational mode and, on the other, link that mode to the complex network of institutions, practices, and beliefs that constitute the culture as a whole (1445).

In essence, the New Historicists assert that “literature is conceived to mirror the period’s beliefs, but to mirror them, as it were, from a safe distance” (Greenblatt 1444). With regards to Beowulf, this means that a New Historicist reading would necessitate the understanding of the background of the author, his audience, and of Anglo-Saxon society, language[1], and culture in order to fully appreciate the artistry at work in the poem; consequently, the absence of such an undertaking would place the readers in a difficult position where they are lost in vague references to unfamiliar ideals.

Most of the issues faced by modern readers in trying to understand Beowulf are due to the fact that the events depicted and the values that are prized in the poem are so far removed from their understanding of the world. Yet the key here is to understand that “every expressive act is embedded in a network of material practices” (Veeser xi).

The most influential material practices that directly affect major themes in Beowulf are the Christian tradition and the native Germanic heroic values. There is in Beowulf, a fusion “of the old and new”, a blending of ideals from Northern antiquity with Christian virtues (Tolkien Critics 20). These traditions do not, as modern readers might be inclined to suppose, create in the poem binary oppositions that heavily contradict each other, but instead we see “in the figure of Beowulf the heroic ideals of Germanic paganism and of Anglo-Saxon Christendom have been reconciled and fused, so that the hero exemplifies the best of both” (Brodeur 183).

The author and his audience were, without a doubt, Christian. Heather O’Donoghue explains that the “Anglo-Saxon authors were Christians, perhaps mostly clerics, and clerical culture dominated literary production” (11). There is plenty of evidence for this fact even within the text of Beowulf, not the least is the fact that the poet uses the Latin-borrowed term gígantas as one of his many nomenclatures when referring to the race of Grendel[2]. The poet’s audience moreover were “Christians whose conversion was neither partial nor superficial. He expects them to understand his allusions to biblical events without his troubling to be explicit about them” (Whitelock 280). The Anglo-Saxons were a deeply antiquarian people who strongly adhered to their Germanic past[3], and their author was no exception.

The Anglo-Saxons took special pride in their ancestry, and we see this pride expressed in the opening lines of Beowulf: “Hwæt wé Gár-Dena in géar-dagum / þéod-cyninga þrym gefrúnon” [Lo! The glory of the kings of the people of the Spear-Danes in days of old we have heard tell, how those princes did deeds of valour][4] (lines 1-2). E.G. Stanley comments that “the beginning of the poem with its piece of Danish history is relevant to England, to English kings” because “Beowulf could well have written late enough for at least some of the Danes mentioned in the poem to have been regarded by the poet and his audience as ancestors of Anglo-Saxon kings in England” (71). If the poem is read – in either the original Old English or in the translation – merely as an organic unity where external context is irrelevant, then the meaning of the opening lines becomes lost, and the lines may consequently be deemed unnecessary. Seeing the context of the opening lines with regards to the author and the audiences’ background, however, we begin to understand the sentiment that the Anglo-Saxons have felt upon hearing them recited in their mead-halls; their pride in the past and their heroic ancestors are at once invoked and their emotions stirred.

Another aspect of the poem that may be easily missed by a modern audience is the gravity of Hrothgar’s shame after the desolation of Grendel upon Heorot. The poem describes it thus:

Swá ðá mæl-ceare       maga Healfdenes

singála séað;                ne mihte snotor hæleð

wéan onwendan;        wæs þæt gewin tó swýð,

láþ ond longsum

[Even thus over the sorrows of that time did the son of Healfdene brood unceasingly, nor could that wise prince put aside his grief; too strong was that strife, too dire and weary to endure][5] (189-192).

This grief, to a modern audience, would seem to be simply grief on one level: one which Hrothgar experiences because his fellow men were murdered. But to an Anglo-Saxon audience, there is another level. Hrothgar is inconsolable not only because of the deaths of his retainers, but also because he cannot exact wergild, or man-price, from Grendel. Nor could he personally try to seek vengeance against a being as powerful and ruthless as Grendel (Greenblatt et al. 1: 38). Only a hero of Beowulf’s calibre could have defeated such an enemy.

Beowulf’s victory against Grendel meant not only the important preservation of Heorot, it also meant the restoration of Hrothgar’s honour and especially the advancing of Beowulf’s glory. The bard understood the importance of glory in the life of a heroic warrior. In their life in the mortal world, this quest for glory was the warrior’s primary goal. This belief can be exactly paralleled to that of the Anglo-Saxons’ Norse neighbours, a belief that was expressed in their old religion:

Odin came to know that the world would end in a great battle known as Ragnarök, during which the wolf Fenrir would swallow him. His son Vidar would then avenge him. Odin knew the fate of all the gods – who among them would survive Ragnarök and who would not – and also that the universe would be largely destroyed. His foreknowledge in some ways echoes the Norse warrior’s fatalism: death is inevitable, but word-fame lasts forever.

…The Twilight of the Gods is in many ways a metaphor for the personal Ragnarök that each Viking warrior faces when his time comes. His fate was decided long ago, just like those of his gods, and he goes to meet it with a brave heart, although he is spared the burden of knowledge that Odin carried. If it is his time, then he will die and go to wait for the day of Ragnarök. If not, then he can hope that there will be other battles.

It is not hard to see how these beliefs tended to produce fearless warriors who would face any odds and were not deterred by hardship. A hopeless battle was not something to be avoided; it was an opportunity to win undying word-fame in the mortal world and ultimately a place in the golden age after Ragnarök (Dougherty 28, 39).

Consequently, only a glorious and fame-worthy death would give justice to the life of Beowulf. Thus the poet provides Beowulf with his last fight against a dragon, not unlike the fight of the Norse warrior-god Thor against the Midgard Serpent. In very similar ways, they fight to preserve their society but also to secure their legendary status which gives them a place amongst the greatest of Germanic warriors-heroes.

A modern reader unfamiliar with northern medieval culture and beliefs will find it difficult to understand these complex messages within Beowulf. In uncovering these themes and messages, a New Historicist approach will yield the most successful results because it takes into account the history and context of both the author and the work, as well as the critics and readers who deal with them, which factors are of utmost import when dealing with a poem like Beowulf that is comparable to no other.

Works Cited:

Brodeur, Arthur. The Art of Beowulf. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1969.    Print.

Dougherty, Martin. Vikings. London: Amber Books, 2013. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen. “Introduction to The Power of Forms in the English Renaissance”. The        Critical Tradition: Classic Texts and Contemporary Trends, 1443- 1445. New York:           Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007. Print.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Simpson, and Alfred David. The Norton Anthology of English           Literature. 2 vols. New York: W.W. Norton &Company, 1962-2013. Print.

Heaney, Seamus. Beowulf. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2000. Print.

Hill, Thomas. “The Christian Language and Theme of Beowulf”. Companion to Old English         Poetry. Amsterdam: VU UP, 1994. Print.

O’Donohue, Heather. English Poetry and Old Norse Myth. Oxford: Oxford University Press,

2014. Print.

Stanley, E.G. “Manuscript – Sources – Audience”. Beowulf: A Norton Critical Editions, 71.          New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1975. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary. Ed. Christopher Tolkien. London:         Harper Collins Publishers, 2014. Print.

Tolkien, J.R.R. The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays. Ed. Christopher Tolkien.   London: George Allen & Unwin Publishers, 1983. Print.

Tuso, Joseph. Beowulf: A Norton Critical Editions. New York: W.W. Norton & Company,            Inc., 1975. Print.

Veeser, H. Aram. The New Historicism. New York: Chapman and Hall Inc., 1989. Print.

Whitelock, Dorothy. “The Audience of Beowulf”. Old English Literature. Yale UP: 2002.                        Print.

[1] By an understanding of the language I cannot specifically refer to the reader’s actual fluency – translations in hand are useful, but for a more thorough understanding of the poem, a grasp of Old English, however minimal it is, will be greatly insightful.

[2] See Tolkien’s Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, p. 162

[3] Hill, 64

[4] Trans. Tolkien, Beowulf: A Translation and Commentary, p.13

[5] Ibid p.18

Sellic Work — A Review of J.R.R. Tolkien’s Beowulf

Undoubtedly J.R.R. Tolkien’s translation of Beowulf has long been awaited by avid fans and scholars of Beowulf and those of Tolkien himself. For those following the works of Tolkien, his translation is indeed an addition to the vast, mostly posthumous publications the world has already come to love dearly. To the scholars of Beowulf (and Anglo-Saxon literature), it is perhaps another big step into understanding further the themes and the ingenuity of the ancient English works. Any serious student of Anglo-Saxon literature would know of the publication of Tolkien’s lecture Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics. The lecture shed a new light into what had once been a severely understudied area of English literature, and consequently was it thus an obscure path full of misguided criticisms and misinterpretations of Beowulf. Now has come to us once more a work of technical genius and scholarly wisdom, penned by an author so loved and a professor so well-versed in the ancient Germanic texts.

            Many people know of J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional works, yet very few know of his scholarly publications or even understand their impact on their respective branches. Long before he was famed as a writer, Tolkien was first renowned as a professor knowledgeable in the different areas of Northern literature. He was also a linguist and a philologist, fluent in diverse Germanic languages, dead and living. His works on Beowulf, then, are written as such by a highly-qualified and moreover passionate individual.

            Critics of course disagree. Tolkien’s writing has at times been judged as crass or stilted; but one may discover neither descriptions generally true in the translation of Beowulf. He has matched with equal skill the technical genius of the original author. And although readers used to verse translations of Beowulf will find it odd that Tolkien’s is written in prose, they may find it excusable upon understanding that artistic detail and precision have been major objectives in Tolkien’s mind as he set out to execute his work. The verse form sacrificed, the compensation then exists in the Shakespeare-like quality of his prose as expressed, I think, in this quote:

 

Then about the tomb rode warriors valiant, sons of princes, twelve men in all, who would their woe bewail, their king lament, a dirge upraising, that man praising, honouring his prowess and his mighty deeds, his worth esteeming – even as is meet that a man should his lord beloved in words extol, in his heart cherish, when forth he must from the raiment of flesh be taken far away. Thus bemourned the Geatish folk their master’s fall, comrades of his hearth, crying that he was ever of the kings of earth of men most generous and to men most gracious, to his people most tender and for praise most eager (lines 2659-2669).

 

More important though than his technical prowess in poetic prose and the Anglo-Saxon tongue (as evidenced in the Sellic Spell), Tolkien provides scholars with insightful commentaries, highly detailed in nature, on particularly important passages of the text (lines 131-150 for example). Revolutionary ideas and theories perhaps previously unexplored or unheard of about Beowulf are aplenty.

What is truly beautiful in this translation is the heartfelt passion J.R.R. Tolkien has weaved into his writings, which is furthermore showcased in his composition of the Sellic Spell and the Lays of Beowulf. Christopher Tolkien was no closer to the truth than when he remarked that ‘the fact that it has remained unpublished for so many years has even become a matter of reproach’. Reproachable it is indeed as all the wisdom instilled in Tolkien’s works on Beowulf have become important cornerstones of that research area; and this translation further asserts Tolkien’s authority on Beowulf, laying grounds for further studies and a deeper understanding on the subject matter. Thankfully it has been published; otherwise the world of English and Anglo-Saxon literature would have permanently lost another portal leading back to the ancient days and its people’s uptake of human existence.

The Blacksmith

Staged below the night sky, sooty and strong,

The smithy stands spewing smoke and heat.

Within, the blacksmith hard at work:

A craftsman, a symbol, a mere figure perhaps.

 

His hammer he wields, and they are one.

Sparks cast off by its strike against the sword

Mark their bond, the bridge to the smith’s soul,

Tugging his heart to the blade,

Sending off thunders, the music of steel.

 

The anvil awaits, a platform for greatness.

Plain and blank, yet strong and patient –

The heart of the forge, a craftstand for beauty,

Working wonders and winning wars,

An essence of kingdoms, a slate for glory.

 

The sword, sharp and shiny,

A worthy warrior’s weapon, a stuff for legends,

Its handle gilt, its blade moon-kissed,

Sits meekly upon the wooden bench.

 

The man beholds,

Overtaken by wonder, soothed by satisfaction.

The man,

A bard of metallic poetry,

Weaver of empires, a knight unknown,

Rests. Proud of the day’s work.

 

Staged below the night sky, sooty and strong,

The smithy stands spewing smoke and heat –

Amongst mead-halls and huts,

Castles and pavements,

The highways and the by-ways.

Within, the blacksmith rests.

Within, the fire of his dreams, the sparks of his life.

My recording of the Battle of Brunanburgh

This is what happens when someone who loves English literature gets bored.

Introducing the ‘Book of Ages’: The Prologue

In olden times where there yet ruled enchanted,

Praise-worthy, noble rulers – kings and queens

Of glorious kingdoms; where knights fought wars ever

‘Gainst foes relentless, beasts e’er despising;

Where when the damsel called afar distressed,

The prince in quick advancement to her goes,

Amidst vast dangers rescuing with valiance;

Much simpler was the world where th’atmosphere

Of every detail of it surreal felt,

Where strife amongst the groups of men occasioned

Without great frequency, and grief a moment

But fleetly passing through the halls of time –

In these forgotten times there rose heroes

Whose deeds are echoed still in poems and songs,

Through many winters, summers thence unchanged.

These heroes and their like today live on,

Though of their lives and chivalry no tales

Nor runes are told, save here where lion-hearted

And dauntless tasks are chronicled with wonder.

Photo taken from: http://us.123rf.com/400wm/400/400/nejron/nejron1210/nejron121000015/15645279-medieval-knights-on-grey-background.jpg

The Forest Maiden

Once as I walked upon a forest old,

I saw there stood a maiden fair:

About her a light shone gold,

And radiant as the stars above was her hair —

There I was left amazed in the cold night;

Of her, this tale I hereby write.

A rueful song she sang under a great tree;

Her heart was broken, her eyes on tears.

She sang, and sing she did till her heart was free;

This song I forgot not through the years.

Her voice was as that of a dying bird

Who sings and sings, albeit its song be not heard.

My heart was moved, and my life captivated;

For she sought back her prince’s love lost long ago

That for many a month she had left unrequited,

And now was but a vague dream covered in shadow.

I cried out loud ere her song was ended

And she looked at me as towards her I headed.

At once it so heavily dawned upon me

That ‘twas the tale of us twain she sang.

The night deepened though I can clearly see

She was the princess I loved ere time began.

I reached out to her feeble hand ,

For her I searched this wide land.

“Cry no more, my fair maiden,” I comforted.

“Your prince has come to bring you back.”

Her heart turned warm as its winter lifted;

Her grace, her beauty never did lack.

My search is over, my fair princess is with me,

And we came back betrothed to be.

Photo courtesy of http://www.zazzle.ca/mucha_knight_lady_painting_horses_forest_romantic_sticker-217735845749681073

The Knight-errant’s Sonnet

O maiden fair, thy beauty I behold,

Thine eyes like numerous stars twinkle bright;

Thou com’st from distant shores and lands of old,

And many men do seek thy troth to plight.

For of thy wonder the bards songs compose

And angels sing to me as I see thee

Forlorn; but no man thy distress yet knows:

That thou art sad and sadness would not flee.

Lo! Worry not dear princess fair yet frail,

I come and now I purge thee thy despair –

No longer hurt, but let thy heart unveil

Thy candour; thus with me this new bliss share.

Now come, come hither princess fair and sweet,

And take thy throne deserved at heaven’s feet.

Photo courtesy of Wikipedia