Lecture 2: The beginnings of English literature: the heroic age

Lecture 2: The beginnings of English literature: the heroic age.

•   the age of uncertainty – migrating memories and identities;
•   the pagan hero in the Christian context – Beowulf the man;
•   magic and otherness in Beowulf the poem
•   the rhythm and style of Old English poetry – alliteration and kennings. the heroic

ideal – social structures mirrored in literature.

• national identity and heroic poetry- “The Battle of Brunanburh” and “The Battle

of Maldon”

1. Society and social relations:

a. Medieval social organisation – oratores (those who pray), bellatores (those who

fight) and laboratores (those who work).

b. How was literature created? First oral transmissions, only later recorded in writing

(clergy involved – monasteries as intellectual centres and the importance of
monastic schools).

c. Literature for whom? Upper classes, clergy, aristocracy.

2. Style and genres (types) of Old English literature:

a. Typical poetic tropes: alliteration, kenning (condensed metaphors, like hronrad,

whale-road to describe the sea, or sceadugenga, shadow-walker to describe
monstrous Grendel), variation (repeated presentation of an idea with changing
focuses)

b. Main types of texts:

Elegiac poetry (Old English elegies: meditative lamentations)

ii.

Heroic poetry

iii.

Religious (saints’ lives, poetic sermons, biblical paraphrases)

iv.

Gnomic (wisdom) texts (charms, poetic riddles, maxims, moral
instructions)

Historical prose (chronicles – The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle)

vi.

Legal texts

vii.

Philosophical, religious and scientific (dealing with natural sciences, Latin
grammar) treatises – frequently as translations and adaptations from Latin
sources.

3. Where has Old English literature been preserved?

a. What is lost, what is left?
b. Manuscripts housed in monastic/cathedral libraries, much later (from 16th

century) in private libraries.

c. The Exeter Book in Exeter cathedral (Old English elegies, love poems, poetic

riddles, religious poems, gnomic texts).

d. Robert Cotton’s manuscript (Cotton Vitellius - Beowulf, Judith), now in British

library. Almost burned down in the fire of 1731.

e. Junius manuscript (now in Oxford) – Genesis, Christ and Satan, Exodus, Daniel

f. The Vercelli Book (found in Italy) – a proof of how manuscripts travelled between

monasteries (Dream of the Rood, Fates of Apostles, Andreas).

4. The importance and universality of heroic tradition and heroic narratives – an

important element of orally transmitted culture (narratives and heroes and their deeds).
Ceaseless popularity of such stories.

5. The heroic tradition contributing to a sense of community – narrative thinking and

narrative intelligence as important factors in human psychology.

a. The power of imagination – medieval visualization (medieval culture as very

visual and very much image-oriented).

6. Heroic culture and history:

Roman historian Tacitus (1st c. AD) mentions the importance of the heroic tradition and
the importance of the heroic culture among the continental Germanic tribes. Heroic
literature and the heroic culture of the warrior society later giving rise to the culture of
chivalry and knighthood.

7. Intertextuality of Anglo-Saxon culture – Beowulf as an epic poem proving earlier

cultural and social links with the past on the continent.

a. The source and origins, elements of magic and the world of fantasy.
b. Time of creation (5th/6th c.?) and time of written composition (10th/11th c.) as

different

c.  Style, diction and the mode of expression in Beowulf.
d.  Language and poetic tropes: kennings, variation, alliteration.
e.  the setting and the visual atmosphere of the epic.
f.  onomatopoeic elements.
g.  The run down of the main elements of plot.
h.  The heroic idea as a didactic power in the poem.
i.  The world of the uncanny as a metaphor of the mysterious element in human

existence and a metaphor of life as a struggle.

Beowulf’s monster as signs (monster – demonstrate).

j. Old English fatalism and instability present in the idea of wyrd “fate.”
k. Christianity as clearly a later addition (by the scribes).

8. Contents of Beowulf:

Opens with the genealogy of the early Danish kings; later King Hrothgar builds a
magnificent hall Heorot; it is then attacked by a man-eating monster, Grendel; after
twelve years of carnage Beowulf, a prince of the Geats (cont. Southern Sweden), comes
and kills Grendel; celebrations follow; but Grendel’s monstrous mother comes to avenge
her son; Beowulf then kills her in an underwater cave where the monsters lived; more
celebrations follow; Beowulf returns home and reports to his uncle, King Hygelac; after
the death of Hygelac, Beowulf becomes king of the Geats; rules for fifty years; then a
sleeping dragon is awoken by someone stealing part of the treasure it guarded; the dragon
ravages and burns the lands of Beowulf; Beowulf then fights it and is supported by only
one of his men, Wiglaf (the rest flee); both Beowulf and the dragon die fighting each
other. Beowulf is then mourned, his body is burned and everything closes with a dark
prophecy of chaos and destruction for the Geats.

The contexts:

a. Beowulf functioning across pagan/Christian, Anglo-Saxon/Germanic, real/fantastic

(monsters) traditions

b.  the beginnings of literature: orature into literature
c.  Beowulf as an epic poem but also as a heroic elegy.
d.  Fatalism in Beowulf
e.  Early feudal elements in Beowulf
f.  Beowulf as a narrative with some moral teaching too? Heroic code of behaviour.

The setting:

g. Visual and aural (auditory) elements: onomatopoeias, dark setting, Grendel

coming from shadows.

h. Beowulf as a magical poem (and literature as verbal magic too)
i. Beowulf as entertainment (resembling the enjoyment of a horror or action story)

The hero:

j.  Beowulf obsessed with fame – the possibility of overcoming death.
k.  Moral ambivalence in the character of Beowulf
l.  What is Beowulf eager to achieve? What is the aim of his exploits – both for

himself and for his people?

m. Beowulf as an archetypical western hero. Also the paradox of the hero in him

(anti-heroism, the curse of pride)

n. Beowulf’s last speech as his last will: guidance to his people, yet a dark prophecy

for them too.

The monsters:

o.  What does Grendel look like? What is the atmosphere when he approaches?
p.  Monsters as metaphors: monster/demonstrate
q.  The fight with Grendel as a “cosmic fight” of the elements: light/dark,

human/inhuman etc.

r. Man as the agent disturbing the peace and “calling” monsters into being.
s. The monsters as tragic heroes representing the outside world, the past, the powers

of nature disturbed by men?

t. The death of the dragon and the death of Beowulf: was Beowulf in any way

comparable to the dragon?

9. Other notable Anglo-Saxon heroic poems:

a. “The Battle of Brunanburh” (AD 937) – political propaganda and chauvinist

nationalism (from our perspective)
a poetic praise of the victory of the king of Wessex (later England) over Celtic and
Viking army (recorded in Anglo-Saxon Chronicle) – its brutality as a reflection of
the brutality of early medieval world.

King Athelstan as Rex totius Britanniae (king of all Britain) – an early instance of
colonial and imperialist thinking.

b. “The Battle of Maldon” (AD 991) – and English army confronts Viking raiders,

Christian forces set against pagan warriors. English defeat turned into a moral
victory.