"Cwædon thæt he wære wyruldcyninga
manna mildust ond monthwærust
leodum li∂ost ond lofgeornost."
("They said that he was of all the kings of men the gentlest and most mild, the kindest to his folk and the most eager for fame.")
The Beowulf-Poet
The writer who crafted the epic poem Beowulf in over three thousand lines of Anglo-Saxon alliterative verse remains perhaps the most anonymous of all the anonymous poets of the Middle Ages. Although the poem was written in England, we cannot be certain of the precise place -- or even the precise century! -- of its composition, it is the conception of a single mind with a singular vision of the tensions inherent in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Among a spectrum possibilities regarding the date and milieu of Beowulf's composition, two scenarios seem to me particularly promising. The first is that the poem was written in the eighth century, the so-called Age of Bede, the period a generation or so after the English had become more or less officially Christianized. The poem's remembrance of the pagan past is thus a matter of personal connections: the poet's grandparents, or even his parents, would likely have been pagans, and the poet's deep familiarity with the oral folklore of the pagan Germanic peoples perhaps indicates a childhood steeped in traditional story. At the same time, the pervasively elegiac tone of Beowulf may reflect the poet's awareness of the glories of the pagan Germanic warrior ethos even as it was passing away.
The second most plausible scenario for the poem's composition would place it in the context of the late tenth or early eleventh century, a time of relative stability after the turmoil of the preceding centuries of Viking invasion had begun to recede. This scenario would make us evaluate far more robustly the poet's decision to focus the narrative on the exploits of archaic Scandinavians (and not Englishmen).
Whoever the poet was, and whenever he lived, it is clear that Beowulf as it stands is a work of consummate poetic craftsmanship and a poignant tribute to both the reality -- and the fleeting inaccessibility -- of the world of the pagan past. The Christian poet gazes knowingly but sympathetically, even lovingly, at the limits of a bygone ethos.
Further Reading
Among a spectrum possibilities regarding the date and milieu of Beowulf's composition, two scenarios seem to me particularly promising. The first is that the poem was written in the eighth century, the so-called Age of Bede, the period a generation or so after the English had become more or less officially Christianized. The poem's remembrance of the pagan past is thus a matter of personal connections: the poet's grandparents, or even his parents, would likely have been pagans, and the poet's deep familiarity with the oral folklore of the pagan Germanic peoples perhaps indicates a childhood steeped in traditional story. At the same time, the pervasively elegiac tone of Beowulf may reflect the poet's awareness of the glories of the pagan Germanic warrior ethos even as it was passing away.
The second most plausible scenario for the poem's composition would place it in the context of the late tenth or early eleventh century, a time of relative stability after the turmoil of the preceding centuries of Viking invasion had begun to recede. This scenario would make us evaluate far more robustly the poet's decision to focus the narrative on the exploits of archaic Scandinavians (and not Englishmen).
Whoever the poet was, and whenever he lived, it is clear that Beowulf as it stands is a work of consummate poetic craftsmanship and a poignant tribute to both the reality -- and the fleeting inaccessibility -- of the world of the pagan past. The Christian poet gazes knowingly but sympathetically, even lovingly, at the limits of a bygone ethos.
Further Reading
- Peter S. Baker,ed., The Beowulf Reader (Garland, 1995)
- Colin Chase, ed., The Dating of Beowulf (University of Toronto Press, 1997)
- Roberta Frank, "The Beowulf-Poet's Sense of History," in The Wisdom of Poetry, eds. Larry D. Benson and Siegfried Wenzel (Medieval Institute Publications, 1982)
- Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript (University of Toronto Press, 2003)
- J. R. R. Tolkien, "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics," in The Monsters and The Critics and Other Essays (HarperCollins, 2006)