Beowulf is a pagan epic poem passed down orally from the southern Swedes to the English in the 5th century when the Anglo-Saxons and Jutes invaded Britain. Its Christian allusions were added when it was written down sometime between the 8th and 10th centuries.
Beowulf Manuscript (c. 1000)
The poem’s written text:
- Two scribes, A and B, working around the year 1000 CE transcribed the poem. They weren’t considered poets, but rather editors.
- The only manuscript survived a fire in 1731 and came to us as the text we have now.
The Beowulf-poet:
- The term “author” does not convey the same static quality in the Anglo-Saxon period as it does in the modern day. Beowulf could have existed in multiple versions, depending on how many Anglo-Saxon poets, scops (pronounced “shops” and related to the word “to shape”) were around to interpret and retell the tale, much like the many interpretations of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.
- Every performance and reading reshapes the poem and how we approach it, even the modern day versions. The Beowulf-poet, in a sense, is more of a collective noun than an individual author.
- The poet takes poetic license (his own embellishments) with Beowulf’s character, and invites the audience to consider the complex role of oral poetry, and how the audience—both Anglo-Saxon and modern—should interpret this work. He uses terms such as “I heard” or “I have learned” to separate himself from the narrative.
The poem’s hero:
- Beowulf is mortal, but like other epic heroes (Gilgamesh, Odysseus, Achilles) he is stronger and more brave than most men. The last line of the poem tells us that “Beowulf was keenest to win fame.” Immortality in this culture means to win fame in stories and reputation.
- Beowulf fights monsters, as Gilgamesh fights Humbaba and Odysseus fights the Cyclopes, and we may glean the values of a Germanic leader, its culture, through its hero. Tacitus (56-120 CE) claims that warfare is a standard way of life for the Germanic people to survive and prosper. For example, a good king is a “ring-giver.”
Characteristics of the poem:
- It has Christian elements: Grendel is a descendant of Cain, the flood story is inscribed on the sword that Beowulf uses to kill Grendel’s mother, and in the mead hall the scop sings a song that recounts a creation story similar to the one in Genesis.
- J. R. R. Tolkien’s reading: the troll, the sea-woman, the dragon are from Norse and Germanic mythology—they represent coldness, darkness, wilderness, and are enemies of human values and reflections. The mead hall is a circle of light, which ultimately calls Grendel into existence. Tolkien’s criticism of the poem treats it as a poem, not as a historical document or an ethnographic study of the Germanic people.
- The poem begins with a funeral and ends with a funeral—nothing lasts.
- The three fights only take up 500 out of 3200 lines, and so community is more the driving point of the epic—it begins with Shield Sheafson. At the end of the epic, we know the Geats will eventually disappear because they fail to help Beowulf against the dragon.
- The poem contains understatements, such as “he’s feeling no pain” when someone is drunk; instead of saying “I’m happy,” they say “I wouldn’t want you to think that I’m not happy;” and “that was no good place” insinuates part of the darkness and vision of these people.
From J.R.R. Tolkien’s “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics”
It is just because the main foes in Beowulf are inhuman that the story is larger and more significant than this imaginary poem of a great king’s fall. 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. At the beginning, and during its process, and most of all at the end, we look down as if from a visionary height upon the house of man in the valley of the world. A light starts—lixte se leoma ofer landa fela [“its gold-hammered roofs shone over the land”]—and there is a sound of music; but the outer darkness and its hostile offspring lie ever in wait for the torches to fail and the voices to cease. Grendel is maddened by the sound of harps.