BEOWULF

1
BEOWULF

• An Introduction to the English Folk Epic

2
During a time of Old English Warriors
Called the Dark Ages - - a time of Barbarians
3
A story about a
DRAGON
4
(No Transcript)
5
(No Transcript)
6
VIKINGS INVADE
7
Beowulf
8
DARK AGES DOES NOT MEAN NO ART
VIKINGS LOVED GOLD, JEWELRY, WEAPONS, AND RINGS
9
(No Transcript)
10
Art resulted in stories, some of which were told
in manuscripts that were beautifully decorated
and colored.
11
Many of the artworks pictured in this
presentation were a part of a discovery at Sutton
Hoo.
12
Story of Conflict
13
ADVENTURE
14
GRENDEL
15
to the RESCUE
HEROES
16
AUTHOR/ COMPOSER WAS A CHRISTIAN MONK?
17
EVIL DRAGON
18
SONG
of PRAISE
19
(No Transcript)
20
Folk Epics are tales of a national HERO
But what is heroic?
21
Characteristics of a Pagan Hero

• Good Fighter
• Loyal
• Persevering (Never Gives Up)
• Wins Fame (in Songs in a Mead Hall)

22
Pagan Characteristics, cont.

• Little Regard for Danger or Self Brave
• Battle as a Way of Life
• Personal Vengeance as Familial Requirement
• FATE Revenge and/or Death

23
Characteristics of a Christian Hero

• Recognizes God as Creator
• Humility in the presence of Gods Power
• Altruism in Action

24
Christian Characteristics cont.

• Contrast between Good and Evil Rulers
• Personal Vengeance transmuted into Fighting Evil
• Good is Rewarded and Evil is Punished (Evil in
  the World)

25
Beowulf

• Historical Background

26
Beowulf The Poem

• Part Fiction

• Part History

27
Author/Composer

• Likely an educated Christian, possibly a monk
• Wove together many oral traditions with
  consummate skill
• Sanitized slightly the pagan traditions
• Produced a single tale

28
PROBLEM
Fragmentation results from lack of knowledge of
the authors world-view and inadequate
understanding of topical references.
29
Manuscript History

• Authored in 1,000 B. C.
• Saved from looting of monasteries under Henry
  VIII
• Saved from fire in Sir Henry Cottons Library in
  1731
• Danish scholar translated it in 1787 first
  published in 1815

30
BEOWULF

• Structure and Style

31
Macrostructure

• Begins and ends with a FUNERAL (Scyld Scefing and
  Beowulf)
• Arrival and Departure of a HERO
• Youthful Adventure/Kingly exploits
• Good and Evil Characters Contrasted

32
Microstructure

• Example Death of Grendel and Aeschere
• Seeming irrelevant digressions collections
• Allusive incidents and characters
• Suggestive of past and future
• Complexity often lost on modern reader

33
Style of the Folk Epic

• Lyric
• Epic
• Narrative

34
Characteristics of Style

• Elegiac tone
• Concentration on feelings
• Extra epithets delay narration and focus the
  point of view

35
Literary Devices

• Scops used harp to add beats to poetry

• Four Lifts per line with a caesura

• Understatement (Litotes)

• Allusions

36
Literary Devices, cont.

• Exalted Vocabulary

• Ritual Objects

Kennings bardic formulae, used as appositives,
for example, swan-road