An Introduction to the English Folk Epic

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Beowulf

• An Introduction to the English Folk Epic

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During a time of Old English Warriors
Called the Dark Ages - - a time of Barbarians

• Where does the word barbarian come from?
• Just what WERE the Dark Ages? What made them
  dark?

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A Story About a
DRAGON
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(No Transcript)
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445-1485 A.D. The helmet has become a symbol of
the Sutton Hoo burial it survived as a mass of
small pieces, and was only reconstructed after
years of painstaking work in the British Museum
Laboratory.
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VIKINGS
INVADE
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Beowulf
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DARK AGES DOES NOT MEAN NO ART
VIKINGS LOVED GOLD, JEWELRY, WEAPONS, AND RINGS
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Shield Clasp
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Art resulted in stories, some of which were told
in manuscripts that were beautifully decorated
and colored.
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Many of the artworks pictured in this
presentation were a part of a discovery at Sutton
Hoo, a Medieval burial ground.
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ADVENTURE
Story Of
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Grendel
The monster we love to hate
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Heroes
to the Rescue
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Author/ Composer Was a Christian Monk?
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SONG
of PRAISE
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Folk Epics are tales of a national HERO
But What Is
HEROIC?
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Characteristics of a Pagan Hero

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

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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

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Characteristics of a Christian Hero

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

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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)

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Beowulf

• Historical Background

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Beowulf
The Poem

• Part History

• Part Fiction

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Author/Composer

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

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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

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Beowulf

• Structure and Style

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Macrostructure
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

• 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

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Microstructure
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
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
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Style of the Folk Epic

• Lyric
• Epic
• Narrative

A poem, such as a sonnet or an ode, that
expresses the thoughts and feelings of the poet.
A lyric poem may resemble a song in form or style.
A long, serious poem that tells the story of a
heroic figure. Two of the most famous epic poems
are the Iliad and the Odyssey by Homer
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Characteristics of Style

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

A poem that laments the death of a person, or one
that is simply sad and thoughtful.
Like Richard the Lion-hearted for Richard I
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Literary Devices

• Scops used harp to add beats to poetry
• Four Lifts per line with a caesura
• Understatement/Litotes
• Allusions

A natural pause or break in a line of poetry,
usually near the middle of the line. There is a
caesura right after the question mark in the
first line of this sonnet by Elizabeth Barrett
Browning How do I love thee? Let me count the
ways.
What do we mean when we say, THATS an
understatement!
What is an allusion?
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Literary Devices, cont.

• Exalted Vocabulary
• Ritual Objects
• Kennings bardic formulae, used as
  appositives, for example, swan-road

A phrase used instead of the simple name of a
thing, characteristic of Old Teutonic, and esp.
Old Norse, poetry. Examples are oar-steed ship,
storm of swords battle.
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This PowerPoint presentation taken in part
from http//www.cbnosf.org/lesson_plans.htm A
presentation found on the New Orleans - Sante Fe
District of the Brothers of the Christian Schools