The longest surviving and most important Old English text is the epic poem Beowulf (8th century CE). Beowulf tells a tale of heroism and sacrifice in the vein of thousands of stories told throughout human history, yet its significance lies in how it preserves the ancient Anglo-Saxon language and culture. Comparing Beowulf's Old English with modern English translations can help readers understand Old English and how it served as the foundation of today's English language.
Summary of Beowulf
Beowulf, in summary, is set in 6th-century CE Scandinavia and tells the story of the heroic prince of the Geats, Beowulf. He hears that the king of the Danes, Hrothgar, has a monster named Grendel attacking men in his mead hall every night and offers to help. He defeats Grendel and then Grendel's mother, who tries to avenge her son. The Danes celebrate Beowulf's heroism. Years later, when Beowulf is king and an old man, he again defeats a threatening monster (this time a dragon) but dies in the process. The text deals with themes of fate, bravery, and loyalty, giving people in the modern world a keen insight into the Anglo-Saxon language and culture.
Fig. 1 - Beowulf is an epic poem in Old English.
Importance of Beowulf
Beowulf is an important text because it helps readers understand Anglo-Saxon cultural values, the structure of Old English and its development into modern English, and the genre of epic poetry.
Old English
Perhaps what makes Beowulf important is how it recorded Old English's rich complexity. In the 5th century CE, Germanic tribes conquered people called the Celts in England. The invaders brought their dialects with them, which developed into a language known as Old English. Christian missionaries eventually also arrived in the region and attempted to incorporate Latin into Anglo-Saxon. Over time Old English evolved into what is known as Middle English, then eventually to the modern English spoken today.
Most storytelling in Old English was done orally, meaning many records of written texts are incomplete. Beowulf, however, is an Old English epic poem 3,182 lines long that was put to paper and remained intact over the centuries. It is the oldest surviving and longest Old English text, which has made it crucial to the preservation and study of the language.
As Beowulf was passed down orally, the tale began to change. The poem is long and full of details that were altered and added as different people performed it over many years. This is in line with other ancient texts with rich oral traditions, such as Homer's The Odyssey (c. 7th century BCE).
By the time the manuscript was written down around 1000 CE, Anglo-Saxon society had changed, and the people were gradually becoming Christian with the arrival of Christian missionaries. New elements were added to Beowulf to reflect this new context, including Christian themes and symbols.
Epic Poetry
Beowulf is also the oldest example of an epic poem in the English language. Epic poems are long narrative poems, typically told in the third-person point of view, about a heroic figure overcoming many obstacles on the way to glory. Many epics end with the heroic figure's death, though not always. They typically also contain alliteration, metaphors, and imagery like their contemporary poetic counterparts.
For example, note how the third-person narrator uses vivid imagery to describe Beowulf's heroic death:
So every man should act,
Be at hand when needed; but now, for the king,
This would be the last of his many labors
And triumphs in the world.
Then the wound
Dealt by the ground-burner earlier began
To scald and swell; Beowulf discovered
Deadly poison suppurating inside him,
Surges of nausea, and so, in his wisdom,
The prince realized his state and struggled
Towards a seat on the rampart."
(2707-18)
Alliterations like "bitterest bale woe in his bosom" help create an engaging rhythm and help the audience envision the hero's downfall. Such descriptions are a defining characteristic of epic poetry.
Anglo-Saxon Culture
The themes and use of language in Beowulf both reflect the cultural values and tensions of Anglo-Saxon times. For instance, the Anglo-Saxons were pagans who believed strongly in wyrd, the idea that everything happened according to a predestined plan. In Beowulf, the pagan main character is celebrated for his heroic actions despite differing from the Christian missionaries attempting to convert the Anglo-Saxons in this period. The poem thus reflects the historical and cultural tensions of the period.
When Beowulf was written down, Christian missionaries were attempting to change the Anglo-Saxons' pagan beliefs. As Christianity was relatively new to the Anglo-Saxon world, Beowulf portrays conflicting religious ideas.
Paganism within Beowulf
The very nature of oral storytelling is what led to the conflicting religious symbolism and references within Beowulf. The story was passed down from generation to generation, with each new storyteller providing a new spin or extra details to build upon previous versions.
The story was already centuries old when Christian missionaries arrived in Britain. Christian culture slowly permeated throughout the land over the years; by the time the written version that exists today was created, the epic would have gone through several generations of edits that may have added Christian elements. Additionally, the epic was undoubtedly transcribed by a Christian scholar who further inserted Christian elements, such as changing references to nature or the natural gods of paganism to the Christian Lord.
Despite these changes, Beowulf remains first and foremost a pagan text. One example is the belief in wergild that permeates the story.
Wergild: translates literally to "man gold." It was the price one must pay for killing someone unjustly.
In Anglo-Saxon culture, a person must pay a wergild whenever he commits a wrongful killing: the more important the person, the heftier the wergild. Those who could not pay were executed, banished, or had the debt fall to their descendants. In Beowulf, Grendel owes an unpaid debt because of his frequent murders within Hrothgar's halls. Thus, Beowulf comes to collect the wergild and kill Grendel for his crimes.
Did you know? The word werewolf literally means "man-wolf" and has the same etymological origins as wergild.
There are many other examples of paganism within Beowulf. For one, there is the belief that certain people contain within them supernatural abilities and strength. Such abilities allowed them to fight monstrous creatures like Grendel and the dragon.
There are also elements such as the supernatural, weapons that contain special meaning, glory through death in battle, cremation upon a burning ship, and, as mentioned before, wyrd, the belief in predestination. For example, Beowulf states when discussing his deed of slaying ferocious sea creatures,
Often, for undaunted courage,
Fate spares the man it has not already marked."
(572-3)
Though Beowulf is a mighty warrior, he knows he lives only so long as the fickle fancies of fate allow him to.
Christianity within Beowulf
Despite these strong veins of paganism, the version of the poem that exists today was clearly Christianized. Beowulf becomes a figure who acts in the name of God, not just for his own virtues, loyalty, and glory. Beowulf, therefore, becomes God's messenger, a mighty warrior who must drive out the demons and other evils of the world. By believing in Beowulf, people subsequently believe in the power of God.
This concept of Beowulf as a warrior of the Lord is best seen when Beowulf battles Grendel's mother. At a moment when things seem dire, the Christian scribe says God's hand alters the flow of battle:
The son of Ecgtheow would surely have perished
and the Geats lost their warrior under the wide earth
had the strong links and locks of his war-gear
not helped save him: holy God
decided the victory. It was easy for the Lord,
the Ruler of Heaven, to redress the balance
once Beowulf got back up on his feet."
(1550-1556)
Beowulf no longer wins through sheer determination, battle prowess, or even wyrd; instead, God steps in and sees him to victory over the demon.
The clearest, most important reference to Christianity comes through Grendel's parentage. Grendel, so the surviving version says, is a descendant of Cain.
Cain was a son of the biblical Adam and Eve. He killed his brother, Abel, in a fit of jealousy because Abel gave God a better offering. Thus he was forever burdened with what has become known as "the mark of Cain" for committing the world's first murder. Any of his descendants would also bear this mark and be forever cursed.
As a descendant of Cain, Grendel is the lowest of the low. This was a clever move by the Christian scholar who wrote the transcript of Beowulf. By connecting the supernatural monster to one of the most reviled people in the Bible, Grendel becomes a genuinely evil figure simultaneously born of the land, the Devil, and humanity's own sin.
Significance of Beowulf
Beowulf's significance cannot be overstated. Preserving a text as old as Beowulf is complex and rare. It is lucky the original Old English manuscript survives today.
The first recorded manuscript owner was Anglo-Saxon scholar Laurence Nowell, who obtained it in 1563. When he died, the collector Sir Robert Cotton acquired the manuscript. His historical collection was damaged in a fire in 1731, but luckily the text survived with minimal damage. The text was eventually gifted to the British people and put on display in the British Library, where it resides today. The preservation of the text allowed scholars to trace the development of the English language and literature.
Fig. 2 - The Beowulf manuscript was almost destroyed in a fire.
Old English and Beowulf
Old English is quite different from modern English, so most readers today read a translated version of Beowulf. However, as the oldest, most detailed record of Old English, it is one of the best ways to understand the ancient language.
Old English was what linguistics call an inflected language. An inflected language is a language in which the case endings at the start and ends of words indicate the meaning of a sentence. Anglo-Saxon is an inflected language because German is, and it was made up of a mix of Germanic dialects. The language also mainly consisted of oral communication and orally-transmitted stories. Beowulf is thus significant because it is a complete, detailed written text in the language.
For example, note how the word king looks different depending on how one uses it in Old English.
Sē cyning is hēr. = The king is here
Iċ ġeaf þæt sweord þām cyninge. = I gave the king the sword.
Þæs cyninges sweord is sċearp. = The king's sword is sharp.
Modern English is not an inflected language, so the order of words (the syntax) typically determines the sentence's meaning.
Characteristics of Old English in Beowulf
Beowulf demonstrates the features of old English writing, especially poetry. For instance, every line in the poem is split into two half-lines separated by a pause called a caesura.
þær mæg nihta gehwæm // niðwundor seon,
fyr on flode. // No þæs frod leofað
gumena bearna, // þæt þone grund wite;
At night there, something uncanny happens:
the water burns. And the mere bottom
has never been sounded by the sons of men.
The use of caesura is characteristic of Old English poetry and indicates its oral nature. Old English poets also often used alliteration in tandem with caesura to define the poem's rhythm. Old English poets often used alliteration as an ornamental element of their work.
Fyrst forð gewāt; flota wæs on ȳðum,
bāt under beorge. Beornas gearwe
on stefn stigon,-- strēamas wundon,
Time passed by; the ship was on the waves,
the boat under the cliffs; the ready warriors
stepped up into the prow --the currents curled round,
The placement of alliteration throughout the poem comes from the strong stresses in the sentence. Additionally, the natural sequence of the pauses made it easy for the poet to transmit the story orally rather than through writing. The effect is unfortunately mostly lost when translated into modern English, but it's easy enough to at least note its presence in the Old English version.
Beowulf is also full of other common literary elements in Old English, like imagery, similes, and metaphors. These features make for vivid, engaging writing, just as they do in contemporary writing.
Fig. 3 - Caesura in Old English poetry indicates where the poet should take a breath.
Beowulf's Old English vs. Modern English
There are over 600 translations of Beowulf into modern English that are all slightly different. These translations differ because translating Old English is a difficult task. Since it was rarely written down, there were inconsistencies in grammatical rules like punctuation, making it difficult to translate directly.
Despite differences in translation, comparing the Old English version of Beowulf with a modern version can help readers understand the similarities and differences between the two languages. Such analysis demonstrates the connections between the two languages and how the old version has eventually led to the modern. For instance, consider the following two passages.
| Old English | Modern English |
|---|
þær mæg nihta gehwæm // niðwundor seon, fyr on flode. // No þæs frod leofað gumena bearna, // þæt þone grund wite; | At night there, something uncanny happens: the water burns. And the mere bottom has never been sounded by the sons of men. |
In the first passage, the readers should note the use of caesura to denote pauses. These slashes are not present in the modern English version of the text, but instead, the translator uses punctuation to indicate where the reader should pause. The pauses are also different in some places, like in the third line where there is no need for a pause in modern English until the end of the sentence, unlike in the Old English version.
Beowulf - Key takeaways
- The epic poem Beowulf is the longest surviving and most important Old English text.
- Beowulf was originally told orally but was preserved in a manuscript around the eleventh century.
- Beowulf is significant because it preserves the Old English language and culture and establishes the genre of epic poetry.
- Beowulf demonstrates defining characteristics of Old English poetry, including caesura and alliteration.
- Translations of Beowulf into modern English demonstrate the ways the English language has evolved to account for needs like taking pauses.
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