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Beowulf and the Beasts of Battle

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Adrien Bonjour
Adrien Bonjour*
Affiliation:
University of Lausanne, Switzerland
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Extract

If the well-known dictum that history repeats itself is sometimes open to controversy, its veracity can hardly be doubted when we turn to the history of Beowulf criticism. For it almost seems a law that in its broad outlines Beowulf criticism should follow the fortunes of Homeric criticism—this, of course, with the proper shift in time due to the still appreciable lead of classical philology.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 72 , Issue 4-Part-1 , September 1957 , pp. 563 - 573
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1957

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References

1 F. P. Magoun, “Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry,” Speculum, xxviii (1953), 446–467.

2 C. L. Wren, ed. Beowulf (London, 1953), p. 66.

3 “The Theme of the Beasts of Battle in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Bull. de la Société Néophilologique de Helsinki, lvi (1955), 83.

4 Ibid., p. 82.

5 Beowulf, LL. 2447–2448.

6 A. Campbell, ed. The Battle of Brunanburh (London, 1938), p. 41.

7 “The Formulaic Expression of the Theme of ‘Exile’ in Anglo-Saxon Poetry,” Speculum, xxx (1955), 205.

8 Ed. The Battle of Maldon (London, 1937), pp. 42–43.

9 The only exception is The Wanderer, LL. 81–83. In this poem, however, we do not actually meet with the theme of the beasts of battle per se, but at best with a reminiscence of it. Magoun is aware of it since he writes that “we may quite easily have here a case of a theme taking over and being used not quite logically, realistically or sensibly” (“Beasts of Battle,” p. 88). Apart from the possibility that the fugol here may not actually mean a bird, it should be pointed out that the man carried away by the fugol and the man eaten by the wolf are opposed to the man killed in war (“sume wig fornöm” L. 80), whereas in our theme it is the fallen warriors, of course, who are the beasts' prey. Thus, if we probably have a thematic wolf and, perhaps, a thematic bird, the situation is not thematic at all.

10 C. Brady, review of The Digressions in Beowulf, MLN, lxx (1955), 523.

11 This phrase is slightly adapted from J. L. Lowes, who was speaking of Villon's originality in using the ubi sunt formula. (See Convention and Revolt in Poetry, Boston and New York, 1931 ed., p. 102.)

12 Oral-Formulaic Character, p. 460.

13 R. W. V. Elliott, “Cynewulf's Runes in Juliana and Fates of the Apostles,” Eng. Stud., xxxiv (1953), 194, 203–204.

14 “Bede's Story of Caedman: The Case History of an Anglo-Saxon Oral Singer.” Speculum, xxx (1955), 60–61.