Table Of ContentBeowuLF
Beowulf
The Poem
and Its Tradition
JOHN D. NILES
HARVARD UNIVERSITY PRESS
Cambridge, Massachusetts
London, England
1983
Copyright © 1983 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College
All rights reserved
Printed in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 21
Publication of this book has been aided by a grant from the
Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
This book is printed on acid-free paper, and its binding materials
have been chosen for strength and durability.
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Niles, John D.
Beowulf: the poem and its tradition.
Includes index.
I. Beowulf. 2. Oral tradition. 3. Anglo-Saxon
literature—History and criticism. 4. Anglo-Saxons.
I. Title.
PR1585.N54 1983 829'.3 83-4308
ISBN 0-674-06725-8
PREFACE
THIS BOOK DEVELOPS a view of the first great work of English litera-
ture as a poem whose methods are grounded in an oral tradition,
whose style is formal and nonrepresentational, and whose values re-
flect those of the Anglo-Saxon aristocrats who patronized songs of this
kind.
In Part I, I discuss the poem's oral, traditional background, chiefly
in a chapter on the art of the early Germanic singers; in Part II, its
formal artistry; and in Part III, its aristocratic and community-
oriented values. Looking at Beowulf this way can be likened to three
ways of looking at a blackbird: (i) in its landscape, of wide horizons;
(2) under a lens, with attention to its fine anatomy; and (3) as a living
thing, with a potential for song, and unlike anything else.
The impression I have gained from reading other studies of Beowulf
is that their authors have sometimes been swayed by a consensus of
earlier authors who have also simply repeated what had been said by
persons of authority. My strong feeling is that less is known about the
conditions of composition of much Old English poetry than is some-
times thought. The question of dating is a case in point. The question
of the possible relation of extant texts to Anglo-Saxon oral tradition is
another. In the first part of this book I have tried to take nothing for
granted. To a large degree, the history of Old English literature re-
mains to be written. Several of my views about the context of Beowulf
will therefore appear heretical, but only because an opposing ortho-
doxy has grown great from rather slight beginnings.
In Part II, I have tried to read the poem from the inside out, by ex-
amining the inner mechanisms by which it operates. I view the poem's
diction, structure, and style as parts of a finely wrought aesthetic sys-
tem that developed largely from the Germanic milieu in which the
poem's verse-making tradition arose.
In the last chapters I have used both contextual and textual ap-
proaches, added to common sense, to try to resolve a number of inter-
pretive issues. In general I have read the poem as a culturally central
ν
vi PREFACE
work that expresses an entire vision of life, in both its material and
spiritual aspects. In my view, the poem affirms without irony the value
of heroic action in a world in which even heroes must die.
Guiding me throughout has been my conception of Beowulf as not a
text, in any primary sense, but a performance shared among members
of a community. Rather than explain the poem on the basis of what is
least clear or is not expressed (for example, putative allusions or alle-
gories) I have tried to account for it on the basis of what it expresses
most clearly and emphatically.
In the first seven chapters I have embedded my points within a rela-
tively fine mesh of bibliographical citations. Because much of the re-
mainder of the book presents subjective judgments, there seemed to
be little point in citing every relevant opinion that others have ex-
pressed. Still, I have tried to indicate my indebtedness to authors who
have opened my eyes to new perceptions or who have provoked me to
justify my differing views.
Unless otherwise indicated, quotations from Beowulf are from the
third edition by Frederick Klaeber, minus the diacritics and parenthe-
ses; quotations from other Old English poetic texts are from the
Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (ASPR); and translations are my own. In
rendering the names of historical persons I have adopted Dorothy
Whitelock's spellings in volume 1 of English Historical Documents; in
rendering most personal names from the poetry, however, I have
transliterated directly from the Old English.
My writing of this book was facilitated by summer grants from the
National Endowment for the Humanities and the Southeastern Insti-
tute of Medieval and Renaissance Studies, as well as by several timely
grants awarded by the Regents of the University of California, Berke-
ley. I am grateful for this very helpful support. More specific assis-
tance, whether in the form of encouragement or of criticism, was pro-
vided by friends and colleagues who read the typescript at one or
another stage of its composition. Among these I am particularly in-
debted to Theodore Andersson, Robert P. Creed, Donald K. Fry,
Margaretta Fulton, and Alain Renoir. I should also like to thank the
members of my Beowulf classes at Berkeley and at Brandeis University
for allowing me to try out many of my ideas on them and for offering
fresh ideas in return. The illustrations from MS. Cotton Tiberius B.v.
are reproduced by kind permission of the British Library.
CONTENTS
(I) CONTEXT
1. The Marvelous 3
2. The Art of the Germanic Scop 31
3. Latin Christian Letters 66
4. The Danes and the Date 96
(II) STYLE AND STRUCTURE
5. Formula and Formulaic System 121
6. Compound Diction 138
7. Ring Composition 152
8. Barbaric Style 163
(III) INTERPRETATION
9. The Dimension of Time 179
10. The Narrator's Voice 197
11. The Listening Audience 205
12. Reciprocity 213
13. The Controlling Theme 224
14. The Fatal Contradiction 235
Afterword
The Excellence of Beowulf 248
Abbreviations 257
Notes 261
Index 307
ILLUSTRATIONS
(From the British Library MS. Cotton Tiberius B.v)
Monster at hell's mouth. Folio 87b. Frontispiece
Cannibalistic giant. Detail of folio 81b. Page 1
Cannibalistic woman. Detail of folio 85a. Page 119
Intertwined dragons. Detail of folio 82b. Page 177
