Treachery & Disappointment

Magennis emphasizes that treachery exists within groups as well as between them.

Unferth killed his own brother, and the Danes not only tolerate this, but even give him a place of honor in the hall, sitting at Hrothgar’s feet.

Heremond, a bloodthirsty former king who turned on his companions, is alluded to.

Hrothulf eventually betrays Hrothgar.

The Geats fail Beowulf in the end.

Beowulf accepts the shortcomings of others and tries to do his best; it is a grim fact that people disappoint. He doesn’t expect too much of them.

notes from Hugh Magennis, Images of Community in Old English Poetry, 1996

 

Beowulf as Elegy

The picture so presented accords with that of the Old English elegy. Happiness and prosperity — all human goods except, perhaps, fame — are transitory. Victories may sometimes be gained, but wars are never really won, and fate stands ever ready to sweep away the lives and works of men. The Christian answer was, of course, to seek the permanent bliss of heaven. The heroic answer, as embodied in Beowulf, is a valiant stoicism: ‘Do your utmost. A good name is all you can win in this world.’ Very much the same philosophy is summed up in the epitaph (perhaps legendary) of a cowboy: ‘Here lies Bronco Bill. He always done his damnedest.’ Angels, it was once observed in a different context, can do no more.

In the light of this philosophy, the ‘tragedy of the Geats’ implicit in Beowulf’s death, of which some commentators make a great deal, becomes less significant. All that any man can leave his heirs is a good name and a valiant example. If they cannot be wise and valiant in their own right, then he cannot save them. Those who appear to think that if Beowulf could somehow have survived his contest with the dragon both he and the Geats would have survived forever should reread both the poem and history.

-JDA Ogilvy and Donald C Baker, Reading Beowulf, 1983

 

Heroic Code

Niles sees Beowulf as the only character in the poem who truly lives up to the ideals of bravery, loyalty, and duty — elements of the heroic code which appears to be “eminently practical in that societies are shown to stand or fall in accord with their ability to sustain it.”

[Beowulf] does not cause the troubles that the Geats are soon to suffer. They bring these troubles on themselves. The poet makes this point clear in Wiglaf’s speech to the ten cowardly Geats, when they emerge from the woods ‘shame-faced’ to face his tongue-lashing…
He singles out the Geats’ cowardice, not their hero’s death, as the source of their approaching misfortunes. Those who condemn the king for dying seem to assume that he was going to live forever. The important question is: Will the king leave behind him leaders capable of defending the realm with courage and strength like his? The Geats have provided a visible answer to this question by running away.

John D Niles, Beowulf: The Poem and its Tradition, 1983

 

Anglo-Saxon tradition

Regarding ring-giving, treasure hoards, and loot as symbols of the courage of the men who won the gold:

According to scholar Barry Tharaud, the spoils of war are meaningless if they are not acquired through acts of bravery. “When an outlaw steals a gold cup from a dragon’s treasure hoard…it is a blow against the entire heroic system because it reduces the symbolic value of things to mere material value. It is a fall from the heroic world to a less ideal world in which symbols are deceptive and equivocal.”

When the chieftain bestowed treasure upon his thegns he was expressing admiration and recognition for their deeds, but also confidence that the men would continue to fight bravely in the future. A warriors acceptance of the gifts amounted to an oath of continued loyalty. The gifting cycle (ideally) created bonds of brotherhood and trust.

Tharaud on epics:

“Whether an epic is composed to be sung or read, its most important characteristic is that it tells the story of a society or culture — usually during a time of crisis — in such a way as to expose contradictions inherent in the values of that society.”

 

Timelines

In 449 (according to Bede), Vortigern invited the Angles to Britain to help fight off Picts and Scots.

King Hygelac died around 521 in a raid on what is now the Netherlands.

Anglo-Saxons converted to Christianity around 590′s (Christianity had been introduced by the Romans earlier on but the new religion was fused with the old heroic ideals)

Scholars think there was a time gap of a couple hundred years between conversion and the composition of the Beowulf poem. It was probably written sometime between 700 and 900.

 

Quotes

A combined admiration and regret is the dominant tone in Beowulf and one of the poet’s signal triumphs was to adopt the precisely appropriate style for striking that tone. Admiration for pagans, however, has often been judged a highly improbable attitude for medieval Christians to assume. Many readers have held that a moral revulsion is the only possible reaction that a converted Anglo-Saxon could have when confronted with pagans. But…this is not the case.

-Fred C. Robinson, Beowulf and the Appositive Style, 1985

The attitude Robinson criticizes, that “revulsion is the only possible reaction” to pagan society, is more a reflection of modern readers’ sensibilities than the possible views of the Anglo-Saxons. It is naive to think that an entire culture would wholly abandon centuries of tradition in favor of Christianity. Such assumptions are becoming less common these days, I think, with advances in communication and the easy access we have to information. Professionals and lay-people are increasingly aware of the syncretic belief systems that pop up all over the world when cultures clash. Vestigial pagan customs and rituals are evident even in modern Christian celebrations, despite the contempt many adherents have for non-Christian or pre-Christian societies.

The description of Beowulf’s passing is designed both to celebrate the valour and nobility of a great hero of the past and to look with compassion upon the limited horizons and misdirected aims of the unregenerate sons of Adam.

-Margaret E. Goldsmith, The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf, 1970

An individual’s desire for glory…becomes an increasingly dangerous motivation as a man’s responsibility for leadership grows. Even without such a desire, a leader’s excessive reliance on his personal strength easily brings calamity.

-John Leyerle, “Beowulf the Hero and the King” 1965

Sounds like certain American leaders…

 

Beowulf notes

-set in 5th century Denmark

-historical stories woven into narrative (Finn); it is assumed that the audience is already familiar with historical tales & local folklore

-as in Gilgamesh, drinking is a sign of civilization

-Heorot = Old English for hart, or male deer; from Proto-Germanic *kherut, which may be from Proto-IndoEuropean base *ker meaning “horn”; cognate of Old High Germanic hiruz, Old Norse hjörtr; possible cognate of Latin cornu (horn), cervus (deer), Welsh carw (deer, compare to Cernunnos, name of ancient Celtic horned god).

-scop, from Old English; form of verb scieppan (to create, to shape)?; now a learned word for poet or bard, but related to Old Norse skop (mocking) and Old High Germanic skof (derision)

-a boast is a pledge to action

-ring-giving symbolic of leadership and shared history; claiming place in history; material things carry meaning because of their history.

-Unferth is a moral anomaly; a man is supposed to avenge his brother’s death, but Unferth killed his brother so there is no one to avenge him. Compare to Grendel, who is thought to be a descendant of Cain.

 

beowulf jokes

-What does Grendel eat for breakfast?

Danish! lolololololol

-What did Hrothgar say after Beowulf defeated Grendel’s mother?

You give good head! lolololololololol

 

Baby’s First Dig

I volunteered at the Elliot Park Archaeology Project a few days this past week, and took the kiddo so she could see what was going on. She was pretty stoked. I got her a muffin at e.p. atelier next to the site, and she sat on the curb scraping at the dirt with her heel–”Dig hole, mama!”–while she ate. She kept picking up sticks and poking at the ground. When I let her check out a couple of the excavation units, she found a little broom and used it to sweep the sifted dirt that was piled under the screens.

She thought she was helping.

She liked the archaeology…
but she loved the atelier. When it was time to go, she dragged me back to the coffee shop so she could play “little men” (chess). A guy who was there with his dog sat by us. She said “wanna be shy” at first, but when he had the dog do tricks for her, she was literally shrieking with laughter. That was Wednesday…she’s still thinking about it now. Friday morning, the first thing she said to me when I went to get her out of bed was, “See doggy?” I thought she was talking about one of her toys. “Where is your doggy?” I said. She said, “Go see doggy at coffee shop?” So I took her there again yesterday.

 

SJG

The anniversary of Stephen Jay Gould’s death was a little over a week ago. He was the most eloquent voice of reason.

“Objectivity cannot be equated with mental blankness; rather, objectivity resides in recognizing your preferences and then subjecting them to especially harsh scrutiny—and also in a willingness to revise or abandon your theories when the tests fail (as they usually do).”

— “Capturing the Center,” 1998

“Scientific claims must be testable; we must, in principal, be able to envision a set of observations that would render them false. Miracles cannot be judged by this criterion…”

— “Genesis vs. Geology,” 1984

“Forelimbs of people, porpoises, bats and horses provide the classic example of homology in most textbooks. They look different, and do different things, but are built of the same bones. No engineer, starting from scratch each time, would have built such desperate structures from the same parts. Therefore, the parts existed before the particular set of structures now housing them: they were, in short, inherited from a common ancestor.”

— “Inside a Sponge’s Cell,” 1980