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This article defines a hypothetical late Anglo-Saxon audience: a multi-layered Christian community with competing ideologies, dialects and mythologies. It discusses how that audience might have received the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf. The immediate textual context of the poem constitutes an intertextual microcosm for Beowulf.
P. Magoun, Jr., argues that Beowulf ultimately derives from the poiesis of an oral tradition,2 and his theory must be credited with philological power of an unusual degree. It explains the recur-rence of many entire half-lines, comments on the origin of the kennings, and finds truth in the closing section of Widsith. It postulates a single
Runes were the alphabetic system used by the peo ple of medieval Scandinavia. Norse mythology tells us that the Runes were discovered by the god Odin as he hung from the Yggdrasil, the tree that supports the earth. 1 According to the Poetic Edda, once Odin had found the Runes, he was released from bondage, and in
Before reading Beowulf students should review the definitions of epic poetry (a long, narrative poem written in an elevated style which celebrates the deeds of a legendary hero or god) and epic hero (superhuman hero or god of an epic).
Bilingual Beowulf. Bilingual Beowulf. Unknown October 18, 2003. LO, praise of the prowess of people-kings Hwæt! We Gardena in geardagum, of spear-armed Danes, in days long sped, þeodcyninga, þrym gefrunon, we have heard, and what honor the athelings won! hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon. Oft Scyld the Sce ng from squadroned foes, Oft Scyld ...
7 kwi 2017 · In this article, I re-examine the three runes used within the manuscript text of Beowulf to argue that the runes are purposeful additions to the text that interact with and enrich the reader’s experience of the narrative. The runes mark passages in which the poem considers the nature of the literary and its relationship to an amorphous mythic ...
Nibelungenlied. The Beowulf-poet may be resolving the dilemma when he avoids reference to Christian worship or the saints and merely repre-sents his nobler agents as intelligent monotheists. Except for temporary apostasy under great stress, they are loyal to the one true God (s6S metod), like the chosen people of the Old Testament.6
