Why is Beowulf important?

     Beowulf is both the first English literary masterpiece and one of the earliest European epics written in the vernacular. Until quite recently, most scholars thought that this surprisingly complex and poignant poem was written in the 8th century or earlier, but Kevin Kiernan stirred up controversy in 1981 by asserting that the work was composed in the 11th century, and that the manuscript itself may have even been the author's working copy.  manuscript was badly damaged by fire in 1731. Today, ultraviolet light and other technologies reveal erasures, text under the frames, and characteristics of the manuscript that were previously undetectable. owned by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton, an "antiquary" or collector of Anglo-Saxon Charters and  manuscripts, whose library was among three foundation collections brought together by the creation of the British Museum in 1753.  Sir Robert bound Beowulf with four other MSS in a combined codex known as Cotton MS.Vitellius A.xv, MSS are referenced by the "emperor pressmark" system.

 Beowulf and other manuscripts

 In the late 900s, two anonymous scribes wrote the story on parchment using West Saxon, a Germanic dialect dominant for literary composition in England at the time.  Old English: three in prose (The Passion of St. Christopher, The Wonders of the East, Alexander’s Letter to Aristotle), and Judith, a poem. We hear of it in 1563, when the Dean of Litchfield, Lawrence Nowell, owned it at least long enough to write his name and the date on the first page. Very likely Nowell saved the manuscript and Beowulf from destruction when Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries and broke up their libraries. From Nowell, again via unknown ways, the manuscript found its way into the famous library of the Elizabethan physician and antiquary Sir Robert Cotton. After Cotton’s death, his collection was eventually recognized as a national treasure, and came under the protection of the Crown. A variety of evidence suggests that Beowulf began as an oral poem, passed by singers of one generation to the next. It’s a good guess Beowulf would have disappeared along with those singers themselves if someone had not caused the poem to be written down around A.D. 1000. Beowulf tells us that Hygelac, lord of the Geats, died in battle against the Frisians. This event is corroborated by the Frankish historian Gregory of Tours (d. 594), who notes in his chronicle that in the year 521 a “Chlochilaichus” (Latinized “Hygelac”) was killed in a raid on Frisia. What is the secret of this poem that has kept it quintessential to the English literary canon? To this question there must be many answers, perhaps as many as there have been hearers or readers of the poem. But certainly common to every experience of Beowulf is the sense that its poetry reaches, somehow like lightning, to the core of what we understand about ourselves stripped to basics, even amid the twentieth century world of central heating and computers.

Interlaced with the stories of Beowulf’s battles with monsters are tales of human struggle and less than exemplary people: Heremod, the wicked king who hoarded people, and put many of his own to death; Modthryth, the queen who arbitrarily executed those who displeased her; and Hrothulf, the treacherous usurper-in-waiting.

The struggles the poem depicts are of the good against evil: strength of sinew, heart and spirit, truth and light, pitted against dark power that gives no quarter as it shifts from shape to shape. That the darkness (be it Grendel, a dragon, or treachery, greed, and pride) is familiar only renders it more frightening -- and the more instructive.

In the poem’s narrative, challenge is constant and death always waits. True, there are victories -- glorious ones, sometimes, like Beowulf’s triumph over Grendel -- but in the end even the hero’s strength and vitality must be sapped by age.

And yet, although the poem ends with the death of its hero and the prophecy of extinction for his people, Beowulf is not a gloomy work, and our experience of it does not incite despair. That is because, like Beowulf himself, the poem never backs away but greets what comes with courage. To this, probably as much as the tales of monsters, or the high adventure, or the blood and gore (of which, relatively speaking, the poem contains little), Beowulf’s audiences have always reacted most strongly. Students respond to the lack of falsifying sweetness that would gloss over a world that they recognize as basically an image of our own.

From start to finish, Beowulf demands our acknowledgment that sorting out the monster from the hero and the coward is a lifetime’s struggle in the dark. Beowulf joins us to our ancestors -- whoever they might have been, in whatever far country -- at the top of their game, as we would like to imagine them, and as we dearly hope those who come after will someday envision us.

Robert F. Yeager is a professor of literature and language at the University of North Carolina at Asheville.

He has directed five NEH-funded Summer Summer Seminars for School Teachers on “Beowulf and the Heroic Age.” His sixth seminar will be held this summer.

Beowulf and Old English Literature

The Geats were Beowulf's clan - a seafaring tribe residing in the south of Sweden. As the poem suggests, the Geats appear to have been conquered and disappeared into history. The seafaring Geats appear to be the invading `Danes' of whom Gregory of Tours writes concerning an attack by Chlochilaicus (Hygelac) against the Franks in 520. Later they were connected to the Gautar people who were eventually subjugated by the Swedes in territory inland of Sweden. The Danes were residents of Denmark. Hroðgar's Heorot is likely to have been located on the island of Sjaelland near the present day city of Roskilde. The Swedes lived in Sweden north of the Vaner and Volter lakes, north of the Geats. Archaeology in Sweden reveals the grave mounds of Ongenþeow who was buried in 510-515, and his grandson Eadgils, buried in 575. These dates correspond with the events described in Beowulf. Grendel was a monster, one of a giant race which survived the great flood, slain by Beowulf. It is told that his origins stretch back to Cain, who killed Abel. He is of particular cause of trouble to Hrothgar because of his disregard for law and custom: he refuses to negotiate a peace settlement or to accept tributes of gold.

There is reference to "Grendel's Mere", "Grendel's Pit" and "Grendel's Peck" in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle. The references seem to collaborate the underground or water lair of the Beowulf epic, but it is unclear what the true origins of these names were.

Grendel's mother is supposedly a smaller creature than her son. She is a vengeful creature who illustrates the constant cycle of war in the poem, even when the enemy appears to be defeated.

As part of a mythical giant race, both Grendel and his mother appear impervious to normal swords, hence the difficulty the Danes must have had in trying to deal with them. Beowulf eventually finds a sword forged by the giants themselves in order to defeat them, but their blood runs hot enough to melt even that blade.

Reference Resources

Hasenfratz, Robert J. Beowulf scholarship : an annotated bibliography, 1979-1990. New York : Garland Pub., 1993. UNR Main Z2012 .H23 1993

Dictionary of the Middle Ages. 13 vols. 1982-89. An encyclopedia with signed articles about all aspects of the medieval period. A wonderful resource. UNR Main Ref  D114 .D5 1982

Classical and Medieval Literature Criticism. The "CMLC" is a multi-volume set of reprinted excerpts from scholarly journal articles and books. A great way to get an overview of what scholars have said about a particular work over a long period of time, and to get some differing opinions and approaches. The section on Beowulf is in volume 1. UNR Main Ref  PN681.5 .C57

Harner, James L. Literary Research Guide: An annotated Listing of Reference Sources in English Literary Studies. 3rd ed. 1998. Essential tool for serious students. UNR Main Ref PR83 .Z9 H34 1998.

Greenfield, Stanley B., and Fred C. Robinson. A Bibliography of Publications on Old English Literature to the End of 1972. A well-organized, but unannotated list of significant scholarship. UNR Main  Z2012 .G83