Related Research Articles
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem in the tradition of Germanic heroic legend consisting of 3,182 alliterative lines. It is one of the most important and most often translated works of Old English literature. The date of composition is a matter of contention among scholars; the only certain dating is for the manuscript, which was produced between 975 and 1025. Scholars call the anonymous author the "Beowulf poet". The story is set in pagan Scandinavia in the 6th century. Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hrothgar, the king of the Danes, whose mead hall in Heorot has been under attack by the monster Grendel. After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then defeated. Victorious, Beowulf goes home to Geatland and becomes king of the Geats. Fifty years later, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is mortally wounded in the battle. After his death, his attendants cremate his body and erect a barrow on a headland in his memory.
Old English literature refers to poetry and prose written in Old English in early medieval England, from the 7th century to the decades after the Norman Conquest of 1066, a period often termed Anglo-Saxon England. The 7th-century work Cædmon's Hymn is often considered as the oldest surviving poem in English, as it appears in an 8th-century copy of Bede's text, the Ecclesiastical History of the English People. Poetry written in the mid 12th century represents some of the latest post-Norman examples of Old English. Adherence to the grammatical rules of Old English is largely inconsistent in 12th-century work, and by the 13th century the grammar and syntax of Old English had almost completely deteriorated, giving way to the much larger Middle English corpus of literature.
Oral tradition, or oral lore, is a form of human communication wherein knowledge, art, ideas and cultural material is received, preserved, and transmitted orally from one generation to another. The transmission is through speech or song and may include folktales, ballads, chants, prose or poetry. In this way, it is possible for a society to transmit oral history, oral literature, oral law and other knowledge across generations without a writing system, or in parallel to a writing system. Religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Catholicism, and Jainism, for example, have used an oral tradition, in parallel to a writing system, to transmit their canonical scriptures, rituals, hymns and mythologies from one generation to the next.
Symbel (OE) and sumbl (ON) are Germanic terms for "feast, banquet".
Solomon and Saturn is the generic name given to four Old English works, which present a dialogue of riddles between Solomon, the king of Israel, and Saturn, identified in two of the poems as a prince of the Chaldeans.
"Widsith", also known as "The Traveller's Song", is an Old English poem of 143 lines. It survives only in the Exeter Book, a manuscript of Old English poetry compiled in the late-10th century, which contains approximately one-sixth of all surviving Old English poetry. "Widsith" is located between the poems "Vainglory" and "The Fortunes of Men". Since the donation of the Exeter Book in 1076, it has been housed in Exeter Cathedral in southwestern England. The poem is for the most part a survey of the people, kings, and heroes of Europe in the Heroic Age of Northern Europe.
Wealhtheow is a queen of the Danes in the Old English poem, Beowulf, first introduced in line 612.
"The Rhyming Poem", also written as "The Riming Poem", is a poem of 87 lines found in the Exeter Book, a tenth-century collection of Old English poetry. It is remarkable for being no later than the 10th century, in Old English, and written in rhyming couplets. Rhyme is otherwise virtually unknown among Anglo-Saxon literature, which used alliterative verse instead.
Breca was a Bronding who, according to the Anglo-Saxon poem Beowulf, was Beowulf's childhood friend. Breca defeated Beowulf in what, by consensus, is described as a swimming match.
In the Old English epic poem Beowulf, Unferth or Hunferth is a thegn of the Danish lord Hrothgar. He appears five times in the poem — four times by the name 'Hunferð' and once by the appellation "the son of Eclafes". The name Unferth does not appear in any Old English manuscript outside of the Nowell Codex, which contains Beowulf, and the meaning of the name is disputed. Several scholarly theories about Unferth have been proposed. Unferth is also the name of a character in the modern novel Grendel by John Gardner, based upon the Beowulf epic.
The Homeric Question concerns the doubts and consequent debate over the identity of Homer, the authorship of the Iliad and Odyssey, and their historicity. The subject has its roots in classical antiquity and the scholarship of the Hellenistic period, but has flourished among Homeric scholars of the 19th, 20th, and 21st centuries.
Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr. MC was one of the seminal figures in the study of medieval and English literature in the 20th century, a scholar of subjects as varied as soccer and ancient Germanic naming practices, and translator of numerous important texts. Though an American, he served in the British Royal Flying Corps as a lieutenant during World War I. Magoun was victor in five aerial combats and was also decorated with Britain's Military Cross for gallantry.
Næġling is the name of one of the swords used by Beowulf in the Anglo-Saxon epic poem of Beowulf. The name derives from "næġl", or "nail", and may correspond to Nagelring, a sword from the Vilkina saga. It is possibly the sword of Hrethel, which Hygelac gave to Beowulf. Næġling is referenced many times as a fine weapon—it is "sharp", "gleaming", "bright", "mighty", "strong", and has a venerable history as an "excellent ancient sword", "ancient heirloom", and "old and grey-coloured". However, the sword does not survive Beowulf's final encounter with the dragon, snapping in two—not because of the dragon's strength, but because of the hero's strength:
Oral-formulaic composition is a theory that originated in the scholarly study of epic poetry and developed in the second quarter of the twentieth century. It seeks to explain two related issues:
- the process by which oral poets improvise poetry
- the reasons for orally improvised poetry having the characteristics that it does
The Singer of Tales is a book by Albert Lord that discusses the oral tradition as a theory of literary composition and its applications to Homeric and medieval epic. Lord builds on the research of Milman Parry and their work together recording Balkan guslar poets. It was published in 1960.
The "Finnesburg Fragment" is a portion of an Old English heroic poem about a fight in which Hnæf and his 60 retainers are besieged at "Finn's fort" and attempt to hold off their attackers. The surviving text is tantalisingly brief and allusive, but comparison with other references in Old English poetry, notably Beowulf, suggests that it deals with a conflict between Danes and Frisians in Migration-Age Frisia.
Donald K. "Don" Fry was an American writer and scholar. He began as a scholar of Old and Middle English literature at the University of Virginia and Stony Brook University. He changed fields to journalism education in 1984, joining the Poynter Institute of Media Studies in St. Petersburg, Florida, a journalism think-tank. In 1994, he became an independent writing coach.
Germanic heroic legend is the heroic literary tradition of the Germanic-speaking peoples, most of which originates or is set in the Migration Period. Stories from this time period, to which others were added later, were transmitted orally, traveled widely among the Germanic speaking peoples, and were known in many variants. These legends typically reworked historical events or personages in the manner of oral poetry, forming a heroic age. Heroes in these legends often display a heroic ethos emphasizing honor, glory, and loyalty above other concerns. Like Germanic mythology, heroic legend is a genre of Germanic folklore.
Godfrid Storms was a Dutch professor of Old and Middle English Literature at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. He published his seminal dissertation on Anglo-Saxon charms in 1948, superseding a work that had stood as the authority for forty years, before obtaining his professorship there in 1956. Among his many other works were articles on Beowulf and the Sutton Hoo ship-burial.
Leonard Neidorf is an American philologist who is Professor of English at Nanjing University. Neidorf specializes in the study of Old English and Middle English literature, and is a known authority on Beowulf.
References
- ↑ Foley, John M. Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography. New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1985. p. 42.; Foley cites "The Literary Character of Anglo-Saxon Formulaic Poetry" Publications of the Modern Language Association 81 (1966):, 334–41
- ↑ Magoun, Francis P. "The Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry." Speculum 28 (1953): 446–67
- ↑ Fry, Donald K. "The Cliff of Death in Old English Poetry." In Comparative Research in Oral Traditions: A Memorial for Milman Parry, ed. John Miles Foley. Columbus: Slavica, 1987, 213–34.
- ↑ Dane, J. A. "Finnsburh and Iliad IX: A Greek Survival of the Medieval Germanic Oral-Formulaic Theme The Hero on the Beach". Neophilologus 66:443–449
- ↑ Foley, John Miles. Oral-Formulaic Theory and Research: An Introduction and Annotated Bibliography, (NY: Garland Publishing, 1985, p. 200