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The Trials of the Epic Hero in Beowulf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Peter F. Fisher
Peter F. Fisher*
Affiliation:
Royal Military College of Canada, Kingston, Ont.
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Extract

The unity of Beowulf is at least secure in the person of the hero whose character and actions provide the basis for any critical examination of structure and theme. According to some, this is all that holds the epic together. Others see more than a sequence of disconnected episodes related to one person. In their view, the fights with Grendel and his dam are united to the dragon fight in the opposition of hero and king, youth and age, the beginning and ending of a life of achievement. It is in their spirit that I have attempted to take a fresh view of the subject with special reference to unity of theme and treatment. The suggestion is that this unity is to be found in the theme of redemption and judgment treated in a way which skilfully blends the Germanic hero with the Christian saint. The symbolism is not regarded as contrived or studied, but rather as of that kind which is the usual result of an author's finding an apt subject to illustrate his theme. A symbolic interpretation does not, after all, exclude a literal interpretation; it contains it. The dragon, for instance, can be both a universal symbol and a very literal and particular monster. We have surely become too literal-minded if we suppose that the audience of Beowulf could see no universal significance in the epic story because they accepted the literal truth of the narrative. The many symbolical interpretations of the Biblical narrative during the period which followed bear witness to the improbability of this view. Once the underlying theme of redemption and judgment is adopted and is seen to be the epic theme par excellence, the process of selection from myth and legend becomes somewhat clearer, and there is no longer the necessity to account for a gap between the Grendel fights and the dragon fight. The details in the fifty-year reign of the hero would have been irrelevant. An epic is surely not a biography nor a chronicle nor a mythology, although it draws upon all these.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 73 , Issue 3 , June 1958 , pp. 171 - 183
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1958

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References

1 Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf, 3rd ed. (New York, 1950) pp. li–lii.

2 In this connection, informed opinion has been based on the following: J. R. R. Tolkien, “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics,” Proc. British Acad., xxii (1936), 271–272; R. W. Chambers, “Beowulf and the ‘Heroic Age’ in England,” Man's Unconquerable Mind (London, 1939), 68–70; Kemp Malone, “Beowulf,” English Stud., xxix (1948), 161–172; J. L. N. O'Loughlin, “Beowulf—Its Unity and Purpose,” Medium Mvum, xxi (1952), 1–13.

3 As A. G. Brodeur states (“The Structure and the Unity of Beowulf,” PMLA, lxviii [Dec. 1953], 1186), “a time gap of more than fifty years, confronted its poet with a problem more difficult than Homer had to face,” because the poet obviously felt the irrelevance of the events of those fifty years. For the defence of the symbolical interpretation see Adrien Bonjour, “Monsters Crouching and Critics Rampant,” PMLA, lxviii (March 1953), 304–312.

4 Aristotle, Poetics, xxiv, 1459B. Cf. Beowulf, ed. C. L Wrenn (London, 1953), p. 41: “Beowulf may best be described as an heroic poem rather than an epic, since the Classical name at once suggests structural qualities which the poet did not aim at.”

5 Among the Hindus, the scriptural writings (śāstra) were divided into four categories of which one included the collections of ancient legends (purāna) comprising the cosmogonie works from which their epics were immediately derived. With reference to the Hebraic writings, it might be objected that Job should be placed in the third class, that the books dealing specifically with the Law are inappropriate, that Psalms and the wisdom literature fit awkwardly into the scheme, and that the prophets were moving in the direction of an individualistic rather than a racial point of view. But it must also be remembered that the first type is close to the origin of all three, and may conceivably contain examples of the other two within it, along with much of what—to our Aristotelian palates—may appear “irrelevant” matter.

6 Klaeber (Beowulf, p. cvii) dates the epic not later than the beginning of the eighth century, well before the Danish invasions. He describes the anonymous author (p. cxix) as a “man well versed in Germanic and Scandinavian lore, familiar with secular Anglo-Saxon poems of the type exemplified by WidsiÐ, Finnsburg, Deor, and Waldere, and a student of biblical poems of the Cœdmonian cycle, a man of notable taste and culture and informed with a spirit of broad-minded Christianity.”

7 Beowulf, 2. Hereafter line numbers will be given parenthetically in the text.

8 Joseph Campbell in his book on the significance of the hero in myth and legend (The Hero with a Thousand Faces, New York, 1949, pp. 245 ff.) summarizes in outline the heroic adventure.

9 Cited by R. W. Chambers, Beowulf (Cambridge, 1921), p. 370.

10 C. J. Engelhardt (“Beowulf: A Study in Dilatation,” PMLA, lxx [Sept. 1955], 834–835) describes Unferth as “a man in whom force of mind has been supplanted by cunning. Even his name suggests paronomastically the lack of this spiritual force or ferhÐ.” Klaeber (Beowulf, p. 148) rejects this interpretation in favor of UnfriЗ“mar-peace”—as do Wrenn (Beowulf, p. 317) and others.

11 Cited by O. F. Emerson, “Legends of Cain,” PMLA, xxi (1906), 867. See Louis Ginzberg, Legends of the Bible (New York, 1956), p. 59.

12 Cf. i John iii.12: “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother's righteous.”

13 Augustine, In Epistolam Joannis ad Parthos (Tract, v, cap. iii), referred to Cain as filius diaboli; cf. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Anno 675 (the writ of Pope Agatho). For Cain's descent from Satan or Samael, the Angel of Death, see Ginzberg, Legends of the Bible, p. 54: “Cain's descent from Satan, who is the angel Samael, was revealed in his seraphic appearance. At his birth, the exclamation was wrung from Eve, ‘I have gotten a man through an angel of the Lord’.”

14 EETS. No. 57, 1065–1066.

15 Canterbury Tales, x(i), 1015. This may serve as a possible explanation of lines 168–169 in Beowulf, if gifstōl means the throne of God from which Cain was forever banished.

16 Compare Beowulf's magnanimity with that of Aristotle's magnanimous man (Ethics iv.3) who possesses “greatness of soul” (), rather than being possessed by unwarranted pride ().

17 Metod probably had the original meaning of 'ruler,' and in the pre-Christian period was closely associated with the idea of “Fate.” The word was perhaps derived from metan 'to measure,' and may be compared with Old Norse mjotuÐr 'ordainer of fate.'

18 The Bear's Son Tale is certainly the literal analogue of Beowulf—the “bee-wolf” or “bear.” He may also be called the “innocent abroad” who conquers cunning and experience, like a Galahad. There is a possible comparison here with Parsifal, the “guileless fool” of the Grail legend.

19 Beowulf, 2327 ff.; Augustine, De Civ. Dei, lib. xiv, cap. 8–9.

20 Beowulf, 1681; Genesis iv.22.

21 The universal nature of the trials of the epic hero is emphasized. Christ was called the “young hero” (geong hœleÐ) in the Dream of the Cross (l. 39)—a term used to describe Beowulf throughout the epic. If Beowulf is to be the typical Christian hero, his struggle should reflect by analogy the archetypal passion of Christ. “And it was about the sixth hour, and there was a darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour. And the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst” (Luke xxiii.44 ff.; cf. Matthew xxvii.45 and Mark xv.33 ff.). “Dā cōm nōn dœges” (Beowulf, 1600). Allusion is also made to the theme of purgation and renewal in that part of the Poetic Edda where the Norse pagan deity Odin is crucified on the mysterious tree for nine nights (trans. H. A. Bellows, New York, 1923, Hovamol, 139).

22 In sacrificing himself for his people, Beowulf performs an act of public service amounting to the liturgical rite of sacrifice of the earlier conception of the divine king and the dying god. See R. C. Sutherland, “The Meaning of Eorlscife in Beowulf,” PMLA, lxx (Dec. 1955), 1139–40.

23 J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough (London, 1951), ii, 155.

24 Poetic Edia, trans. H. A. Bellows (New York, 1926), Voluspa, 55 ff.

25 Contrast this with the attitude of the Olympian deities living “without sorrow,” and decreeing “for miserable mortals that they should live in pain” (Iliad xxiv.525–526). The classical outlook should not be confused with the Germanic in this respect. C. L. Wrenn (Beowulf, pp. 41–42) applies a classical standard to a Germanic epic when he calls the “Germanic hero” a “tragic hero,” and at the same time speaks of his “glorious death” without which “a Germanic hero would be incomplete.” Surely, the tragic hero is such because he fails in the heroic adventure and his death is not glorious. The suffering and death of the Germanic hero, however, is far from tragic, for it demonstrates the measure of his heroic virtue.

26 Cf. Kemp Malone, “Coming Back from the Mere,” PMLA, lxix (Dec. 1954), 1299, and the statement that “our study of the art of the Beowulf poet needs to take into account the parallelism of parts and other structural features to an extent greater than has been usual in the past.” The parallelism here suggested serves to unite the dragon fight to the so-called “Grendel part” and is reinforced by two references (2351 ff., 2521) which Klaeber (Beowulf, pp. li–lii) too readily dismisses as “being quite cursory and irrelevant.”

27 That courage which distinguished the “lost cause” was dear to the Germanic heart. In the Battle of Maldon, the Saxon chief who is mortally wounded is praised for this quality (146–148), and later, in the speech by Byrhtwold, the same attitude of mind is encouraged (312–313).

28 Fate (wyrd) and the Lord of Fate (metod) are here aligned as the providential means of the hero's redemption. Cf. A. G. Brodeur, “Structure and Unity of Beowulf,” p. 1187. Fate is surely not merely “a power which God is no longer concerned to forestall,” but rather one which has come to serve the larger purpose of the hero's salvation through suffering and loss.

29 Cf. Matthew x.39; xvi.25; Mark viii.35; Luke xvii.33; John xii.25.

30 This Anglo-Saxon form of the name of the mythical blacksmith, Wayland Smith, corresponds to Old Norse Vqlundr (German Wieland). Like Hephaestus in the Iliad, he, a supernatural figure, had forged the armor of the hero. Like Arthur's Excalibur and the Shield of Achilles, Beowulf's Corslet bore witness to his heroic stature.

31 The parallel is drawn in the spirit of Tolkien and against that of O. F. Emerson (“Legends of Cain,” p. 882) and T. M. Gang. Surely the reader can assume that Christianity's Satanic Dragon, the prince of this world, and the Norse MiÐgarÐsormr, the encircler of the world, were in the mind of the author who gave us Beowulf's antagonist. See A. E. DuBois, “The Dragon in Beowulf,” PMLA, lxxii (Dec. 1957), 819–822.

32 Cf. E. T. Owen, The Story of the Iliad (Toronto, 1946). pp. 247–248.