Birthing Beowulf

Posted on July 7, 2015by malagabay

Academics believe Beowolf could be one of the most important works of Old English
literature.
Beowulf is an Old English epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines.
It is possibly the oldest surviving long poem in Old English and is commonly cited
as one of the most important works of Old English literature.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowolf
Old English or Anglo-Saxon is the earliest historical form of the English language,
spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages.
It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers probably in the
mid-5th century, and the first Old English literary works date from the mid-7th
century.

After the Norman conquest of England in 1066, Old English developed into the next
historical form of English, known as Middle English.

Some of the most important surviving works of Old English literature are
Beowulf, an epic poem; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early English
history; the Franks Casket, an inscribed early whalebone artefact; and Cdmons
Hymn, a Christian religious poem.
There are also a number of extant prose works, such as sermons and saints lives,
biblical translations, and translated Latin works of the early Church Fathers, legal
documents, such as laws and wills, and practical works on grammar, medicine, and
geography.
Still, poetry is considered the heart of Old English literature.
Nearly all Anglo-Saxon authors are anonymous, with a few exceptions, such as Bede
and Cdmon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English
This academic Belief in Beowolf only developed in the 19th century as academia fell
under the thrall of Uniformitarianism.
The poem was not studied until the end of the 18th century, and not published
in its entirety until Johan Blow funded the 1815 Latin translation, prepared by
the Icelandic-Danish scholar Grmur Jnsson Thorkelin.
After a heated debate with Thorkelin, Blow offered to support a new translation into
Danish by N. F. S. Grundtvig. The result, Bjovulfs Drape (1820), was the first modern
language translation of Beowulf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowolf
Uniformitarianism, coined by William Whewell, was originally proposed in
contrast to catastrophism by British naturalists in the late 18th century, starting
with the work of the Scottish geologist James Hutton, which was refined by John
Playfair and popularised by Charles Lyells Principles of Geology in 1830.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniformitarianism
So why was Beowolf ignored for the best part of a thousand years?
Possibly because this unnoticed manuscript only became amenable to academic
interpretation after it was badly damaged by fire in 1731.

The full poem survives in the manuscript known as the Nowell Codex, located in the
British Library.
It has no title in the original manuscript, but has become known by the name of the
storys protagonist.
In 1731, the manuscript was badly damaged by a fire that swept through
Ashburnham House in London that had a collection of medieval manuscripts
assembled by Sir Robert Bruce Cotton.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowolf
G.J. Thorkelin, an Anglo-Saxonist from Iceland, and a hired scribe madetwo
transcripts of Beowulf in 1787.
It was not until the next century that the British Museum went about systematically
repairing the books damaged by the fire.
By that time, much of the text of Beowulf had crumbled away from the edges
of the pages.
By 1845, Cotton Vitellius A. xv. was rebound mounted on paper frames that help slow
the deterioration of the edges of the pages.
The Beowulf Manuscript
http://www.humanities.mcmaster.ca/~beowulf/manuscript.html
For many years after the MS. had come into the possession of Sir Robert Cotton it
remained unnoticed.
It is not mentioned in an imperfect Catalogue of the Cottonian Library prepared for Dr.
Hickes in 1689.
Beowulf Thomas Arnold 1876
https://archive.org/details/beowulf00arnogoog
Possibly because this epic tale of Old English country folk is set in Scandinavia.
The poem is set in Scandinavia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowolf

Beowulf Thomas Arnold 1876

https://archive.org/details/beowulf00arnogoog
Possibly because this epic tale of Old English country folk was written somewhere
between 300 and 600 years after the described events occurred in Scandinavia.
The events described in the poem take place in the late 5th century, after the
Angles and Saxons had begun their migration to England, and before the
beginning of the 7th century, a time when the Anglo-Saxon people were either
newly arrived or still in close contact with their Germanic kinsmen in Northern
Germany and Scandinavia and possibly England.

Beowulf survives in a single manuscript dated on paleographical grounds

to the late 10th or early 11th century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowolf#Manuscript

William M Schniedewind went even further in the abstract to his 2005 paper
Problems of Paleographic Dating of Inscriptions and stated that
The so-called science of paleography often relies on circular reasoning because there
is insufficient data to draw precise conclusion about dating. Scholars also tend to
oversimplify diachronic development, assuming models of simplicity rather than
complexity.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palaeography
Possibly because these imperfectly understood Scandinavian stanzas could only be
dated after the historical events which are scattered through them had been
formalised into aSettled Historical Narrative.
Date of the Poem.
Of this poem, so unique in every aspect, we must now endeavour to ascertain
approximately the date: which done a conjecture will be hazarded not exactly as to
its authorship but as to the motives which may have impelled, and the circumstances
which may have favoured, its composition.
The date of Beowulf can only be determined by considerations falling under
two heads:
(1) the language of the poem;
(2) the notices of historical events which are scattered through it.
The MS. itself, the handwriting of which is probably of the tenth century, affords,
apart from that fact, no presumption as to the date of the poem.
It is a bad transcript of a work, the language of which the scribe seems to
have imperfectly understood, and hence to have in many places hopelessly
misrepresented: and the interval between the transcript and the original
composition may have been indefinitely great.
Beowulf Thomas Arnold 1876
https://archive.org/details/beowulf00arnogoog
Possibly because Beowulf was only discovered in the 16th century.
The earliest known owner of the Beowulf manuscript, the 16th-century
scholar Laurence Nowell, lends his name to the manuscript (Nowell Codex),
though its official designation is British Library, Cotton Vitellius A.XV because it was
one of Sir Robert Bruce Cottons holdings in the Cotton library in the middle of the 17th
century.

A more comprehensive rationale is that Beowulf was simply viewed as Protestant

Propaganda that was clumsily cobbled together during the English Reformation.
1558 Elizabeth I crowned queen final break with the Roman Church
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_English_Reformation
The first methodical statement in this Protestant Propaganda campaign was
theApologia ecclesiae Anglicanae written by John Jewel and published in 1562.
John Jewel (sometimes spelled Jewell) (24 May 1522 23 September 1571) was an
English bishop of Salisbury.

Under Elizabeths succession he returned to England, and made earnest efforts to

secure what would now be called a low-church settlement of religion; he was strongly
committed to the Elizabethan reforms.

His cong dlire as bishop of Salisbury had been made out on 27 July, but he was not
consecrated until 21 January 1560.
He now constituted himself the literary apologist of the Elizabethan Settlement.
He had on 26 November 1559, in a sermon at St Pauls Cross, challenged all comers to
prove the Roman Catholic case out of the Scriptures, or the councils or Fathers for the
first six hundred years after Christ.
He repeated his challenge in 1560, and Dr Henry Cole took it up.
The chief result was Jewels Apologia ecclesiae Anglicanae, published in1562, which in
Bishop Creightons words is the first methodical statement of the position of
the Church of England against the Church of Rome, and forms the
groundwork of all subsequent controversy.
The work was translated into English by Anne Bacon to reach a wider audience and
was a significant step in the intellectual justification of Protestantism in England.

John Jewels 1562 Apology of the Church of England, a document more important in its
political-historical significance than its theological significance, represents an attempt
to provide a statement of faith for the Church of England under Elizabeth I and answer
challenges and accusations of the Romanists against the Protestants.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Jewel

The Protestant Propaganda campaign argued the English Church Reformers were
going back to the old Church and John Jewel proposed to demonstrate this by looking
back to the first centuries of Christianity.
The great interest of Jewels Apology lies in the fact that it was written in Latin to be
read throughout Europe as the answer of the Reformed Church of England, at the
beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign, to those who said that the Reformation set up a
new Church.
Its argument was that the English Church Reformers were going back to
the old Church, not setting up a new; and this Jewel proposed to show by
looking back to the first centuries of Christianity.
Project Canterbury The Apology of the Church of England by John Jewel
http://anglicanhistory.org/jewel/apology/intro.html
Thus the stage was set by the Protestant Propaganda campaign for the discovery of
someOld English literature [i.e. Beowulf] by Laurence Nowell in the following year.
In 1563, Nowell came into possession of the only extant manuscript of
Beowulf.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Nowell
This line of argument is clearly underlined by the observation that Laurence Nowell
was living in the London house of his patron [Sir William Cecil] who was chief
advisor of Queen Elizabeth I for most of her reign.
William Cecil, 1st Baron Burghley (sometimes spelt Burleigh), KG (13 September
1520 4 August 1598) was an English statesman, the chief advisor of Queen
Elizabeth I for most of her reign, twice Secretary of State (15501553 and 1558
1572) and Lord High Treasurer from 1572.
He was the founder of the Cecil dynasty which has produced many politicians
including two Prime Ministers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Cecil,_1st_Baron_Burghley
Laurence (or Lawrence) Nowell (c. 1515 c. 1571) was an English antiquarian,
cartographer and pioneering scholar of Anglo-Saxon language and literature.

By 1562, he was living in the London house of his patron, Sir William Cecil,
where he collected and transcribed Anglo-Saxon documents and compiled the first

Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, the Vocabularium Saxonicum. During this time he became

the friend and mentor of William Lambarde, another early scholar of Anglo-Saxon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laurence_Nowell
Of the history of the MS. nothing appears to be known.
It is one of those collected by Sir Robert Cotton, the founder of the Cottonian
Library, who having been born only thirty-four years after the dissolution of the
Monasteries, had opportunities of obtaining rare MSS. which were denied to later
antiquaries.
That the volume containing Beowulf originally belonged to some
monastery may reasonably be assumed.
Beowulf Thomas Arnold 1876
https://archive.org/details/beowulf00arnogoog
Therefore, the academic acceptance of Beowulf can be viewed as a Crowning Act of
Follyby the White Anglo-Saxon Protestant Academics when they held sway over
the Oxbridgeand Ivy League universities.
White Anglo-Saxon Protestant (WASP) is an informal, sometimes disparaging
term for a group of high-status and influential White Americans of English Protestant
ancestry.
The term applies to a group believed to control disproportionate social, political, and
financial power in the United States.
It describes a group whose family wealth, education, status, and elite connections
allow them a degree of privilege held by few others.
Scholars agree that the groups influence has waned since the end of World War II,
with the growing influence of other American ethnic groups.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_Anglo-Saxon_Protestants
Seven of the Ivy League schools were founded before the American
Revolution; Cornell was founded just after the American Civil War.
These seven were the primary colleges in the Northern and Middle Colonies, and their
early faculties and founding boards were largely, therefore, drawn from other Ivy
League institutions.

There were also some British graduates from the University of Cambridge,
the University of Oxford, the University of St. Andrews, the University of
Edinburgh, and elsewhere on their boards.
Similarly, the founder of The College of William & Mary, in 1693, was a British
graduate of the University of Edinburgh. Cornell provided Stanford University with its
first president.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_League#History
Oxbridge is a portmanteau (morphological blend) of the University of Oxford and the
University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom.

Although both universities were founded more than eight centuries ago, the term
Oxbridge is relatively recent. In William Thackerays novel Pendennis, published in
1849, the main character attends the fictional Boniface College, Oxbridge.

The word Oxbridge may also be used pejoratively: as a descriptor of social class
(referring to the professional classes who dominated the intake of both universities at
the beginning of the twentieth century), as shorthand for an elite that continues to
dominate Britains political and cultural establishment and a parental attitude that
continues to see UK higher education through an Oxbridge prism, or to describe a
pressure-cooker culture that attracts and then fails to support overachievers who
are vulnerable to a kind of self-inflicted stress that can all too often become unbearable
and high-flying state school students who find coping with the workload very difficult
in terms of balancing work and life and feel socially out of [their] depth.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxbridge
Sadly, the other jewel in the Anglo-Saxon Academic Crown fairs no better.
Some of the most important surviving works of Old English literature
are Beowulf, an epic poem; the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, a record of early English
history; the Franks Casket, an inscribed early whalebone artefact; and Cdmons
Hymn, a Christian religious poem.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Old_English
The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle is a collection of annals in Old English
chronicling the history of the Anglo-Saxons.
The original manuscript of the Chronicle was created late in the 9th century, probably
in Wessex, during the reign of Alfred the Great.

Multiple copies were made of that one original and then distributed to monasteries
across England, where they were independently updated.
In one case, the Chronicle was still being actively updated in 1154.

The Chronicle incorporates material from multiple sources.

As with any historical source, the Chronicle has to be treated with some
caution.

The dating of the events recorded also requires care.

The manuscripts were produced in different places, and each manuscript reflects
the biases of its scribes.
It has been argued that the Chronicle should be regarded as propaganda,
produced by Alfreds court and written with the intent of glorifying Alfred and
creating loyalty.
This is not universally accepted, but the origins of the manuscripts clearly colour both
the description of interactions between Wessex and other kingdoms, and the
descriptions of the Vikings depredations.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Saxon_Chronicle

This is because the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle was another part of the Protestant
Propaganda campaign started during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I.
The systematic analysis of manuscripts containing versions of the text known as
the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle originated during the reign of Queen Elizabeth
I, as part of an attempt to assemble and organise information about the available
sources for English history.
In 1565 (or thereabouts) John Joscelyn, chaplain and Latin secretary to
Matthew Parker, archbishop of Canterbury, constructed a list of six
manuscripts each designated Chronica Saxonica.
He arranged his list in an order determined by the point at which each chronicle ended
(977, [1001], 1006, 1066, 1080, 1148), numbering them accordingly (16), indicating
in each but one case the manuscripts apparent or supposed place of origin,
and identifying its current owner.

The fact that these manuscripts are known collectively as the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle creates the impression (for the unwary) that they constitute a
single continuous narrative: official in status, consistent in nature and
uniform in authority.
It is an impression which might be compounded by a cursory reading of the annals
themselves: laconic, impersonal, seemingly objective, driven only by the changing pace
of events, with little sense of direction or deeper purpose.
Of course the truth was quite different.
Manuscripts of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Volume 1: c.4001100
The Cambridge History of the Book in Britain Volume 1: c.4001100
Edited by: Richard Gameson 2011
http://universitypublishingonline.org/cambridge/histories/chapter.jsf?bid=CBO9780
511978029&cid=CBO9780511978029A031
Unsurprisingly, this propaganda tract veers from the ridiculously brief during
theAcademic Abyss to the sublimely lyrical around the Heinsohn Horizon.

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle Everyman Press edition 1912

https://archive.org/details/Anglo-saxonChronicles

The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle E. E. C. Gomme 1909

https://archive.org/details/anglosaxonchron00gommgoog
Perhaps the only good thing to be said for this Protestant Propaganda is that it inspired
J. R. R. Tolkien to revive the old Elizabethan tradition of originating fantasy fiction.
They passed through all perils, until they came with the dust of their long and weary
road upon them to the drear dale that lay before the Gate of Angband.
Black chasms opened beside the road, whence forms as of writhing serpents issued.
On either hand the cliffs stood as embattled walls, and upon them sat carrion fowl
crying with fell voices.
Before them was the impregnable Gate, an arch wide and dark at the foot of the
mountain; above it reared a thousand feet of precipice.
There dismay took them, for at the gate was a guard of whom no tidings had yet gone
forth.
Rumour of he knew not what designs abroad among the princes of the Elves had come
to Morgoth, and ever down the aisles of the forest was heard the baying of Huan, the
great hound of war, whom long ago the Valar unleashed.
Then Morgoth recalled the doom of Huan, and he chose one from among the whelps of
the race of Draugluin; and he fed him with his own hand upon living flesh, and put his
power upon him.
Swiftly the wolf grew, until he could creep into no den, but lay huge and hungry before
the feet of Morgoth.
There the fire and anguish of hell entered into him, and he became filled with a
devouring spirit, tormented, terrible, and strong. Carcharoth, the Red Maw, he is
named in the tales of those days, and Anfauglir, the Jaws of Thirst.
And Morgoth set him to lie unsleeping before the doors of Angband, lest Huan come.

The Tale of Beren and Luthien The Silmarillion J.R.R. Tolkien 1977
http://cslewisjrrtolkien.classicalautographs.com/jrrtolkien/bookexcerpts/silmarillion
.html
http://www.amazon.com/Silmarillion-J-R-RTolkien/dp/0544338014/ref=tmm_pap_title_0?_encoding=UTF8&sr=15&qid=1436289160

After Tolkiens death, his son Christopher published a series of works based on his
fathers extensive notes and unpublished manuscripts, including The Silmarillion.
These, together with The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings form a connected body of
tales, poems, fictional histories, invented languages, and literary essays about a
fantasy world called Arda, and Middle-earth[b]within it.

[b] Middle-earth is derived via Middle English middel-erthe, middel-erd from

middangeard, an Anglo-Saxon cognate of Old Norse Migarr, the land
inhabited by humans in Norse mythology.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._R._R._Tolkien
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