Quid Hinieldus cum Christo?

Contents:

Introduction

1. Immanence vs. Transcendence: Scyld’s Destiny

2. Myths of Origin: Grendel and the Race of Cain

3. Threshold to the ‘Otherworld’: Grendel’s Mere

4. Recognizing Scriptural History? - Hrothgars’s ‘Sermon’ and the Giant Sword Hilt

5. Heroic Wyrd vs. Christian Salvation: Metaphysical and Eschatological Perspectives at Beowulf ’s Death

6. Summary and Evaluation: From Irony to Identification

Bibliography

Introduction

Among the many features which shaped and defined the reception of Beowulf¹ throughout the last 150 years, the poem’s complex interplay of Germanic and Christian worldviews has certainly been one of the most controversial. In recent time, particular efforts have been made to account for the exact ‘meaning’ which the poem authenticates, i.e.: the point-of-view which Beowulf ’ s Christian narrative voice exhibits towards the secular events depicted in the poem. In search for such an authorial stance, scholars have traditionally focused either on the Christian or the heroic dimension of the story: Whereas most 19th-century scholars (e.g. Ettmüller, Thorkelin, ten Brink), in the vein of a Romantic strive to unearth national origins, tended to emphasize its essentially pagan, mythical status and, consequently, downplayed the significance of any Christian ‘interpolations’, the 20th century (beginning with Klaeber) witnessed a radical shift towards a Christian, allegorical understanding of the poem. Although nowadays most critics opt for a more balanced viewpoint, the “logical impossibility”² of two coexisting cultural frameworks, into which Beowulf seems embedded, still remains and continues to generate much scholarly dispute.

In the course of this essay, I shall investigate the relation between heroic and Christian aspects in Beowulf and thus, try to account for the authorial ‘meaning’ which the text itself is most likely to endorse. I will approach the problem (chapters 1 - 4) by discussing a number of selected episodes from the first half of the poem which relates Beowulf ’s adventures among the Danes (ll. 1 - 1887). In these passages, as I shall argue, the poem manages to supply the actual narrative content with a network of allusions to scriptural history and Christian metaphysics which introduces an additional level of meaning to the story that transcends its literal sense. Due to this technique of ‘double-framing’, the poem provides its audience with a type of meta-commentary, a moral and meta-physical evaluation of the secular action in light of a religiously ‘illumined’ worldview. Thus, the ‘authenticating voice’ here occupies a superior, distanced and somewhat ironic position to the events of Germanic legend.

In the subsequent part of my essay (chapter 5), I shall turn to the latter half of the poem which depicts the decline of the Geatish dynasty and Beowulf ’s mortal battle with the dragon (ll. 1888 - 3182). Here, as we shall see, the systematic overlay of Christian references is almost entirely suspended. Accordingly, the ‘authenticating voice’ ceases to function as a moralizing evaluation and instead, strives towards an indiscernible fusion of Christian and Germanic backgrounds, which ultimately results in an identification of heroic with authorial worldview. Thus, as I shall conclude, the overall development of the poem rather subverts a purely symbolic interpretation and instead, upgrades the literal significance of the text.

1. Immanence vs. Transcendence: Scyld’s Destiny

The opening episode of the Beowulf -poem provides an account of the tribal genealogy of the Danish nation, ranging from Scyld Scefing, progenitor of the Shielding dynasty, to Hrothgar, Danish king at the time of the poem’s action. The passage mainly focuses upon Scyld’s ship-funeral, and it is here that we might witness a first instance of the technique of ‘double-framing’ which the poet, as I argue, employs as a structuring principle throughout the first half of Beowulf.³

After presenting us with a brief sketch of Scyld’s life and that of his son Beow, the first half of the episode (ll. 1 - 27) recounts the ceremony of Scyld’s sea-burial. While the passage employs two rather occasional references to ‘God’ (ll. 13, 16/7), it concludes with an explicitly Christian statement about Scyld’s death and his afterlife: Him ð a Scyld gew ā t t ō gesc æ p-hw ī le / fela- hr ō r f ē ran on Fr ē an w æ re [“Scyld was still thriving when his time came / and he crossed over into the lord’s keeping”] (ll. 26). Thus, the poem, in a straightforward and authoritative mode, seems to affirm the Christian metaphysical concept of the transcendent origin and destiny of mankind’s soul.

However, throughout the ensuing account of Scyld’s ship-funeral (ll. 28 - 52), the overall description remains notably attached to the empirical, physical detail; it presents us with “a close-up view of life [...], bringing us down into that world.”⁴ Instead of focusing upon the transcendental ‘significance’ of launching the dead king’s ship into the sea, the poem only remarks that Scyld and his treasure þā him mid scoldon / on fl ō des æ ht feor gew ī tan [“would travel far / on out into the ocean’s sway”] (ll. 41). This adherence to a ‘world-immanent’ perspective becomes particularly evident at the close of the passage, when the poem again points to the end of Scyld’s journey: Men ne cunnon / secgan t ō s ōð e, sele-r æ den[d]e, / h æ le ð under heofenum, hw ā þæ m hl æ ste onf ē ng [“Men do not know / to say for certain, hall-councillors, / heroes under the heavens, who received that load”] (ll. 50). Clearly, the metaphysical ‘uncertainty’ exhibited in this passage is wholly at odds with the poem’s former assurance of Scyld’s divine destiny.

The notable incongruency between both statements may outline the interpretative problem for which the theory of ‘double-framing’ seems to provide an answer. On this account, Scyld’s pagan tribesmen, in accordance with their cultural background, are incapable of conceptualizing human afterlife in explicitly transcendental terms. Only the poem’s ‘authenticating voice’, steeped in Christian metaphysics, is able to relate Scyld’s ‘real’ destiny to the religiously ‘enlightened’ audience. In thus separating pagan and Christian knowledge, the poet accounts for the cultural divergence, while at the same time, he creates a possibility for mediating his essentially pagan theme to a contemporary audience. - As we shall see, this notion is differentiated further throughout the following episodes.

2. Myths of Origin: Grendel and the Race of Cain

The introduction of the ‘chaos-monster’ Grendel provides another example of how the crucial device of ‘double-framing’ is applied within Beowulf already from an early stage. Grendel is first mentioned some 600 lines before he actually appears at the royal hall of Heorot, in a passage which, as a type of socio-historical prologue, depicts the crisis at Hrothgar’s court and explains the reasons for Beowulf ’s subsequent journey to Denmark.

The episode opens with an allusion to the monster’s motivation for creating nocturnal havoc: Grendel p r ā ge ge p olode, s ē p e in p ystrum b ā d, / þæ t h ē d ō gora gehw ā m dr ē am gehyrde / hl ū dne in healle; þæ r w æ s hearpan sw ē g, / swutol sang scopes. S æ gde, s ē p e c ūþ e / frumsceaft f ī ra feorran reccan [“It harrowed him [Grendel] / to hear the din of the loud banquet / every day in the hall, the harp being struck / and the clear song of a skilled poet / telling with mastery of man’s beginnings”] (ll. 87). Thus, Grendel is at once depicted as an envious antagonist to human community, antipode to a society which affirms its existence by celebrating its origins. The poem then goes on to deliver such an account of mankind’s beginnings - but instead of presenting us with a heroic myth of origin, as would be appropriate, the author chooses to paraphrase the biblical myth of Creation (Genesis i - vi), telling cw æð Þæ t se Æ lmihtiga eor ð an worh[te] / wlite-beorhtne wang sw ā w æ ter beb ū ge ð : / gesette sige-hr ēþ ig sunnen ond m ō nan / l ē oman t ō l ē ohte land-b ū endum, / ond gefr æ twade foldan sc ē atas / leomum ond l ē afum; l ī f ē ac gesce ō p / synna gehwylcum þā ra ð e cwice hwyrfa p [“how the Almighty had made the earth / a gleaming plain girdled with waters; in His splendour He set the sun and the moon / to be earth’s lamplight, lanterns for men, / and filled the broad lap of the world / with branches and leaves; and quickened life / in every other thig that moved”] (ll. 92 - 98). Again, we might account for this incongruency by assuming a shift between narrative and commentarial level: Thus, the bard at Heorot, who does not know scriptural history, may relate any tale of origin derived from Germanic mytho- logy, while the Christian author of Beowulf (‘in the meantime’) reminds his contemporary audience of the religious ‘truth’ that the world has been called into existence by a deliberate act of God. Moreover, by relating the heroic community to the whole of God’s Creation, the scriptwriting allusion on the symbolic level prepares to establish the moral dichotomy between the world of Heorot and Grendel; the second part of which is soon to follow.

Significantly, the next few lines serve as a textual ‘transition’ which directs the focus back toward the poem’s secular setting. Here, Grendel is introduced as a grimmer gist [“grim demon”] (l. 102), who throughout twelve years attacks and marauds the hall of Heorot in vicious ravages, thus causing the decline of the Shielding court from a formerly glorious reign into a state of desolation and despair. However, the poem immediately continues to transcend the literal description by identifying Grendel with biblical Evil (cf. Genesis iv, 9 - 12): wons æ l ī wer weardode hw ī le, / si þð an him Scyppend forscrifen h æ fde / in C ā ines cynne [“[H]e had dwelt for a time / in misery among the banished monsters, / Cain’s clan, whom the Creator had outlawed / and condemned as outcasts”] (ll. 106). In order to strengthen the notion of a spiritual opposition even more, the previous myth of Creation is subsequently matched by a parallel account of the biblical origins of Evil (ll. 109).

By thus amplifying the literal scenery of secular action with an additional framework of scriptural references, the poem manages to endow heroes and villains with a more profound moral and metaphysical significance. The human sphere of civilized religious community is measured against the inhumane sphere of a chaotic ‘netherworld’, inhabited by sinful, monstrous outcasts.⁵ Both the Germanic warriors at Heorot and Grendel come to figure as representatives for the fundamental metaphysical dichotomy between Good and Evil, God and Satan.

As a result, the present episode can be said to draw a thorough distinction between two different levels of knowledge: By placing Grendel in the metaphysical pattern of Christian theology, the poem provides an ‘inside account’ of his ‘true nature’ - a notion accessible only to those familiar with spiritual history. Whereas the Germanic heroes within the story are left to consider Grendel merely as a ‘chaos-monster’, the Christian poet and his audience, in taking the symbolic significance into account, distance themselves from the thoughts and concerns of the characters within the story and thus enjoy a superior knowledge about the conflict which is at stake.

3. Threshold to the ‘Otherworld’: Grendel’s Mere

Within the first half of Beowulf, the description of Grendel’s mere is arguably the scenic image which most drastically oscillates between literal and symbolic level. Its hybrid nature in terms of composition is matched by a shifting significance which defies univocal inter- pretation. Nevertheless, while the previous passages still maintained a somewhat clear-cut distinction between, on the one hand, physical, natural description and, on the other, the symbolic amplification of this setting by a ‘theologizing’ commentary, the present episode reveals a more intricate, rather indiscernible blend of pagan and Christian motives - a description which simultaneously enforces and obscures its twofold meaning.

Immediately after Grendel’s mother has attacked Heorot and carried off Hrothgar’s most intimate friend, the Shielding king engages in speculation about the monster’s dwelling place:

H ī e dygel lond / warigea ð , wulf-hleo p u, windige n æ ssas, / fr ē cne fen-gel ā d, ðæ r fyrgen-str ē am / under n æ ssa genipu ni p er gew ī te ð , / fl ō d under foldan. Nis þæ t feor heonon / m ī l-gemearces, þæ t se mere stan[d]e ð / ofer þæ m hongia ð hrinde bearwas, / wudu wyrtum f æ st w æ ter ofer helma ð . / þæ r m æ g nihta gehw æ m ni ð -wundor s ē on, / fyr on fl ō de. N ō þæ s fr ō d leofa ð / gumena bearna þæ t p one grund wite. / Ðē ah p e h æð -stapa hundum geswenced, / heorot hornum trum holt-wudu s ē ce, / feorran geflymed, æ r h ē feorh sele ð , / aldor on ō fre, æ r h ē in wille, / hafelan [hydan]. Nis þæ t h ē oru st ō w! / p onon y ð -geblond ū p ā stige ð / won t ō wolcnum, p onne wind styre p / l āð gewidru, o ðþæ t lyft drysma p , / roderas r ē ota ð .

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¹ All references are to: Mitchell, B./Robinson, F. C. (eds.): Beowulf (Oxford: 1998); unless mentioned otherwise, the translation given is by Seamus Heaney: Beowulf, in: Greenblatt, S./Abrams, M. H. (eds.): The Norton Anthology of English Literature, vol. 1 (New York/London: 2000), pp. 29 - 99. In particular cases, which I shall indicate, I will consult the Dual-Language Edition by Howell D. Chickering: Beowulf (New York: 1977).

² Irving, Edward B.: “Christian and Pagan Elements”, in: Bjork, Robert E./Niles, John D. (eds.): A Beowulf Handbook (Exeter: 1996), p. 175

³ Along with the bard’s song of Creation (ll. 92 - 98), the linkage of Cain (ll. 95 - 114, cf. also ll. 1261 - 1266) and Hrothgar’s ‘sermon’ (ll. 1700 - 1784), this passage has been taken as an example for the poem’s technique of ‘explicit scripturizing’; cf. Osborn, M.: “The Great Feud”, in: Baker, Peter S. (ed.): Beowulf. Basic Readings (New York/London: 1995), p. 114; Greenfield, Stanley B.: The Interpretation of Old English Poems (London: 1972), p. 158. However, while this label seems appropriate only for the episodes mentioned, my term ‘double-framing’' is meant to refer, in a broader sense, to all passages which may exhibit a twofold (Christian and Germanic) significance.

⁴ Osborn, “The Great Feud”, pp. 112

⁵ Grendel’s outcast state is repeatedly emphasized, cf. l. 160, 807, 711; for further discussion cf. Orchard, Andy: Pride and Prodigies. Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf-Manuscript (Cambridge: 1995), p. 36