Beowulf and the margins of literacy (original) (raw)

1974, Bulletin of the John Rylands Library

A 3 a historian I take up the theme of Beowulf and its world with hesitation. The study of the poem must lie mainly with the literary scholars, because they alone have the time and expertise to master the complex problems it raises and the vast international literature devoted to it. It is noticeable, however, that in spite of generations of energy and ingenuity in pursuit of the real Beowulf, he and it are not in sight: not, that is, the subject of a scholarly consensus. There is no agreement as to the date of the poem ; there is even less agreement as to its author's intentions, let alone his identity or the places in which he might be found. In the last few years two scholars have written two different books on Beowulf, each of obvious distinction : Dr. Sisam and Dr. Goldsmith.2 So different, so absolutely contradictory, are their conclusions, it is difficult to believe they are writing about the same poem. Something must be seriously amiss when generations of scholarship can give us no basic facts that are undisputed outside the particular tradition or connection which discovered, I had almost said invented, them. It seems to me that historians are after all the one relevant group of scholars who have had little to say about Beowulf. Of all the Beowulf scholars only one of the great names was equally famous as historian, Hector Munro Chadwick. A good many of his points seem to me not to have been taken by his fellowstudents of literature simply because they were not altogether understood. Chadwick wrote out of a very informed and 1 I have taken some passages from another article " Beowulf and the Limits of Literature ", which appeared in New Blackfriars, lii (1971), by kind permission of the editor. Earlier versions of the paper were read to the Sixth Conference of Medieval Studies at the University of Western Michigan and the Medieval Seminar at Columbia University. I am particularly indebted to Professor Manning and his pupils for a stimulating discussion that greatly improved the paper.