Essay: Beowulf as Mirror of Culture and Religion in Medieval Britain

Beowulf is an epic poem that relates the adventures of an Anglo-Saxon hero, composed to be recited in England in the early 8^th century. It was put into manuscript form, in Old English, in the late 10^th century, and the only surviving manuscript was partially destroyed by fire in 1731. Though the text as it was originally related is not available to us today, the many hands through which it passed and the numerous reincarnations thereof make this poem an invaluable tool. Through inferences about the changes made to the text as it changed hands, we may gain insight into the cultural values and religious beliefs prevalent in early Medieval Britain.

The poem relates events that took place two centuries prior to its composition. It centers around two south Scandinavian tribes, the Danes and the Geats. The original audience of Beowulf, that of its oral incarnation, probably considered themselves descendents of the Geats (of whom Beowulf derived). Thus, much in the manner that the Aeneid served to glorify the Trojans almost a millennia before, Beowulf ostensibly served to enhance the pride of the English in their ancestry, and to immortalize their ancestry as heroic and noble (Beowulf went on to become a king).

We may glimpse additional information about the original audience of Beowulf from the language it uses and its structure, and conversely we may deduce from these about the purpose of the text. Beowulf is written in Old English, as opposed to the intellectual language of the era, Latin. We may thus learn that the poem was meant to relate to the masses. This theory is backed by the structure and language of Beowulf. These are rather straightforward: the story begins with a rather informal Genealogy of the main characters; the events are ordered chronologically, with relatable themes recurring many times over, such as the value of loyalty and courage. Religious imagery is often utilized as well.

The religious background of Beowulf has been long contested among scholars. It appears that the emotional core of the poem is in paganism, that is, it is paganism which is used to the strongest effect in the telling of the tale. However, the text is very religiously heterogeneous, incorporating references to Christianity and fatalism as well. We may ascribe this inconsistency to the many incarnations of the text: scholars have hypothesized that whereas the original author and audience were predominantly pagan, the transcriber two centuries later incorporated the updated Christian beliefs of his time into the text, thus resulting in the "mishmash" of beliefs inherent in the manuscript.

Beowulf is thus a most unique literary specimen. Although the numerous forms the poem took on throughout the centuries make it decidedly more challenging to analyze, it is exactly this dynamic aspect that renders it so invaluable to the literary analyst and historian: a text through which we learn of values not pertaining to a single point in time but an actual evolution of values over a range of history.

Image source

Sources cited:

The Norton Anthology

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beowulf

Introduction to British Literature lectures by Dr. Alberto Gabriele