Dec 30, 2009

Beowulf | What Do I Read Next?

The anonymous Old English poem The Battle of Maldon was composed close to the time the Beowulf manuscript was being transcribed. It recounts the death in 991 A.D of Byrhtnoth, ealdorman (governor) of Essex, and his men while fighting the Vikings. It is filled with the heroic commonplaces of Germanic literature: the courageous and still active old war leader who makes one miscalculation, but dies shoulder to shoulder with his men, the retainers who die one by one standing by their dead lord. Modern readers will see in it formulas of another kind, the voices and...