SOURCE: “Oral-Formulaic Context in Beowulf: The Hero on the Beach and the Grendel Episode,” in A Key to Old Poems: The Oral-Formulaic Approach to the Interpretation of West-Germanic Verse, Pennsylvania State University Press, 1988, pp. 107-32.

[In the essay below, Renoir examines the ways in which the author ofBeowulf employed the motifs and formulas of oral composition, maintaining that the use of such devices does not necessarily indicate that the poem was composed orally, but only that the poet was well-versed in the traditional methods of oral-formulaic composition.]

Just as the prominence rightfully granted Beowulf by the literary world has naturally turned that poem into a standard against which much Germanic traditional poetry has been at times mistakenly measured, so it has encouraged the most distinguished Anglo-Saxonists and students of oral-formulaic matters to dissect practically every conceivable aspect of its artistry, language, and background; and the vigor with which the operation has been carried out shows no sign of abating. Within the realm of oral-formulaic studies alone, for example, it was indeed Beowulf that Magoun first examined when he set out to argue the oral-formulaic quality of Old-English narrative poetry;¹ it was to Beowulf that Crowne first turned when he needed an instance of the theme of the hero on the beach outside Andreas;² it was to Beowulf that Lord first turned when he wished to extend to the mediaeval epic the theories which he had elaborated in respect to Homer and South-Slavic poetry;³ and it was exclusively to Beowulf that Creed turned when he argued the fundamental relevance of traditional oral-formulaic elements to the critical interpretation of Old-English poetry.⁴ The list could be extended for page after page, but the foregoing examples should suffice to suggest that anyone preparing to examine any portion of Beowulf from an oral-formulaic point of view would do well to keep in mind that he or she is about to plow a field which has already been plowed and replowed by the masters. In this light, my only defense against the charge of presumption is that, in the first place, the very eminence of Beowulf rules out the possibility of ignoring it in the present study and that, in the second place, the unequivocally obvious nature of the observations which follow will provide ample proof that I make no claim to any kind of original thinking in this chapter.

Before examining the affective role which oral-formulaic rhetoric plays in the Grendel episode, it seems advisable to remind ourselves of the sequence of events that leads to it as well as of the action that follows immediately thereafter, hence the following outline of the first part of Beowulf.

After an initial account of the founding of Denmark's Scylding Dynasty by the mythological Scyld Scefing (1^a-52^b), the narrative traces the royal succession down to King Hrothgar, who decides to advertise the might of his realm by erecting a magnificent hall which he names Heorot (78^b). Here, king and warriors spend much time joyously feasting at night until a troll-like and cannibalistic creature of darkness named Grendel (102^b) takes such vehement exception to the constant uproar of revelry that he submits the hall to a series of murderous attacks which eventually put an end to all nightly occupancy for the next twelve years (147^a). Apparently nonplused by the monster's overpowering savagery, Hrothgar finds no better solution than to bear his grief (147^b) and hold constant but seemingly fruitless meetings with his advisers (171^b-172^a).

Somewhere in the land of the Geats, a physically powerful young man identified as a retainer of King Hygelac (194^b) and whose name we shall later learn to be Beowulf (343^b) hears of this situation (194^a-195^b) and immediately sets sail for Denmark with fourteen companions (215^b-216^b) to free the world from Grendel's depredations. The Geats make land the next day and, after an initially somewhat tense but brief and amicable encounter with a coast guard (234^a-300^b), march to Heorot, where Beowulf announces the purpose of his visit and his determination to fight Grendel alone and unarmed (424^b-440^a), though he will wear a corslet made by Weland himself (455^a). Hrothgar invites the Geats to a banquet, during which Beowulf is in turn taunted by a retainer named Unferth (506^a-528^b) and honored by Queen Wealhtheow's gracious attention (620^a-628^a). The Geats are then left alone to wait for Grendel, who soon breaks into the hall and succeeds in devouring one of them before grappling for life with Beowulf, from whom he escapes mortally wounded, leaving an arm behind (815^b-823^a).

The next day is devoted to celebrations, during which a poet entertains the company by singing a song about Beowulf's exploit (871^b-874^a), which he likens by implication to the deeds of the Germanic heroes Sigemund and Fitela (874^b-900^b) and contrasts to the crimes of a wicked king of old named Heremod (901^a-915^b). During the sumptuous banquet which follows, Hrothgar bestows priceless gifts upon Beowulf (1020^a-1053^a), and the poet sings once again to tell of the heroic death of the Half-Dane leader Hnaef and of that of the Frisian king Finn, who was killed by Hnaef's successor, Hengest (1063^a-1159^a). Wealhtheow then presents Beowulf with a necklace as valuable as the legendary one which Hama once stole from Eormanric (1197^a-1201^a). That night, a contingent of Danes remains in Heorot, but Grendel's mother attacks to avenge her son and carries off a warrior named Aeshere, who is Hrothgar's dearest companion (1296^a-b).

Early next morning, Beowulf is asked to help with the renewed peril (1376^b-1377^a) and is taken to a pond where Grendel and his mother presumably have their lair and on whose shore the young warrior receives a valuable and tried sword from Unferth (1455^a-1457^b), who seems to have forgotten his earlier antagonism. He then dives into the pond and enters an underwater cave where he kills Grendel's mother beside the body of her dead son, although Unferth's weapon fails him (1522^b-1525^a) and he must use an ancient sword which seems to have been waiting for him there (1557^a-1568^b). Back in Heorot, his accomplishments are praised by Hrothgar, who again contrasts him to Heremod (1709^b) and seizes upon the occasion to deliver a little sermon on the sins of pride, sloth, and covetousness (1724^b-1757^b). On the fourth day, the Geats sail back to their homeland, where Hygelac expresses some surprise at the success of the expedition (1992^b-1997^a).

Sketchy though it be, the foregoing outline illustrates the highly traditional and oral-formulaic nature of the narrative. The names listed therein, for instance, should suffice to alert us to the extent to which the materials belong to the Old-English literary tradition. The mention of Finn, Hnaef, and Hengest takes us to the Finnsburg Fragment,⁵ which gives a detailed account of part of the action mentioned in Beowulf; and Eormanric figures prominently in both Widsith and Deor, which are generally considered highly representative of the repertory of traditional Old-English poetry. In addition, Weland—the same whose picture on the Franks Casket may be seen by every visitor to the British Museum—plays an important part in the latter, while Hama, Finn, and Hnaef are included in the former, where we also find Hrothgar's political situation described in a manner consonant with the account in Beowulf. Outside Old English, the most cursory and random glance at mediaeval German and Scandinavian traditional literature shows that the same kind of observation may be made in respect to the broader Germanic context. The Eormanric of Old-English poetry is central to the German epic cycle of Dietrich von Bern and to the Old-Norse Thidreks Saga—both of which include Hama—and the sixteenth-century Low-German Koninc Ermenrikes Dot makes it clear that the impetus of his fame was strong enough to carry beyond the Middle Ages. Weland also appears in the Thidreks Saga and rates an entire poem in the Elder Edda. Sigemund, Heremod, and Eormanric likewise appear in an Eddic poem, known in English as The Lay of Hyndla, which also mentions the Scyldings.

Among all these, as well as others whose names have been left out here, Sigemund and Fitela deserve special mention because of their position as the central characters of the Völsunga Saga. In addition, the latter's death is commemorated in a special prose link in the Elder Edda, while the former is remembered as Siegfried's father in the Nibelungenlied. These titles would, of course, have been unknown to the audience of Beowulf, especially since the Old-Norse saga and the Middle-High-German epic were both written more than a century after the end of the Anglo-Saxon period, but, as I tried to argue in Chapter 6, specific performances and their titles must have meant very little to the normal audiences of traditional poetry composed orally or in writing according to the canons of oral-formulaic rhetoric. Fortunately, the affective impact which the mention of the two heroes might have had upon such audiences may be inferred from the Old-Norse Eiríksmál, which was almost certainly composed in England very soon after 964, when Erik Bloodaxe, recently expulsed King of Northumbria, was slain on the road from Carlisle to York. In order to magnify Erik's posthumous renown in the world, the anonymous author of the poem apparently found it sufficient to show the god Odin asking Sigemund and Fitela themselves to welcome the slain king to Valhalla:

Sigmundr ok Sinfjotli!                    rísið snarliga
ok gangið                    í gøgn grami:
inn þú bjóð,                    ef Eiríkr
sé.(6)

(19^a-21^b)

[Sigemund and Fitela! get up quickly and go meet the king: invite him in if he be Erik.]

We may accordingly imagine that, upon hearing Beowulf's exploits extolled in practically the same breath with those of these legendary Volsungs, a traditional Germanic audience would unconsciously have associated the glory of the former with the deeds of the latter, since human nature tends to decree virtue by association as easily as it decrees guilt by the same token.

Just as the names mentioned above place Beowulf squarely within the context of the Germanic tradition, so the several motifs recognizable in my outline—that is to say, these narrative situations and actions which transcend a particular story—do the same thing in respect to various episodes. The underwater fight and the depredations performed by a monster against some kind of human dwelling, for instance, have clear analogues in the otherwise vastly different story recounted in the fourteenth-century Grettis Saga, and analogues to one or the other episode are found in so many other Old-Norse sagas that Friedrich Klaeber observed that “the points of contact between [these] … and the Beowulf are unmistakable”⁷ and explained the similarities by positing ancient folk legends which were “circulated orally in the North” and “in the course of time … were attached to various persons,”⁸ including Beowulf. This explanation makes eminent sense, and I should personally hesitate to question its validity. Yet, there is more to be said if we look beyond the Germanic world and into one of the very most familiar episodes of the Odyssey. I am referring to the scene, in the ninth book, during which Odysseus kills the Cyclops Polyphemus in his cave just as Beowulf kills Grendel's mother in hers. Michael Nagler, who has analyzed comparatively the respective treatments of both killings, points out that “clearly each poet was dealing with the same theme,”⁹ and he thus provides us with a theme likely to hark all the way back to Indo-European times. I must insist, however, that Nagler's analysis detracts in no way from Klaeber's explanation, since there is absolutely no reason why a particular implementation of a theme should not be transmitted in the manner surmised by Klaeber. In this case, the implementation is typically Germanic insofar as it involves Germanic warriors behaving in accordance with Germanic values in a Germanic environment, but the thematic paradigm necessarily antedates the Germanic narrative tradition.

The same argument may be advanced in respect to the fourteenth-century Hrólfs Saga Kraka, which deals in part with the legend of the Scyldings and in which the visit of the hero Bothvar Bjarki to the Danish court is so reminiscent of Beowulf's own visit that the taunts which Unferth directs at the hero in the latter are matched by those of some of the king's men in the former and that Bothvar has been said to be “possibly … identical with Beowulf himself.”¹⁰ But then, we may recall from the discussion of the theme of the singer looking at his sources, in Chapter 6, that precisely the same thing happens to Odysseus under very similar circumstances when he is taunted by Laodamas and Euryalus during his visit to the Phaeacian court. We must accordingly reckon with the probability that what we have here is not only a fact of Germanic legend but also an oralformulaic theme possibly dating back to Indo-European. Similarly, the mention of the singer looking at his sources reminds us that Beowulf was the Old-English poem in which Creed identified that particular theme. Yet, had we known the theme from a different source, the mention of a song about the hero's exploit, in my outline, would certainly have alerted us to its presence in the poem. Because they are based on an extremely sketchy outline and can accordingly reveal only the most conspicuous features, the foregoing observations should underscore the fact that the oral-formulaic nature of Beowulf is obvious enough to be taken into account not only by experienced scholars but also by readers trying their hand at literary interpretation for the first time.

For the present purpose, another important feature of the poem stands out in the outline. Because the hero and his companions cross the sea twice and he dives into a pond in which he engages in a bloody fight, we may say that the text of the Grendel episode of Beowulf is replete with opportunities for the implementation of the theme of the hero on the beach; and the chances are that any ancient or modern audience familiar with Germanic oral-formulaic rhetoric would be cued to watch for that theme the moment when Beowulf orders a ship readied to take him and his companions overseas to rescue Hrothgar (198^b-207^a).

In actuality, the expected theme is implemented in its so-called “pure form” in a type-scene which begins with the very next line:

                                                                      XVna sum
sundwudu sohte;                    secg wisade,
lagucræftig mon,                    landgemyrcu.
                    Fyrst forð gewat.                    Flota wæs
on yðum,
bat under beorge.                    Beornas gearwe
on sfefn stigon;                    streamas wundon,
sund wið sande;                    secgas bæron
on bearm nacan                    beorhte frætwe,
guðsearo geatolic …

(207^b-215^a)

[With fourteen others, he went to the boat; the man, a person wise in the ways of the sea, led the way to the shore. Time moved on. The vessel was afloat, the boat beneath the cliff. Without delay, the men embarked at the prow; the currents eddied, the water against the sand; the men carried their shining trappings, their splendid battle-gear into the bosom of the ship.]

Quite clearly we have here an instance of the theme in its so-called pure form: a hero on the beach (208^b-209^b) with his retainers (207^b; 211^b-215^a) in the presence of a flashing light, here emanating from the shining equipment to which our attention is called twice in a row (214^b; 215^a), as a journey is begun (e.g., 207^b-208^a).

This particular occurrence of the theme has little to add to the factual expectations already raised in the audience by the preceding narrative, for nobody is likely to expect the outcome of Beowulf's expedition to be anything but slaughterous and no rhetorical device can do much to make us unconsciously aware of what we already know consciously. Yet, the occurrence has its affective impact, as may be assessed in the light of its immediate context. Until now, the poem has emphasized not only the brute horror of Grendel's slaughterous depredations but also the glaring contrast between the sheer energy of repeated action which they represent and the limp passivity with which the Danes submit to their humiliating plight. Grendel acts upon impulse and wastes no time doing so. No sooner has he discovered that the Danes are intent on spending their nights feasting loudly in the great hall (89^a: “hludne in healle”) than his furor grows out of control in a manner which requires no explanation with those readers who have endured neighbors excessively fond of loud parties at night. Without waiting to consider the ethical implications of violence or even to devise a strategy, he goes into action and bursts into the hall under the cover of darkness. There he finds the human occupants, who have just now wound up that evening's beer party (117^a: “æfter beorþege”) and are already sleeping it off right after the banquet (119^a: “swefan æfter symble”). Without so much as a hint of pause or hesitation, he grabs thirty of them and is once again on his way home with his booty in five and one-half lines:

                                                                                Wiht unhælo,
grim ond grædig,                    gearo sona wæs,
reoc and reþe,                    ond on ræste genam
þritig þegna,                    þanon eft gewat
huðe hremig                    to ham faran,
mid þœre wælfylle                    wica neosan.

(120^b-125^b)

[The creature of destruction, fierce and ravenous, savage and furious, was quickly ready and grabbed thirty thanes from where they were sleeping; thence he departed to return home, exulting in his booty, to seek his abode with his fill of slaughtered bodies.]

Here, in powerful contrast to the immediately preceding image of the Danes peacefully sleeping in contented repletion, almost every other word suggests either fierce determination (e.g., “reoc and reþe” [“savage and furious”]) or instant action (e.g., “gearo sona wæs” [“was quickly ready”]), and the resulting sense of horrifying enthusiasm is brilliantly capped by the sight of Grendel's exultant delight in his own performance (“huðe hremig” [“exultant in his booty”]). For an audience attuned to oral-formulaic devices, incidentally, the tension of the scene is established at the outset with the mention of the Danes “sleeping after the banquet,” for this particular brand of inactivity has been identified as an oral-formulaic theme whose participants are usually about to meet their doom.¹¹

Within four lines of Grendel's triumphant departure, the contrast is again impressed upon us when, at sunrise, the surviving Danes gather to assess the damage and find no better course of action than to indulge in loud lamentations (129^a: “micel morgensweg”). Hrothgar is quintessential of the general paralysis. Whereas the situation obviously calls for action on the leader's part, he can only sit in sorrow (130^b: “unbliðe sæt”) while passively suffering and enduring (131^a-b: þolode … dreah”) a fate which obviously has him totally baffled. The poet sums up this situation by remarking that “the struggle was too strong, hateful, and longlasting” (133^b-134^a and again 191^b-192^a: wæs þæt gewin to strang, / lað ond longsum”).¹² It is no wonder, then, that the next line should show Grendel hurrying in for a return engagement the night after (134^b-137^a), and it is characteristic that he should feel absolutely no remorse (136^b; “ond no mearn fore”) for hitting so hard and so often warriors who do nothing to stop him and whose only active concern is to keep out of his way by whatever means (138^a-143^b).

Throughout the twelve years that this situation endures, Grendel is always seen doing things that require determination and quick action. Just as he was “quickly ready” to kill on the occasion of his first onslaught and had the stamina to repeat the grisly exploit the following night, so the only rest he ever takes thereafter is when he lies in wait to pounce upon his victims (161^a: “seomade ond syrede”), and his life is accordingly described as a “constant strife” (154^a: “singale sæce”). In contradistinction, the Danes are repeatedly seen engaging in activities which require neither determination nor quick action and which, in fact, do not always have definable beginnings and ends. Just as Hrothgar's response to Grendel's first raid was to “sit in sorrow” and to take no action, so the meetings which he presumably calls to find a solution are made to sound like continuous affairs unlikely to produce any serious plan or strategy:

                                                                      Monig oft gesæt
rice to rune;                    ræd eahtedon
hwæt swiðferhðum                    selest wære
wið færgryrum                    to gefremmanne.

(171^b-174^b)

[Many a powerful man sat often in council; they debated as to what might be best for strong-minded men to do in respect to the terror of sudden attacks.]

We are not surprised to learn that, despite these repeated meetings, Hrothgar spends his time continually brooding (190^a: “singala seað”).

After more than a hundred lines (86^a-193^b) devoted primarily to impressing us with the contrast between Grendel's murderous energy and the disastrous passivity of the Danes' response, the account concludes with the statement that Hrothgar could do nothing whatsoever to turn aside the calamity which had been plaguing his people for so many years (189^a-193^b). It is at this point that Beowulf enters the poem, and in the space of only five and one-half lines learns of Grendel's depredations, decides to do something to put a stop to them, and has a ship readied to take him to Denmark (194^a-199^a). Through the mere act of ordering a boat to be readied, Beowulf accomplishes much more within these five and one-half lines of text and a few seconds of decision-making than Hrothgar and all his Danes have done in the preceding one hundred and eight lines and twelve years of indecision.

The swiftness of the operation is emphasized in two ways. In the first place, we are made to see Beowulf, in radical contrast to Hrothgar, sweeping into immediate action without giving the slightest hint of ever stopping to devise a plan of action or to consider the possible consequences of that action.¹³ In the second place, the structure of the passage illustrates a device which might be called “semantic gapping” for lack of a better term. We know that what linguists call “gapping constructions” (e.g., “John saw the dog and Mary the cat” instead of “John saw the dog, and Mary saw the cat”)¹⁴ shortens sentences by dropping the repetition of a verb without affecting its semantic function, and they can thus give the action an appearance of rapidity. With what I have called “semantic gapping,” an entire unit of meaning is dropped with the same result. A thought whose expression might have required a whole sentence or even several sentences remains unstated, but we nevertheless assume its nature because the rest of the message would be incomplete without it. In the case of the passage under consideration, we should expect the sequence of utterances to make us see Beowulf (a) learning about Grendel's depredations, (b) making up his mind to go fight the monster, and (c) accordingly ordering a ship readied to take him to Denmark. Instead, we are presented with (a) a statement of his learning about Grendel's depredations, (b) a parenthetical digression about his being the strongest man in the world, and (c) a statement of his ordering a ship to be prepared:

Þæt fram ham gefrægn                    Higelaces þegn,
god mid Geatum,                    Grendles dæda;
se wæs moncynnes                    mægenes strengest
on þæm dæge                    þysses lifes,
æþele ond eacen.                    Het him yðlidan
godne gegyrwan …

(194^a-199^a)

[In his homeland, Hygelac's thane, excellent among the Geats, learned about Grendel's deeds; on that day of this life, he was the mightiest in strength among mankind, enormous and noble. He ordered a good ship to be prepared for him …]

Not only does the omitted statement speed up the action, but it also drives home from the start the contrast between Beowulf and Hrothgar. Whereas the old Danish king has repeatedly proceeded from information to deliberation and unfailingly stopped short of action, the young Geatish warrior skips over deliberation to charge directly from information into action.

The passage under consideration does more than contrast the energy of youth to the limpness of age; it forces us to look at Beowulf in relation to Grendel. In the first place, its structure plainly matches that of the passage which has introduced Grendel and his original raid some hundred lines earlier. There, we should have expected to be told that the monster (a) learned through firsthand experience that the sounds of nightly Danish revelry in Heorot were revolting to him, (b) made up his mind to take the matter in hand and put an end to the offending noises while treating himself to a good meal, and (c) accordingly moved in on the hall. Instead, exactly as with the passage which introduces Beowulf, the implementation has satisfied our initial and concluding expectations (86^a-98^b and 115^a-116^a) but has replaced the middle one by a parenthetical digression, in this case on Grendel's descent from biblical giants and sundry other monsters. The structure common to both passages is reminiscent of a syllogism whose second premise had been replaced by a statement unconnected to the logical process. In addition, just as we have seen Beowulf introduced as “Hygelac's thane” (194^b) rather than by name, so Grendel is introduced as “the bold demon” (86^a: “se ellengæst”) rather than by name. The parallels between the two passages may quite conceivably betoken the use of a common oral-formulaic theme,¹⁵ but they are much too obvious to pass unnoticed. In the second place, the digression at the center of each passage emphasizes precisely the same quality of physical strength in Beowulf and Grendel, respectively: just as the human hero is “the mightiest in strength among mankind” (196^a-b), so his prospective antagonist is a “savage demon” (102^a: “grimma gæst”) related to the “giants who struggled against God a long time” (113^a-114^a: “gigantas, þa wið gode wunnon / lange þrage”), and we shall later be reminded that “he was bigger than any other man” (1353^a-b: “he wæs mare þonne ænig man oðer”). In other words, Beowulf is to good what Grendel is to evil. Like the positive and negative of the same picture, the two are perfectly matched, and it is only fitting that, just as the monster always fights “alone against all” (154^a: “ana wið eallum”), so his human opponent should vow to face the giant alone (425^b-426^a: “ana gehegan / ðing wið þyrse”).

Positive and negative must perforce adhere to the same structure, but they are nevertheless the opposite of each other. This fact is essential to our grasp of the relationship between Grendel and Beowulf and is impressed upon us immediately after the latter has ordered that a boat be prepared to take him to Denmark. On the very next line (199^a-201^b) the premise missing from the pseudo-syllogism discussed above reappears to tell us how and why he decides to undertake the adventure:

                    [Beowulf] cwæð                    he
guðcyning
ofer swanrade                    secean wolde,
mærne þeoden,                    þa him wæs manna þearf.

(199^b-201^b)

[(Beowulf) said that he intended to seek the war-king, the famous prince (i.e., Hrothgar), over the swan-road, since he had need of men.]

The statement stands out in our mind because it answers a question to which logic had led us to expect an answer three lines earlier; and it drives home the radical difference between Grendel and Beowulf by stating what we have already assumed: whereas the latter has traveled to Heorot to destroy, the former is about to travel there to mend, and the negative-positive relationship between the two is now clear in every respect.

Against this background the occurrence of the theme of the hero on the beach affects us through three suggestive aspects thereof, even though it adds no major factual information to what we already know. In the first place, it reinforces our expectation of a bloody struggle between Beowulf and Grendel, since we have already noted that the theme usually occurs before a scene of carnage or at least a mention thereof. In the second place, it also reinforces our natural but necessarily tentative expectation that good will triumph over evil, since the hero of the theme usually emerges victorious from the ensuing struggle.¹⁶ In the third place, it lends the whole affair an air of immediacy because the recorded instances of subsequent carnage tend to take place soon after the relevant occurrences of the theme rather than in some vague and distant future;¹⁷ and, within the poem, Beowulf will in fact come face to face with Grendel in fewer than forty-eight hours. Against the information which has ushered in the occurrence of the theme, the cumulative effect of these three suggestive aspects is to initiate a tension which might otherwise not develop until later. Because of the associations which the theme triggers in our mind, the embarkation scene affects us no longer as a mere prelude to a bloody struggle that will eventually take place at a different time in a different location, but rather as an initial step in that struggle. In other words, the counteraction to Grendel's abominable actions has become operative, and the audience is swept along in a chain of events which may no longer be stopped.

Even though fewer than forty-eight hours elapse between the embarkation and the fight with Grendel, over five hundred lines—or nearly a half-hour of listening or reading aloud—intervene between the conclusion of the type-scene (215^a) and the beginning of that fight (739^a), so that we should expect the initial impact of the theme to be considerably, if not totally, blunted by the time the anticipated slaughter finally takes place. Quite on the contrary, the poet has succeeded in repeatedly boosting that impact in such a way as to keep the tension mounting until the very last moment. This narrative feat is accomplished through the recurrence of type-scenes embodying the theme as well as through the periodic appearance of various sources of flashing light which keep the idea of that theme alive in our mind.

The first recurrence takes place, not surprisingly, as the Geats complete their crossing some twenty-four hours later (219^a-b). As they near the Danish coast, the very first thing to come within their ken is the line of shining cliffs: “… ða liðende land gesawon, / brimclifu blican” (221^a-222^a [“the voyagers caught sight of the land, of the sea-cliffs shining”]). Because associations readily take place in the reader's or listener's mind while remaining unstated in the text, a given implementation of a theme may prove perfectly clear while omitting key elements which have to be supplied by the audience in accordance with the principles outlined earlier in connection with semantic gapping. In the present case, the text makes no mention of the hero, but the initial type-scene has told us only a few lines earlier (207^b-209^a) that Beowulf was leading the expedition, so that we automatically provide the missing element by assuming his unmentioned presence aboard ship, and we accordingly have a perfectly clear implementation of the theme, though not in its so-called “pure form.” The affective result is that, as we come within sight of the land where Grendel performs his bloody deeds, we are again presented with an unmistakable instance of a familiar narrative device which signals carnage, and the tension increases accordingly.

Motion-picture and television viewers need not be told that the tension attendant upon an approaching struggle tends to be most keenly felt when the audience is made to see the approach from the respective points of view of both the entity which approaches and that which is approached. This principle is illustrated in a third implementation of the theme of the hero on the beach. We have just now been made to see the telltale flashing light from the point of view of Beowulf and his companions as their ship approaches the cliffs, and we are suddenly made to turn around one hundred and eighty degrees to look from those same cliffs at the Geats landing on the beach. As we do so, we notice from the point of view of a Danish coast guard the shining shields carried by the sailors as they disembark, and we are thus provided with the necessary cue to reconstruct the theme in our mind, although the text makes no explicit mention of the hero, or his retainers, or the voyage, or even the beach, and we must supply these things from the preceding scenes:

Þa of wealle geseah                    weard Scildinga,
se þe holmclifu                    healdan scolde,
beran ofer bolcan                    beorhte randas,
fyrdsearu fuslicu.

(229^a-232^a)

[Then from the wall the Scyldings' watchman, he whose duty it was to guard the sea-cliffs, noticed shining shields, the battle-gear at the ready, being carried over the gangway.]

We have thus had three implementations of the theme in a row, and each one has included fewer of the required elements than the one before. We have started out with a neat type-scene incorporating the theme in its “pure form,” with explicit mentions of a hero with his retainers, on a beach, at the outset of a journey, in the presence of a flashing light; we have then proceeded to a second implementation in which the expected mention of the hero has been omitted, and we have ended with a third implementation in which everything except the flashing light has been left out. Since all three implementations take place within a mere twenty-five lines and the previous section of the narrative has thoroughly familiarized us with the situation at hand, we deserve scant credit for being able to supply the missing elements on demand. The process, however, is important because, in a manner of speaking, it forces us to participate actively in the composition of the very poem which we are reading or to which we are listening. The principle is a familiar one for anyone acquainted with those Impressionist or Late-Roman paintings which leave out details which our mind supplies because we naturally assume their presence although our eyes do not see them. With literature as with painting, the likely result is that we become so personally involved with the process of creation that we are unwittingly prompted to become part of the action. In the present case, the device further prepares us to associate subsequent flashes of light with the theme of the hero on the beach and thus to keep the affective impetus going.

A well-trained craftsman working within a firm tradition will often implement certain requirements of that tradition without questioning their significance, and we may accordingly doubt that every Greek stonecutter carving eggs and darts around a temple wasted much time pondering the message which each of these would convey to the onlookers. By the same token, it would be difficult to determine whether the Beowulf-poet was fully conscious of the affective potential of the theme or whether he was simply implementing it because the situation traditionally called for this particular narrative device. It would likewise be difficult to determine whether subsequent occurrences of a flashing light must be considered conscious attempts at keeping the theme going or simply happen to be here because the contents of the narrative make their presence unavoidable. This compound uncertainty need not affect our interpretation any more than the fact that Molière's Mr. Jourdain never knew that he was speaking prose until his teacher of philosophy enlightened him¹⁸ should prevent us from placing the label of prose on his previous utterances. In addition, we need not be uncertain about what we hear or see on the page, even if we do not know how it came to be there. In the present case, the picture of the shining sea-cliffs is so conspicuous that we cannot miss it, and the flashing quality of the trappings and shields which alert us to the other two occurrences of the theme of the hero on the beach is unmistakably brought out by the repeated use of the adjective “shining” (214^a; 231^b: “beorhte”).

With these observations in mind, we may now glance at the return journey, which forms a natural companion piece to the journey which we have examined and offers a revealing contrast to the techniques therein. Because Hrothgar has showered upon the Geats all kinds of gifts made of precious metal, the opportunities for calling attention to flashing objects are practically endless, so that we should expect the poet to return to his earlier technique and make repeated use of the adjective “shining” and various equivalents. But the situation is different because Beowulf has killed both Grendel and Grendel's mother and there is no more prospect of immediate slaughter awaiting him at the end of the journey. As a result, the conventions of oral-formulaic rhetoric no longer call for the theme of the hero on the beach, even though the sea that must be sailed and the beaches that must be trod are the very same which we have seen Beowulf and his companions sail and tread at the outset of the adventure.

In this light, it seems worth noting that, as the Geats tread once again the Danish beach where their boat has been waiting for them, the text makes nine separate mentions of situations or objects which ought to be sources of flashing light: Beowulf is “proud with gold” (1881^a: “gold-wlanc”) and “exultant in treasure” (1882^a: “since hremig”); he and his companions “in bright armor” (1895^a: “scirhame”) are wearing “coats of mail” (1889^b: “hringnet”) and corslets (1890^a: “leoðosyrcan”); the ship is loaded with “precious things” (1898^a: “maðmum”) and “stored-up treasures” (1899^b: “hordgestreonum”); and the coast guard receives a “sword bound with gold” (1900^b-1901^a: “bunden golde / swurd”), which is compared to a treasure (1902^b: “maðme”). Yet, only one among the nine includes an explicit reference to the process of emitting light; and that one is the adjective scirham, which I have translated as “in bright armor” in keeping with common practice, but whose literal meaning is “with a bright (or clear) covering” and which seems to suggest little beyond the fact that the person thus qualified wears some kind of metal armor.¹⁹ In the other eight cases, the presence or absence of the latent flash is left for us to determine if we think of it. This observation would be unquestionably and totally insignificant if it were not for the fact that the particular lack of explicit formulation to which it calls attention stands in contrast not only with the technique evident in the three implementations of the theme of the hero on the beach discussed above but also with the practice constantly illustrated in subsequent implementations, which will be examined presently.

The extent of this contrast becomes manifest if we read on or listen for only eight more lines to make the homeward crossing with the Geats and share their first sight of the approaching coastline. Except for one detail, the picture evoked is an exact counterpart of the picture which we were asked to imagine when they were shown approaching the Danish coast (“the voyagers caught sight of the land, of the sea-cliffs shining”), and it is likewise conveyed by (a) a statement of what is seen, followed by (b) an appositive which tells us something about what we are seeing: “they could make out the cliffs of the Geats, the familiar promontories” (1911^a-1912^a: “… hie Geata clifu ongitan meahton, / cuþe næssas”). The missing detail is, of course, the shining quality which made the appearance of the Danish cliffs so striking over sixteen hundred lines earlier and which alerted us to the presence of the theme. We may further wish to note that, as the Geats actually set foot on their homeland, their arrival is observed by a coast guard (1914^a-1916^b) just as their arrival in Denmark was observed by a coast guard, but this time the text includes no mention or even suggestion of any kind of flashing equipment. Just as we need only give enough monkeys enough typewriters and we are bound to find a Shakespeare sooner or later, so the foregoing similarities and contrasts could conceivably be attributed to sheer coincidence; but this coincidence would not alter the fact that the key component of the theme of the hero on the beach is stressed when the presence of that theme is required by the conventions of oral-formulaic rhetoric and is either left to our imagination or completely omitted when these conventions no longer require the theme.

The principle formulated above is illustrated over and over again between the landing in Denmark and the fight with Grendel. As the Geats walk away from the beach, our attention is made to focus on the golden boar images gleaming on their helmets:

                                                                      Eoforlic scionon
ofer hleorberan                    gehroden golde,
fah ond fyreheard.

(303^b-305^a)

[Boar images adorned with gold gleamed above the cheek-guards, shining and fire-hardened.]

A similar technique comes into play a few lines later, when Beowulf and his companions catch their first glimpse of their goal and the gleaming quality of the great hall is explicitly stressed three times in a row. We are told that it is “gleaming with gold” (308^a: “goldfah”), that it is “shining” (313^a: “torht”), and that its radiance is such that it shines “over many lands” (311^a-b: “lixte se leoma ofer landa fela”). As the Geats pause in front of Heorot, the emphasis falls squarely on the luster of their byrnies (321^b: “Guðbyrne scan”) and the brightness of the iron rings in their corslets (322^b: “hringiren scir”). Since those flashes which do not occur by the beach occur as the travelers reach the door of Heorot—which we have seen in Chapter 6 to satisfy the same formulaic requirement as a beach—we again have all the components of the theme of the hero on the beach, and it should be noted that the theme thus occurs with particular vigor as we reach the building in which Beowulf will shed Grendel's blood that very night.

No sooner have the Geats crossed the threshold into the hall than the text once again calls attention to the brightness of Beowulf's byrnie (405^b: “on him byrne scan”). Thus, just as we were earlier made to notice first the shining cliffs as the Geats were approaching the shore and then the shining shields carried by the same Geats as they were landing on the beach, so we have now been made to notice first the gloriously shining hall from the outside as the Geats were approaching it and then the shining byrnie worn by Beowulf as he stands facing Hrothgar inside the hall. We may therefore say that, in similar structural situations, the handling of the theme is remarkably consistent, and I believe that this consistency helps keep the impetus going.

By now, we are so conditioned by occurrences of the theme reiterated in narrative layers superimposed under parallel circumstances and indicated by explicit mentions of various kinds of flashing lights that any subsequent mention of any sort of light is likely to affect us as would another instance of the theme itself. This kind of association is likely to take place, for example, when Beowulf introduces himself to Hrothgar by stating his intention to put an end to the incursions which Grendel regularly makes after the “evening light” (413^b: “æfenleoht”) has died out; and this mention of light appropriately occurs five lines before the summary of an adventure during which the hero encountered and slaughtered several sea monsters (419^a-424^a), and ten and one-half lines before his rather truculent request that he may face Grendel in single combat (424^b-432^b). The association is again likely to take place when Hrothgar, in his reply to Beowulf, tells of one of Grendel's raids and describes the gory state of Heorot the morning after, “when the day shone” (485^b: “þonne dæg lixte”); and the same principle applies when the Danes eventually retire for the night and leave the Geats in Heorot to await Grendel's onslaught “after they could no longer see the light of the sun” (648^a-b: “siððan hie sunnan leoht geseon ne meahton”).

In the immediately foregoing cases, semantic gapping has been carried to the extreme insofar as one single component of the theme—even though it has consistently been the key component—has served to keep the momentum of the original impact alive. We should note that, whether this technique be used wittingly or otherwise, it has the effect of forcing the audience into active reading or listening. The cues are perfectly clear, and a properly trained audience has only one way to interpret them, but they nevertheless require interpretation, however automatic and elementary, and the process entails at least some kind of creative involvement on our part. There is no difficulty involved, but neither are we spoonfed a predigested narrative.

The process whereby the impact of the theme of the hero on the beach is sustained in our mind by strategically located mentions of flashing lights is reinforced by three additional implementations thereof which take us all the way to the beginning of the expected bloodshed. The first two depart palpably from the “pure form” of the theme but nevertheless contribute to the tension by keeping the concept of slaughter foremost in our mind. The first of these is found in the reply which Beowulf makes to Unferth's taunts in Heorot and in which he claims to have once killed nine sea monsters (557^b-558^b and 574^a-575^a) who—in a manner reminiscent of Grendel's way of doing things—had planned on eating him near the bottom of the water (562^a-564^b). No sooner had he achieved his victory at sea, he tells us, than “light came from the East, the shining beacon of God” (569^b-570^a: “Leoht eastan com, / beorht beacen godes”) and the shoreline loomed ahead of him (571^a-572^a). Although the hero's retainers are nowhere in sight, we have here a type-scene which includes the other three components of our theme (a sea voyage, a flashing light, and a shoreline), but the order is askew insofar as the expected slaughter is mentioned along with the theme which should normally precede it. The second type-scene occurs a little later in the same reply, as Beowulf proclaims that he will prove more of a match for Grendel than the Danes have ever been. Because he begins this particular part of his speech with a mention of Grendel's unopposed slaughter of Danes (590^a-601^a), the order is again askew, and, because he is sitting at a banquet table in Heorot, the usual connection between the action and some kind of boundary between two worlds is missing. Yet, we know that he speaks in the presence of both the Danes and his own companions and that he has arrived and entered the hall just a little earlier, so that we have our theme before us the instant he provides us with the needed flash of light by assuring all present that the long-drawn ordeal will finally be over on the next morning, “when the morning light …, the brightly clothed sun will shine from the south” (604^b-606^b: “siþþan morgen leoht / …, / sunne sweglwered suþan scineð”).

The last implementation of the theme before the encounter with Grendel deserves special attention, not merely because it takes us to the event which we have been relentlessly approaching with mounting anticipation for more than five hundred lines, but especially because the effectiveness with which it triggers in the audience a sense of absolute terror at the approach of the unknown is unlikely ever to be surpassed in literature. The fact that the Geats have only this day arrived in Denmark has remained fresh in our minds throughout the preceding narrative, and no sooner have the Danes vacated Heorot for the night than we are specifically reminded of the presence of two other components of the theme. Although there is no mention of the boundary between two worlds, we are made to hear the hero stating once more his intentions (677^a-687^b) before lying down to rest (688^a-689^a) along with his companions (689^b-690^b), and the presence of both is stressed one last time when we are told that victory will be granted to all of them through the might of a single one (696^b-700^a). It is at this point that, after only a two-line parenthesis to the effect that the outcome of human affairs rests in the hands of God (700^b-702^a), we are made to sense Grendel's approach. I am using the verb “to sense” instead of the more usual “to see” because the episode takes place at night and we do not, in fact, see anything at all. Furthermore, we have thus far been given no description of Grendel, although we have seen his bloody work and have gathered that he is an oversized and monstrous creature, so that we cannot even rely on hearsay to imagine in our mind's eye what the darkness of night hides from our actual sight.

This unsettling uncertainty is compounded by the fact that we do not know whence the monster will come. We have learned that he lives in the darkness (87^b: “þe se in þystrum bad”) and keeps to the moors (103^b: “se þe moras heold”), but this information does not tell us whether he is approaching from the front, the rear, or the side. We must also remember that all previous mentions of Grendel have been outside the time frame of the poem. We have been told that he had come and slaughtered, but not that he was coming now, because his incursions had either taken place before the beginning of the story proper or been mentioned by characters in the story who were discussing actions already completed. As already noted, we have been made to imagine the gory spectacle he left behind after each incursion, but the very fact that we could imagine such a spectacle must by definition emphasize the fact that the action was over. In brief, we have thus been made to feel the horror of witnessing the aftermath of slaughter, but we have not felt the terror that comes from imagining ourselves on the targeted spot as the agent of destruction approaches.

This time, however, things are different. Grendel is now coming at us, and we are made to sense his coming inexorably nearer and nearer with each successive statement of his approach:

                                                                                          Com on wanre niht
Scriðan sceadugenga.                    Sceotend swæfan,
þa þæt hornreced                    healdan scoldon,
ealle buton anum.                    Þæt wæs yldum
cuþ
þæt hie ne moste,                    þa metod nolde,
se scynscaþa                    under sceadu bregdan;
ac he wæccende                    wraþum on andan
bad bolgenmod                    beadwa geþinges.
Da com of more                    under misthleoþum
Grendel gongan,                    godes yrre bær;
mynte se manscaða                    manna cynnes
sumne besyrwan                    in sele þam hean.
Wod under wolcnum                    to þæs þe he winreced,
goldsele gumena,                    gearwost wisse,
fættum fahne.                    Ne wæs þæt forma
sið
þat he Hroþgares                    ham gesohte;
næfre he on aldordagum                    ær ne siþðan
heardran hæle,                    healþegnas fand.
Com þa to recede                    rinc siðian
dreamum bedæled.                    Duru sona onarn,
fyrbendum fæst,                    syþðan he hire folmum æthran;
onbræd þa bealohydig,                    ða he gebolgen
wæs,
recedes muþan.                    Raþe æfter þon
on fagne flor                    feond treddode,
eode yrremod;                    him of eagum stod
ligge gelicost                    leoht unfæger.

(702^b-727^b).

[The walker in darkness came sweeping through the dark night. The warriors—all but one—slept, those who were there to hold the gabled hall. It was known to men that the demoniac foe could not drag them away under the shadows as long as the Lord did not wish it; but he (i.e., Beowulf), watching in fierce anger, waited with enraged heart for the issue of battle. Then, out of the moor, came Grendel moving under the misty slopes: he bore the wrath of God; the murderous foe intended to ensnare one of the human beings in the high hall. He advanced under the clouds toward the place where he most readily knew the wine-hall, the gold-chamber of men, to stand adorned with gold plates. It was not the first time that he had sought Hrothgar's home; never at any time in his life-days did he come upon harder luck or hardier hall-thanes. The warlike one, deprived of joy, came hastening to the hall. Instantly the door, fastened with fire-forged bands, burst open at the touch of his hands; enraged and intent on destruction, he wrenched the hall's mouth wide open. Quickly thereupon, the attacker stepped on the ornate floor, he moved on with anger in his heart; an ugly light came from his eyes, most like a flame.]

The cumulative impact of these successive pictures of destruction on the move lends the account an affective power which the intended readers or listeners must necessarily feel almost as if they were there, and the techniques behind this descriptive feat have been brilliantly analyzed by Arthur Brodeur²⁰ and by Greenfield. I am quoting a brief passage from the latter because it neatly sums up the phenomenon and the mechanics of its implementation:

The … scene … is a brilliant tableau. The three forces that are soon to be brought into collision in combat are presented here as separated, each with its own attitude and behavior toward the impending event. The walker-in-darkness is on the march, his murderous intentions implicit in the association with night and darkness; the warriors are sleeping, believing that the monster will, if God so wills, have no power to harm them; Beowulf is watching, enraged and anticipating the outcome of battle. These differences are rendered poetically effective by the syntactical, metrical, and rhetorical patterns in which they are rooted.²¹

Two additional observations are called for in relation to the theme of the hero on the beach. The first is that Grendel's crossing of the threshold between his outdoor world of the wild and our own indoor world of comfort and civilization has provided the mention of a boundary which we noted a little earlier as missing, and the sight of the ugly light shining from his eyes provides the last component still needed to complete the theme.²² The second is that, just as we were earlier made to experience the approach to the Danish shore both from the point of view of the approaching Geats and from that of a coast guard on the shore being approached, so we have now been made to experience Grendel's approach both from the point of view of the target being approached (702^b, 710^a, 720^a: “com” [“he came”]) and from that of the monster himself (714^a: “wod” [“he advanced”]).

In addition to providing yet another instance of the consistent manner in which the poet handles separate implementations of the theme under similar circumstances, these observations illustrate once again the affective mastery behind the composition. As we sense Grendel coming upon us through the darkness, we need very little willing suspension of disbelief to experience all the terror attendant upon the apprehension of looming destruction at the hands of the monstrous unknown. As we are made to shift camp and turn around to recognize the target for slaughter which we are now approaching with him, we feel the horror of having become, so to speak, the agent as well as the target of that destruction. For readers or listeners steeped in the oral-formulaic tradition, however, it must be with the mention of the ugly light flashing from Grendel's eyes that the tension reaches its peak. Since Germanic halls were equipped with neither large windows nor night-long illumination, we must imagine the darkness inside Heorot as far too opaque to let us see much of what is going on. We may conceivably have caught a glimpse of Grendel as he sent the door crashing down and his silhouette stood momentarily outlined against the presumably lighter night outside. Yet, since he makes a detour to gulp down a Geat (739^a-745^a) before attacking Beowulf, he must by definition move out of the line between the gaping door and whatever position we imagine ourselves occupying, so that the silhouette vanishes instantly into the dark and we can see no more of the monster than do the occupants of the hall. Under these conditions, the only thing they can see is, of course, the ugly light flashing from his eyes. In other words, the exact shape of the monster remains unknown until Beowulf begins grappling for life with him, and the one thing which we are allowed to see is that flash which stands out inescapably against the ambient blackness and happens to be the key component of a theme which has been present with increasing intensity since the beginning of the action and which we associate with impending slaughter. In view of the mystery which surrounds Grendel, incidentally, it is interesting to note that the one thing which Beowulf emphasizes with undisguised pride when he accounts for the event in front of the Danes is the fact that he and his companions “boldly braved the might of the unknown” (959^b-960^a: “frecne geneðdon / eafoð uncuþes”).

Whether fully intended or partially accidental, the way in which the flashing light is made to stand out against a background of stark blackness is a masterstroke of affective rhetoric insofar as the impact upon the audience comes from the context of the immediate action as well as from the implications of a familiar theme, and the total effect is stronger than the sum of its two parts experienced separately. The handling of the materials is typical, since the poet reveals a decided fondness for making us focus on a small detail which stands for something larger. When the Geats were setting out for Denmark, we were made to look at those small eddies (212^b-213^a) which usually take place along the hulls of beached ships as the waves surge forward and then retreat over the sand. As Beowulf and Grendel grapple with each other for life, we are made to focus on the single detail of fingers bursting under the formidable pressure of adversary grip (760^b: “fingras burston”); and as Beowulf tears off Grendel's arm, the focus shifts on the very point where the sinews burst and the bones separate as a wound opens at the shoulder joint:

                                                                      …                    him on eaxle wearð
syndolh sweotol,                    seonowe onsprungon,
burston banlocan.

(816^b-818^a)

[… a gaping wound appeared on his shoulder, the sinews sprang apart, the bone-joints burst.]

The merciless nature of the struggle is impressed upon us because, instead of being asked to see the whole scene from a distance, we are forced to concentrate at close range on a few gruesome details which epitomize the action.

The technique so effectively implemented here is that of the close-up on the motion-picture screen. It consists in concentrating on one or two paradigmatic details instead of stretching the field of vision to encompass the entire action; and modern readers may recall that it was precisely this kind of selectivity that Antoine de Saint Exupéry most admired in the art of Joseph Conrad.²³ As a result of these close-ups, the readers or listeners find themselves at the very center of the action rather than merely observing it from a safe distance; and few things are likely to inspire more terror than finding oneself on the very spot where the sinews spring and the bones break, even if our familiarity with the theme of the hero on the beach tells us that the human hero will in all probability emerge victorious from the bloody struggle.

An examination of every flashing light in the poem would belong to a monograph on the subject rather than to a general introduction to oral-formulaic rhetoric, but a cursory glance at two additional occurrences seems warranted to show that the theme of the hero on the beach also occurs in conjunction with the two remaining great crises in Beowulf's life: the fight with Grendel's mother at the bottom of a pond and the hero's ultimate fight, this time with a dragon, near the end of the poem, more than fifty years later. As Beowulf prepares to dive into the pond in pursuit of his enemy, he has just completed the journey from Heorot to the spot where he now stands (1400^b-1421^b), he is in the presence of both Geats and Danes (e.g., 1412^a-1413^b), he stands on the bank of a body of water (e.g., 1416^b), and he is given a sword which is described as either ornamented or flashing, depending on how we wish to interpret the adjective “fah” (1459^b), so that we have here a type-scene which embodies all the elements of the theme. The fight proper takes place at the bottom of the pond but in a cave that acts like a kind of diving bell to keep the water out (1512^b-1516^a), so that he is in effect standing by a small underground beach, and the very first thing which he notices is a “firelight, a clear flame, shining brightly” (1516^b-1517^b: “fyrleoht … / blacne leoman, beorhte scinan”). Furthermore, just as we may recall having heard Beowulf nearly a thousand lines earlier tell of his youthful adventures at sea and claim that he had no sooner killed nine monsters in the water than light flashed from the east (569^b-570^a), so now a light flashes as soon as he has killed Grendel's mother; and the metrical formula which conveys the fact—“Lixte se leoma” (1570^a)—is word-for-word the same which was used to convey the glory of Heorot (311^a) and forms the left-hand hemistich in both cases. If, in addition, we note that Beowulf kills his opponent with a sword which he finds in the cave and we happen to recall that the killing of a man-eating monster in a cave with a weapon found there in the presence of a fire has been identified as a theme of its own,²⁴ we must once again be impressed by both the density of oral-formulaic elements in the poem and the consistent manner in which they are used.

The presence of the theme of the hero on the beach in connection with Beowulf's last fight is likewise easily detectable. Beowulf and twelve of his warriors have just now made the trip from his home to the dragon's lair (2401^a-2412^a), and he addresses them before going into action alone (2510^a-2537^b). He then advances near the opening of the dragon's cave and stands by a stream which flows from it (2538^a-2546^a) and is “hot with battle-fire” (2547^a: “heaðufyrum hat”) and the “dragon's flame” (2549^b: “dracan lege”). Finally, the dragon comes out “burning” (2569^a: “byrnande”), and the fight is on. Because the action is interrupted by an account of two different killings and of some of Beowulf's earlier feats, we do not have a type-scene, but we nevertheless have all the components of the theme.

Since the theme usually precedes the hero's victory, the modern reader may feel justifiably puzzled when Beowulf dies of his wounds after having killed the dragon. I believe that the intended audience would probably have reacted quite differently. In the first place, we are warned from the start that the hero will lose his life in the struggle:

                                        …                    wyrd [wæs]
ungemete neah,
se ðone gomelan                    gretan scolde,
secean sawle hord,                    sundur gedælan
lif wið lice,                    no þon lange wæs
feorh æþelinges                    flæsce bewunden.

(2420^b-2424^b)

[… fate was immeasurably near, that which must come to the old man, seek out the soul's treasure, tear the life from the body; not for long would the nobleman's life remain confined in flesh.]

And we are soon reminded of the warning when Beowulf utters a traditional battle boast “for the last time” (2511^a: “niehstan siðe”) and addresses his companions likewise “for the last time” (2517^b; “hindeman siðe”). In the second place, Beowulf has to be a very old man, since he was clearly beyond childhood when he fought with Grendel, and we have learned that he subsequently served his own king as well as that king's successor for an unspecified but presumably substantial period before ascending the throne and reigning for fifty years (2208^b-2210^a); and we need not turn to formal statistics to know that old men—even experienced early-mediaeval monster slayers—stand a poor chance of surviving an encounter with a fire-spewing dragon. In the third place—and this is the real point—Beowulf's death is a victory. Not only does he die in killing a dragon and thereby saving the kingdom from impending destruction, but he wins a treasure for his people in the process. In so doing, he becomes an ideal Germanic king—a “protector of noblemen” (æðelinga helm) and a “dispenser of treasure” (sinces brytta)—and it is accordingly no wonder that his dying words should be to thank God for the triumph which has been granted him:

Ic ðara frætwa                    frean ealles ðanc,
wuldurcyninge,                    wordum secge,
ecum dryhtne,                    þe ic her on starie,
þæs ðe ic moste                    minum leodum
ær swyltdæge                    swylc gestrynan.

(2794^a-2798^b)

[To the Ruler, to the King of Glory, to the Eternal Lord, I say thanks with words for all of the treasures on which I look here, for the fact that I was permitted to acquire such things for my people before my death-day.]

The foregoing analysis has obviously been superficial, and I may well have interpreted an occasional word—for instance, the adjective fah, which I have usually translated as “shining,” but which also means “adorned” and various other things—in a way with which other Anglo-Saxonists would disagree and which may differ from the meaning intended by the poet or from that understood by the original audience. Yet, if we accept the premise that the supporting evidence has not been fabricated from scratch, logic requires that we also accept the contention that the theme of the hero on the beach plays a detectable affective role in Beowulf. If we are willing to grant this contention or even to entertain its feasibility, we should then take note of a key aspect of my analysis. Although I mentioned various analogues of Beowulf and listed the names of certain historical and legendary characters to establish the Germanic quality of the poem, and although Chapter 6 discussed occurrences of the theme in other poems for the sake of defining its nature and the circumstances under which it usually occurs, the analysis proper has relied on absolutely no specific text or person or historical event outside of the poem to inform the interpretation. In so doing, it has departed radically from the more conventional techniques illustrated in the first two chapters with the discussion of Thomas Farber's story of Mad Dog and of Langston Hughes's I, Too, Sing America. Of the five kinds of context mentioned at the close of Chapter 1, the historical context has been entirely disregarded, and the empirical context within the text has been repeatedly invoked, while both the empirical context outside the text and the objective context which we ourselves provide have been replaced by the oral-formulaic context in order to provide the subjective context which we ourselves bring to the interpretation.

This kind of one-sided analysis is necessarily incomplete insofar as it leaves out much information which might inform our interpretation. I should personally be much happier if I could also approach the poem as we approached I, Too, Sing America, but we have already seen that we can only guess at the locations where composition might have taken place and that the dates proposed vary by several hundred years. This situation further means that we have no means of ascertaining the specific social context within which composition actually took place or what specific oral or written texts constituted the literary luggage of the audience and the poet. Even the facts concerning the historical characters of the poem are too nebulous to afford us much help, so that the oral-formulaic approach provides us with the only empirically ascertainable context likely to inform our interpretation of the text.

My position does not imply that we should not consider the other contexts as well, but that we should keep in mind that they are by definition hypothetical in most respects and occasions. Even Theodore Andersson, who has formulated a particularly brilliant and useful argument in support of what he calls the “Virgilian Heritage” of Beowulf, must warn us that we have here a “much less clear-cut case” than with certain Mediaeval-Latin epics, partly because “there is too much evidence to ignore and too little to decide the case to everyone's satisfaction.”²⁵ Nor am I suggesting that the tension which I have pointed out in the Grendel episode can be apprehended exclusively through the oral-formulaic approach, and Edward Irving's classic study of the poem has made it amply clear that we need not be practitioners of that approach—or of any one approach, for that matter—in order to sense the power of the narrative.²⁶ Professional students of Old English, for example, will know that Robinson, whose approach to the poem is anything but oral-formulaic, calls attention to certain uses of compounds which, very much like what I have called semantic gapping, “seem to achieve their effect by a simple juxtaposing of independent elements, with the reader being left to infer the relationship of the two and their composite meaning.”²⁷

What I am saying is that, even if we had at our disposal enough external facts to approach Beowulf as we do a modern text, we should nevertheless do well to give the oral-formulaic approach its due simply because an understanding of a given rhetorical system is necessary to grasp certain aspects of works composed within that system. In brief, although I emphatically do not believe that the oral-formulaic approach to Beowulf should be practiced to the exclusion of any other approach which may contribute to our interpretation, I concur with Creed when he admonishes us not “to ignore the traditional elements which are the very fabric of the poem.”²⁸

In view of my position, I must emphasize once more that the kind of analysis which I have tried on the Grendel episode does not presuppose that Beowulf was composed orally, although it assumes composition by a poet thoroughly versed in the traditional devices of oral-formulaic composition and composing for an intended audience likely to appreciate them. Knowing for certain that the extant text or an immediate predecessor thereof was composed orally in front of a live audience would undeniably help explain some features which may affect our interpretation in a peripheral way,²⁹ and knowing for certain that it was composed with pen and ink in the seclusion of a cell would explain others,³⁰ but I have purposefully steered clear from such concerns in order to concentrate on the main line of affective narrative. If my analysis has clarified any aspect of the episode which we have examined, we may then conclude that, under the conditions stated here, the oral-formulaic approach can provide a key to the interpretation of certain poems regardless of the circumstances under which the act of composition actually took place.

Notes

1. Magoun, “Oral-Formulaic Character,” pp. 449-56.

2. Crowne, “Hero on the Beach,” p. 368.

3. Lord, Singer of Tales, pp. 198-202.

4. Robert P. Creed, “On the Possibility of Criticizing Old English Poetry,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 3 (1961): 96-106.

5. The Finnsburg Fragment is also known as The Battle of Finnsburh (e.g., in the EETS edition) and The Fight at Finnsburg. The development of the Finn legend and its relation to Beowulf are discussed by Friedrich Klaeber, ed., Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg (Boston: D. C. Heath, 1941), pp. 230-38.

6. Eiríksmál, in E. V. Gordon, An Introduction to Old Norse (1927; London: Oxford University Press, 1949), pp. 130-31, with historical introduction on p. 130. One might add that, regardless of the point of view from which we approach Beowulf, the various references and allusions therein never appear gratuitous to those who study the text seriously. In a discussion of the “apparently irrelevant description of the mysterious coming of Scyld” at the beginning of the poem, for instance, Edward B. Irving, Introduction to Beowulf (Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1969), has pointed out that the episode is “furnishing us here with a role model for the hero of the poem” (p. 36).

7. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, p. xviii. The analogues to the Grendel episode are discussed on pp. xiii-xxi. For a complete discussion of these analogues, along with translations of the relevant passages, see Chambers, Beowulf: An Introduction, esp. pp. 129-244 and 490-503.

8. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, p. xx.

9. Michael N. Nagler, “Beowulf in the Context of Myth,” in Niles, Old English Literature in Context, p. 145, with analysis running through the essay, pp. 143-55. The episode occurs in Beowulf, 1512^b-1590^b, and Odyssey, IX, 216-402. In each case, the hero comes from across the sea, goes into a cave where there is a fire and which is the home of a man-eating monster whom he puts out of commission (by killing Grendel's mother or by blinding Polyphemus) with a weapon that was already in the cave (a sword in Beowulf and a stake in the Odyssey). Nagler's essay takes its point of departure from Joseph Fontenrose, who, in his Python: A Study in the Delphic Myth and Its Origins (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1959), calls attention to striking relationships between Grendel's mother and certain Indo-European and Near-Eastern myths (p. 526).

10. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, p. xix. Klaeber also notes that “only in the Hrólfssaga do we find a story at all comparable to the Grendel part placed in a historical setting comparable to that of the Anglo-Saxon epic. … Manifestly the relation of Boðvar to Hrolfr is not unlike that of Beowulf to Hroðgar—both deliver the king from the ravages of a terrible monster, both are his honored champions and friends, Boðvarr the son-in-law, Beowulf the ‘adopted son’ (946ff., 1175ff.). … Boðvar goes from Gautland, whose king is his brother, to the Danish court at Hleiðra; Beowulf goes from the land of the Geats, who are ruled by his uncle Hygelac, to the court of the Danish King at Heorot. Boðvarr makes his entrance at the court in a brusque, self-confident manner and at the feast quarrels with the King's men; Beowulf introduces himself with a great deal of self-reliance tempered, of course, by courtly decorum (407 ff.); also his scornful retort of II. 590ff. is matched by Boðvarr's slighting remarks, 68. 17ff. (para. 9)” (pp. xviii-xix).

11. Harry E. Kavros, “Swefan æfter Symble: The Feast-Sleep Theme in Beowulf,” Neophilologus 65 (1981): 120-28. Edward B. Irving, A Reading of Beowulf (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1968 [2d printing, 1969]), accurately notes that, “like almost everything else in the poem, Grendel is most clearly defined and outlined by contrast” (p. 87).

12. Caution requires adding here that I am by no means certain that this statement is intended to reflect the poet's opinion rather than Hrothgar's own, since it bears a close resemblance to what Ann Banfield has termed “represented speech and thought” in her Unspeakable Sentences: Narration and Representation in the Language of Fiction (Boston: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1982), p. 17. Yet, Highley, “Aldor on Ofre,” p. 353, calls Hrothgar's behavior “appallingly weak before Grendel.”

13. This is not to say that Beowulf is incapable of thinking. As I have stated in my “Beowulf: A Contextual Introduction to Its Contents and Techniques,” in Felix J. Oinas, ed., Heroic Epic and Saga (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), pp. 99-119, I incline to think that we are meant to see the hero learning how to think as the story moves along, so that he behaves “like most unthinking men of action in the first half of the poem” (p. 109) but eventually turns into “an embodiment of the ideal union of wisdom and action” (p. 111).

14. See, e.g., Winfred P. Lehmann, Historical Linguistics: An Introduction, 2d ed. (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1973), p. 56.

15. The thematic paradigm, if these occurrences be indeed implementations of a theme, would include (a) some kind of good or bad warrior either experiencing or learning of some action or situation of which he disapproves, (b) a digression on the warrior, with emphasis on his destructive power, and (c) an account of the warrior taking some initial step to put an end to the objectionable action or situation.

16. Carol Jean Wolf, “Christ as Hero on the Beach,” notes that “almost invariably, the journey of the hero is either the prelude or the sequel to a triumph” (p. 274).

17. The tendency for the carnage to take place soon after the occurrence of the theme of the hero on the beach is discussed in my “Oral-Formulaic Rhetoric and the Interpretation of Written Texts,” in Foley, Oral Tradition in Literature, p. 129. See also the discussion of the Nibelungenlied in Chapter 9, text to note 9.

18. Molière, Le Bourgeois Gentilhomme, in Théâtre Choisi de Molière, ed. Ernest Thirion (Paris: Hachette, n.d.), has Mr. Jourdian exclaim, “Par ma foi! il y a plus de quarante ans que je dis de la prose sans que j'en susse rien, et je vous suis le plus obligé du monde de m'avoir appris cela” (II, iv, 654).

19. Joseph Bosworth and T. Northcote Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (London: Oxford University Press, 1898), translate scír-ham as “having bright armor,” but translators of the poem are by no means unanimous in this respect. E.g., Lucien Dean Pearson, trans., Beowulf (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1965), has “bright-mailed” (p. 91); Kevin Crossley-Holland, trans., Beowulf, has “in gleaming armour” (p. 83); E. Talbot Donaldson, trans., Beowulf, has “in bright armor” (p. 33); Howell D. Chickering, ed. and trans., Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition (Garden City, N.Y.: Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1977), has “bright-armored” (p. 159). Subsequent translations, however, have been somewhat more circumspect, with Stanley B. Greenfield, trans., A Readable Beowulf (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1982), using the adjective “bright-clad” (p. 100), which renders the ambiguity inherent in the original, and Marijane Osborn, trans., Beowulf (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1983), using the phrase “in the handsome birnies” (p. 69). Since the instance under discussion is the only recorded occurrence of this compound adjective, the interpretation is necessarily left in part to the individual scholar.

20. Arthur G. Brodeur, The Art of Beowulf (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1960), pp. 88-91. Attention is also called to Adeline Courtney Bertlett, The Larger Rhetorical Patterns in Anglo-Saxon Poetry (New York: Columbia University Press, 1935), pp. 49-50. I have discussed the passage in my “Point of View and Design for Terror in Beowulf,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 63 (1962): 154-67.

21. Stanley B. Greenfield, “Grendel's Approach to Heorot: Syntax and Poetry,” in Creed, Old English Poetry, p. 277.

22. If the adjective fag in the phrase “on fagne flor” (725^a) is construed as shining, as is done by many translators, including Greenfield, then the presence of shining light is even more obvious than in my own translation, where I have chosen the adjective ornate only to avoid equivocation in respect to my documentation.

23. Antoine de Saint Exupéry, Wind, Sand and Stars, trans. Lewis Galantière (New York: Reynal and Hitchcock, 1939), admires the fact that “when Joseph Conrad described a typhoon, he said very little about towering waves, or darkness, or the whistling of the wind. Instead, he took his reader down into the hold of the vessel, packed with emigrant coolies, where the rolling and the pitching of the ship had ripped up and scattered their bags and bundles, burst open their boxes, and flung their humble belongings into a crazy heap …” (p. 77).

24. See note 9, Chapter 3, and corresponding text.

25. Theodore M. Andersson, Early Epic Scenery (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1976), p. 145.

26. Irving, A Reading of Beowulf, has analyzed the Grendel episode as one would the product of written rhetoric and produced a superbly sensitive account of its impact (esp. pp. 94-128).

27. Robinson, Beowulf, p. 14.

28. Creed, “On the Possibility of Criticizing Old English Poetry,” p. 106.

29. E.g., the fact that Beowulf, 1999^a-2183^a, is devoted to a recapitulation of the events of the preceding 1,998 lines would be explained if we assumed oral composition and either (a) the late arrival of a member of the audience for whom the poet would want to sum up the preceding narrative or (b) the interruption of the narrative—which is very long for a one-shot performance, since it takes three and one-half hours to read aloud and would accordingly earn a single performer some sort of laryngitis—and its resumption the next day or a few hours later, thus requiring the kind of summary of previous events to which television audiences are accustomed in programs which are carried on from one day to the next.

30. E.g., the fact that critics have noted possible verbal correspondences between the poem and Virgil's Aeneid (see, e.g., Andersson's Early Epic Scenery, pp. 146-56) would be explained if we assumed a poet writing in a cell with a copy of Virgil right at hand, or at least with school training in classical Latin.