THE ANALYSIS OF BEOWULF
温州师范学院外语系
Pan Xiaojie
[ Abstract ] "Beowulf" is possibly the only important single poem of
this kind preserved to this day more or less in its entirety and has generally
been considered the most monumental work in English poetry of the Anglo-Saxon
period. It has the peculiar characteristic of style.
[ Key words ] Beowulf , epic , oral tradition
Introduction
The earliest poetry of the Anglo-Saxonw originated from the collective efforts
of the people, usually while they were working or resting from their labours.
Some of the more interesting of these narratives would pass from mouth to mouth,
from generation to generation, and as they were told by different singers at different
times, additions or deletions were introduced in the successive rehandlings of
the oral tradition of each epic.
Because these popular narratives of the Anglo-Saxons in the earliest times existed
originally in oral tradition and few of them seemed to have been handed down in
written form, "Beowulf" is possibly the only important single poem of
this kind preserved to this day more or less in its entirety and has generally
been considered the most monumental work in English poetry of the Anglo-Saxon
period.
Conclusion
"Beowulf" towers above all other literary works written in Anglo-Saxon,
chiefly because it is a powerful poem about a people's hero written in true epic
style, and not so much because the other extant writings of the period are mediocre
or fragmentary. Beowulf is not simply a man of great military prowess but he is
forever eager to help others in distress and in his last adventure with the dragon
he shows himself a worthy leader ready to sacrifice his own life for the welfare
of his people.Setting aside the supernatural elements pervading the poem as an
inevitable limitation of the tribal-feudal age, "Beowulf" deserves to
be ranked among the great heroic poems of northern Europe though it has not been
as well known as the "Nibelungenlied". In artistic form the epic tells
the tale in a leisurely way, full of elaborations in legendary details, and the
verse rises at places to heights of poetic grandeur, particularly in the descriptions
of the hero's nobility of character and in the narrations of his couragious battlings
with malevolent foes.
Bibliography
Chen Jia . A History of English Literature , The Commercial Press, 1984
Chen Jia , Song Wenlin . A College History of English Literature ,
The Commercial Press, 1996
