Notes 18.02

You need the knowledge to epic poetry to analyze the Beowulf. Beowulf was the hero of the Anglo-Saxons. It was written in Old English. It was written in verse and it is an anonymous product, of course it is long because it is epic, it is set into Denmark, Jutland and Sweden. The land are the lands where the Anglo-Saxons come from. You don’t know the date of the poem, but probably the poem dates back to the 5^th and 6^th century B.C. Beowulf is the oldest poem written among literature in any modern language. It tells the deeds of Beowulf, a Scandinavian hero. He went to Denmark to defeat and kill two supernatural and fiendish (malvage) creature. They are the monster Grendel and his mother. They entered the king’s hall at night. The setting was very dark and they slaughtered (massacrarono) the king’s thegns. When Beowulf back home to Jutland succeeded him as king and after while (dopo un po’) the country was plagued (appestato) by a dragon. He fight the dragon, but he is mortally wounded (ferito mortalmente). The content is very poor. Beowulf showed the values of his culture. He is strong, brave, loyal, skilful. He represents a positive model because he embodies the values of his country. Beowulf took the subject matter by Iceland and Scandinavian sagas. It was probably inspired by ancient historical events. Beowulf comes from a saga and it can be linked to the epic poetry to classical time. It tells of the brave action of a mythical hero and involve the faith of a whole country. Beowulf belongs to the alliterative tradition of Anglo-Saxon oral poetry. It includes a lot of alliteration, repetitions, fixed phrases (or made expression: frasi fatte). All the choices were used to help memorization. The verse was a double line with a brake in the middle called caesura from the Latin language which create a distinct rhythm. The meter was based on a pattern of stressed and alliterative words. The number of syllables in a line was irrelevant and rhyme was never used. Beowulf was composed orally by bards or in Anglo-Saxon ‘scops’, who recited by heart (a memoria) with a harp or lyre accompaniment when the people of the country met into the village hall. Beowulf was also made of riddles (indovinelli).