Background
The English language is rightfully considered one of the most complex languages in terms of its genesis, derivation, and creation throughout the years. The history of the language, while unavoidably intertwined with the physical history of the land and people, reflects some of the most significant milestones in history. An exhaustive amount of first-hand information about this genesis comes from epos and tales. Beowulf, a 3,000-line poem, the creation of which dates back to the 8th century, is a work of literature that marks the start of the Old English language that humans may remotely recognize today. Still, however, the poem itself is replete with references to Scandinavian linguistic and historical traditions, combining the linguistic premises of English and Old Norse. Thus, Beowulf is a prime example of a poem that mirrors both the historical and the linguistic tradition of the English and Scandinavian intersection at the dawn of English civilization.
Beowulf Plot
Beowulf is an Old English poetic tale with a fleur of Scandinavian tradition. Written in the 8th century, the poem’s mysterious events trace back to the 6th century, dwelling on the story of the Prince Beowulf of the Geats, an allusion to the actual island of Gotland located in the Swedish area. The foundation of the poem’s plotlines in Beowulf’s desire to combat Grendel, a terrifying creature disrupting the lives of thousands of civilians whenever it feels like it:
Grendel was the name of this grim demon
haunting the marches, marauding round the heath
and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time
in misery among the banished monsters (Heaney, 2000, lines 83-86)
Hence, the first part of the poem commemorates the glorious heroic deed of Beowulf, who, with his bare hands, defeated Beowulf and his mother, whose name was never revealed to the recipient. The second part of the poem reflects on Beowulf’s ruling as a king of Gotland years later. His kingdom starts to panic, as the old evil of a dragon is woken up after a golden cup has been stolen from the beast. Although Beowulf comes to fight the dragon with the military force, only one man remains by his side by the end of an exhausting and mortifying battle. At the end of the fight, Beowulf is severely injured and accepts his fate of death:
So he came to the place, carrying the treasure,
and found his lord bleeding profusely,
his life at an end; again, he began
to swab his body. The beginnings of an utterance
broke out from the king’s breast-cage.
The old lord gazed sadly at the gold (Heaney, 2000, lines 2788-2793)
Thus, the story itself dwells on the life-long journey of a national hero, whose peaks in life, as well as the moments of life fading away, we’re about the power of courage and self-sacrifice. Some researchers tend to compare the plot with a purely Christian tradition of battling evil (Rosier, 2018). However, since the author of the poem remains unknown today, it is rather hard to establish the genuine meaning of the poem, as well as to define its literary and linguistic roots. For this reason, the linguistic peculiarities of Beowulf remain of debate for the scholarly community.
Linguistic and Historic Premises of Beowulf
Originally, the times of writing Beowulf are rightfully associated with the Scandinavian and Baltic influence on the English lands, with the majority of trade power and political impact given to Vikings and Scandinavian settlements. The researchers claim that such an influence, in fact, has changed the linguistic apparatus of then-living communities drastically, as even Beowulf tends to be written in the Old English that reflects a strong Old Norse linguistic tradition (Neidorf & Pascual, 2019). However, instead of promoting and actively reinforcing the use of Celtic and Baltic languages, the Old Norse aspects of grammar and pronunciation were infused with the established Old English traditions. One of the theories explains that during the Vikings’ invasions, the Scandinavian military married English women and tried to communicate in English, whereas their attempts were poor and included much confusion with their native tongue (McWhorter, n.d.). As a result, the modern English language is replete with inconsistencies, exceptions, and pronunciations confusions.
The story of Beowulf, in fact, is fascinating because of its affiliation to the English literary tradition, whereas the work itself encompasses a combination of different cultural and linguistic means of expression. At the time, the Anglo-Saxon tradition relied heavily on the Germanic and Scandinavian patterns of language. However, the linguistic expression of Beowulf was still distinct enough to differentiate this piece of literature from other traditions and patterns. It is the uniqueness of combination that makes Beowulf an example of Old English literary school and linguistic tradition. The trend itself is tracked even nowadays, as some of the patterns of Norse word-derivation, creating such words as “fellowship” with a distinct “-ship” influx common in Modern English (Müllerová, 2018). For this reason, it may be concluded that Beowulf is a prime illustration of a complicated and unique linguistic tradition in the formation of the English language, which embraces borrowings as a feature of creating a separate, widely recognized language that infused the centuries of historical tradition and changes in socio-political power.
References
Heaney, S. (Translator). (2000). Beowulf: Bilingual edition. W. W. Norton & Company.
McWhorter, J. (n.d.). English is not normal. Web.
Müllerová, S. (2018). Semantic classification of Old Norse lexical borrowings in English (Bachelor’s Thesis, Karlova University, Prague).
Neidorf, L., & Pascual, R. J. (2019). Old Norse influence on the language of Beowulf: A reassessment. Journal of Germanic Linguistics, 31(3), 298-322. Web.
Rosier, J. L. (Ed.). (2018). Philological essays. De Gruyter.