Critical Reception A number of questions surrounding the composition of Beowulf still inspire modern critical debate. Paull F. Baum examines several of these issues, arguing that the manuscript's date being so much later than the original composition, combined with the fact that the manuscript is written in a different dialect from the original, indicate that the poem lacks a continuous history of reading or recitation. Furthermore, while many believe that Beowulf was recited rather than read, the poem's length makes this assumption unlikely. Baum insists that the evidence suggests a poem composed for the enjoyment of its author, with the expectation that others might also take pleasure in it. While many scholars, including Baum, hold that the poem was composed much earlier than the date of the manuscript, others contend that the manuscript and the poem's composition are contemporaneous. Kevin S. Kiernan makes this argument, citing historical and linguistic evidence for his assertion that both the poem and the manuscript were created in the early eleventh century. Another issue surrounding the poem's composition is the method by which it was created. Some critics maintain that the original poem was an oral composition, while others believe that it made its first appearance in written form. Alain Renoir has studied the motifs of Beowulf, including the underwater fight and the monster's attack on a human dwelling, demonstrating that the poet's use of these devices shows that he was familiar with the traditional methods of oral-formulaic composition. Renoir stresses that this familiarity does not necessarily indicate that the poem was composed orally. J. D. A. Ogilvy similarly comments that it is improbable that Beowulf—as a whole, or even in smaller units—was composed orally. Stephen S. Evans, on the other hand, asserts that an oral form (dating from 685 to 725) of the poem preceded a written version. The original pagan poem was extensively modified, Evans argues, by Christian oral poets sometime between 625 and 700 in order to create a work better suited to a Christian audience.
Like Evans, many critics have explored the Christian aspects of the poem, particularly the juxtaposition of Christian and pagan elements. Larry D. Benson notes that although some critics appear certain that Beowulf is the work of a Christian author, rather than a pagan work later modified by a Christian scribe, the question is far from settled. The pagan elements of the poem, including Beowulf's funeral ship, the observance of omens, and the practice of cremation, seem to create an inconsistent tone in the poem. Benson maintains that this apparent contradiction stems from modern assumptions about the poet's attitude toward paganism. The Christian Englishmen of the time, assures Benson, viewed the Germanic pagan with interest, and the sympathetic treatment of the pagan values in Beowulf provides a framework that allowed the Christian to admire the pagan. Likewise, Stanley B. Greenfield suggests that the Christian author of Beowulf viewed the poem's heroic world with kindness and sympathy and even lauded the ethical and social values of that world. Greenfield feels that Beowulf and his world are presented as flawed in an effort to humanize them and elicit a more emotional response from the audience. Margaret E. Goldsmith takes a different approach in explaining the coexistence of Christian and pagan symbols in the poem, contending that the poet was cognizant of the ambivalence of the symbolism used, especially Heorot and the treasure. The great hall and the treasure seem to embody grandeur and wealth, the hero's reward, while to the Christian audience they exemplify man's pride and are to be viewed as costly and worthless. Bernard Felix Huppé similarly emphasizes the poem's Christian message, maintaining that Beowulf may have been used as a Christian apologetic, highlighting the error of English ancestral ways.
While some critics continue to be interested in the Christian attitudes of the poem and the poet's possible motivation, others focus on the style and structure of the poem. Eric Gerald Stanley praises the poet's vocabulary, word choice, and manipulation of complex sentences. In Stanley's view, Beowulf's superiority rests on the “concord between the poet's mode of thinking and his mode of expression.” John Leyerle studies the poem as a poetic analogue to Anglo-Saxon art–characterized by interlace designwork notable for its complexity– contemporary with the poem's composition. Leyerle marshals ample evidence to demonstrate that interlace designs had stylistic and structural literary parallels in England, and argues that the function of various episodes in Beowulf becomes apparent only when the likelihood of analogous design is accepted. The themes of the poem, argues Leyerle, are threaded together to form an intricate interlace that cannot be undone without losing the design of the whole poem. Like Leyerle, Kathryn Hume recognizes the poem's interlace structure and suggests that this structure supports the creation of moral and thematic juxtapositions, rather than a simple heroic narrative. J. D. A. Ogilvy analyzes the formulaic structure of the poem, noting in particular the use of traditional epithets and phrases, its sentence formula, its use of larger rhetorical patterns, and the formulaic elaboration of the poem's various themes.
I agree with Eric Gerald Stanley's comments on the structure and anglo-saxon influence on the text. Stanley argues that the themes of the poem are threaded together to form an intricate interlace that cannot be undone without losing the design of the whole poem. This means that the poem is made up of many different themes that cannot just be removed from the text without completely changing the entire story.
Out of the diversity of authorship and approach rep resented in this anthology, a surprisingly consistent picture of Chaucer's art and spirit emerges. Of the eighteen selections, two are by poets as unlike as Cummings and Longfellow, sixteen by scholar-critics whose essays span half a century and whose critical approaches rest variously upon social his tory, literary history, rhetorical tradition, Biblical exegesis, or formal analysis of the text. A naive Chaucer--Chaucer as comic realist having his little jokes on contemporaries caught in his camera eye; Chaucer the benign indifferentist chuckling alike over good and evil, the happy ironist inspired by nothing so much as an incongruity; Matthew Arnold's Chaucer, lack ing in "high and excellent seriousness" -- does not exist for any writer represented here. It is difficult to see how the student or general reader could read far in this anthology without developing convictions about Chaucer as a poet of the most varied and sophisticated art -- an art responsible to the moral and spiritual heart of man and human situations.
The interpretation of the Canterbury Tales and of Chaucer found in the essays is present, strikingly and emblematically, in the sonnets of Cummings and Longfellow, and it is for this reason that the two poems stand at the head of the collection. They are followed by two essays which deal with artistic problems arising in the General Prologue yet touching the Tales as a whole. Donaldson's essay, a delightful analysis of the narrative point of view provided by "Chaucer the Pil grim," tells us that the most obvious function of the narrative persona is "to present a vision of the social world imposed on one of the moral world." Baldwin's essay finds the unity of the Canterbury Tales in a sovrasenso arising by "metaphorical pressure" from the springtime beginning, the pilgrimage, and the Parson's final call to penance.
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Critical Reception
A number of questions surrounding the composition of Beowulf still inspire modern critical debate. Paull F. Baum examines several of these issues, arguing that the manuscript's date being so much later than the original composition, combined with the fact that the manuscript is written in a different dialect from the original, indicate that the poem lacks a continuous history of reading or recitation. Furthermore, while many believe that Beowulf was recited rather than read, the poem's length makes this assumption unlikely. Baum insists that the evidence suggests a poem composed for the enjoyment of its author, with the expectation that others might also take pleasure in it. While many scholars, including Baum, hold that the poem was composed much earlier than the date of the manuscript, others contend that the manuscript and the poem's composition are contemporaneous. Kevin S. Kiernan makes this argument, citing historical and linguistic evidence for his assertion that both the poem and the manuscript were created in the early eleventh century. Another issue surrounding the poem's composition is the method by which it was created. Some critics maintain that the original poem was an oral composition, while others believe that it made its first appearance in written form. Alain Renoir has studied the motifs of Beowulf, including the underwater fight and the monster's attack on a human dwelling, demonstrating that the poet's use of these devices shows that he was familiar with the traditional methods of oral-formulaic composition. Renoir stresses that this familiarity does not necessarily indicate that the poem was composed orally. J. D. A. Ogilvy similarly comments that it is improbable that Beowulf—as a whole, or even in smaller units—was composed orally. Stephen S. Evans, on the other hand, asserts that an oral form (dating from 685 to 725) of the poem preceded a written version. The original pagan poem was extensively modified, Evans argues, by Christian oral poets sometime between 625 and 700 in order to create a work better suited to a Christian audience.
Like Evans, many critics have explored the Christian aspects of the poem, particularly the juxtaposition of Christian and pagan elements. Larry D. Benson notes that although some critics appear certain that Beowulf is the work of a Christian author, rather than a pagan work later modified by a Christian scribe, the question is far from settled. The pagan elements of the poem, including Beowulf's funeral ship, the observance of omens, and the practice of cremation, seem to create an inconsistent tone in the poem. Benson maintains that this apparent contradiction stems from modern assumptions about the poet's attitude toward paganism. The Christian Englishmen of the time, assures Benson, viewed the Germanic pagan with interest, and the sympathetic treatment of the pagan values in Beowulf provides a framework that allowed the Christian to admire the pagan. Likewise, Stanley B. Greenfield suggests that the Christian author of Beowulf viewed the poem's heroic world with kindness and sympathy and even lauded the ethical and social values of that world. Greenfield feels that Beowulf and his world are presented as flawed in an effort to humanize them and elicit a more emotional response from the audience. Margaret E. Goldsmith takes a different approach in explaining the coexistence of Christian and pagan symbols in the poem, contending that the poet was cognizant of the ambivalence of the symbolism used, especially Heorot and the treasure. The great hall and the treasure seem to embody grandeur and wealth, the hero's reward, while to the Christian audience they exemplify man's pride and are to be viewed as costly and worthless. Bernard Felix Huppé similarly emphasizes the poem's Christian message, maintaining that Beowulf may have been used as a Christian apologetic, highlighting the error of English ancestral ways.
While some critics continue to be interested in the Christian attitudes of the poem and the poet's possible motivation, others focus on the style and structure of the poem. Eric Gerald Stanley praises the poet's vocabulary, word choice, and manipulation of complex sentences. In Stanley's view, Beowulf's superiority rests on the “concord between the poet's mode of thinking and his mode of expression.” John Leyerle studies the poem as a poetic analogue to Anglo-Saxon art–characterized by interlace designwork notable for its complexity– contemporary with the poem's composition. Leyerle marshals ample evidence to demonstrate that interlace designs had stylistic and structural literary parallels in England, and argues that the function of various episodes in Beowulf becomes apparent only when the likelihood of analogous design is accepted. The themes of the poem, argues Leyerle, are threaded together to form an intricate interlace that cannot be undone without losing the design of the whole poem. Like Leyerle, Kathryn Hume recognizes the poem's interlace structure and suggests that this structure supports the creation of moral and thematic juxtapositions, rather than a simple heroic narrative. J. D. A. Ogilvy analyzes the formulaic structure of the poem, noting in particular the use of traditional epithets and phrases, its sentence formula, its use of larger rhetorical patterns, and the formulaic elaboration of the poem's various themes.
I agree with Eric Gerald Stanley's comments on the structure and anglo-saxon influence on the text. Stanley argues that the themes of the poem are threaded together to form an intricate interlace that cannot be undone without losing the design of the whole poem. This means that the poem is made up of many different themes that cannot just be removed from the text without completely changing the entire story.
Out of the diversity of authorship and approach rep
resented in this anthology, a surprisingly consistent picture
of Chaucer's art and spirit emerges. Of the eighteen selections,
two are by poets as unlike as Cummings and Longfellow,
sixteen by scholar-critics whose essays span half a century
and whose critical approaches rest variously upon social his
tory, literary history, rhetorical tradition, Biblical exegesis, or
formal analysis of the text. A naive Chaucer--Chaucer as
comic realist having his little jokes on contemporaries caught
in his camera eye; Chaucer the benign indifferentist chuckling
alike over good and evil, the happy ironist inspired by nothing
so much as an incongruity; Matthew Arnold's Chaucer, lack
ing in "high and excellent seriousness" -- does not exist for any
writer represented here. It is difficult to see how the student
or general reader could read far in this anthology without
developing convictions about Chaucer as a poet of the most
varied and sophisticated art -- an art responsible to the moral
and spiritual heart of man and human situations.
The interpretation of the Canterbury Tales and of Chaucer
found in the essays is present, strikingly and emblematically,
in the sonnets of Cummings and Longfellow, and it is for this
reason that the two poems stand at the head of the collection.
They are followed by two essays which deal with artistic
problems arising in the General Prologue yet touching the
Tales as a whole. Donaldson's essay, a delightful analysis of
the narrative point of view provided by "Chaucer the Pil
grim," tells us that the most obvious function of the narrative
persona is "to present a vision of the social world imposed on
one of the moral world." Baldwin's essay finds the unity of the
Canterbury Tales in a sovrasenso arising by "metaphorical pressure" from the springtime beginning, the pilgrimage, and the Parson's final call to penance.
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