Abstract
In Old English homilies, declarations of unknowing—assertions that no human being exists who can know something—usually refer to God, heaven, hell, or the afterlife. In contrast to this traditional usage, Beowulf contains four formulaic declarations of unknowing, all proclaiming mysteries inaccessible to humankind. But three of these declarations are not about the divine or demonic; they are about monsters. This paper investigates the Beowulf-poet’s reworking of a widespread topos, the declarations of unknowing, against the background of the homiletic tradition. By tracing the poem’s insistent presentation of monstrous spaces as mysteries, the paper reframes the longstanding scholarly conversation about the monsters’ and the monster mere’s sources and analogues within Beowulf’s wider spatial poetics.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Men cannot truly say, hall-counsellors, heroes under heaven, who received that cargo. Fulk et al. (2008). All references to Beowulf are to this edition (hereafter, Beowulf); all translations are my own.
See Bolintineanu (2015), for a more in-depth treatment of homiletic and poetic declarations of unknowing.
It is not within the measure of any man that he may express the good things and the joys that God has prepared for all those who love him and desire to keep his commandments.
Therefore we ought to cultivate our soul with zeal and zealously prepare it for God. Then no one of all humankind can narrate with their words the good that God has prepared for the faithful souls for their spiritual works.
For this translation, see Scragg (1992, p. 187, note to l. 99).
Then the likeness of the fifth hell is called torment, because then there is no man who is able to declare with his words how great the fifth hell’s pain is. And even if there were seven men, and each of them had seventy-two languages, as many as all the languages in this middle earth, and then if each of those seven men were created to eternal life, and each of them had seven heads, and each of the heads had seven tongues, and each of the tongues had an iron voice, and then nevertheless they would not be able to describe the torment of hell.
Wright (1993, pp. 146–156). For further discussion of traditional motifs in Vercelli IX’s description of hell’s pains, and these motifs’ development in Old English and Irish literature, see Wright (1993, pp. 106–175). For stylistic analysis of these motifs in Vercelli IX, see also Zacher (2009, pp. 173–179). And for discussion of the seventy-two languages topos, see Sauer (1983).
This longevity of traditional elements is demonstrated by Frotscher, who traces the “economic metaphor of violence as financial transaction” (exemplified by the phrase “you’ll pay for it” as a promise of violent revenge), primarily in Old English and Old Norse-Icelandic literature, but with examples from Homeric Greek and Virgilian Latin to Chaucer, Shakespeare, and English-language popular culture of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries (2013).
Men do not know where those skilled in the mysteries of hell glide in their courses.
They [land-dwellers] do not know whether any father had ever been conceived for him among the secret spirits.
No one lives among the children of men so wise as to know its bottom.
“The present life of man, O king, seems to me, in comparison of that time which is unknown to us, like to the swift flight of a sparrow through the room wherein you sit at supper in winter, with your commanders and ministers, and a good fire in the midst, whilst the storms of rain and snow prevail abroad; the sparrow, I say, flying in at one door, and immediately out at another, whilst he is within, is safe from the wintry storm; but after a short space of fair weather, he immediately vanishes out of your sight, into the dark winter from which he had emerged. So this life of man appears for a short space, but of what went before, or what is to follow, we are utterly ignorant. If, therefore, this new doctrine contains something more certain, it seems justly to deserve to be followed.” (Colgrave and Mynors 1969, II.xiii.)
On the pessimistic side, see Stanley (1963) and King (2003). On the optimistic side, see Brodeur (1959), Chadwick (1912), Phillpotts (1928). Frank (1982) highlights a disjunction between Alcuin’s rigour and the Beowulf-poet’s sympathetic, lovingly detailed depiction of the culture of his pagan characters; Anlezark (2006) emphasizes that Scyld journeys “on Frean wære” (into the Lord’s keeping, 27b). Though the Danes “cannot truly say” who receives Scyld, the poet can, and does (285–286).
This attitude appears not only in Maxims II, discussed below, but also in Juliana, where Cynewulf expresses a similar uncertainty about the journey of his own soul after death (ll. 699a–700) (King 2003, p. 471, n. 45).
God alone knows where that soul must afterwards travel to, and all the spirits that go to God, after the death-day, await judgment in the Father’s protection. The future condition is secret and hidden; the Lord alone knows, the saving Father. No one returns again this way under roofs, who can here truly tell people what the Ruler’s creation is like, the abodes of the victorious people, where He Himself dwells.
For the uses of dyrne in Old English literature, see Lerer (1991).
But the formidable one, the dark death-shadow, was persecuting warriors and youths, hovered and ensnared [them]; he held the endless night (or: the sinful night), the misty moors; men do not know which way those privy to hell’s secrets glide in their courses. See Hill (1971, 379–381), Greenfield (1977–1978, 44–48), and Hill (1979, 271–281), for a discussion of this passage; my translation reflects both their arguments.
I heard land-dwellers, my people, hall-counsellors, say this, that they saw such two such mighty border-walkers hold the moors, alien spirits. Of them one was, as far as they were able to tell most certainly, in the likeness of a woman; the other wretched one trod the tracks of exile in the form of a man, except that he was greater than any other man. Him the land-dwellers called Grendel in days gone by; they do not know of a father, whether any was ever begotten before him among the hidden spirits. They inhabit the secret land, wolf-cliffs, windy headlands, fearful fen-path, where the mountain-stream goes down under the darkness of the headlands, water under the ground. It is not far from here, by the count of miles, that the mere stands; over it hang frosty trees, woods fast of root cover the water. There may be seen, each night, a fearful wonder (or: a harm-wonder), fire on the water. No one lives among the children of men so wise as to know its bottom. Though the heath-stepper, the hart strong in horns, hunted by dogs, should seek the forest, having fled far, he would rather give up his life on the bank, than go into save his head. That is not a pleasant place!
See Fulk et al. (2008, p. 200). Lines 1355b–1357a can be paraphrased either as “they [the Danes] knew of no father, whether any [father] was engendered before him [Grendel] among the hidden spirits” or, alternatively, as “they [the Danes] knew of no father, [nor] whether any [siblings] were engendered before him [Grendel] among the hidden spirits.” In both cases l. 1356 is a declaration of unknowing, either reinforcing the mystery of Grendel’s father, or referring to additional mysterious siblings.
The missing word in line 1372b has been variously emended as “helan,” “hydan,” and “beorgan”; see Orchard (2001, pp. 47–48) for a summary of the scholarship. While Klaeber’s edition supplies “beorgan,” I have selected “helan,” as suggested by Gerritsen (1989, pp. 451–452) and Bammesberger (1992, pp. 250–252); their emendation fits what is paleographically likely, fits into the sound-play patterns of the passage, and also fits into this theme of secrecy.
The description of the way to the monster-mere as “enge anpaðas, uncuð gelad” is a striking parallel between Beowulf and Exodus: in the latter poem, the path through the Red Sea that God opens up to the Israelites is likewise described as “enge anpaðas, uncuð gelad” (Exodus l. 58). For early discussions of the relationship between the two poems, see Klaeber (1918, pp. 218–124) (in which Klaeber argues that Exodus precedes and has influenced Beowulf); as well as his later article, Klaeber (1950, pp. 71–72) (in which he argues for the opposite). For a recent discussion of the matter, and for a comprehensive list of parallels between Beowulf and Exodus, see Lynch (2000, pp. 171–256, 262–264, 272) (cited in Orchard 2001, pp. 166–167).
Then the son of princes went over the steep rocky slopes, narrow trails, narrow paths where only one could go at a time, an unknown way, steep crags, many homes of water-monsters. He went before with a few wise men to examine the territory, until he suddenly found mountain trees leaning over a hoary stone, a joyless wood; water stood below, bloody and disturbed.
They went forth from there on the walking-paths, glad in spirits, traversed the land-way, the known path.
At times the battle-brave let their bay steeds leap, go in a race, where they thought the land-ways fair, known to be good.
See also Amodio (2005, p. 67), describing a different Beowulf episode where details are not governed by narrative logic, but by the traditional associations that these details carry into their narrative context.
Alain Renoir describes the dynamics of terror and mystery in Beowulf, particularly in the famous scene of Grendel’s approach to Heorot; he memorably calls Grendel “a hair-raising description of death on the march” (1962, pp. 88–106). Michael Lapidge examines the role of mystery in the horrifying effects of Grendel himself (1993, pp. 373–402).
For a summary of the scholarship that delineates this contrast between the world of monsters and the world of humankind, see Michelet (2006, p. 76). Michelet, however, disagrees with the prevailing view, arguing instead that these worlds are deeply interconnected and “the only clear distinction established between chaos and order is that made by the characters themselves” (p. 91). This current study dwells, like Michelet’s, on the porous boundary between realms, but does not de-emphasize the essential contrast between them.
Beowulf ll. 702b–716a; for further analysis, see especially Renoir (1962, pp. 154–167).
Striking parallels have been adduced on the one hand between the monster mere and the geography of hell as envisioned in Blickling Homily XVI; on the other, between the monster mere and numinous locales in classical literature. For recent overviews of, and interventions in, the debate, see Orchard (2001, pp. 132–136), Anlezark (2006), Magennis (2006, pp. 133–141).
References
Amodio, M. C. (2005). Writing the oral tradition: Oral poetics and literate culture in medieval England. Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press.
Anlezark, D. (2006). Water and fire: The myth of the flood in Anglo-Saxon England. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Bammesberger, A. (1992). Five Beowulf notes. In M. Korhammer (Ed.), Words, texts and manuscripts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Helmut Gneuss on the occasion of his sixty-fifth birthday. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.
Bethurum, D. (1957). The homilies of Wulfstan. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Bolintineanu, A. (2015). Beyond the sun’s setting: Webs of unknowing in Old English. Digital Philology: A Journal of Medieval Cultures, 4(2), 160–189.
Brodeur, A. G. (1959). The art of Beowulf. Berkeley, Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Bynum, C. W. (2001). Metamorphosis and identity. New York: Zone Books.
Cameron, A. F. (1969). Saint Gildas and Scyld Scefing. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 70, 240–246.
Cavell, M. (2014). Constructing the monstrous body in Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon England, 43, 155–181.
Cavill, P. (1999). Maxims in Old English poetry. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
Chadwick, H. M. (1912). The heroic age. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Cohen, J. J. (1996). Monster theory: Reading culture. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
Colgrave, B., & Mynors, R. A. B. (Ed. & Trans.). (1969). Bede’s ecclesiastical history of the English people. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Cooke, W. (2003). Two notes on Beowulf (with glances at Vafþrúdnismál, Blickling Homily 16, and Andreas, lines 839–846). Medium Ævum, 72(2), 297–301.
Earl, J. W. (1994). Thinking about Beowulf. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.
Foley, J. M. (1990). Traditional oral epic: The Odyssey, Beowulf, and the Serbo-Croatian return song. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Foley, J. M. (2003). How genres leak in traditional verse. In M. C. Amodio & K. O’Brien O’Keeffe (Eds.), Unlocking the wordhord: Anglo-Saxon studies in memory of Edward B. Irving, Jr. (pp. 76–108). Toronto and London: University of Toronto Press.
Frank, R. (1982). The Beowulf–poet’s sense of history. In L. D. Benson & S. Wenzel (Eds.), The wisdom of poetry: Essays in early English literature in honor of Morton W. Bloomfield (pp. 53–65). Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications, Western Michigan University.
Frotscher, A. G. (2013). Treasure and violence: Mapping a conceptual metaphor in medieval heroic literature. Neophilologus, 97(4), 753–774.
Fulk, R. D., Bjork, Robert E., & Niles, John D. (Eds.). (2008). Klaeber’s Beowulf and the fight at Finnsburg (4th ed.). Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Gerritsen, J. (1989). Emending Beowulf 2253—Some matters of principle: With a supplement on 389–90, 1372 and 240. Neophilologus, 73, 448–453.
Greenfield, S. B. (1977). Old English words and patristic exegesis—hwyrftum scriþað: a caveat. Modern Philology, 75, 44–48.
Hiatt, A. (2009). Beowulf off the map. Anglo-Saxon England, 38, 11–40.
Hill, T. D. (1971). Hwyrftum scriþað: Beowulf, line 163. Mediaeval Studies, 33(1971), 379–381.
Hill, T. D. (1979). The return of the broken butterfly: Beowulf line 163, again. Mediaevalia, 5, 271–281.
Kessler, R. (2008). Reading gnomic phenomena in Old English literature. Unpubl. University of Toronto Ph.D. dissertation.
King, J. (2003). Launching the hero: The case of Scyld and Beowulf. Neophilologus, 87(3), 453–471.
Klaeber, F. (1918). Concerning the relation between Exodus and Beowulf. Modern Language Notes, 33, 218–224.
Klaeber, F. (1950). Noch einmal Exodus 56–58 und Beowulf 1408–10. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen, 187, 71–72.
Krapp, G. P., & Dobbie, E. V. K. (Eds.). (1931–1942). The Anglo-Saxon minor poems. The Anglo-Saxon poetic records. 6 vols. New York: Columbia University Press.
Lapidge, M. (1993). Beowulf and the psychology of terror. In H. Damico & J. B. Leyerle (Eds.), Heroic poetry in the Anglo-Saxon period: Studies in honor of Jess B. Bessinger (pp. 373–402). Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications.
Lerer, S. (1991). Literacy and power in Anglo-Saxon literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Lynch, C. (2000) Enigmatic diction in the Old English Exodus. Unpubl. Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation.
Magennis, H. (2006). Images of community in Old English poetry. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Michelet, F. (2006). Creation, migration, and conquest: Imaginary geography and sense of space in Old English literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Neville, J. (1999). Representations of the natural world in Old English poetry. Cambridge studies in Anglo-Saxon England 27. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Orchard, A. (1995). Pride and prodigies: Studies in the monsters of the Beowulf-manuscript. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Orchard, A. (2001). A critical companion to Beowulf. Woodbridge, Rochester: D.S. Brewer.
Owen-Crocker, G. R. (2000). The four funerals in Beowulf and the structure of the poem. Manchester, New York: Manchester University Press.
Phillpotts, B. (1928). Wyrd and providence in Anglo-Saxon thought. Essays and Studies by Members of the English Association, 13, 7–27.
Renoir, A. (1962). Point of view and design for terror in Beowulf. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 63, 154–167.
Sauer, H. (1983). Die 72 Völker und Sprachen der Welt: Ein mittelalterlicher Topos in der englischen Literatur. Anglia, 101, 29–48.
Scragg, D. (1992). The Vercelli Homilies and related texts. Oxford: Oxford University Press, Early English Text Society, o.s. 300.
Stanley, E. G. (1963). ‘Hæthenra hyht’ in Beowulf. In S. B. Greenfield (Ed.), Studies in Old English literature in honor of Arthur G. Brodeur (pp. 136–151). Eugene: University of Oregon Press.
Swisher, M. (2002). Beyond the hoar stone. Neophilologus, 86(1), 133–136.
Tristram, H. L. C. (1978). Stock descriptions of heaven and hell in Old English literature. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 79, 102–113.
Wright, C. D. (1993). The Irish tradition in Old English literature. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Zacher, S. (2009). Preaching the converted: The style and rhetoric of the Vercelli Book homilies. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Acknowledgments
My thanks to Andy Orchard, Antonette diPaolo Healey, Suzanne Conklin Akbari, and Mark Amodio, who generously commented on my dissertation, on which this article is based; to Alexandra Gillespie, whose insightful observations improved the larger argument of which this essay forms a part; and to the anonymous reviewer of this essay, whose comments and queries improved the clarity of this article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bolintineanu, A. Declarations of Unknowing in Beowulf . Neophilologus 100, 631–647 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-015-9472-2
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-015-9472-2