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The Legacy and Long Afterlife of Old English Poetry

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The Legacy and Long Afterlife of Old English Poetry Robert E. Bjork In recent years the most celebrated and Arts & Humanities︱ successful re-telling of the story has been by the Irish poet Seamus Heaney. Other poets have imagined the tale from a different perspective; for example the English writer Maureen Duffy has written a poem from the dragon’s point The legacy and of view. For Dr Bjork, one of the most imaginative re-tellings has been by the American author Michael Crichton, whose novel ‘Eaters of the Dead’ was in turn the source for the film ‘The Thirteenth Warrior’ starring Antonio long afterlife of Banderas. Perhaps the greatest testament to the universal, psychological appeal of Beowulf’s good versus evil narrative Old English poetry is its re-imagining in different media Left: First page of ‘Beowulf’, which have handed the story to a new contained in the damaged Nowell The Germanic people who or a body of literature recorded in Carta, Bayeux Tapestry, Book of Kells Codex. Right: Remounted page global generation. This includes comic inhabited England before just four manuscripts, Old English and the Diary of Anne Frank. from ‘Beowulf’, British Library strips, graphic novels, video games, Cotton Vitellius A.XV. William the Conqueror became Fpoetry has a legacy that belies board games, art and music, from choral ruler in 1066 spoke a language the small number of works that have Small wonder then, that the afterlife works to operas and contemporary known as Old English. Steeped survived the 1,000 or more years since of Old English poetry is long, despite named ‘Beowulf’ in the rock. As Dr Bjork notes, the character in the art of storytelling, theirs they were first written down. the fact that for most people it is only annals of the British Library. of Beowulf even appears in cult fantasy was essentially an oral culture accessible in translation from the Following Thorkelin’s television series such as the American and few tales were committed The most famous is the eponymous original language. That translation inherent in the work but rather exists transcription and translation, ‘Beowulf’ ‘Xena: Warrior Princess’ and a computer- to manuscripts that have epic ‘Beowulf’. Others include the process began relatively late, with the in relation to its audience. The reader, has since been translated into at animated film by Robert Zemeckis which survived. Those that do are Biblically-inspired ‘Dream of the Rood’ first texts in modern English being viewer or listener interprets a poem, least 65 other languages, including features the voices of Anthony Hopkins, testament to the rich legacy of and historic narratives such as ‘The published in the 19th century. Those play, novel or other work of art according Japanese, Chinese, Korean and the Angelina Jolie and John Malkovich. its verse. The legacy and long Battle of Maldon’. A major manuscript texts have since been translated into to his or her cultural background and Indian language Telugu. afterlife of Old English poetry, of Old English verse, the ‘Exeter Book’, numerous other languages, allowing life experience. Dr Bjork comments: and the reception history of its includes more than 90 riddles and some Old English poetry to migrate and, as Reception history is “The influence of stories, are the subjects of new 40 poems, including ‘The Seafarer’, ‘The the UNESCO listing acknowledges, therefore the study The links that some have found between ‘Beowulf’, then, is research by Robert E. Bjork of Wanderer’ and ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’. achieve global significance. of the many ways vast and continuing Arizona State University. in which a work of ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’ and ‘The Secret and dynamic, its Housed in Exeter Cathedral in the As a result, not only has Old English art is understood reception history United Kingdom, the ‘Exeter Book’ was poetry come to inspire writers and over time and in Agent’ arise from forced readings of constantly evolving.” recognised in 2016 by UNESCO as one poets from J.R.R. Tolkien to Ezra different cultures both poems. Beowulf has stepped of the world’s principal cultural artefacts Pound and W.H. Auden, ‘Beowulf’, as it is transmitted, off the manuscript by placing it on its Memory of the World for example, has also influenced re-imagined or appropriated. and become a cultural icon that has register. Noting the manuscript as “the numerous works in different genres and resonated in countless other works of art foundation volume of English literature”, languages. Meanwhile the academic ‘Beowulf’ is the story of a fearless around the globe. the register also includes the Magna study of the texts continues apace, as warrior, a prince of the Geats in modern þæt Old English poetry is seen through the Sweden. Beowulf goes to Denmark OCKHAM’S RAZOR lens of different literary theories and to help King Hrothgar rid himself of a Conversely, while some argue that a world views. terrible monster, Grendel, and then, modern work of art references Old after years of peace, dies battling a English poetry, others may see the RECEPTION HISTORY dragon that threatens his own land. connection as tenuous. In mon eaþe toslite Robert E. Bjork, from Arizona State In a recent paper Dr Bjork traces another recent paper Dr University, is a respected Old English the poem’s fascinating migration Bjork looks at evidence for scholar and editor. One of his recent story, from the publication of its first the alleged links between papers examines the reception history of translation into Latin in 1815 by the the Old English lyric poem Old English poetry. Danish / Icelandic scholar Grímur ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’ and the Jónsson Thorkelin, to the present day. English poet W.H. Auden’s Reception theory derives from the Dr Bjork explains that Thorkelin visited poem ‘The Secret Agent’. concept of reader response popular Britain on a “nationalistic voyage” to with literary critics since the 1970s. source documents related to Danish Like the other major poems in W. H. Auden and Christopher Isherwood en gesomnad The theory maintains that a work of and Norwegian history. He found route to China, 1938. the ‘Exeter Book’, ‘Wulf and Eadwacer’ wæs art’s meaning and significance is not the obscure manuscript that he later is characterised by the melancholic þætte næfre www.researchoutreach.org www.researchoutreach.org such links traps the reader and compels him or her to hear “resonances of the Old English poem in the modern one” where there are none. However, he does Behind the Research agree that there is a single and “absolute” connection between the final lines of the two poems. Anything more, he explains, Robert E. Bjork is fabrication. Applying Ockham’s razor – the principle attributed to the medieval E: [email protected] T: +1 (480) 231-9018 T: +1 (480) 965-4659 scholar William of Ockham, who argued W: https://english.asu.edu/content/robert-bjork W: https://robertbjork.academia.edu that when faced with various explanations for a phenomenon, the simplest is usually the correct one—he points to References Auden’s friend Christopher Isherwood’s Research Objectives observation that some of Auden´s Robert E. Bjork’s primary research areas are Old English Bjork, R.E. (2020). The Reception History of Beowulf. SELIM. juvenilia are hurried compilations of poetry, modern Swedish literature, and biomedical writing. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language unrelated lines. This seems to be the case and Literature 25, 1-19. with ‘The Secret Agent’ and the inclusion in it of a single line from Old English. Detail Bjork, R.E. (forthcoming). W.H. Auden’s ‘The Secret Agent,’ the Old English ‘Wulf and Eadwacer,’ and Ockham’s Razor. ANQ: NEW WORKS Address A Quarterly Journal of Short Articles, Notes, and Reviews. Old English poetry already has an Dept of English, Arizona State University Available online: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.108 Expulsion from Paradise, illustration from page 46 of the Cædmon (or Junius) manuscript. In this impressive afterlife and it will no doubt Tempe, AZ 85287-1401 0/0895769X.2020.1833702 illustration, an angel is shown guarding the gates of Paradise. extend beyond the present day. This is USA thanks not least to new works such as Bjork, R.E. (2016). Freya and Wulf: A 9th Century Love Story of themes of longing, loneliness and the English sonnet traditions. For example, Dr Bjork’s own translations of the major Bio Violence and Redemption. CreateSpace.com. passage of time. A monologue in which the Italian sonnet is structured by poems and his novella ‘Freya and Wulf: Robert E. Bjork is Foundation Professor of English at Arizona a captive woman speaks about her having two four-lined verse quatrains A 9th-Century Love Story of Violence State University and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of (Editor and translator) Bjork, R.E. (2015). Old English Shorter unconsummated love for an outlawed followed by a six-lined sestet, whereas and Redemption’. Inspired by ‘Wulf and America. He is currently editing a special issue of the online Poems Volume II: Wisdom and Lyric. The Dumbarton Oaks lover on a neighbouring island, it ends the English sonnet has three four-lined Eadwacer’, the novella also references journal Humanities entitlted ‘Old English Poetry and Its Medieval Library, Vol. 32. with the line ’þæt mon eaþe tosliteð verse quatrains and a final two-lined ‘Beowulf’ and other Old English and Old Legacy’. þætte næfre gesomnad wæs’, which couplet. Each moves more or less from Norse texts. It’s proof indeed that Old translates as ‘They can easily part that the statement of a problem to its solution. English poetry continues to provide a rich Funding Personal Response which was never joined together’.
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