TOEBI Newsletter

Volume 32 (2015) ISSN: 1694-3532

the students’ approaches to literary question of the poem’s dating. Such translation: they moved from a position of agnosticism was reinforced by the impact of dismissing it as a highly derivative activity, Ashley Crandell Amos’s Linguistic Means of to appreciating its creative and generative Determining the Dates of potential. Literary Texts (Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America, 1980), which came Dr Helen Brookman, Director of Liberal Arts, out just before the Toronto volume. Amos King’s College London, concluded that linguistic tests could not [email protected] bring certainty to attempts to date Old Dr Olivia Robinson, Lecturer in Medieval English poetry. Some scholars continued to English Literature, Brasenose College, insist on an early, or earlyish, , University of Oxford notably including, in a 2007 monograph [email protected] unfortunately overlooked in the present Website: http://www.english.ox.ac.uk/about- volume, Richard North, who would place faculty/faculty-members/research-centre- the poem in the early ninth century college-staff/robinson-dr-olivia (specifying 826–7 as the time of the poem’s composition) (The Origins of Beowulf [Oxford: OUP]), while others argued that Reviews the poem must come from later Anglo- Saxon England, but many decided that the Leonard Neidorf (ed.), The Dating of question should be left open or set aside. Beowulf: A Reassessment. Anglo-Saxon Studies 24. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014. x Agnosticism concerning the date of + 250 pp. Hardback. 978-1-84384-387-0. Beowulf’s composition has widely prevailed £60.00. among critics down to the present. Perhaps its most categorical expression came from The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment James Earl in 1994, who stated, ‘I now comes nearly thirty-five years after the consider it axiomatic that the problem of publication of the highly influential volume the poem’s date is insoluble’ (Thinking The Dating of Beowulf, edited by Colin about Beowulf [Stanford: Stanford Chase (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, University Press], p. 16), but a host of critics 1981), which drew upon contributions to a have proceeded on the same assumption. In conference held in Toronto in 1980. The my own assorted comments on Beowulf I Toronto conference and the resulting edited have tended to steer clear of the issue of collection expressed a wide range of the date of composition and have preferred contrasting views about the date of the to attend to the reception context of the original composition of Beowulf but had the poem’s unique manuscript in the early effect of paving the way for a new eleventh century. A similar approach is consensus among scholars (particularly evident, I see, in the excellent recent literary scholars), which regarded the issue monograph by Peter S. Baker, Honour, of dating as undecidable. The previous Exchange and Violence in Beowulf consensus had been for an early date for (Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2013). An early the composition of Beowulf, somewhere in date for the poem would actually suit the span 650–800, but the Toronto volume Baker’s argument but he does not engage led to a period of ‘dogmatic agnosticism’ (in with the issue, writing, ‘For the purposes of Patrick Wormald’s phrase) on the whole this study it does not matter much’ (p. 34).

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Volume 32 (2015) ISSN: 1694-3532

Instead, Baker refers to the audience of the philology, metrics, onomastics and late manuscript. palaeography. Neidorf characterizes the present volume as consolidating and But agnosticism can surely no longer be augmenting the efforts of these studies. justified. The Reassessment volume brings together a battery of strong contributions The following chapters all conclude that which taken together conclusively dem- Beowulf was composed early but they use a onstrate that it is overwhelmingly probable wide range of methodological approaches in that Beowulf was composed before about doing so. R. D. Fulk focuses on linguistic 800 and overwhelmingly improbable that it history with some reference also to metre could have been composed much later to demonstrate the archaic nature of the (North’s 820s dating might be considered to language of Beowulf and finds it difficult to be just about possible, at the extreme end believe that the poem’s archaisms could be of the proposed time-frame). This book the result of later stylistic artifice. Leonard synthesizes and builds upon existing wri- Neidorf argues that the Beowulf manuscript tings by Michael Lapidge, R. D. Fulk, Tom presents a late copy of an old poem, in Shippey, Leonard Neidorf and others which which the scribes show evidence of had each argued for an early Beowulf by unfamiliarity of heroic names that would taking a specific methodological angle, have been well known in the early period palaeography in the case of Lapidge, metrics but not after the eighth century. Tom in the case of Fulk and so on. Publications Shippey refers to the host of names in by these early daters have been spiritedly Beowulf and argues that even though many critiqued by late daters and by dating of them have no meaning for us (and often agnostics but contributors to the Re- seem redundant) the poem preserves assessment volume impressively counter memories of real historical events and these critiques and advance additional personages from a traumatic period, arguments in support of an early date. implying early composition. Megan E. Throughout, the volume deploys meticulous Hartman complements Fulk’s findings on scholarship, close reasoning and analytical archaisms, explaining that late poems such rigour to reinstate convincingly the case for as Judith and The Battle of Brunanburh an early Beowulf and in doing so to open up which cultivate a conservative style do so in the question of the dating of other undated a partial and incomplete way in contrast to Old English poems. the demonstrably ‘genuinely’ archaic diction of Beowulf. Thomas A. Bredehoft identifies The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment a metrical conservatism in Beowulf so varied consists of an introduction by Leonard and consistent as to indicate strongly that Neidorf, followed by thirteen chapters, the the poem must be placed among the very last of which is an afterword by Allen J. earliest surviving narrative poems, ‘probably Frantzen. The introduction presents a in the eighth century’; Bredehoft tabulates a synthesis of the history of scholarship on catalogue of metrical innovations that can the subject, noting the influence of the 1981 be observed over the history of Old English volume and highlighting studies of the past poetry and finds that none of them features thirty years that have collectively ‘changed in Beowulf. the terms of the debate’ (p. 16) by introducing chronologically significant evi- Moving from the ‘hard’ evidence of dence for an early Beowulf based on philology, palaeography and metre to

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Volume 32 (2015) ISSN: 1694-3532

internal considerations, Dennis Cronan analysis of the relevant metrical patterns notes the contrast in the treatment of Scyld and contrasting the kinds of transcription in Beowulf and in the Alfredian and later errors found in Beowulf with those found in West Saxon royal genealogies. In the latter texts of Cynewulf poems, particularly in the Sceaf is privileged and Scyld ‘constrained’: Exeter Book, Clark concludes, in support of the ‘unconstrained’ Scyld of Beowulf cannot Fulk and Lapidge, that metrically Beowulf derive from the genealogies, which suggests ‘cannot be regarded as an artful attempt to a pre-Alfredian milieu for the poem. evoke a bygone era’ and that the Similarly, Frederick M. Biggs argues that the transcription errors point to an ‘eighth- poem’s preoccupation with the theme of century poem, but with the imperfections of royal succession suggests that Beowulf an eleventh-century transcription’ (pp. 233, comes from earlier Anglo-Saxon England, 234). when the succession of sons (which brings the danger that there may not be a suitable One chapter different in theme from the heir) replaced the older Germanic system others is that of Michael Drout (about two- according to which members of a wider kin thirds of the way through the book), which group could succeed; such concerns would steps back from questions of primary be less relevant in the later period. Joseph evidence to offer a penetrating analysis of Harris draws attention to references, largely the scholarly debate about dating. It unnoticed by scholars, in Bede’s presents a survey of discussions of the Ecclesiastical History, to a place and dating of Beowulf from the 1970s on and structure in Northumbria with Hart/ deconstructs the rhetoric of the 1981 book, in its name; for Harris these references which is perceived as exaggerating the provide ‘an additional piece of the puzzle’ amount of dissent against the eighth- (p. 189) supporting the likelihood of an early century dating; Drout notes that some date for Beowulf. T. D. Hill argues that the critics even celebrate the uncertainty about ‘Noachite’ religious world of Beowulf places dating that became widely accepted in the poem in the early period, close enough recent decades. And Allen Frantzen returns to the era of conversion for a syncretic to questions of scholarly history in the approach to the pre-Christian world to be volume’s afterword. Frantzen places the relevant on the part of the poet. debate about Beowulf in the context of wider developments in literary studies in The final two evidence-based chapters bring the second half of the twentieth century us back to the harder evidence of language, when a preference for ahistoricizing, metre and palaeography. Rafael J. Pascual formalist approaches emerged, de- identifies semantic shift in the history of emphasizing specific historical context. The two Old English words for monster (scucca date of the composition of Beowulf matters and þyrs), from ‘material’ in early Anglo- little for such approaches, but, writes Saxon England to ‘spiritual’ by the ninth Frantzen, ‘If we are concerned with a more century and end of the eighth century, structured kind of knowledge within the respectively. And George Clark refutes the poem, the date of Beowulf does matter’ (p. objections of Roberta Frank to Fulk’s 246). Frantzen is right in seeing the chapters arguments for an early Beowulf (based on in the Reassessment as demonstrating the the metrics of Kaluza’s law) and to Lapidge’s validity of rigorous philological and other (based on palaeography and the confusion dating criteria with respect to Beowulf but of letter forms). Employing statistical he looks beyond Beowulf to the critical

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Volume 32 (2015) ISSN: 1694-3532

construction of Old English verse in a ments of the descent into Hell motif in first- diachronic rather than a synchronic pattern. millennium Christian commentary, biblical references related to ideas in the poem, and The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment is an some sources and analogues. exciting and substantial volume, con- sistently interesting, with alert individual One of the main objects of the work is to items that cumulatively build to a powerful suggest that the traditional title of the overall case. The discussion is lively and poem, The Descent into Hell, as in the invariably well focused. I found myself Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records, obscures the regretting the absence of a general purpose of the text, which is (according to bibliography in such a tightly themed the writer) to urge the audience to be collection but the editing is excellent baptised. In support of this, Rambaran-Olm throughout and it is evident that editor and points to liturgical expressions in the poem contributors engaged in fruitful dialogue in which involve the audience in response. She the preparation of this important book. also suggests that the text might also have a dramatic function, similarly eliciting the Hugh Magennis participation and involvement of the Queen’s University Belfast audience. Overall this is perfectly plausible, but the writer tends to overstate the case for the poem not being concerned with the M. R. Rambaran-Olm (ed.), John the descent into Hell: ‘the poem of the Exeter Baptist’s Prayer or The Descent into Hell Book gives one brief line to Christ’s actual from the Exeter Book: Text, Translation and entrance into Hell’ (p. 55) is one of several Critical Study. Anglo-Saxon Studies 21. statements of this kind. However, taken a Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 2014. ix + 249 pp. little less dogmatically, lines 33–51 are + ills. Hardback. 978-1-84384-366-5. £60. essentially focused on Christ’s ‘journey’ and arrival in Hell, and thus the old title is not so This new volume in the Anglo-Saxon Studies outlandish as the writer would like to series falls into two parts. The first is an represent it. Much of the book also focuses extended introduction, including in the first on discussing the motif, isolating some chapter a discussion of the manuscript, and differences from the more conventional in chapter two analysis of the literary and forms of its expression, but nevertheless theological ideas relating to Christ’s descent confirming it as a ‘descent into Hell’ type of into and harrowing of Hell. The third text. chapter is a literary analysis of the poem and discussion of possible sources and The strength of this work is that it explores analogues. To complete the introduction, the biblical, patristic, theological and Anglo- chapter four compares the poem more Saxon background and context of Christ’s closely with treatments of the descent into descent into Hell: this was a popular and Hell theme in Old English poetry and prose. malleable idea, partly because it is so The second part of the book consists of an tangentially referred to or represented in edited text–some damaged parts of it are Scripture. The work shows the variety of excitingly reconstructed using digital forms the motif took, and illustrates the replication of the scribe’s hand– a fascination it exercised in the minds of early translation, commentary, transcription and medieval writers. In addition to that, the glossary, with appendices outlining treat- work places this particular poem in a

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