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Francis Leneghan, <I>The Dynastic Drama Of</I> Beowulf. Woodbridge

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Francis Leneghan, <I>The Dynastic Drama Of</I> Beowulf. Woodbridge Mediaevistik 33 . 2020 423 für Spielfrauen, Minnelieder vorzutra- Francis Leneghan, The Dynastic Dra- gen, d.h. öffentlich am Hof aufzutreten? ma of Beowulf. Woodbridge, Suffolk: Dafür liegen einige Belege vor, wie auch D. S. Brewer, 2020, xxi, 300 pp. die bisherige Forschung vereinzelt her- This is an intelligent study but less one vorgehoben hat (vgl. W. Haubrichs, Die of dynastic drama than an eager appli- Spielleute im Mittelalter, 2003; nur in cation of Christian kingship tropes to einer Anm., nicht in der Bibliographie Beowulf, as those tropes appear in the verzeichnet). Der Begriff, “androgyne biblical Books of Kings (1-2 Samuel, 1-2 Strophe,” hier eingesetzt für solche, wo Kings). Beowulf mentions many peoples, weder eine männliche noch eine weib- if only briefly. However, three are featu- liche Stimme eindeutig bestimmt wer- red extensively, Scyldings or Danes, the den kann, erweist sich als heuristisch Scylfings or Swedes, and the Hrethlings sehr nützlich, denn, wie Lahr immer or Geats, Beowulf’s people. Of course, wieder gut herausarbeitet, dieser frühe Leneghan treats the rise of the Scyldings, Minnesang ist durch erheblich mehr an a three-generation dynasty centered on Nuancen im Tonfall charakterisiert, als Hrothgar, his great hall, Heorot, which wir es bisher wahrhaben wollten, wozu Grendel terrorizes, and his Danes; then entscheidend der Einsatz von Dialog und he treats Swedish Scylfings, also at least Wechsel beiträgt. Die Autorin betont three generations, and then the troubles of zugleich, dass hier das Publikum stets the Hrethlings (the Geats), from Hrethel miteinbezogen wird, aber worin besteht to his sons, and to his grandson, Beowulf, dann der Unterschied zum hohen oder who as a young champion voyages to He- späten Minnesang, abgesehen von der orot in response to Grendel’s terror. But dort stärker auftretenden Betonung des there is no detailed drama here of dyna- lyrischen Ichs? stic rise and fall: no connected beginning Diese für sich genommen sehr zu- to middle and middle to end, no compli- friedenstellende Studie schließt mit ei- cations or reversals, and no definitive, ner Bibliographie ab, unterlässt es aber, annihilating fall. Even the spear-wielding einen Index zu bieten, was ich zuneh- Hrethlings, although likely to wander af- mend als unbegreiflich empfinde. Wie- ter Beowulf’s death, coldly exposed to so fordert der Verlag dies nicht von den enemies, still ride and mourn at poem’s Autoren? Will die deutsche Forschung end. auch international rezipiert werden, soll- Leneghan thoroughly marshals a ten doch zumindest ein englisches Abs- very large body of Beowulf scholarship, tract, keywords oder eine Zusammen- along with source and analogue materi- fassung geboten werden. Lahr verdient al, invaluably so for the novice student. hohe Anerkennung dafür, sich eines gut He does that following his notion that lesbaren, klaren Deutsch zu bedienen, Beowulf presents shifting ideas of kings- souverän mit der bisherigen Forschung hip and thus of royal values. I agree who- umzugehen, die verschiedenen Theorien leheartedly with some such shift but not sinnfällig zu konsultieren, sich aber nicht with his characterization; for Leneghan von einem extremen theoretischen Jargon all is morally Christian, a movement erdrücken zu lassen. toward the values of biblical kingship, Albrecht Classen whether taken from the Old Testament or 424 Mediaevistik 33 . 2020 filtered through explicit commentaries, three-thousand, one hundred lines apart, such as the Venerable Bede’s. And why and thus explores the values invested in wouldn’t the Beowulf poet, who other- them. wise doesn’t seem to have Bede’s valu- Royal death, great mortality, is then es, explicitly invoke the Book of Kings? also a consequential idea, as seen even He’s not shy about Cain in relation to the in lesser funerals and their aftermaths, Grendels and whatever arose in the bor- such as the one over which the Danish derlands to which God banished Cain. Hildeburh presides, where she directs the Moreover, many of Leneghan’s indirect immolation of her brother and her Finn- assertions of debt to Old and New Tes- born son. Previously Hildeburh’s brother taments are unconvincing. Is the dragon had arrived with warriors for a visit, only really apocalyptic, a Satanic trope out to be attacked by some members of her of Revelation? Often Leneghan relies husband’s mixed war band (Finn’s war on what the poem somehow “invites” its band). In the ensuing fight, her brother Anglo-Saxon audience to think, whatever and son die. For the Scyldings the deaths audience that was, whenever. of kings partake of dynastic continuity Soberly assessed, the poem has no and success right through Hrothgar’s rule New Testament references, and its clear in Heorot, a wide-ranging rule involving Old Testament allusions go little beyond both fractious and tributary relationships Genesis, if that. Certainly, the poet is in Hrothgar’s Northern world. some sort of Anglo-Saxon Christian, at For the Swedish Scylfings, Ongen- the very least a dedicated monotheist. He theow’s death at the hands of avenging abhors Danish characters who beseech Geats leads to Onela’s rise, one of On- the slayer of souls (the devil) in response gentheow’s sons, and to strife between to Grendel’s horrible depredations. They Onela and his two nephews. That strife don’t know God. is settled eventually when Beowulf, after Yet his poem is not thoroughly Christi- losing a king and one of those nephews an; indeed, to make it so, for this reader at to Onela, helps the surviving nephew de- least, trivializes a masterpiece that explo- pose Onela, thus at least nominally tying res profound ideas, one of them certainly Geats to Swedes who attacked the Geats being ideas of kingship – from the war- when Ongentheow was king. Hygelac, like, that of celerity and youthful ener- Beowulf’s beloved lord and uncle on his gy, which is creative but chaotic, to the mother’s side, dies in a possibly foolish legislative, to kingly gravitas, and finally raid, which leads to Beowulf being offe- to a combination of celerity and gravitas red the kingship by Hygelac’s young wife infused with the values of kinship ami- (the only such gesture in the poem). He ty. That combination comes to fruition in turn champions Hygelac’s son, who in in Beowulf himself given his leadership, turn dies when the previously mentioned his words and deeds, and the four super- Onela attacks the Geats for sheltering his latives with which his people honor him brother’s rebellious sons. – praise unprecedented elsewhere, even Those are convoluted relations not ea- in the fabulous, early send-off accorded sily arranged into a critique of dynasties. Scyld Scefing, who was a good, although Let’s say bad things can happen to and terrifying king. The poem moves bet- trouble good dynasties, whether they rise, ween those royal funerals, more than fall, or just continue on. However, that the Mediaevistik 33 . 2020 425 Geats must undertake an exodus because though possessing Heorot at night, appro- of Beowulf’s high destiny, the great mor- ach the royal or else god-blessed gift-seat tality to which he held, speaks to the worst beneficially. Of course. But Grendel is outcome of kingly deaths ‒ when a people better understood as a hating-hall-thane whose emboldened enemies exploit that who refuses to settle his unaccountab- people’s lack of a powerful successor. le feud with Hrothgar. He is better un- Although conferring war band leaders- derstood as a bloody-minded, horrible hip on Wiglaf, who aids Beowulf in the squatter, a criminal who hates human, dragon fight and who commandingly or- communal joy. Beowulf is his nemesis, ganizes Beowulf’s funeral, Beowulf dies the clear-minded, strong hand of violent leaving no sons or a powerful successor. settlement, of the law. The poem’s third idea, as profound if not Beowulf has no idea what kind of crea- more so than its first, its treatment of the ture does what Grendel does. In his cons- qualities of kingship, and its second, its ciousness, he cannot fathom it. Grendel’s meditation on royal deaths, essentially on mother, in Leneghan’s account, is an an- great mortality, is the resonance of the ti-type of the poem’s good queens – those monsters. peace kin and peace weavers; she is also And then the monsters awake: a pained part of the poem’s consideration of reven- Grendel becomes cannibalistically angry ge, a masculine function she takes on her- when he hears Danish hall-joy and songs, self. Her demise supposedly anticipates one of which is about the Creation; his the dying out of royal lines, at least given mother responds vengefully to her son’s her association with some branch of Cain. death at Beowulf’s hand; and the dragon But I think she is also and more signifi- awakens destructively because of a cup cantly the mother of inchoate and illegal pilfered from its useless hoard. Some revenge for the death of a (criminal) son. scholars have placed the monsters in the Given the sea-wolf she is, a cascade of forefront of the poem, relegating histori- monstrous attributes taints her. The dra- cal references and stories to secondary gon fight’s significance intertwines with importance. Leneghan reverses that, dynastic wars between Scylfings and rightly so, in the service of dynastic acti- Hrethlings (although, contrary to Leneg- on and story, but at the expense of what is han, Beowulf is not Hygelac’s double, psychologically resonant in the monsters, doing something hugely foolish when he in what those creatures are and do in rela- meets the dragon alone). Here Leneghan tion to the values of the hall, the psycho- nicely notes, as Michael Lapidge did, that logy of the feud, and the scope of earthly as the dragon fight moves slowly forward, strife, against which no one can prevail, simultaneously we move further and not even the strongest, long-lived, and further back to the origins of the Swedish most heroic of men in those days of this wars.
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