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KRON 017 02 04-Huisman.Indd KronoScope �7 (�0�7) �3�-�53 brill.com/kron Facing the Eternal Desert: Sociotemporal Values in Old English Poetry Rosemary Huisman The University of Sydney [email protected] Abstract Time is a singular noun, but includes a multiplicity of temporalities, including what J. T. Fraser has termed sociotemporality. In this paper, I discuss facing the urgency of time in a narrative dominated by sociotemporality, that of the Old English poem Beo­ wulf, and suggest how criticism of the narrative structure of Beowulf has derived from a monovalent understanding of narrative time. Moreover, in recognizing sociotempo- rality as dominant in the organization of the poem, the modern reader can gain greater access to what was valued in the social context of its response to “the urgency of time.” Keywords Old English poetry – Beowulf – narrative – sociotemporality – J. T. Fraser’s theory of time When I first read the theme for the 2016 ISST conference, “Time’s Urgency,” I was irresistibly reminded of the words of the seventeenth century English poet Andrew Marvell, in his much-quoted poem “To His Coy Mistress”: But at my back I always hear Time’s wingèd chariot hurrying near. And yonder all before us lie Deserts of vast eternity. There’s the urgency of time for you, in which Time itself pushes the poet for- ward. Marvell’s words, despite the impudent intent of their context, led me to think of poetry, English poetry, more generally. How have poets responded © koninklijke brill nv, leiden, ���7 | doi �0.��63/�5685�4�-��34�Downloaded385 from Brill.com10/02/2021 12:33:26AM via free access 232 Huisman to that urgency, in which their existential presence in present time moves in- exorably towards an absence, which is not future but rather out-of-time? What comfort—if there is comfort—do they find? What values enable such a pros- pect to be faced? As a first exploration of such questions, I turn to a poem produced in a context very different from today’s. Beowulf is one of the great poems in the English language, written down over a thousand years ago in the language of the Anglo-Saxons, referred to as Old English. It survives in one manuscript, now in the British library.1 In spo- ken Old English poetry, (usually) a so-called verse of two stressed syllables is linked by alliteration to another verse of two stressed syllables (the number of unstressed syllables can vary) but in the manuscript the language is writ- ten continuously, not lineated (Huisman 1998/2000, 99-101). However, modern readers are used to seeing poems printed in lines, so modern editions typically print the poem in lines of two verses, as in lines 1-11 reproduced below. In these terms, Beowulf is a long poem of (at least) 3182 lines. HWÆT: WE GAR-DENA IN GEARDAGUM þeodcyninga þrym gefrunon. Hu ða æþelingas ellen fremedon! Oft Scyld Scefing sceaþena þreatum 5 monegum mægþum meodosetla ofteah, egsode eorl, syððan ærest wearð feasceaft funden. He þæs frofre gebad, weox under wolcnum, weorðmyndum þah, oð þæt him æghwylc þara ymbsittendra 10 ofer hronrade hyran scolde, gomban gyldan. Þæt wæs god cyning.2 The last verse (with the runic character thorn, “þ,” for Modern English “th,” and the Latin ligature “æ” for the pronunciation of “a,” as in “cat”) is still read- ily understood as “that was a good king.” The following translation is from Liuzza (2013): Listen! We have heard of the glory in bygone days of the folk-kings of the spear-Danes, how those noble lords did lofty deeds. 1 British Library shelfmark: Cotton MS Vitellius A.XV. (British Library Collection Items, 2016). 2 Electronic Beowulf (2015). http://ebeowulf.uky.edu/ebeo4.0/CD/main.html. All Old English text quoted is taken from this source. KronoScopeDownloaded from 17 Brill.com10/02/2021 (2017) 231-253 12:33:26AM via free access Facing the Eternal Desert 233 Often Scyd Scefing seized the mead-benches from many tribes, troops of enemies, 5 struck fear into earls. Though he first was found a waif, he awaited solace for that— he grew under heaven and prospered in honor until every one of the encircling nations over the whale’s-riding had to obey him, 10 grant him tribute. That was a good king!3 It was my interest in the poem Beowulf that first led me to the International Society for the Study of Time and to the work of its founder, J. T. Fraser, in his modeling of time. This was because, although the poem is acknowledged to be the masterpiece of surviving Anglo-Saxon poetry, critics have sometimes found some features sadly lacking, and these “inadequate” features were, I came to think, irreducibly connected to assumptions those critics made about time. A notable criticism of this kind is that by Frederick Klaeber, in the “Introduction” to his edition of Beowulf. Klaeber’s edition of Beowulf was first issued in 1922; it is a work of meticu- lous scholarship and has remained continuously in print. Now, after Klaeber’s death, it is in its fourth edition. The following quote comes from the third edi- tion, the last by Klaeber himself. In the “Introduction,” in section “V. Structure of the Poem,” the fourth sub-section is headed, “Lack of Steady Advance.” It begins: The reader of the poem very soon perceives that the progress of the nar- rative is frequently impeded. Looseness is, in fact, one of its marked pe- culiarities. Digressions and episodes, general reflections in the form of speeches, an abundance of moralizing passages interrupt the story. The author does not hesitate to wander from the subject. When he is remind- ed of a feature in some way related to the matter in hand, he thinks it perfectly proper to speak of it. Hence references to the past are intruded in unexpected places…. No less fond is the poet of looking forward to something that will happen in the near or distant future…. It is not a little remarkable that in the account of the three great fights of the hero, care has been taken to state the outcome of the struggle in advance. Evidently disregard of the element of suspense was not considered a defect in story telling. (lvii) 3 All translations are taken from the second edition of R. M. Liuzza’s Beowulf (2013). In a review of Liuzza’s first edition (2000), Heather O’Donoghue (2001) compares the “scholarly” transla- tion of Liuzza with Seamus Heaney’s “literary” version of the poem, also published in 2000. Both repay reading, if for different purposes. KronoScope 17 (2017) 231-253 Downloaded from Brill.com10/02/2021 12:33:26AM via free access 234 Huisman It is obvious that this criticism is based on some assumption of what the “prog- ress of a narrative” should be, how it would not be impeded. Klaeber refers above to the “general reflections in the form of speeches,” but in an earlier section of the introduction he suggests the very subject matter of the many speeches strongly contributes to the poem’s “lack of steady advance”: Upwards of 1300 lines are taken up with speeches [that is, about 40% of the text]. The major part of these contain [sic] digressions, episodes, descriptions, and reflections, and thus tend to delay the progress of the narrative. (lv) Overall, Klaeber concludes that typically the poem has a “rambling, dila- tory method—the forward, backward, and sideward movements …” (lviii). In effect, in drawing that conclusion, Klaeber has assumed a particular model of effective narrative and found the poem lacking in terms of that model. The fourth, posthumous, edition, now known as Klaeber’s Beowulf, pub- lished in 2008 (Fulk, Bjork and Niles), is much expanded by later scholar- ship. Its “Introduction” runs from xxiii to cxc, compared to that in Klaeber’s third edition, from ix-cxxiv. As Gillian Overing puts it in a later 2013 publica- tion, “The scope, variety and sheer volume of scholarship focused on this old poem continue to testify to its enduring appeal” (309). Two sections in the “Introduction” to Klaeber’s Beowulf, “VI. Structure and Unity” (lxxix-xci) and “VII. Method of Narration” (xcii-cviii), include comment on matters similar to those in Klaeber’s one section, “V. Structure of the Poem” (li-lviii), discussed above.4 I return to these topics, and the different scholarly concepts of narra- tive structure, after describing my own approach. Let us assume that the poem itself is effective. What model of narrative could be compatible with the poem’s mode of progress? This requires some considerable excursus from Old English. Narrative theory has many inflections (Nunning 2003). Nonetheless, typi- cally time appears to be of the essence. Thus in “Towards a Definition of Narrative” (2007), Marie-Laure Ryan’s list of statements which “a definition should support, even entail” includes “narrative is about the temporality of existence” (23). More fundamentally, how is the relation between this time or temporality and narrative to be understood? I quote (as I have in previous pa- pers) H. Porter Abbott’s question and answer to this conundrum (2002). He 4 An earlier publication edited by two of the three editors of Klaeber’s Beowulf, A Beowulf Handbook (Bjork and Niles, 1997), describes the accumulating scholarly readings, earlier and later than Klaeber’s, in chapters on “Structure and Unity” and “Digressions and Episodes”; the latter includes a chronology of relevant comment from 1772 to 1990. KronoScopeDownloaded from 17 Brill.com10/02/2021 (2017) 231-253 12:33:26AM via free access Facing the Eternal Desert 235 asks, “what does narrative do for us?” and answers, “first … many things,” but “if we had to choose one answer above all others, the likeliest is that: narrative is the principal way in which our species organizes its understanding of time” (3; Abbott’s italics).
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