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The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet

2024; University of Arkansas Press; Volume: 58; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.5325/style.58.1.0101

2374-6629

Megan E. Hartman,

Medieval Literature and History

Leonard Neidorf's The Art and Thought of the Beowulf Poet is a short but ambitious monograph that raises the question of whether there is a better way to respond to Tolkien's "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics." After Tolkien argued for looking at the poem for what it is rather than what it could have been, scholars started taking the monsters for granted without querying why they are there. Neidorf returns to expectations generated by near-contemporary and analogous Germanic texts not to claim the poem is lacking, as scholars did before Tolkien's essay, but to investigate what unique choices the Beowulf poet made and why. He does so with a fairly broad argument: his discussion integrates a number of well-known arguments, but he deliberately engages criticism selectively without trying to address all points of disagreement (his bibliography touches on a wide range of Beowulf scholarship chronologically and includes a large number of non-English texts, but over 70% consists of sources from before the year 2000 and modern discussions inspired by critical theory do not receive much attention). His goal in this approach, as he explains in his Preface, is to create "a book that will remain useful whenever it happens to be read by a person with an earnest desire to understand Beowulf" (viii). While I believe it is too early to predict the longevity of this book (don't we all hope to write books that will long remain relevant?), I do believe that Neidorf raises some promising claims that could fruitfully advance our understanding of Beowulf.The thesis of this monograph is that Beowulf "should be read as the considered result of one poet's ambition to produce a morally edifying, theologically palatable, and historically plausible epic" that was composed "out of material that could not independently constitute such a poem" (26). Neidorf lays out three strategies that he believes the poet used to create this unambiguously moral tale in three lengthy chapters. The first, "Kin-Slaying and Oath-Breaking" argues that the poet had to shift his focus to create a story that fits with Christianity. Most traditional, migration-era stories, he argues, deal with tragedy brought on by the fickle nature of fate: heroes are forced into an evil deed—usually oath-breaking or kin-slaying—by an impossible choice, but they are still admired because they have the will to choose. The Beowulf poet avoids this amorality by relegating those heroes to the background and focusing on a folkloric hero whose malleable tradition supports alternate characterization. Other characters reinforce this shift: Hrothgar originates in migration-era legends, but he is a "stay-at-home" king who never participated in amoral conflicts; Unferth has a history of kin-slaying that implies an amoral past, but he serves as a foil to Beowulf who, though respected by the court, is condemned by the poet and destined for damnation; and Hrethel, a background character whose impossible choice to kill one son or leave the other unavenged is given a greater moralistic perspective than most of the background stories, is praised for doing nothing. According to Neidorf, the shift is not meant to condemn kin-slaying but to reject an amoral worldview that man is subject to the whims of an inexorable fate in favor of the view that the world is governed by a benevolent God and all men will face his judgment after death. This chapter sets out an often-repeated core to Neidorf's argument and provides ample evidence that the poem is constructed to valorize a new, Christianized perspective.In Chapter 2, "Courtesy and Courtliness," Neidorf argues that as much as the poet wanted a folkloric character for moral reasons, he still wanted an aristocratic and realistic poem rather than one governed by fairytale logic, so he added courtly elements to keep the poem grounded in reality. Courtliness has not been widely applied to Beowulf, but Neidorf shows that some scholars have found evidence of courtly behavior in Germanic society prior to the influence of French ideas of chivalry. After introducing this argument, the chapter analyzes the poem in chronological order to suggest that the poet focuses on the growth of Beowulf as a courtier. After coming to Hrothgar's hall as a lesser noble of Hygelac's court, Beowulf learns and grows in rhetorical ability and political savvy so that he is ready to assume a leadership role once he returns home. The focus on courtly behavior also allows Neidorf to suggest new readings for some of the more debated scenes, such as the transitional scene between Beowulf's youth and his old age where he retells the story of his time with the Danes. Rather than an awkward repetition of the previous events, this scene could be read as the culmination of Beowulf's lessons, where he showcases his physical and political strength and maneuvers Hygelac in a non-threatening way that allows the king to share power with Beowulf without losing face. While explaining the courtly elements, Neidorf effectively compares these elements to the folkloric tradition and shows how the two differ and how the poet is strategically choosing elements from both. He does not, however, compare the courtly elements of Beowulf to those in the other migration-era texts that he discusses elsewhere, such as The Nibelungenlied, which have similar elements and could illustrate to what extent the poet is pulling these details from outside of the Germanic poetic tradition and to what extent he is working with tools that exist within it. This would be particularly interesting in analyzing the more mixed aspects of the poem. Neidorf rightly claims that courtly behavior seems particularly important in the poem because three of the four qualities that describe Beowulf in the last sentence of the poem point more to a courtly king than a great monster-slayer. The last, however, does not; it would be interesting to consider how these elements fit together in other poems and how innovative the Beowulf poet is being by putting them together here.The final chapter, "Monotheism and Monstrosity," shows how the poet's choice to make heroes monotheist and their enemies monsters allows the poet to "endow Beowulf with a sense of moral clarity" (118). All the major admirable characters, particularly Beowulf and Hrothgar, espouse monotheistic beliefs that closely mirror the views and concerns stated by the Christian narrator. In this way, the poem creates an opposition between monotheists and polytheists, rather than a strict Christian versus pagan opposition, that allows the monotheists to be aligned with the Christian God. Neidorf proposes that Alcuin's quid Hinieldus cum Christo was a critic on pagans who would have been damned for their corrupt actions, so that these intuitive monotheists could be considered morally righteous and therefore saved. The monsters, on the other hand, would have garnered no sympathy from the contemporary audience (even if a modern audience tends to find sympathy for them). As the first monster, Grendel sets the standard that the rest follow: he is given several epithets that suggest he is damned, and the narrator twice states that he is godes andsaca "God's adversary" (lines 786b and 1682b). Grendel's mother and the dragon might seem slightly less evil, particularly because they both have a justification for their attacks and they are not named as enemies of God. Nevertheless, their monstrosity itself could be enough to make them evil, especially since Grendel's mother is also the kin of Cain and the dragon is a threat to the entire community. Neidorf particularly emphasizes this last quality, which the dragon shares with Grendel. Migration-age heroes such as Sigmund might fight monsters, but they tend to be found in the wilderness and, therefore, create more of a proving ground for the hero. By destroying monsters that are threatening the society, Beowulf has more in common with the saintly heroes of hagiography, who frequently defeat serpentine monsters that endanger a community. By examining the specific characterization of the monotheists as well as analyzing the monsters in the context of other medieval depictions, Neidorf successfully argues that the combination creates a polarizing effect that underscores the morality of the poem.Neidorf ties the elements of his argument together in the conclusion by showing how the various genres the poet uses work together to create his desired effect: the folkloric tradition was employed to move away from the amoral legendary tradition; the courtly aspects infuse the folkloric story with historical and aristocratic elements; and the hagiographical elements solidify the moral clarity. After summarizing his chapters, Neidorf addresses possible objections to his argument. This would have been better done in the chapters because there is not enough space here for developed arguments and evidence. Though he cannot fully resolve the issues, he does raise questions that are ripe for discussion. One particularly interesting question is the elegiac ending: Neidorf suggests the poet included it to provide a traditionally solemn ending, but more could be explored about the shift in tone and the tragic ending in the context of this new reading of Beowulf. In general, there is much discussion that this book could generate: it asks interesting questions about assumptions that have pervaded Beowulf scholarship, proposes persuasive answers, and provides a new line of inquiry that could shift how we position this sui generis poem among other migration-era legends.