Grand unified books thread

[Jacob]

Skre's mostly accepted, yet in its time, controversial hypothesis was that the kingship of Norway was in the west at Avaldsnes. A slow building of strength.

Yeah, I imagine that's formed part of the thesis of the book - describing how Scandinavia changed from tribal to lordly to ultimately kingly social organization during that period. Though I'm still early in my reading - around p. 100 out of 550  ).

[Sheilbh]

Well I can't speak to it in depth, relying as I am on Skre's summary which is primarily a "here's where I stand in this controversy, and why" as a building block towards his larger argument.

Interesting.

On single author v multiple I think I am more single author but working from multiple sources/traditions if that makes sense. But I can definitely see there'd be a debate around that - as there is with Homer and any other work from an oral society being pinned to text. One other reason for this is that while Beowulf (and all Anglo-Saxon poems) have some formulas and rote phrases, my understanding is that there are a lot fewer for a poem of its length than in, say Homer. My understanding is that those formulas are often understood as useful tools in an oral tradition - and is why I think there is more than just recording oral traditions going on but a very creative mixing and structuring but I think there are signs that the version we have is possibly written for text (from oral sources). I think what we have is very much a literary text and creation and not just a recording of a story overheard.

And yeah it is interesting that's a debate because I definitely remember the text book intro to Old English with the map of Denmark of where they thought the different places where but again I wonder if there's a difference I know nothing about between Old English readers and introductions v philology and archaeology. That would not suprise me

I'm not so sure on it being quite so unadulteratedly pagan. But I think it's right there is a fair bit of debate on that - my read was that it's a Christian poem but that is remembering set in the world of a pre-Christian world. But also fully aware the version that I remember is the very unfaithful translation by Seamus Heaney

[Jacob]

I think the "English author" and "single author" arguments are along the lines of what you're saying - if I understand you correctly.

Namely that there was some body of Scandinavian poetry around which the author drew on when they composed Beowulf, setting it in the real world locations in Scandinavia that they'd heard about. But that the writing down itself was the creative act, taking elements from different oral versions and arranging them to taste, adding bits where appropriate and excluding others, expressing a specific sets of themes and so on where they are of interest to the author and their time. That is, it's an English, Christian poem drawing on an older tradition - much like the play Hamlet while clearly set in Denmark and drawing on some older stories (Amled), but is nonetheless clearly an English play engaging with Elizabethan English concerns.

Perhaps your understanding is a softer version of this, but it sounds to me that it's in that direction?

Skre's contention takes issue with that - and I quote here - is that "... although it was likely first penned in Old English around AD 700, the epic poem Beowulf was composed in Scandinavia in the 6th century and reached Britain in the early 600s in a form close to the extant."

I'll quote the part of the section introducing the discussion, because it's very much the type of academic argument I enjoy following from the sidelines 

The Scandinavian-origin hypothesis was considered in the early period of Beowulf research (e.g. Stjerna 1912; Lindqvist 1948) but has not been seriously addressed in more recent scholarship, in which it "provokes only a consensus of mirth", according to Theodore M. Andersson (1997:129). However, the hypothesis has lingered among Scandinavian scholars, and recently, Bo Gräslund (2022) has forcefully argued for a Scandinavian origin of the poem. Would such an idea, as stated by Robert E. Bjork (2020:249) in his review of the 2018 Swedish edition of Gräslund's book, be "like claiming that Shakespeare's Roman plays should be attributed to Plutarch"? To be frank, considering the quite profound problems that the British-origin hypothesis answers only vaguely and unsatisfactorily (pp. 87-93), the glee reported by Andersson and Bjork's downright dismissal strikes some scholars versed in Scandinavian history and culture as amusingly audacious.

[Jacob]

For reference, here's a link to Gräslund's book: https://www.arc-humanities.org/9781802700084/the-nordic-beowulf/

In such a wide-ranging, long-standing, and international field of scholarship as Beowulf, one might imagine that everything would long since have been thoroughly investigated. And yet as far as the absolutely crucial question of the poem's origins is concerned, that is not the case.

This cross-disciplinary study by Bo Gräslund argues that the material, geographical, historical, social, and ideological framework of Beowulf cannot be the independent literary product of an Old English Christian poet, but was in all essentials created orally in Scandinavia, which was a fertile seedbed for epic poetry.

Through meticulous argument interwoven with an impressive assemblage of data, archaeological and otherwise, Gräslund offers possible answers to the questions of the provenance of the Geats, the location of Heorot, and many more, such as the significance of Sutton Hoo and the signification of the Grendel kin and dragon in the sixth century when the events of the poem, coinciding with cataclysmic events in northern Europe, took place.

... it's a bit rich for my book-buying budget, alas.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah - interesting. Framed like that I think I am maybe on the "English" side. Although I wouldn't frame it in that way - I don't think there's anything particularly English about it. But I do think it's a Christian poem depicting a pagan society, rather than a pagan poem that is lightly Christianised. I don't think there's an extant pagan poem there and I think the's a coherence to it that is more single author creating a text.

Although I wonder if there is an inter-disciplinary argument going on there because looking up those scholars Bo Graslund is an archaeologist (and I think Skre is too), while Andersson and Bjork are respectively a Germanist specialising in the Sagas and a Medieval literary scholar. At a very high level I can't help but wonder if that's a divide between basing their opinion on the material indicators within the content v the style of the text. Inevitably because I studied literature I'd probably emphasise a stylistic/literary critical analysis of a text  

I think the Plutarch comparisons a bit strong But I would note that Shakespeare lifts entire speeches from North's translation of Plutarch (I think several of Cleopatra's most ripe speeches are basically totally lifted from North's Plutarch) and there are in fact some who've suggested North might have produced entire plays based on his own translations (those speeches are very dramatic) that Shakespeare is basically reworking/adapting/developing. But I think it's up there with Golding's Ovid as the biggest source/influence.