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THE OLDEST ENGLISH EPIC
CHAPTER I
BEOWULF
I
THE manuscript[1] is written in West-Saxon of the tenth century, with some Kentish peculiarities; it is evidently based on successive copies of an original in either Northumbrian or Mercian, which probably belonged to the seventh century.[2] Two scribes made this copy. One wrote to verse 1939; the other, who seems to have contributed those Kentish forms, finished the poem. There is some attempt to mark the verses, and a few long syllables are indicated; but the general appearance is of prose.
The original epic seems to have been composed by a single author,[3] not for chant or recitation to the accompaniment of a harp, but for reading, as a “book.”
- ↑ Codex Vitellius, A, xv, British Museum; injured by fire, but still legible in most places, and, for Beowulf, complete.
- ↑ There is no positive evidence for any date of origins. All critics place it before the ninth century. The eighth brought monastic corruption to Northumbria; while the seventh, described by Beda, with its austerity of morals, its gentleness, its tolerance, its close touch with milder forms of heathenism, matches admirably the controlling mood of the epic.
- ↑ This attitude towards the so-called “Homeric question” in Beowulf must be explained and defended elsewhere, though a few hints are given in the following pages.
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