Abstract
This article identifies an Old Norse analogue to Wiglaf’s lament, a notorious interpretive crux in Beowulf. Some scholars have interpreted Wiglaf’s lament as an indictment of the moral failings of the protagonist, while others maintain that Wiglaf expresses no criticism of his fallen lord. Reading his lament in the light of Angantýr’s lament, an analogous passage from Hlǫðskviða, tilts the scales of probability in favor of the latter interpretation.
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Notes
See Burrow (2008), Clark (1990), Garmonsway (1965), Greenfield (1985), Hill (1995), Irving (1968), Kaske (1958), Mitchell (1988), Niles (1983), Richards (1973), Shippey (1978) and Sisam (1965). Beowulf is also viewed as an ideal hero by those who interpret him as an imitation of Christ; for readings of this sort, see Cabaniss (1955), Hamilton (1946) and McNamee (1960).
See Bliss (1979), Bolton (1978), Fajardo-Acosta (1989), Goldsmith (1970), Leyerle (1965), Orchard (2003b), Tolkien (1953) and Stanley (1963). In some of these readings, the hero’s flawed nature is understood to reflect the flawed and self-destructive society that produced him; for readings that exemplify this strain of criticism, see Berger and Leicester (1974), Camargo (1981) and Georgianna (1987).
For three particularly nuanced approaches to the problem at hand, see Gwara (2008), Köberl (2002) and Robinson (1985). Despite their nuances, these readings are situated on the spectrum closer to the interpretations of Beowulf as a critique of heroism, with a flawed hero, rather than the interpretations of Beowulf as a celebration of heroism, with an ideal hero. For an incisive overview of scholarship on the hero and theme of Beowulf, see Clark (1997).
On the tendency for heroes in Germanic legend to find themselves in a predicament of this sort, see Andersson (1987: 5–7), Chambers (1959: 28–29), Heusler (1943: 154–155) and Ker (1908: 65–75). A particularly insightful treatment of this topic appears in Phillpotts (1928), the arguments of which are discussed at length below.
Both the text and the translation of Hlǫðskviða are cited throughout from Tolkien (1960: 58).
Chickering writes perceptively of Wiglaf’s tone: “If there are the imprecations of a despairing grief in his tone, there is also a tinge of rueful admiration” (2006: 377).
There has been some debate as to whether the Geats at the end of the poem are on the verge of total annihilation or merely a temporary setback. The debate is reviewed in Fulk et al. (2008: 263); see also the recent discussion in Baker (2013: 232–239). Even if the Geats are not literally about to be annihilated, their representatives at the end of the poem anticipate invasion, subjugation, humiliation, enslavement, and exile. The makers of Germanic legend probably understood this dreary outcome to have amounted to annihilation along the lines of what happened to the Goths, Huns, and Burgundians.
The judgment that Beowulf is an eighth-century Mercian poem reflects credence in the arguments of Fulk (1992: 381–392), which have been largely corroborated in subsequent philological scholarship: see, for instance, Bredehoft (2014), Cronan (2004), Ecay and Pintzuk (2016), Lapidge (2000), Neidorf (2017), Neidorf and Pascual (2014) and Russom (2017). See also the overview of philological scholarship on this question in Neidorf (2016).
There is a consensus among editors of Hlǫðskviða concerning its extraordinary antiquity: see Heusler and Ranisch (1903: xiii–xiv), Chadwick (1922: 142–143) and Tolkien (1960: xxi–xxv). Larrington recently concurred with the judgment of these editors, writing that the poem’s “ancient names and the verses’ less strict metrical form suggest that it may be one of the oldest poems preserved in Old Norse” (2016: 155).
Widsið has long been regarded, by such authorities as Chambers (1912: 150–151) and Malone (1962: 116), as one of the oldest English poems, probably composed during the second half of the seventh century. A debate about the poem’s relative antiquity recently emerged in the pages of this journal: Neidorf (2013c) reaffirmed the traditional position, while Weiskott (2015) expressed scepticism toward it. The reasonableness of Weiskott’s counterarguments went on to be queried, however, in Neidorf (2015) and Pascual (2016).
As Malone notes, the phonological correspondence between the four names is inexact (e.g., we should expect Ongenþeow rather than Incgenþeow), but the collocation of the four names “in these two monuments, and in these two only…clinches the identification” (1925: 798). Malone is inclined to explain the phonological discrepancies as signs of alteration in legendary tradition; I would be more inclined to regard them as manifestations of the scribal tendency to corrupt unfamiliar proper names (see Neidorf 2013b). The explanations are not mutually exclusive, and both factors might well be involved in this particular case.
There is significant onomastic evidence for the circulation of Germanic legend in England during the seventh and eighth centuries: see Chadwick (1912: 64–66), Neidorf (2013a), Shippey (2014) and Wormald (2006). A wider array of early Anglo-Saxon witnesses to Germanic legend is surveyed in Neidorf (2014).
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Neidorf, L. An Old Norse Analogue to Wiglaf’s Lament (Beowulf Lines 3077–3086). Neophilologus 102, 515–524 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-018-9570-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11061-018-9570-z