Abstract
To move from historical to literary texts in Anglo-Saxon studies is often not much of a leap, as the two categories tend to collapse into one another. Hagiography, history, and poetry reside amicably together in Bede’s History, for example. But for a maternal genealogist to turn from real mothers with real children to mothers in literary texts necessitates a change in focus. The mothers who populate Old English poetry reveal the metaphorical propensities of texts that try to make them disappear after they reproduce, to “occlude” their maternity (to use Newton’s term, as I discussed in chapter 1). The mothers of Beowulf tend to resist such occlusion, however, and perform maternal work in the face of the heroic code.
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Notes
Gillian Overing, Language, Sign, and Gender in Beowulf (Carbondale: Illinois University Press, 1991).
Helen Damico, Beowulf’s Wealhtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition (Madison: Wisconsin University Press, 1984).
Jane Chance Nitzsche, “The Structural Unity of Beowulf:The Problem of Grendel’s Mother,” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 22 (1980): 287–303;
reprinted by Jane Chance in New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 248–261. Throughout this book I refer to this author as “Chance” since most of her work is published under that name.
Richard Schrader, God’s Handiwork: Images of Women in Early Germanic Literature (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983), 36.
Paull F. Baum, “The Beowulf Poet,” Philological Quarterly 39 (1960): 393.
All text from Fr. Klaeber, Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburgh, 3rd ed. (Lexington, MA: D. C. Heath and Co., 1950). Translations are my own, and tend to be literal rather than poetic. The complete text of the episode is as follows: Bold wæs betlic, bregorof cyning, 1925 heah on healle, Hygd swiðe geong, wis welþungen, þeah ðe wintra lyt under burhlocan gebiden hæbbe, Hæreþes dohtor; næs hio hnah swa þeah, ne to gneað gifa Geata leodum, 1930 maþmgestreona. Modþryðo wæg, fremu folces cwen, firen’ ondrysne. Nænig þæt dorste deor geneþan swæsra gesiða, nefne sinfrea, þæt hire an dæges eagum starede; 1935 ac him wælbende weotode tealde handgewriþene; hraþe seoþðan wæs æfter mundgripe mece geþinged, þæt hit sceadenmæl scyran moste, cwealmbealu cyðan. Ne bið swylc cwenlic þeaw 1940 idese to efnanne, þeah ðe hio sy, þætte freoðuwebbe feores onsæce æfter ligetorne leof ne mannan. Huru þæt onhohsnode Hemminges mæg; ealodrincende oðer sædan, 1945 þæt hio leodbealewa gefremede, inwitniða, syððan ærest wearð gyfen goldhroden geongum cempan, æðelum diore, syððan hio Offan flet of er fealone flod be fæder lare 1950 siðe gesohte; ðær hio syððan well in gumstole, gode mære, lifgesceafta lifigende breac, hiold heahlufan wið hæleþa brego, ealles moncynnes mine gefræge 1955 þone selestan bi sæm tweonum, eormencynnes; Forðam Offa wæs geof um ond guðum, garcene man, wide geweorðod, wisdome heold eðel sinne;— þonon Eomer woc 1960 hæleðum to helpe, Hemminges mæg, nefa Garmundes, niða cræftig. (The hall was splendid, the king very valiant, high in the hall, Higd very young, wise, accomplished, though she had resided few winters under the hall enclosure, Hareth’s daughter; she was not lowly thus, however, nor too niggardly of gifts, of treasures, to the people of the Geats. [1931b] Modthryth carried on, excellent queen of the folk, a crime terrible. None fierce of more dear companions dared to venture that, except a great lord, so that one of a day gazed at her with eyes, but for him a deadly bond was ordained, was considered, twisted by her hand; quickly thereupon a sword was appointed on account of a hand grip, so that the ornamented sword must settle it, [must] show the death-evil. [1940b] It is not such queenly custom for a noblewoman to perform, however she may be peerless, that a peace-weaver deprive a beloved man of life after pretended injury. Indeed the kinsman of Hemming stopped that; the ale-drinkers another [story] tell, that she less of harms to a people, of hostile acts performed, since first she was given gold-adorned to the young champion, beloved for nobilities, since by father-counsel she sought the hall of Offa over the pale flood by a journey. [1951b] Since she has there enjoyed well living of lives on the throne, good, famous, she has held the high love with the chief of warriors, of all the race of man as I have heard the best between the seas, of mankind. Because in gifts and in battles Offa, a spearbold man, was widely exalted, he held with wisdom his native land; from him Eomer was born as a help to warriors, Hemming’s kinsman, nephew of Garmund, powerful against evils.)
Such comparisons between Modþryðo and Hygd can be found in Adrien Bonjour, The Digressions in Beowulf (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1950, repr. 1965); Constance Hieatt, “Modthrytho and Heremod: Intertwined Threads in the Beowulf Poet’s Web of Words,” Journal of English and Germanic Philology 83 (1984): 173–182; Howell D. Chickering, Beowulf:A Dual Language Edition (New York, Anchor Books, 1977), 349–352; Norman Eliason, “The Thryth-Offa Digression in Beowulf” in Franciplegius: Medieval and Linguistic Studies in Honor of Francis Peabody Magoun, Jr., eds. Jess Bessinger and Robert Creed (New York: New York University Press, 1965), 124–138.
See, for example, David Allen, “The Coercive Ideal in Beowulf” in Literary and Historical Perspectives of the Middle Ages, eds. Patricia Cummins et al. (Morgantown: West Virginia University Press, 1982), 120–32.
See, for example, Edward Irving, Rereading Beowulf (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1989), 73, and
Randall Bohrer, “Beowulf and the Bog People” in Literary and Historical Perspectives of the Middle , eds. Patricia Cummins et al. (Morgantown: West Virginia University AgesPress, 1982), 142.
For moral analyses of the passage, see Klaeber, Beowulf, 198–200; Norma Kroll, “Beowulf: The Hero as Keeper of Human Polity,” Modern Philology 84 (1986): 117–129;
and Bruce Moore, “The Thryth-Offa Digression in Beowulf,” Neophilologus 64 (1980): 127–33.
For instance, Mary Kay Temple analyzes Modþryðo as one of a group of ides or noblewomen in Old English poetry in “Beowulf 1258–1266: Grendel’s Lady-Mother,” English Language Notes 23 (1986): 10–15;
Jane Chance argues in Woman as Hero in Old English Literature (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1986) that Modþryðo “begins as a type offemale monster, but upon marriage to Offa changes her nature and becomes a much-loved queen” (105);
Helen Damico reads her as a valkyrie-type who can be both terrible and welcoming in Beowulf’s Wealtheow and the Valkyrie Tradition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1984).
Kemp Malone argues in “Hygd,” Modern Language Notes 56 (1941): 356–58, that fremu folces cwen refers to Hygd, not to Modþryðo, but he is alone in this reading; the phrase is in apposition to mod þryðo wœg.
Richard Venezky and Antonette diPaolo Healey, eds., A Microf iche Concordance to Old English (Newark: University of Delaware Microf orms), 1980, fiche M023, 164.
Luce Irigaray, “Women on the Market,” in This Sex Which is not One, trans. Catherine Porter with Carolyn Burke (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), 170.
Ibid., 172.
See W. H. Stevenson, ed., Asser’s Life of Alfred (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1959), 10–12 (chapter 13); for further discussion of queens in Wessex, see chapter 3.
For the Old English text of the genealogy of Adam, see A. N. Doane, ed., Genesis A: A New Edition (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978), ll.965–1127.
Sara Ruddick, Maternal Thinking, 2nd ed. (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995), 40–42.
J. R. R. Tolkien, “Beowulf:The Monsters and the Critics,” Proceedings of the British Academy 22 (1936): 245–96; reprinted in numerous places, including The Monsters and the Critics and Other Essays, ed. Christopher Tolkien (London: Allen and Unwin, 1983), 5–48.
See, for example, Paul Beekman Taylor, “Beowulf’s Second Grendel Fight,” Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 86 (1985): 62–69, which argues that Beowulf’s primary motivation in the second fight is not to kill the mother but to reclaim the trophy of Grendel’s arm.
Margaret Goldsmith, The Mode and Meaning of Beowulf (London: Athlone, 1970), 118.
Nora Chadwick, in “The Monsters and Beowulf,” in The Anglo-Saxons, ed. Peter Clemoes (London: Bowes and Bowes, 1959), 171–203,
argues that the monster-mother is a valkyrie figure; Keith Taylor, in “Beowulf 1259a: The Inherent Nobility of Grendel’s Mother,” English Language Notes 31, no. 3 (1993/94); 13–25,
argues that she has “inherently noble status”; and Kevin Kiernan, in “Grendel’s Heroic Mother,” In Geardagum 6 (1984); 13–33, notes that the notion of the monster-mother’s heroism undermines the notion of that heroism itself; however, he confines his analysis to her monstrosity without inquiring into her gender.
See Randall Bohrer, “Beowulf and the Bog People,” 133–147, and Gwendolyn Morgan, “Mothers, Monsters, Maturation: Female Evil in Beowulf,” Journal of the Fantastic in the Arts 4 (1991): 54–68.
Signe Carlson, “The Monsters of Beowulf: Creations of Literary Scholars,” Journal of American Folklore 80 (1967): 357–364.
John Niles, Beowulf: The Poem and Its Tradition (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1983), 231.
Jacqueline Vaught, “Beowulf: The Fight at the Center,” Allegorica 5 (1980): 133.
Christine Alfano, “The Issue of Feminine Monstrosity: A Reevaluation of Grendel’s Mother,” Comitatus 23 (1992): 2.
Ibid., 3.
John Hill, The Cultural World in Beowulf (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1995), 128.
James Hala, “The Parturition of Poetry and the Birthing of Culture: The Ides Aglœcwif and Beowulf,” Exemplaria 10 (1998): 39, 44.
For example, see John Halverson, “The World of Beowulf,” Journal of English Literary History 36 (1969): 593–608;
Michael Swanton, Crisis and Development in Germanic Society, 700–800: Beowulf and the Burden of Kingship (Goppingen: Kummerle Verlag, 1982);
and Raymond Tripp, “The Exemplary Role of Hrothgar and Heorot,” Philological Quarterly 56 (1977): 123–29.
Fred Robinson, “Did Grendel’s Mother Sit on Beowulf?” in From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies Presented to E. G. Stanley, eds. Malcolm Godden et al. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 1–7.
Donald Fry, ed., Finnsburgh: Fragment and Episode (London: Methuen, 1974), provides a thorough discussion.
Martin Camargo, “The Finn Episode and the Tragedy of Revenge in Beowulf,” Studies in Philology (Texts and Studies Supplement) 78 (1981): 126.
Joyce Hill, “Þæt wæs geomuru ides!: A Female Stereotype Examined,” in New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennesey Olsen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 241.
Ibid.
Julius Zupitza, ed., Beowulf, EETS o.s.245 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1959, repr.1967), 52.
Kemp Malone, “Hygd,” Modern Language Notes 56 (1941): 356–58,
and Judith Weise, “The Meaning of the Name Hygd,” Names 34 (1986): 1–10; both comment on Hygd’s name.
Pauline Stafford, “The Queen’s Wife in Wessex,” in New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 56–78;
John Carmi Parsons, “Family, Sex, and Power: The Rhythms of Medieval Queenship,” in Medieval Queenship, ed. John Carmi Parsons (New York: St. Martin’s, 1993).
Critical speculation about and desire for Hygd as the old woman at Beowulf’s funeral pyre has been thoroughly debunked by Helen Bennett in “The Female Mourner at Beowulf’s Funeral: Filling in the Blanks /Hearing the Spaces,” Exemplaria 4 (1992): 35–49.
For such a “typical” reading of Wealhpeow and her actions within the poem as a form of peace-weaving, see L. John Sklute, “Freoðuwebbe in Old English Poetry,” in New Readings on Women in Old English Literature, eds. Helen Damico and Alexandra Hennessey Olsen (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990), 204–210, wherein he argues that “Wealhþeow’s main function in the meadhall is to walk among the retainers, to pass out drink, and to give rings” (207).
Irving, Rereading Beowulf, 74. For a similar reading of Wealhþeow as powerless to control her own fate and that of her sons, see Alain Renoir, “A Reading Context for the Wife’s Lament,” in Anglo-Saxon Poetry: Essays in Appreciation, eds. Nicholson and Frese (South Bend: Notre Dame University Press, 1975), 223–241, wherein he argues that she shows “an obsession with the protection of her doomed children” (228).
Carmen Cramer, “The Voice of Beowulf,” Germanic Notes 8 (1977): 43–44.
Leslie Stratyner, “Wealhtheow’s Threat: Beowulf 1228–1231,” In Geardagum 14 (1993): 39–44.
Rolf Bremmer Jr., “The Germanic Context of Cynewulf and Cyneheard Revisited,” Neophilologus 81 (1997): 449.
Rolf Bremmer Jr., “The Importance of Kinship: Uncle and Nephew in Beowulf,” Amsterdamer Beitrage zur Alteren Germanistik 15 (1980): 21–38.
R. W. Chambers, Beowulf:An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959), 26.
See Chambers, Beowulf, 26, n.3. Kemp Malone, in “Hrethric,” PMLA 27 (1942): 268–312, uses the same evidence to argue this sequence of events: Hrothulf killed Hrothgar; Hrethric, with the help of Beowulf and the Geats, took back the throne; later, Hrothulf returned to kill Hrethric and re-ascend the Danish throne.
Gerald Morgan, “The Treachery of Hrothulf,” English Studies 53 (1972): 23–39. His discussion of primogeniture is on pp.30–34.
Michael D. C. Drout, “Imitating Fathers: Tradition, Inheritance, and the Reproduction of Culture in Anglo-Saxon England,” Ph.D. diss., Loyola University Chicago, May 1997, 238.
Ibid., 239.
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© 2000 Mary Dockray-Miller
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Dockray-Miller, M. (2000). The Mothers of Beowulf. In: Motherhood and Mothering in Anglo-Saxon England. The New Middle Ages. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780312299637_4
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