Bid ye the war-famed a mound to make 5 Which shall for remembrance to mine own people He put from his neck the golden ring, The young spear-warrior, his gold-adorned helm, Of the Waegmundings. Weird carried away all Of mine own kinsmen at the time appointed, Different ΙΟ 15 20 Different explanations have been given for the events of the poem. Some people believe that the story is based on fact, there having been, at some time, a real Northern hero who delivered the people from great dangers. The superhuman powers that are attributed to this hero would hence be due to the imagination of the scops who handed down the stories. They lived in the "childhood of the race," when all things were deemed possible. of the Poem It may be, as other students of the subject suggest, that the fights that Beowulf had with the three monsters are to be taken allegorically. Thus the fight with Grendel is really to represent the overcoming of the dangers from malaria through the draining of the stagnant pools and marshes. The fight with the seawife is the conquering of the power of the ocean when man discovered how to make it serve his needs, or, perhaps, how to hold it back by means of dykes. The fight with the fire-drake is to represent the struggle to control other forces of nature that endangered man's existence-possibly to fight, successfully, forestfires. The poem consists of over 3180 lines. The Anglo-Saxons had no knowledge of rhyme, but their poetry had rhythm, produced by a certain arrangement of accents, and by consonantal alliteration, or the use of the same consonant to begin two or more 1 Lines 2799-2818. words in a line. Each line of Anglo-Saxon poetry had four strong accents and was divided into two parts by a pause in the middle. In the first half the two most important words usually began with the same consonant. That same letter was also used to begin an important word in the second half of the The Poetic line. "Misery of mind! Man oft sat." "Grendel going, God's anger bore." In danger of doom lay down in the hall." Although alliteration is not always observed in translations of "Beowulf," it characterized the original poem. The Anglo-Saxons.-If it is desired, further work may be done on the Anglo-Saxons as a people,-their racial characteristics; their reasons for coming to Britain; their effect on the later language and literature of England. Material for this work may be found in any good history of England, or in the chapters dealing with the Anglo-Saxon period in any of the literary histories. Paradise Lost. The second great epic of England was the deliberate work of one writer, Milton. "Paradise Lost" is, therefore, a literary epic. It is based on the first three chapters of Genesis and sets forth the circumstances and motives which led Satan to go to the Garden of Eden, the temptation and fall of Adam and Eve, their expulsion from Paradise, and the plan of redemption through Christ. The setting is stupendous. Milton has taken as a background for his mighty scenes all of Heaven, Chaos, the planetary Universe, and Hell. "Paradise Lost" has been called the greatest single poem in the English language. It is wonderful for the magnificent word-pictures presented. Paradise Regained. This poem is the natural sequel of "Paradise Lost." As Paradise is lost when Adam and Eve yield to the temptation of Satan, so Paradise is regained when Christ, although tempted in all points the same as man, resists the tempter. "Paradise Regained" is founded on the first eleven verses of the fourth chapter of St. Matthew. Although Milton regarded this work as his masterpiece, it is ranked below "Paradise Lost" in the judgment of the rest of the world. Drake. The last English great epic, "Drake," written in 1906, is the only successful completed representative, in modern times, of this type of literature. The author, Alfred Noyes, was but twenty-six years of age when he wrote it. The central figure is the great English Admiral, Sir Francis Drake, but the poem sums up Elizabethan civilization as a whole. The poem lacks, however, the supernatural element usually found in great epics. It may not be possible to study this epic in class, but it will prove very interesting and profitable outside reading. A few lines, taken from the Exordium, will serve to show something of the spirit with which the poem is written: When on the highest ridge of that strange land, Drake and his band of swarthy seamen stood With dazed eyes gazing round them, emerald fans Of gorgeous red anana bloom obscured Their sight on every side. Illustrious gleams Of rose and green and gold streamed from the plumes The scarlet scarves around the tawny throats, The bright brass ear-rings in the sun-black ears, 5 10 Opposed their barbarous bravery to the noon: 15 Even those mighty hearts upon the verge Of the undiscovered world. Behind them lay The old earth they knew. In front they could not see What lay beyond the ridge. Only they heard Cries of the painted birds troubling the heat 20 And shivering through the woods; till Francis Drake Plunged through the hush, took hold upon a tree, The tallest near them, and clomb upward, branch by branch, Vowed that, God helping, he would one day plough 30 1 See note on the new American great epic, by John Neihardt, at end of this section. 2 Used by permission of, and by special arrangement with, the Frederick A. Stokes Company, owners of the copyright. |