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The Structure and the Unity of Beowulf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 March 2021

Arthur G. Brodeur
Arthur G. Brodeur*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley 4
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Extract

“The poem of Beowulf,” Klaeber tells un, “consists of two distinct parts joined in a very loose manner and held together only by the person of the hero.” Like W. P. Ker, Klaeber finds some reason to regard the second part as s late-conceived sequel to the first, rather than as integral with it in the poet's original plan.

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 68 , Issue 5 , December 1953 , pp. 1183 - 1195
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1953

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References

page 1183 note 1 Beowulf and the Fight et F, ed. Fr. Klacbez (New York, 1950), pp li; cvil; Kez, Epic and Ramance, 2nd ed. (London, 1922), pp. 90, 117, 160-161.

page 1183 note 2 Tolkien, “Beowulf : The Monsters and the Critics,” Proc. British Acad., xxii (1936), 271-272; Chambers, Man's Unconquerable Mind (London, 1939), pp. 66-69; Melone, “The Old English Period,” in A Literury History of England, ed. Albert C. Baugh (New York and London, 1948), Book i, Part i, p. 94.

page 1183 note 3 Gang, “Approaches to Beowulf,” RES, iii (1952), 1-12; Bonjour, “Monsters Crouching and Critica Rampant,” PMLA, lxvii (March 1953), 304-312; Chambers, p. 68.

page 1186 note 4 Op. cit., pp. 1-11, cxviii, cxx-cxxi.

page 1187 note 5 Although the poetsi allusions to the dynastic quarrels of the Shieldings (ll. 1015-19; 1162b-68a; 1180b ff.; 1219-31) concern only Hrothulf's usurpation and the murder of Hrethric, he and his audience must have known of, and borne in mind, the later attack by Heoroweard (Hjörvar) on Hrothulf (Hrolf Kraki). This was ¸rtafnly Chambers' view: ses B, an I (Cambridge, 1932), pp. 29-30, 426~429, 448. It is, monover, possible that—as Chambers suggested in his edition of Bovulf (with the F Fr, ed. A. J. Wyatt, . ed., 1914, note to ll. 82-85)—ll. 82b—83a are an ⨿lusion to the burning of Hrolf's hall by H, as ll. 83b—85 allude to the fight at H between Ingeld and the Danes under Hrothgar and Hr.

page 1191 note 6 W. W. Lawrence, Beowulf and Epic T (Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press, 1928), p. 27.

page 1195 note 7 Tolkien, pp. 264-265, 274; cf. p. 260.