Académique Documents
Professionnel Documents
Culture Documents
Beowulf was written in Britain but it is set in Scandinavia, and it is known only from a
single manuscript which dates from close to AD 1000. It is the oldest surviving epic poem in
British literature. Beowulf is admired for the richness of its poetry - for the beautiful sounds of
the words and the imaginative quality of the description. About a third of the words in Beowulf
are words known as kennings. Kennings are words that are in themselves metaphorical
descriptions, and were a typical feature of AS poetry.
As far as it concerns its grammar, Beowulf presents problems, because most of the early
texts are either poetic or translations. The patterns of meter and alliteration exhibited in the poem
were not imposed by the poet on his language, but were part of the language that he spoke, the
rules of which constituted his metrical grammar. The half-lines of the poem, which are the basic
units of composition, are marked by the metrical grammar for placement in the verse clause.
As a result of its antiquity and native tradition, in determining the basic structure of the
sentence, the linguists rely heavily on the texts that appear to be least modified by literary
conventions or introduction of non-native patterns through translation.
SOV order could be supplied from the earliest literary texts. We can find evidence for
OV Order in simple clauses in Beowulf too. The first three lines of the Old English
Beowulf provide strong support for the conclusion on OV order:
Hwt, w Gr-dena in gardagum
odcyninga rym gefrnon,
h elingas ellen fremedon.
Listen, we have heard of the glory of the Spear-danes,
of the kings of the people, in days of old,
how the heroes performed deeds of valor.
Order in comparative constructions. Among other patterns characteristic of OV
sentence structure are comparative constructions attested in the early texts. Beowulf
doesnt represent an exception:
t S-Gatas
slran nbben
that than-you the Sea-Geats better-one not-have
that the Sea Geats do not have a better one than you
The use of postpositions:
Scyldes eafore
Scedelandum in
Scyld's offspring in the Scandinavian lands
or
frawine folca Frslondum on
old in years