Attention students: if you use any part of this essay, you must cite the source or you will be plagiarizing. You have permission to use part of my essay, provided you give appropriate credit. Thanks!
by cheri block
Until Seamus Heaney, Irish poet (and Nobel Prize winner) rendered his lyrical translation of Beowulf, I must admit that this Nordic epic story—the first English poem–sent me to the refrigerator, looking for a snack. On my second read, I found myself craving kippered herring and mead (Ur, I mean beer) as I romped along with the Geats and the Danes, following the travails of their hero Beowulf.
Let me summarize the story for those of you who haven’t read it.
Beowulf, a Geat from what is now Southern Sweden, comes across the sea to aid King Hrothgar, the Danish king whose kingdom the monster Grendel is terrorizing each night in the King’s mead-hall, Heorot. Beowulf not only kills the monster by ripping its shoulder and arm off, but also slays Grendel’s mother the next day in a watery undersea battle. Fifty years later, King Beowulf again confronts and kills another monster—this time a dragon. But in that fight, Beowulf dies.
I have ideas about the meanings of these battles, but more about those on another day.
More than the story itself, I loved the language, the kennings, figures of speech used by early Icelandic, Germanic, and Nordic storytellers and poets to name nouns by replacing them with other nouns, usually compound and always clever and creative.
Beowulf the poem abounds with kennings. For example, the sun becomes a sky-candle. King Hrothgar’s throne becomes a mead-bench. The sea is a sail-road. Mr. Heaney translates the West Saxon Old English into an earthy retelling. I suspect his Irish thirst to maintain the poem’s integrity mixed with his linguistic brilliance helped him to render this gem of a translation.
My soul-quake and realm-tickle help me to unlock the messages in Beowulf.
And I am also making up my own kennings, for fun, of course.
Can you figure out what the two above mean?
Interesting. Now that I know there is a gem translation, I might finally read the Beowulf. Old English was enough to put me off.
Let me know if you do and we can discuss it.
Surely. I’ll be delighted.
I’m relieved to hear that your mom is on the mend, and that you consequently feel once again the energy to resume writing your blog.
While I’ve never read the Beowulf, I do know that it’s allegedly written in an English so ancient, that it’s well-nigh unintelligible to the contemporary English-speaker.
I used “allegedly”, because there’s increasing evidence that the language of the Beowulf wasn’t the precursor of today’s English, but another language entirely – the language of the original Anglo-Saxon occupiers of England.
The new theory is that English always was native to the British Isles, and didn’t come out of the language of the original Anglo-Saxons.
Thus, readers of the Beowulf, many of whom are reading it solely in the pursuit of an English degree, are unaware that it was written in a totally foreign language.
This is controversial, I know, and a huge topic. Best, then, that you ignore what I’ve just written.
Not to do so would…..how shall I say…… upset the apple-cart?
Thank you. I am still here in Arizona, taking care of her. She will recover; for that, I am grateful.
We will get the police report today.
West Saxon is far away from the English we know today. The Seamus Heaney translation I read in the bilingual version, so the Old English is on the left, the English on the right.
I hope to blog about the word oferhgyd this week.
The whole topic gives me a thought-explosion.
I’m soon to start the Crossley-Holland translation in the Oxford’s Classics edition. I recently read Cook and Tinker’s 1902 translation of sections of Beowulf which refreshed my memory of the book. The Charles Kennedy translation of the battle and funeral is on deck (sometime in the next day or two). At least I’ll be able to compare translations of parts of this work.
I guess the Seamus Heaney translation is something I should read too. I don’t remember the name of the translator of the edition I read in High School. It was probably in a Penguin or Signet edition. I never got back to Beowulf again in college for some reason.
Soul-quake and realm-tickle….
I’ll be working on these two in my dreams and all day tomorrow unless somebody beats me.
Maybe after you make the 7 minute opening statement tonight, you can get back to figuring them out; that is, before your next 2 minute summary.
If the debate becomes dry and banal, you could throw in a kenning about California. What would that be?
Soul-quake = brainstorm
Still working on realm-tickle
Soul-quake=wonder
The Heaney translation does not have the lyricism of earlier translations.
Sorry, Phil, reference the 4th paragraph in your comment- that isn’t the case.
Oft ic wib winde feohtan = Often I must fight against the wind.
The following notes may be of interest.
The poem Beowulf was written sometime between the middle of the 7th and the end of the 10th centuries in the language we call Anglo-Saxon or Old English.
We don’t know who the author was, but he was a Christian and was familiar with Scandinavian folktales, both Norse and Anglo-Saxon and familiar with ships and the sea.
It is an epic poem or saga (both meaning a long narrative poem telling of heroic deeds). The poem is an elaborate tale told in beautifully phrased language. The story is set in a pagan society, which is governed by a heroic code of honour.
There is only one manuscript of the poem, a copy made in the 10th century. This manuscript survived a fire in the 18th century and is now kept in the British Library, London.
The poem was written in England after the Vikings had come, but the events it describes are set in Scandinavia two or three hundred years before. Some of the kings were actual historical people. The hero, Beowulf, not an historical person, is a prince and a warrior in the land of the Geats, a territory that is in what is now southern Sweden.
Early in the poem Beowulf crosses the sea to the land of the Danes to clear their country of a man-eating monster, a huge troll called Grande. Beowulf kills Grendel and Grendel’s mother who is also a monster, and returns home in triumph where he eventually becomes king and rules for 50 years. Then a dragon comes and terrorises the countryside. Beowulf considers it his duty to kill the dragon to save his people. He does this but is also killed.
The poem sidesteps several times from the main Beowulf story: see lines 883 – 914; and lines 1070 – 1158. In these asides a minstrel chants poems of other stories as part of the celebration of Beowulf’s achievements.
In lines 883 – 914 the minstrel tells of a folk hero called Sigemund or Sigurd who slayed a dragon. This folk hero also known as Siegfried appears in German stories as well and was used by the German composer Wagner in his operas in the late 19th century.
In lines 1070 – 1158 the minstrel tells of a fight between the Danes and Frisians at the stronghold of Finn, the Frisian king. In this story, we are told of a society that believes that the kin of a slain person are to be compensated for the death of their kinsman either by slaying the killer in turn or by receiving ‘wergild’ – a price in gold. This story shows us what fate (Old English ‘wyrd’) meant to the characters both in the Finn story and in the main action of Beowulf itself. The warriors believe themselves bound to a code of loyalty and bravery, bound to seek glory in the eyes of other warriors. The little nations are grouped around their lord, the greater nations want war and menace the little nations, a lord dies, the smaller nation is defenceless without a strong leader, the enemy strikes, vengeance for the dead is sought, and bloodshed leads to further bloodshed.
The threat to King Hrothgar’s realm comes from within, from the marshes and from the bottom of the mere from where Grendel and his mother trawl and scavenge. But threat also comes from without, from the Heathobards, whom the Danes have defeated in battle and from whom they can therefore expect retaliation (see lines 2020 – 2069).
Hygelac, lord of the Geats, gets involved in a war with the Swedish King Ongentheow. Two of his thanes (lines 2484 – 2489) actually kill Ongentheow, but Hygelac is blamed (2922 –3003) and is known as the killer. Beowulf eventually succeeds Hygelac and his son, but we know at the end there will be war between the Geats and Swedes again after Beowulf dies.
The themes are: death, divine power, horror, triumph, disgrace, personal devotion and fame.
When the poem was written, England was a well organised nation. They were Christian and worshipped God in churches. Many of them may never have actually seen some of the things of which the poet speaks; the gold, the jewels, the tapestries, some of the weapons. Pagan beliefs would have been as strange to them as they are to our modern times. They were separated from Scandinavia by open sea, at a time when distance meant more than it does today and many (this was after Viking settlement) would never have been over the sea.
With any good story an imagination is needed so, for example, beasts can seem real. The reader is, of course, free to interpret scenes as he or she wishes.
Hi Kate,
Thanks for adding some excellent backround to the discussion.
Are you saying that previous editions were more lyrical than Heaney’s? Or that you believe that Heaney’s isn’t lyrical?
Very useful notes, Kate.
Now, this is bothering me (and yes, I did once drift off during the debate, smarting that I got soul-quake wrong.)
I can’t figure out realm-tickle.
I have no ken for kennings. No ken do. I ken-cede defeat.
I wasn’t able to watch or listen to the debate.
Not that I didn’t try…mightily. Still here in Arizona. Hope you were pleased with the experience.
Realm-tickle=imagination
Possible kennings for today’s poets
day-clock, day-compass = sun
night-clock = stars
night-compass = Polaris
shadow-clock = sundial
sky-dwelling = apartment
sky-status = penthouse
binary-reader = Kindle
I love these. Were you one of my students, you most certainly would earn an A.
A poetry teacher out there, pondering the night-clock in hopes of dreaming up a perfect lesson, one that will stimulate their realm-tickles, ought to use your list as a starting point.
I have instruments for telling the time by the stars and using the sun as a clock and a compass. I’m now thinking about using kennings in my journals when I record my readings with my shadow-clocks and star-dialers.
Debate: word-duel/wit-duel
Blog: thought-stream
Twitter: thought-gush/tweet-string
WordPress and Facebook ARE kennings!
It strikes me that this kenning thing is inherent to Germanic languages.
If you take English words with Norman French or Greek roots and “translate” them into Germanic roots, you get … kennings.
Conversation: together-turning
adumbrate: fore-shadow
xenophobic: foreign-fearing
effect: out-come
Hi,
Yes, as I understand, kennings originated in early Germanic languages.
And litotes too
When I was reading a Beowulf translation today, I also noticed that kennings also describe the action of the thing and change through the poem. The dragon is referred to by numerous similar kennings that tell the reader that it is the dragon, and what the dragon is doing, or characteristics of the dragon, where it is, or how it acts. Very interesting.
I am thinking about the dragon for an essay I must write. Cool that you would note Beowulf’s dragon in your comment.
So, what do you make of the dragon? I have just read that whole section again and again on the plane.
Absolutely beautiful set of lines…I am taken with the dragon. Not sure that Beowulf really slayed him.
My goodness!! This has helped me further my understanding of kennings quite a bit. Thank you. I never thought that realm-tickle could be imagination
Hi Sari,
You know, since August over 750 people have read this post (probably students assigned to find kennings in Beowulf). You are the only person to acknowledge my post. Thank YOU!
Thanks for this post! Heaney employs these constructions throughout his poetry. I think it must be one of his trademarks.
I love his use of hyphens, not just for kennings but generally. It gives his poetry a strong lyricism.
Hi Tom,
I did not know that. Can you recommend one of your favorite Heaney poems in which he does this?
I was completely taken by his translation of Beowulf, one of my favorite pieces of literature EVER.
Everything about the story captivates me. Almost motivated me to go back and learn Old English…
Oh, there are so many examples!
The most common construction he uses is a modified participle acting as an adjective.
For example, in “The Forge”:
http://rinabeana.com/poemoftheday/index.php/2010/01/12/the-forge-by-seamus-heaney/
“the anvil’s short-pitched ring”
“leather-aproned”
This poem also has a wonderful opening line.
Or in “North”:
http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/poem.html?id=178021
“ocean-deafened voices”
“thick-witted couplings”
“North” also has a nice kenning – “word-horde”.
As does “The Blackbird of Glanmore”:
http://s2-campgreenlake.blogspot.com/2009/05/blackbird-of-glanmore.html
“Hedge-hop” = blackbird
Haha, you only asked for one! Sorry, I’m a big Heaney fan.