Poem of Beowulf

That was Wiglaf , the son of Veokhstan , a relative of Elvkher, a shield bearer⁵ ... [ 4, p .2 51 ]

The concept of mutual debt plays an essential role in the poem . As it combines ethical representation of different epochs . Ties of kinship - barely Do not the most important social communication . On the other hand, in the era of the late clan and early feudal system, a person is included in the emerging system of vassal relations , which determines the mutual obligations of the king and his retinue . Duties of the King on the relation to the retainers quite unambiguous , and with the greatest fullness embodied in the image of the ideal ruler . It is more difficult with the attitude of the warriors to the king . The declared ideal is Wiglaf . It is obvious that the determinants continue to be related communications : Beowulf is faithful to his overlord Higelaku, which simultaneously has to his uncle . He helps the son of Higelak and takes care of him, as befits a relative . Hrodulf condemned in the highest degree for the fact that in the fight for the Danish throne killed his cousin, son Hrodgara . Yes and Wiglaf, how it turns out, is associated with Beowulf ties, though , and distant, but kinship . Debt of vassal loyalty is a payment for the favors that the king bestows on his warrior . [ 10 ] This is how Wiglaf understands his duty, giving a speech denouncing the " little squad " for neglecting his duty :

... Truthful in vain he distinguished he would say : truly the leader with sharp swords , who endowed you, trembling you, unworthy, at the sight of an enemy .

rings of gold, not could he boast Ratna harness ... your help ... [ 4, with .2 71 ]

The thirst for glory, booty and princely awards - these are the highest values for the German hero, as they are depicted in the epic, these are the main springs of his behavior .

Every mortal will die ! -

let just anyone can live deserve

eternal glory ! For for the warrior

the best board is a decent memory ! [ 4, p . 3 05 ]

This is Beowulf's credo . When he has to deal a decisive blow to his opponent, he focuses on the thought of glory .

So hand to hand

the warrior must go, so that the glory

to acquire the eternal, not caring about life !)

Much better warrior

get away from life, than to live with the shame ! " [ 4, with .3 07 ]

Beowulf lived, confronted with evil continually from the first seconds of its appearance, but stood for something that was good and true, and he gave his life defending this his idea of right . These are are the values n roicheskoy era, embodied in " Beowulf " .

David Dumville disagrees, stating:

   'Stylistically, the last observable phases of Square minuscule are to be found in manuscripts of the works of Abbot Ælfric (fl.990--ca1010), but otherwise in manuscripts which are rarely datable. Some folios containing additions, of 990 x 1010, to the Sherborne Pontifical are in a fine Square minuscule. No book (or charter) certainly datable by its contents to after A.D. 1000 is a specimen of Square minuscule....On the other hand, the new form of vernacular minuscule [e.g., like the hand of the 1st scribe of the Beo. MS.--BMS] is first found as a bookhand in the period 1001 x 1013....The clearest demonstration is provided by the script of annal 1001 in the Parker Chronicle, which must date from 1001 x 1013'. (Dumville 61-2, 54)
   'The new minuscule was not being employed as a bookhand before the first decade of the eleventh century. Square minuscule is likely to have been in use for only a very few years after A.D. 1000. The few manuscripts, like that containing Beowulf, which display contemporaneous writing in these two successive styles of Insular minuscule must therefore have been written very early in the eleventh century. There is neither evidence nor need to attribute a lingering death to Square minuscule. It is in the highest degree unlikely that the Beowulf-manuscript was written later than the death of Æthelred the Unready (1016) or earlier than the mid-point of his reign (which fell in A.D. 997)'. (Dumville 63)

Kiernan points out '[a] closely datable example of Square insular script survives in a chirograph of Bishop Byrhteh of Worcester (1033-38) leasing land to his cniht Wulfmær' (Kiernan xvii-xviii), though Greg Rose (136-9) argues that the hand is not the same type of Square minuscule as in the Beo.-ms., or that meant by Dumville.

 Kiernan also notes a number of interesting similarities between the Beo.-ms. and the ms. containing the Blickling Homilies (Princeton, Scheide Library MS 71):
   'Another case is the Blickling Homilies manuscript....which Ker assigns the same date [990-1040] for the same reasons. It is clear that neither manuscript comes from a scriptorium where uniformity of script was enforced or even encouraged, for in both manuscripts scribes with old-fashioned, Square scripts are paired with scribes with more up-to-date, Caroline tendencies. Scholars have known for over a century about the case of literary borrowing [or, at least, sharing--BMS] between the description of Grendel's mere in Beowulf and St. Paul's vision of Hell in Homily 16.... [These common features] would be most easily explained if the two manuscripts derive from the same scriptorium'. (Kiernan xix)
   'There are paleographic and codicological reasons to suspect that they do have a common provenance. ...Max Förster observed that "The hand of the second Beowulf scribe displays in overall appearance a striking resemblance to the first scribe of the Blickling Homilies, so that both must belong to approximately the same period." Förster undoubtedly recognized the many significant differences in specific letterforms, and Ker rightly omits the two manuscripts from his tally listing closely similar hands (lvii). Another difference is that the Blickling scribe was calligraphic, paying attention to details of his letterforms, whereas the Beowulf scribe was almost crudely utilitarian. ...[but] the similarities in general aspect are more immediately evident than the specific differences'. (Kiernan xix-xx)
   'Greatly contributing to the broad paleographical resemblance between the first hand of the Blickling Homilies and the second hand of Beowulf is the virtually identical size of the writing grids.....no other manuscript in the more than 400 described in Ker's Catalogue comes as close to Beowulf as the Blickling Homilies manuscript in the combination of line numbers and grid size. If both manuscripts derive from the same scriptorium, its one telling uniformity was that it produced books with text faces of the same relative size, even when the rulings vary from 20-22 lines per page'. (Kiernan xx-xxi)
 

2.3 Ideas of evil in the poem

 

Heorotu, " Oleniy hall " ( its roof is decorated with gilded horns deer ) opposed to the wild, mysterious and full of horror rock, wasteland, swamps and caves in which live monsters . The contrast of joy and fear corresponds in this opposition to the contrast of light and darkness . Feasts and merriments in the shining golden hall take place in the light of day, as giants go out in search of bloody prey under cover of night . The enmity between Grendel and the people of Heorot is not an isolated episode ; This highlights not only the fact that the giant raged on throughout the twelve winters before that both were struck by Beowulf, but and above all samoyu interpretation of Grendel . This is not just a giant, - in his image different hypostases of evil are combined ( although, perhaps , they did not merge together ) . Monster of German mythology, Grendel , together with the fact and being delivered out of communication with the people, rejected, outcast, " the enemy " , and according to German beliefs of a person, stained themselves crimes that are punished by expulsion from the society - how to lose the human form, becoming a werewolf , hater of people . The singing of the poet and the sound of the harp, wafting from Heorota, where feasting King with his warriors, awaken in Grendel rage . But this is not enough - in the poem Grendel is called "a descendant of Cain " . On the old pagan beliefs stratify Christian representation . An ancient curse lies on Grendel , he is called a " pagan " and is condemned to hellish torments . And together with the fact he is and he is like the devil . Formation of the idea of a medieval hell at the time, when created " Beowulf " , far not completed, and, in the not devoid of contradictions in the interpretation of Grendel, we caught an interesting intermediate point of this evolution . [ 5 , p. 8 ]

Attention is drawn to the fact that the motive of gold as a visible, tangible embodiment of the warrior's luck in " Beowulf " is supplanted, obviously, under Christian influence, its new interpretation - as a source of misfortune .