FROM BEOWULF TO ST. GUTHLAC: THE INFLUENCE OF EARLY CHRISTIAN THEOLOGIANS ON THE PORTRAYAL AND CHARACTERIZATION OF HERO FIGURES IN OLD ENGLISH POETRY

Program year: 1989/1990Digitized from print original stored in HDRIt is not simply the retelling of ancient tales of heroes at war with other heroes. It is a literature that describes the conflict of humankind with the powers of darkness and evil, and it belongs to an age in which nature was felt as unsubdued, in which the elements were ever dangerous and unfriendly. Everywhere in Old English Literature we have the sense of people trying to survive in a savage and menacing world--in the scenery, the stormy seas, the dark forests, the wild unpenetrated country that lay beyond the boundaries of their small tribal lands. In the foreground of the Old English landscape are the shore, the bold headlands, the wind swept sea. Beyond is a vague region of gloomy fens and shaggy woods, where there is neither sunshine nor warmth and where terror overpowers beauty. The world here is stark and uncompromising and the literature that has come to us across the centuries tells of life filled with strain and pressure, of days and nights spent tossing upon the sea--the bitter North Sea--in open vessels; of unremitting battles with foes human and inhuman; the fierce quarrels, the ferocity of invasion and war, the bodily strain, the sleepless mental vigilance, the rage and storm and slaughter, the uncouth terrors. Nowhere was there a harbor of refuge, nowhere a place of lasting peace or beauty--and the only hope were the heroes who through deeds of valor and unsurpassed bravery might keep the forces of evil and destruction at bay. In many ways the continuing appeal of Old English Literature ln modern times lies ln its presentation of heroes who struggle against deadly odds. Their deeds are projected in images of such vividness and power that they at once attain a strange familiarity, and emerge before the reader like bright-edged hallucinations, with a clarity so intense that intellect and imagination are immediately engaged. When we ask why we are so strangely stirred by words written hundreds of years ago, by a body of literature that seems remote in date and thought, we find that it is because on the one hand, it presents emotions that are universal, stripping the images and stories of all that was peculiar to time and place; and secondly, it possesses the power of visualization, the ability to place before the mental vision of the reader not only tales of heroic deeds, but also the eternal conflict between good and evil as seen by a society that has long ago faded away into the mists of an almost forgotten history. It was a society that was rude ln nature, savage ln its features of daily life, its people barely surviving ln bleak and dismal surroundings. Yet it also expressed a certain magnificence of humanity, a willingness to strive for better things in spite of all, and it produced a body of literature unique in its variety and excellence. The heroes presented in Old English Literature are the product partly of an ancient culture which had come to England with the Germanic invasions of the fifth and early sixth centuries, and partly of the transforming influences of the age in which it was written, an age of change and growth during which Germanic strains were slowly modified by the influence and culture of the Christian Church. How this process of modification may have influenced the characterizations of the hero figures presented ln Old English Literature is the subject matter of this senior honors thesis. If there is any virtue in the work presented here, it lies not so much in originality of interpretation, but rather in originality of approach. A number of scholarly studies have established the impact of the Christian Church on the literature of the Old English period. And some few have put forth the theory that the Early Church Fathers established a literary program that served as a guide to the Anglo-Saxons as they adapted the oral poetry of their Germanic ancestors to the themes and lessons of Christian theology. Yet no one has sought to test this theory through an examination of the several hero figures that are extant in this literature. This thesis seeks to provide such a test, and to offer conclusions which, it is hoped, the reader will find both plausible and helpful as a basis for further study. It is also hoped that the analysis presented here has not sacrificed a map of the forest for a wandering among trees