The Construction of Masculinity in Beowulf
Simon Thomson
The construction of masculinity in Beowulf: hæleð under heofenum or selerædenne?
As it opens, Beowulf appears to leap confidently, taking audience with narrator into the shared world of story with wit and certainty:
Hwæt! We gardena in geardagum (l.1)
Listen! We of the Spear Danes in the past days...1
Immediately, however, this certainty becomes qualified: we are not part of an admiring audience to the glittering past, and have not heard of the gardena themselves but “hu ða... ellen fremedon” (l.2 ‘how they...displayed courage’). Once the poet drills down into the common experience, it becomes complex and difficult to grasp: a network of subtly shifting relationships. The closing lines, with their opaque eulogy, perform a very similar function by simply listing – not even what the poet thinks – but the words that his followers cwædon (l.3182 ‘spoke’) about their king. As an audience, we are persistently at a distance, never permitted to fully connect with characters and action, never part of what’s taking place, but always watching and reflecting upon it. The poet never shares an experience with us again: from line 1 onwards, the formula is always “ic gefrægn” (‘I have heard’).
This does not make the narrative world irrelevant to us. As Scyld Scefing’s body floats away, covered in gold, from his adoptive homeland, the poet’s shift from past to present forces upon us that, now as then,
men ne cunnon secgan to soðe selerædenne, hæleð under heofenum, hwa þæm hlæste onfeng. (ll.50b-52)
Men – hall counsellors or heroes beneath heaven – cannot know, or say for certain, how that cargo was received.
As when the Geats arrive in Denmark, when Grendel bursts into Heorot, when Beowulf wrestles in the lake, or when he is broken by the dragon, the audience are standing back, watching, incapable of participation.2 Lack of certainty seems to have been resonant with the poet or his audience: here placed
The construction of masculinity in Beowulf: hæleð under heofenum or selerædenne?
As it opens, Beowulf appears to leap confidently, taking audience with narrator into the shared world of story with wit and certainty:
Hwæt! We gardena in geardagum (l.1)
Listen! We of the Spear Danes in the past days...1
Immediately, however, this certainty becomes qualified: we are not part of an admiring audience to the glittering past, and have not heard of the gardena themselves but “hu ða... ellen fremedon” (l.2 ‘how they...displayed courage’). Once the poet drills down into the common experience, it becomes complex and difficult to grasp: a network of subtly shifting relationships. The closing lines, with their opaque eulogy, perform a very similar function by simply listing – not even what the poet thinks – but the words that his followers cwædon (l.3182 ‘spoke’) about their king. As an audience, we are persistently at a distance, never permitted to fully connect with characters and action, never part of what’s taking place, but always watching and reflecting upon it. The poet never shares an experience with us again: from line 1 onwards, the formula is always “ic gefrægn” (‘I have heard’).
This does not make the narrative world irrelevant to us. As Scyld Scefing’s body floats away, covered in gold, from his adoptive homeland, the poet’s shift from past to present forces upon us that, now as then,
men ne cunnon secgan to soðe selerædenne, hæleð under heofenum, hwa þæm hlæste onfeng. (ll.50b-52)
Men – hall counsellors or heroes beneath heaven – cannot know, or say for certain, how that cargo was received.
As when the Geats arrive in Denmark, when Grendel bursts into Heorot, when Beowulf wrestles in the lake, or when he is broken by the dragon, the audience are standing back, watching, incapable of participation.2 Lack of certainty seems to have been resonant with the poet or his audience: here placed