Talk:Beowulf

Women in Beowulf

Chiswick Chap and page watchers, I have just removed a section on Anglo-Saxon Feminine Condition in Beowulf added by D.P. Halder, which seemed to be citing their own work, however I think a similar section would be useful. Any ideas? There is some relevant material in Grendel's mother and Wealhtheow. TSventon (talk) 10:18, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Ah, the softer, sweeter side of Grendel's Mum. I recall an article in Scientific American about the kinder, gentler picture of Tyrannosaurs painted by some recent research ... not. Well, I guess that there are several relevant factors to consider. The first is that tens of thousands of primary research papers have been written about (or in this case, around) Beowulf, and even ignoring WP:PRIMARY for a moment, we certainly can't begin to name and cite them all. So perhaps the GA criterion "...the main points" is key here: we have covered those, and the feminine condition isn't one of them. That such things have been touched upon in the two subsidiary articles is noteworthy, but it doesn't of itself mean we have to do so here; the point of subsidiary articles is to cover subsidiary matters, which they evidently do in this case. So, back to PRIMARY. It's not forbidden to cite one's own work, but it definitely isn't a good idea when the work is recent primary research and at a tangent to the main subject of an article. For what it's worth, I think we shouldn't cover it here, for the reasons just given, though if at some stage there's enough reliable material - secondary sources like review articles and textbooks - for someone to write Feminine Condition in Beowulf, then of course we can add a "Further" link over here. Chiswick Chap (talk) 12:19, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

@TSventon Thank you. I did not have that idea! I will abide by this for my next contribution! D.P. Halder (talk) 13:57, 23 June 2022 (UTC)

Geats, Liuzza, Shippey, and other scholars

Well, the long-standing text has just been cut, twice, contrary to consensus, complete with an accusation that the agreed and formally-reviewed text is POV. Let's put that down to the extreme heatwave across Europe. I have reverted to a suitable status quo ante per custom, it is not acceptable to edit-war an position into an article. Let's take a look at the scholarly texts, one after the other. (in work) ... Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:06, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Shippey: "Liber monstrorum... 'And there are monsters of an amazing size, like King Hygelac, who ruled the Geats and was killed by the Franks...' Significantly, this author thinks that 'Huiglacus' was a king not of the Danes but of the 'Getae', convincingly identified with the Gautar of south Sweden and the Geatas or 'Geats' of Beowulf." (p. 42) Shippey, Tom A. (2018). Laughing shall I die: lives and deaths of the great Vikings. London. pp. 42–45. ISBN 978-1-78023-909-5. OCLC 1004761123.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)

Shippey: "[The hero Beowulf] is quite sure that Hygelac is king not of the Danes, nor the Getae, but of the Geatas, who in Old Norse would be the Gautar, inhabiting what are now the south Swedish provinces centred on Gothenburg." (p. 43)

Article text as it was till today): Roy Liuzza comments that the poem is neither myth nor folktale, but is set "against a complex background of legendary history ... on a roughly recognizable map of Scandinavia", and notes that the Geats of the poem may possibly correspond with the Gautar, meaning their home would be Götaland in the south of modern Sweden; or they might be the legendary Getae without such a fixed home. In short, it is "frustratingly ambivalent": neither purely mythical, nor "historical enough to furnish clear evidence for the past it poetically recreates".(pp 14–15)

Liuzza: "we may tentatively identify Beowulf's tribe of Geats with the historical Gautar of southern Sweden. The mythical tribe of Scyld soon yields to the historical figure of Hrothgar, and a number of the poem's characters—among them Heremod, Hrothgar, Ingeld, and Hygelac—are mentioned in other sources and were certainly regarded as figures of history rather than fable. The Frankish historian Gregory of Tours mentions the disastrous raid of Hygelac and dates it around the year 520". (pp 14–15)

Just in case anybody feels that Liuzza and Shippey are being unfairly privileged, here's a much older scholar, David Wright in 1973 (Beowulf, Panther Books):

Wright: "Another effect of what are called 'the historical elements' in Beowulf – the subsidiary stories of the Danes and the Geats – is to give the poem greater depth and verisimilitude. Hrothgar, the Danish king, is a 'historical' character, and the site of his palace of Heorot has been identified with the village of Leire on the island of Seeland in Denmark. The Geat king Hygelac really existed, and his unlucky expedition against the Franks ... is mentioned by Gregory of Tours ... We must remember that to Anglo-Saxons of the eighth century the main events of the wars and feuds of the Danes, Swedes, and Geats of the sixth century were probably quite as familiar as those of the Napoleonic wars are to a modern reader. Beowulf, Grendel, and the Dragon clearly belong to 'the mythical elements' – though it is worth noting that these distinctions might have appeared unimportant to the audience of Beowulf." (p. 15)

There seem to be two points here:

1) There is something like consensus among scholars, not just Liuzza and Shippey, that the Geatas have some kind of identification with the Gautar, modern Gothenburg/Götaland, though different scholars vary in how firmly they'd write Geatas=Gautar. Shippey does not say, for instance, that he exactly believes what the Beowulf hero does, nor what the author of Liber monstrorum says, but he clearly thinks it plausible, as Liuzza does.

2) There is in Liuzza's view, and he seems very close to the scholarly consensus here (as sketched by Wright also), an ambivalence, a fuzzy grey area in the poem, between definite historical figures like Hrothgar and Hygelac, definitely mythic elements like Grendel and the dragon, and vaguely historical details like some of the deeds of the historical figures, which might or might not have been invented to suit the poem's purposes. I don't suppose anybody will claim that Grendel and the dragon are historical, whereas figures like Hygelac seem well enough accepted as real. The scope for contention, therefore, must be how fuzzy and grey the fuzzy grey area is in between these poles, whether Hygelac did in fact do this and that, or whether as Liuzza says, Beowulf "poetically recreates" the past.

It seems to me that the existing text is in fact moderate, restrained, encyclopedic, and a reasonable summary of something that scholars have offered dozens, maybe hundreds, of points of view upon. Personally I'm happy to let Liuzza sum up the field, which he seems to do remarkably neutrally; but we can cite more scholars if editors feel it's necessary. Chiswick Chap (talk) 10:40, 17 July 2022 (UTC)

Single-authorship claim is problematic

My edit that added a clause to single-authorship claim was reverted because "this is not the place to publicise a primary research article". I am new to the whole editing thing, but I think nothing is being "publicised". The Guardian piece (which is cited in the article now) reports on the paper in NHB. The response that I cited was peer reviewed and published by the editors of the same NHB. The question is as valid as the original claim and readers have a right to evaluate them together. Also, the article is full of primary research citations (?). Perechenpchel (talk) 15:03, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

We certainly don't want to continue adding primary reports; it's far better to work from reliable secondary sources. The Guardian article makes clear that scholars have differing views - what a surprise - so let's just say that, it's quite enough for that purpose. Maybe in five or ten years' time there'll be a review article analysing the question using all the modern research. I don't know if you are associated with the research article but editors will immediately wonder about that matter also; the citing of one's own work is deprecated. Chiswick Chap (talk) 18:59, 10 September 2022 (UTC)

It is clearer now; thank you for keeping at least some uncertainty in the text. The reason I thought adding the reference was because the problem with the original study does not only imply a "disagreement", but very specific methodological and analysis issues. Perechenpchel (talk) 13:48, 16 September 2022 (UTC)

British English

Chiswick Chap, I changed four inconsistent -ize spellings to -ise yesterday, one of them had just been added by a new editor. I believe this was correct as the article largely uses -ise rather than -ize spellings and has been tagged with Template:Use British English rather than Template:Use Oxford spelling since 2014. In 2020 you tagged this talk page with Template:British English rather than Template:British English Oxford spelling. TSventon (talk) 16:24, 24 January 2024 (UTC)

Many thanks. That seems best to me, as it minimises confusion with AE. Chiswick Chap (talk) 16:31, 24 January 2024 (UTC)