Beowulf

Introduction and historical background

Setting

• The action in the poem takes place in the late 5th-early 6th century AD (so, around the year 500).

• Originated as an old pagan story handed down through the oral tradition– The scribes of the manuscript we have today were

definitely Christian; and it is equally certain that Beowulf was composed in a Christianized England, since conversion took place in the sixth and seventh centuries.

– So, look for the mixing of pagan AND Christian elements as you read.

Beowulf is the oldest surviving English poem—it was probably composed around 750 by an unknown author.

The oldest written version of Beowulf we have is a manuscript that dates back to 1000.

(It was written in Anglo-Saxon, or Old English. Add a little French with the Norman conquest of 1066, and you’re on your way to the English we speak today.)

Although Beowulf was written in English, it’s about the Germanic ancestors of the Anglo-Saxons, the Danes and the Geats, who lived in the area now known as Sweden.

• Also, most of the action (especially at the beginning) takes place in Denmark.

• So, why are we reading this in a British Literature class?

First of all, the original inhabitants of Britain were the Celts.

(According to Google, these are what Ancient Celtic warriors looked like. They fought a lot.)

6th Century Britain

A Roman bath in Bath, England.

But then the Romans took over. They built cities and walls and other stuff. They also converted the pagan Celts to Christianity.

You can still see their influence in England today.

Hadrian’s wall, built by the Roman emperor Hadrian in the 2nd century. It marked the northern boundary of the Roman Empire in Britain.

The Romans had to leave Britain, though, to defend Rome from Germanic tribes that were invading.

This left Britain free for the taking. So in came the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

These people spoke Germanic languages. Also, they were pagan, and they de-Christianized most of Britain.

It would later be re-Christianized in the 6th and 7th centuries, though.