Beowulf - Close Reading 1


As I was reading the first 500 lines of Beowulf, there was one line that really stuck with me. I noticed alliteration, speech patterns, and use of literary tools such as homophones. Although I know that some of these words and phrases did not come directly out of the original text and it was the masterful work of this translator, Heaney, I do believe that some of the tools I mentioned came from the years of being passed down by word of mouth and the original scribe.
One of the lines I really enjoyed was line 129, “and mourned under morning. Their mighty prince”. Even though the beginning of the line and the end are different sentences, they are connected by alliteration. I believe that the reason for this comes from the time when the story was told through speaking and not reading. When listening to these words being spoken, it almost feels like a song or melody and it just does not have the same impact as it does when simply read silently. Another reason I really like this line is because of the two words, mourning and morning, that sound the same but are spelled different and have different meanings. The homophones strengthen the idea of Beowulf being shared out loud because when reading it silently, one would read it and think of the people being sad in the morning but the beauty in it comes from them sounding the same but having two completely different meanings.   

I know that languages can never be translated perfectly and Seamus Heaney rewrote the story as a poet, trying to make it beautiful, but I also think he tried to stay as true as he could. It is hard for me to know this as a fact since I am not familiar at all to Old English but when comparing the line from above to the original text it says, “micel morgen-swēg. Mære pēoden,”. Even without knowing the language or the pronunciations, I can see the alliteration and beauty.

Comments

  1. UnknownSeptember 7, 2017 at 9:36 PM

    Good post! I found the language super interesting as well. I have read Beowulf a few times and still find the translation between Old English and regular English so interesting. Although, I obviously don't look at the Old English much, I still see the alliteration as well. Good post!

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