St Edward's Academic Review 2025

ST EDWARD’S, OXFORD

Naismith suggests that these lines encapsulate the ambiguities and subtleties of the poem. He writes that they ‘could mean that Beowulf can expect the judgement deserved by the righteous because he himself is righteous, or that he will be subject to judgement by the righteous – which is a very different proposition’. importance in the reading of Beowulf . The former view that it was muddleheaded paganism has been successively debunked, firstly by Tolkien and then by ensuing critics. Tolkien celebrated Beowulf as a great work of poetry, written by a poet in a Christian age who was nonetheless receptive to, and admiring in some senses, of the poetic force of the Anglo-Saxon world. Naismith argues in turn that the Beowulf poet resided in a Christian era but committed a “retrospective conversion” in the poem, attributing innate goodness to the wise pagans, while also acknowledging the differences in worldview. The ambiguities are further expressed, Naismith explains, in the lack of capitalised references to the Christian God, and the lack of named pagan deities. Beowulf is a complex, nuanced and deeply ambiguous work of poetry which offers a variety of readings, some of them even diametrically opposed. Much remains uncertain unless further sources are revealed. To conclude, I think that Beowulf is not a “pagan paper”, but the work of an author steeped in Christianity, living in a Christian era, but also, at a deeply imaginative level, fascinated by the long-gone world of paganism and prepared to find virtue and wisdom in legendary pagan heroes. It seems most likely that Beowulf was written by the unknown poet in a Christian age, a poet who was fascinated and inspired by stories from an earlier pagan world. Therefore I would say that Beowulf is a “mostly Christian paper.” The ambiguities expressed by Naismith in the interpretation of this passage are of central

moment of condemnation occurs when the Danes, terrified by Grendel’s attack, resort to sacrifices:

Wa bið þæm ðe sceal þurh sliðne nið sawle bescufan in fyres fæþm frofre ne wenan wihte gewendan

Beowulf ll 183-86

(Woe betide those who, in dire straits, shove their soul into the clutches of the fire; they can expect no comfort, never an improvement.) Naismith explains that this passage has often been cited among the interpolations, that is, it is sometimes assumed that this passage was added later to an earlier text, by a transcriber or adapter of some sort who was uncomfortable with the pagan worldview expressed in the poem. In this argument, this is a moment where the “interpolator” makes it clear how totally they condemn the pagan view. However, Naismith argues for another interpretation. The Christian sections are not interpolations, but a Christian poet has adopted a more nuanced view, revealed in 'subtle hints' throughout the poem, which accumulate to suggest that ultimately the poet feels that pagans despite their good qualities are left ‘spiritually aimless without the benefits of Christian teaching’.

There are highly ambiguous lines in the poem which occur when Beowulf dies while fighting a dragon:

Him of hwæðre gewat sawol secean soðfæstra dom

Beowulf ll 2819-2820

(His soul set out from his breast to seek the judgement of the righteous.)

Select Bibliography

Bede, The Ecclesiastical History of the English People . L.C. Jane, trans. London: Dent, 1927. R.W. Chambers, Beowulf, and the Heroic Age . London: Constable, 1925. Rory Naismith, Early Medieval Britain, c. 500–1000. Cambridge History of Britain,

J.R.R. Tolkien, “ Beowulf : the monsters and the critics” Proceedings of the British Academy 22 (1936), reprinted in Interpretations of Beowulf: a critical anthology. R.D. Fulk, ed. Bloomington & Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1991.

16