Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry

1. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • A heroic poem celebrates the exploits of a great warrior whose courage, character, and actions are held up as a model of aristocratic virtue.

2. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • The most important element of this is the notion of excellence: the way the hero surpasses or excels (literally “rises up” [Latin ex cellere]) above others.

3. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • Noblemen (men of rank) are received with grave courtesy, and noblewomen are treated with great respect.

4. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • The leader, liege, king, or lord (OE dryhten) is known for his generosity in gift-giving. • The dryhten’s followers—his gedryht, a troop of liegemen, vassals, thanes, retainers—give him loyalty in return.

5. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • They are all part of the comitatus, the warring band or group. And without the dryhten, who leads the comitatus, the warrior is nothing.

6. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • There is solemn boasting of warriors before and after battle.

7. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • There is thirst for fame, OE lof, and the good judgment of men, OE dōm, through deeds of courage and endurance.

8. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • There is interest in genealogies and the pride in a noble heredity (hence “gentleman” and “gentlelady,” from Greek gen [γεν], meaning origin [one of high birth]).

9. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • In OE heroic poetry, there is a mood of special gravitas, or weightiness. This is the great tone of OE heroic poetry: underneath everything are the shortness of life and its emptiness, except for the fame a man leaves behind.

10. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • The essence of this shortness and emptiness is expressed in the OE phrase “līf is lœne”: “life is transitory.”

11. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • Emphasis is placed on the individualhero, and his national origin is unimportant. • He is one of the heroes of Germania and as such claims the admiration of all the Teutonic peoples. • (Hence Beowulf is written in England by an English poet but celebrates a man who was a Geat [a Scandinavian/Germanic people from southern Sweden].)

12. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • The Anglo-Saxons wrote what we call alliterative poetry after its most salient feature, the system of alliteration that binds its verses together and is largely responsible for its distinctive sound.

13. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • Two poetic figures commonly found in Old English poetry are the kenning, an often formulaic phrase that describes one thing in terms of another (e.g. in Beowulf, the sea is called the whale's road) and…

14. Elements of Old English Heroic Culture and Poetry • litotes, a dramatic understatement employed by the author for ironic effect.

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