Digression as Criticism, Digression as Praise

7/29/2019 Digression as Criticism, Digression as Praise

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Dolom, Ram Anthonie N.

Prof. C. McEachern/Elisa Harkness

ENGL 10A: English Literature to 1660

13 May 2011

Digression as Criticism, Digression as Praise

Anglo-Saxon culture as presented inBeowulfhas a strong preoccupation with heroism;

each warrior seeks to be heroic in the hope of gaining immortality in his clans legends. The tale

of Sigemund, recited in a poem during the celebrations after Grendels defeat, sets the gold

standard of Anglo-Saxon heroism against the living Beowulfs story. Sigemund therefore

functions as a meta-Beowulf, and the Sigemund poem becomes a mise en abime. The placement

of the digression so early in the narrative creates a framing effect, whereby the entire Beowulf

narrativecontent and form, the character and the poetryis set against its standards. That

Beowulf consistently fails to live up to the paradigm is a criticism of Anglo-Saxon cultural

expectations, even as the poet adheres to Anglo-Saxon poetic tradition and thereby nostalgically

celebrates the dying culture.

The digression begins After his death / Sigemunds glory grew and grew (883-5),

confirming him as a completed instance of warrior turned immortal legend both through explicit

declaration and the success implicit in a story repeated in songs (874). He is the ideal Anglo-

Saxon, his deeds the rubric upon which all aspiring heroes are judged. It is this model that

Beowulf has to live up to, this success story he must aspire toward, as made clear by the

narrative entwining (873) the thane, teller of the Sigemund story, does to the two lives.

However, nothing ever goes as smoothly for Beowulf as the thirteen lines that retell

Sigemunds seamless victory. Beowulfs reality, like all reality, is relentlessly messy. Where


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Sigemund effortlessly impales his dragon, Beowulf is consistently met with enemies impervious

to his weapons. No blade on earth could ever damage (801-802) Grendel. The supposedly

magical sword Hrunting, which had never failed / the hand of anyone who hefted it in battle

(1460-1), refuses to bite (1524) Grendels mother. And of course when he struck hard / at the

enamelled scales ofhis dragon, Beowulf scarcely cut through (2846-7). Compare this with

Sigemund, whose sword, faced with radiant scales, was said to have plunged right through

(889-890). Scales ideally should welcome single fatal wounds, but reality forces Beowulf to

hack repeatedly.

That final declarative of the Sigemund stanza The hot dragon melted (896) adds

another difference. Beowulfs enemies never melt, but just about everything else does. Heads

melted (1122); the damascened sword blade melted (1667); and finally, Beowulfs royal

pyre / will melt no small amount of gold (3010-1). It is the artifacts of civilizationthe head,

the sword, the goldthat succumbs to decay, not the useless debris. The melted dragon drives

home the unreasonable, unrealistic effortlessness Anglo-Saxon culture demands of its heroes.

Sigemunds dragon politely cleans itself up by turning into liquid, whereas Beowulfs remains a

serpent on the ground, gruesome and vile, / lying facing him (3039-40). The closest

approximation reality manages to a self-cleaning dragon is by letting the tide's flow / and

backwash take (3131-3) the carcass; they commit the dragon to the sea, a mere parody of a

melted wyrm.

Finally, the tale of Sigemund places considerable emphasis on self-reliance. Against all

three monsters, Beowulf aims to fight alone, trusting in his own strength entirely (2540). These

three instances of solitary bravery mirror Sigemunds daring to enter [the dragons lair] all by

himself (887). For each battle, Beowulf does gather men as ready sources of emergency


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assistance, but never has recourse to them. This also mirrors Sigemund who face[d] the worst

without Fitela (887), implying his brother was stationed within ready reach. For Grendel

Beowulf requests his own men to help (432), but then fights the monster hand-to-hand (438).

Likewise, he locates the Grendels lair with help, but enters alone. However only these first two

instances are successful; the dragon overpowers him. Although / he wanted this challenge to be

one he'd face / by himself alone now the day has come / when this lord we serve needs sound

men (2642-8). Thus he breaks the mold of hero as a warrior of radical self-sufficiency.

All Beowulfs failings demonstrate two important aspects of reality: that men age and

that danger is not extinguished in one offing. Beowulf has killed two monsters already in his

prime; he has accomplished a Sigemund-like feat twice. And remembering that Grendel carried a

pouch made of dragon skins (2087), the brute was probably more fearsome than a dragon, and

therefore his defeat a much grander accomplishment. However, real evil is relentless, and its

third visitation occurs to an old and far less powerful (2379) Beowulf. Reality does not unfold

in clean dramatic singular events as Anglo-Saxon lore implies. Furthermore the reality of time

asserts itself in the sinews that once made Beowulf the mightiest man on earth (117). Hrothgar

proves to be clairvoyant in his warning: O flower of warriors, beware... For a brief while your

strength is in bloom / but it fades quickly Your piercing eye / will dim and darken; and death

will arrive, / dear warrior, to sweep you away (1758, 61-2, 6-8).

But where Beowulf ultimately fails, as all mortals must, in his project of heroism, the

Beowulfpoet puts paid to his search for immortality; and the success of the latter project elegizes

the same culture the poetrys content doubts. Sigemund owes his immortality not only to his

impossible heroism but also to the talent and effort expended at crafting his story in masterful

verse. Where Sigemund is a meta-Beowulf, the thane is the meta-poet, the paragon for all


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chroniclers of great heroes. And he is said to recite with skill, rehearsing triumphs in well-

fashioned lines (872). The poet ofBeowulfcan lay full claim to that level of virtuosity. At

Beowulfs least flattering moment, the poet cloaks the protagonist in dignifying verse. With

characteristic understatement, the poet describes Beowulfs inability to defeat the dragon, the

heros blade frantically flashing and slashing in the background (2378), thus: Beowulf was

foiled of a glorious victory (2383-4); the poet allows the composure of Anglo-Saxon verse to

hide the moment when Beowulf loses the composure of Anglo-Saxon heroism. In as much as the

translation captures the formal components of the originalalliteration, kennings, caesuraeits

beauty echoes and celebrates the majesty of Anglo-Saxon oral poetry. There is constant elegance

in his lines: sleeping the sleep of the sword (565-66), the fetters off the frost (1609), winter

went wild in the waves (516)all beautifully alliterative and evocative. Therefore,Beowulfis a

kind of paradox. The eponymous character questions the exactions of Anglo-Saxon heroism,

while the poetry conforms to Anglo-Saxon tradition; the epic is both aspersion and paean to

Anglo-Saxon culture, paying its expectations an askance look, and its poetry the high

compliment of imitation.

Work Cited

Heaney, Seamus.Beowulf: A Verse Translation. New York: Norton, 2002. Print.

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Digression as Criticism, Digression as Praise