The nature of Christianity in Beowulf

Abstract

Readers of Beowulf are now in apparent agreement that the frequent Christian references in the poem fit easily and naturally into their contexts and give every sign of being simply an unconscious part of the normal language and thought of the poet. We must make the customary proviso, to be sure, that by ‘poet’ we have in mind the final reteller of some older pre-Christian story or stories now beyond recovery. The old Monkish Interpolator who used to be hauled out and execrated by scholars for smearing his despicable Christian Colouring like graffiti over a noble pagan monument has vanished like the ghost he always was. He has, however, now been replaced by equally busy Monkish Extrapolators working tirelessly to insert large sections of the Patrologia Latina somewhere between the lines of Beowulf. In doing so, they take advantage of the undeniable fact that the early Middle Ages provided an ample supply of patristic material, to argue (I think indefensibly) that it must have been put to use – that no vernacular poet could have fought off the urge to wrap any plain tale he had to tell in rich folds of typology, allegory and deeper meanings.

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