The Language of Hrothgar’s Sermon

Abstract

This article surveys linguistic archaisms in Hrothgar’s sermon in order to argue for the authenticity of this passage and for the unselfconscious nature of archaism in Beowulf. It furnishes evidence that undermines theories of interpolation and scribal recomposition, while lending support to the notion that the Beowulf manuscript faithfully preserves a work that one poet composed centuries earlier.

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