Beowulf and the North before the Vikings

Häftad, Engelska, 2022

AvTom Shippey,Saint Louis University) Shippey, Tom (Professor

439 kr

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Ever since Tolkien’s famous lecture in 1936, it has been generally accepted that the poem Beowulf is a fantasy, and of no use as a witness to real history. This book challenges that view, and argues that the poem provides a plausible, detailed, and consistent vision of pre-Viking history which is most unlikely to have been the poet’s invention, and which has moreover received strong corroboration from archaeology in recent years. Using the poem as a starting point, historical, archaeological, and legendary sources are combined to form a picture of events in the North in the fifth and sixth centuries: at once a Dark and a Heroic Age, and the time of the formation of nations. Among other things, this helps answer two long-unasked questions: why did the Vikings come as such a shock? And what caused the previous 250 years of security from raiders from the sea?

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2022-08-31
Mått112 x 175 x 15 mm
Vikt136 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SeriePast Imperfect
Antal sidor136
FörlagArc Humanities Press
ISBN9781802700138

Tillhör följande kategorier

Litteraturvetenskap inom Skonlitteratur
Vikingarna inom Historia och arkeologi
Dramatik inom Skonlitteratur
Arkeologiska perioder och områden inom Historia och arkeologi
Historia inom Historia och arkeologi

[Shippey asks] why the poem was written in England but set in Scandinavia. Is it a piece of propaganda? An elaborate school text to teach children Old English? Most fascinating, Shippey points to families in the northeast of England, where the poem may have been written, who for generations “named their sons in memory of Geatish royals, using names which rarely if ever show up anywhere else.”By the end of Shippey’s small book, though, the reader is so awash with his enthusiastic suppositions, his tables and dates and lineages (including the lineage of Beowulf scholars themselves, before and after Tolkien, and Shippey’s own teachers), that we are left in the mood for poetry again.