Beowulf as an Epic
The Old English Beowulf holds a unique place as the oldest epic narrative in any modern European tongue. Although Beowulf is primal, nothing is primitive about it. It is above all a work of artifice; though if we accept C. S. Lewis’s classification of “epics of growth” and “epic of art”, Beowulf is obviously an epic of growth. Modern scholars like Milman Parry and A. B. Lord, working on the origins of epic poetry have come to the conclusion that like other great epics of the ancient civilizations, Beowulf was also an oral epic, written down by trained clerics. Like other oral epics, Beowulf has a formulaic character, using words, ideas and other stylistic features. The same formulaic character can be found in the epics of Homer. But Beowulf has other important epic qualities. The Iliad is also a striking example of the unity, which is essential to epic. Aristotle, who insisted on the principle of unity in epic, pointed to the Iliad as a perfect example of a poem, in which everything...