Linguistic facts and the interpretation of Old English poetry

Bruce Mitchell

doi:10.1017/S0263675100002684

Linguistic facts and the interpretation of Old English poetry

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 September 2008

Bruce Mitchell

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Bruce Mitchell: Affiliation:
St Edmund Hall, Oxford

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In their admirable edition of The Wanderer Dunning and Bliss give the meaning ‘as when’ for swa in line 43b

pinceð him on mode pæt he his mondryhten

clyppe ond cysse, ond on cneo lecge

honda ond heafod, swa he hwilum ær

in geardagum giefstolas breac (41–4)

and defend their gloss in the following words: ‘Here literary considerations must outweigh linguistic arguments.’ And in his latest book, Stanley B. Greenfield approves: ‘Thus Bliss–Dunning…can properly say that though usage of swa meaning “as when” here “would be unique”, but [sic] “literary considerations must outweigh linguistic arguments”.’ I do not approve. I would say that Dunning and Bliss have let literary considerations outweigh not linguistic arguments, but linguistic facts. Hence my title.

Type: Research Article
Information: Anglo-Saxon England , Volume 4 , December 1975 , pp. 11 - 28

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/S0263675100002684 [Opens in a new window]
Copyright: Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1975

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^{page 11 note 1} The Wanderer, ed. Dunning, T. P. and Bliss, A. J. (London, 1969), p. 113.Google Scholar

^{page 11 note 2} The Interpretation of Old English Poems (London and Boston, 1972), pp. 118–19.

^{page 11 note 3} The word ‘linguistic’ is used in its ancient sense – ‘of language’ – and has no reference to its present-day use by practitioners of a ‘science’ which has hijacked the word and which in many of its aspects will (I believe) prove to be one of the great non-subjects of the twentieth century – though I do not deny that it has valuable techniques in the analysis and teaching of current languages. It is with pleasure and gratitude that I acknowledge my debt to Professor Peter Clemoes for his cogent criticisms of earlier drafts of this paper.

^{page 12 note 1} N&Q 215 (1970), 115.

^{page 12 note 2} ‘Lexicography and Literary Criticism: a Caveat’, Philological Essays: Studies in Old and Middle English Language and Literature in Honour of Herbert Dean Meritt, ed. Rosier, J. L. (The Hague, 1970), pp. 99–110.Google Scholar

^{page 12 note 3} But see below, Postscript, p. 28.

^{page 13 note 1} The Metre of ‘Beowulf’ (Oxford, 1962), pp. 123–7.

^{page 13 note 2} ‘Some Syntactical Problems in The Wanderer’, NM 69 (1968), 190–1.Google Scholar

^{page 13 note 3} This conclusion was reached simultaneously and independently by Dunning, and Bliss, (The Wanderer, pp. 21–3)Google Scholar and by Peter, Clemoes, ‘Mens absentia cogitans in The Seafarer and The Wanderer’, Medieval Literature and Civilization: Studies in Memory of G. N. Garmonsway, ed. Pearsall, D. A. and Waldron, R. A. (London, 1969), pp. 74–5.Google Scholar

^{page 14 note 1} ‘The Art of the Singer: Three Old English Tellings of the Offering of Isaac’, Old English Poetry: Fifteen Essays, ed. Creed, R. P. (Providence, R.I., 1967), p. 80.Google Scholar

^{page 14 note 2} The Homilies of the Anglo-Saxon Church: the First Part Containing the Sermones Catbolici or Homilies of Ælfric, ed. Benjamin, Thorpe, 2 vols. (London, 1844–1846) (cited henceforth as ‘Thorpe’) 1, 312, line 34.Google Scholar

^{page 15 note 1} The Wanderer, p. 106.

^{page 15 note 2} Thorpe 1, 290, line 12.

^{page 15 note 3} The Wanderer, p. 106.

^{page 15 note 4} Anglo-Saxon and Norse Poems, ed. Kershaw, N. (Cambridge, 1922), p. 162.Google Scholar

^{page 15 note 5} The Wanderer, p. 108.

^{page 15 note 6} ‘The Metrical Epilogue to the Old English Version of Gregory's Cura Pastoralis’, NM 70 (1969), 382, n. 4.

^{page 15 note 7} Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg, ed. Klaeber, Fr., 3rd ed. (Boston, 1936), p. xciii.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 1} Ibid. pp. 186 and 221.

^{page 16 note 2} Zandvoort, R. W., ‘Is Aspect an English Verbal Category?’, Contributions to English Syntax and Philology, ed. Behre, F., Gothenburg Stud, in Eng. 14 (1962), 19.Google Scholar

^{page 16 note 3} I must now say (June 1974) that I am convinced by F. C. Robinson's defence of S. O. Andrew's explanation of bwil dæges in Beowulf 1495b as ‘daytime’; see Old English Studies in Honour of John C. Pope, ed. Burlin, Robert B. and Irving, Edward B. Jr (Toronto, 1974), pp. 121–4CrossRef Google Scholar. But this does not affect my point; as Robinson rightly says, most critics have explained bwil dæges as either ‘the space of a day’ or ‘the large part of a day’.

^{page 17 note 1} 2nd ed. (Oxford, 1968), § 197.

^{page 17 note 2} First Readings in Old English (Wellington, 1948), § 40.

^{page 17 note 3} Sweet's Anglo-Saxon Primer, 9th ed. (Oxford, 1953), § 92.

^{page 17 note 4} An Old English Grammar, 2nd ed. (London, 1958), § 127.

^{page 17 note 5} An Historical Syntax of the English Language II (Leiden, 1966), § 808.

^{page 18 note 1} ‘The Old English Wife's Lament: an Interpretation’, NM 71 (1970), 588–9.

^{page 18 note 2} To economize in space I give only the line references to the numerous illustrative passages from Beowulf which follow. So those accompanying me further will need a copy of the text. I ask their indulgence.

^{page 18 note 3} On the use of a past indicative to refer to a future perfect, as in The Ruin 9, see my ‘Some Problems of Mood and Tense in Old English’, Neopbilologus 49 (1965), 44–6.

^{page 19 note 1} Ælfrics Grammatik und Glossar, ed. Julius, Zupitza (repr. Berlin, 1966), p. 123, lines 15–16.Google Scholar

^{page 19 note 2} Ibid. p. 124, lines 1–11.

^{page 20 note 1} I have drawn attention to two specific examples of this fallacy in operation in the sphere of Old English syntax in ‘Two Syntactical Notes on Beowulf’, Neophilologus 52 (1968), 297, and ‘The Narrator of The Wife's Lament’, NM 73 (1972), 224, n. 4.

^{page 20 note 2} An Historical Syntax 11, § 810.

^{page 21 note 1} We may note here Davis's observation (Sweet's Primer, §92) that ‘even the form with bæfde Sometimes has the sense of a simple past’.

^{page 21 note 2} (i) In principal clauses (15): 205, 665, 743, 825, 828, 883, 893, 1294, 2321, 2333, 2381, 2397, 2844, 2952 and 3046; (ii) in ac clauses (2): 694 and 804; in an ond clause (I): 2707; after nealles (I): 2145; (iii) in parenthesis (I): ?2403; (iv) in adverb clauses of time (6): 106, 220, 1472, 2104, 2630 and 3147; (v) in other subordinate clauses (6): 117, 1599, 2301, 2726, 3074 and 3165; (vi) expressing impossibility in the past (I): 1550. Total 33.

^{page 21 note 3} Ælfrics Grammatik, ed. Zupitza, , p. 124, line 9.Google Scholar

^{page 21 note 4} Thorpe 1, 148, line 10.

^{page 22 note 1} The evidence which leads me to this belief is based on a long and complicated argument which is intended to form part of my Old English Syntax, now in progress.

^{page 24 note 1} See The Wanderer, pp. 112–13 and Interpretation, pp. 118–19.

^{page 25 note 1} Essays and Poems presented to Lord David Cecil, ed. Robson, W. W. (London, 1970), p. 33Google Scholar. The line numbers are those of Dame Helen's translation.

^{page 25 note 2} ‘Old English pæt an, “only”’, NM 68 (1967), 286.

^{page 25 note 3} ‘Some Syntactical Problems’, pp. 182–7.

^{page 25 note 4} The Wanderer, ed. Leslie, R. F. (Manchester, 1966), p. 74.Google Scholar

^{page 26 note 1} Interpretation, pp. 118–19. (Perhaps I may say that the logic of the Dunning–Bliss argument about the unlikelihood of the wanderer burying a second dead lord eludes me.)

^{page 26 note 2} See my ‘The Narrator’, pp. 224–6.

^{page 27 note 1} See ibid.

^{page 27 note 2} ‘Two Non-Cruces in Beowulf’, Tennessee Stud, in Lit. 11 (1966), 151–5.

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