Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T01:32:35.578Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Old Norse Influence on the Language of Beowulf: A Reassessment

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2019

Leonard Neidorf  and
Rafael J. Pascual
Leonard Neidorf*
Affiliation:
Nanjing University
Rafael J. Pascual*
Affiliation:
University of Oxford
*
Nanjing University, Department of English, 163 Xianlin Avenue, Nanjing, Jiangsu 210023, China [[email protected]]
University of Oxford, Faculty of English Language and Literature, St Cross Building, Manor Road, Oxford OX1 3UL, UK [[email protected]]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This article undertakes the first systematic examination of Frank’s (1979, 1981, 1987, 1990, 2007b, 2008) claim that Old Norse influence is discernible in the language of Beowulf. It tests this hypothesis first by scrutinizing each of the alleged Nordicisms in Beowulf, then by discussing various theoretical considerations bearing on its plausibility. We demonstrate that the syntactic, morphological, lexical, and semantic peculiarities that Frank would explain as manifestations of Old Norse influence are more economically and holistically explained as consequences of archaic composition. We then demonstrate that advances in the study of Anglo-Scandinavian language contact provide strong reasons to doubt that Old Norse could have influenced Beowulf in the manner that Frank has proposed. We conclude that Beowulf is entirely devoid of Old Norse influence and that it was probably composed ca. 700, long before the onset of the Viking Age.

Keywords

BeowulfOld NorseOld Englishmutual intelligibilityhistory of English
Type
Articles
Information
Journal of Germanic Linguistics , Volume 31 , Issue 3 , September 2019 , pp. 298 - 322
Copyright
© Society for Germanic Linguistics 2019 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Alexander, Michael. 2003. Beowulf: A verse translation. London: Penguin.Google Scholar
Amos, Ashley Crandell. 1980. Linguistic means of determining the dates of Old English literary texts. Cambridge, MA: Medieval Academy of America.Google Scholar
Andersson, Theodore M. 1983. Review of Colin Chase, 1981, The dating of Beowulf. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. University of Toronto Quarterly 52. 288–301.Google Scholar
Antonsen, Elmer H. 1975. A concise grammar of the older runic inscriptions. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Antonsen, Elmer H. 1981. On the syntax of the older runic inscriptions. Michigan Germanic Studies 7. 50–61.Google Scholar
Baker, Peter S. (ed.) 1995. Beowulf: Basic readings. New York, NY: Garland.Google Scholar
Baker, Peter S (ed.). 2000. The Beowulf reader. New York, NY: Garland.Google Scholar
Baugh, Albert C., & Thomas, Cable. 2002. A history of the English language. 5th edn. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Bjork, Robert E. 2001. Scandinavian relations. A companion to Anglo-Saxon literature, ed. by Philip, Pulsiano & Elaine, Treharne, 388–400. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bjork, Robert E., & Anita, Obermeier. 1997. Date, provenance, author, audiences. A Beowulf handbook, ed. by Robert, E. Bjork & John, D. Niles, 13–34. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.Google Scholar
Bliss, Alan Joseph. 1967. The metre of Beowulf. Revised edn. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Bredehoft, Thomas A. 2014. The date of composition of Beowulf and the evidence of metrical evolution. Neidorf 2014c, 97–111.Google Scholar
Bremmer, Rolf H. Jr. 2009. An introduction to Old Frisian. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Brunner, Karl. 1965. Altenglische Grammatik: Nach der angelsächsischen Grammatik von Eduard Sievers. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cable, Thomas. 1981. Metrical style as evidence for the date of Beowulf. Chase 1981, 77–82.Google Scholar
Campbell, Alistair. 1971. The use in Beowulf of earlier heroic verse. England before the Conquest: Studies in primary sources presented to Dorothy Whitelock, ed. by Peter, Clemoes & Kathleen, Hughes, 283–92. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chambers, Raymond Wilson. 1959. Beowulf: An introduction to the study of the poem with a discussion of the stories of Offa and Finn. 3rd edn., with a supplement from Charles Leslie Wrenn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Chase, Colin. 1981. The dating of Beowulf. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Clark, George. 1992. Beowulf: The last word. Old English and New: Studies in language and linguistics in honor of Frederic G. Cassidy, ed. by Joan, H. Hall, Nick, Doane, & Dick, Ringler, 15–30. New York, NY: Garland.Google Scholar
Cronan, Dennis. 1991. ‘Lofgeorn’: Generosity and praise. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 92. 187–194.Google Scholar
Cronan, Dennis. 2003. Poetic meanings in the Old English poetic vocabulary. English Studies 84. 397–425.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cronan, Dennis. 2004. Poetic words, conservatism, and the dating of Old English poetry. Anglo-Saxon England 33. 23–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Damico, Helen. 2015. Beowulf and the Grendel-kin: Politics and poetry in eleventh-century England. Morgantown, WV: West Virginia University Press.Google Scholar
Dance, Richard. 2003. Words derived from Old Norse in Early Middle English: Studies in the vocabulary of the South-West Midland texts. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.Google Scholar
Dance, Richard. 2004. North Sea currents: Old English-Old Norse relations, literary and linguistic. Literature Compass 1 ME 117. 1–10.Google Scholar
Dryer, Matthew S. 1992. The Greenbergian word order correlations. Language 68. 81–138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dumville, David N. 1988. Beowulf come lately: Some notes on the paleography of the Nowell Codex. Archiv für das Studium der neueren Sprachen und Literaturen 225. 49–63.Google Scholar
Ecay, Aaron, & Susan, Pintzuk. 2016. The syntax of Old English poetry and the dating of Beowulf. Old English philology: Studies in honour of R. D. Fulk, ed. by Leonard, Neidorf, Rafael, J. Pascual, & Tom, Shippey, 144–171. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Evans, Stephen S. 1997. The heroic poetry of Dark-Age Britain: An introduction to its dating, composition, and use as a historical source. Lanham, MD: University Press of America.Google Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 1979. Old Norse memorial eulogies and the ending of Beowulf. The Early Middle Ages, ed. by William, H. Snyder, Acta 6, 1–19. Binghamton, NY: Center for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies.Google Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 1981. Skaldic verse and the date of Beowulf. Chase 1981, 123–140.Google Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 1987. Did Anglo-Saxon audiences have a skaldic tooth? Scandinavian Studies 59. 338–355.Google Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 1990. Anglo-Scandinavian poetic relations. ANQ 3. 74–79.Google Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 2007a. A scandal in Toronto: The dating of ‘Beowulf’ a quarter century on. Speculum 82. 843–864.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 2007b. Terminally hip and incredibly cool: Carol, Vikings, and Anglo-Scandinavian England. Representations 100. 23–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frank, Roberta. 2008. Sharing words with Beowulf. Intertexts: Studies in Anglo-Saxon culture presented to Paul E. Szarmach, ed. by Virginia, Blanton & Helene, Scheck, 3–15. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 1982. Dating Beowulf to the Viking Age: Review of Colin Chase, 1981, The dating of Beowulf. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press. Philological Quarterly 61. 341–359.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 1992. A history of Old English meter. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 2007a. Archaisms and neologisms in the language of Beowulf. Studies in the history of the English language, vol. III: Managing chaos: Strategies for identifying change in English, ed. by Christopher, M. Cain & Geoffrey, Russom, 267–287. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 2007b. Old English meter and oral tradition: Three issues bearing on poetic chronology. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 106. 304–324.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 2007c. The etymology and significance of Beowulf’s name. Anglo-Saxon 1. 109–136.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. (ed. & trans.). 2010. The Beowulf manuscript. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D. 2014. Beowulf and language history. Neidorf 2014c, 19–36.Google Scholar
Fulk, Robert D., Robert, E. Bjork, & John, D. Niles (eds.). 2008. Klaeber’s Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg. Toronto, ON: University of Toronto Press.Google Scholar
Gade, Kari Ellen. 1995. The structure of Old Norse dróttkvætt poetry. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.Google Scholar
Greenberg, Joseph H. 1963. Some universals of grammar with particular reference to the order of meaningful elements. Universals of language, ed. by Joseph, Greenberg, 73–113. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Healey, Antonette di Paolo, with Dorothy, Haines, Joan, Holland, David, McDougall, Ian, McDougall, and Xin, Xiang. 2004. The dictionary of Old English corpus in electronic form. Toronto, ON: Dictionary of Old English Project.Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1987. Refurbishing our foundations. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hofmann, Dietrich. 1955. Nordisch-Englische Lehnbeziehungen der Wikingerzeit. Copenhagen: Einar Munksgaard.Google Scholar
Hutcheson, B. R. 2004. Kaluza’s law, the dating of Beowulf, and the Old English poetic tradition. Journal of English and Germanic Philology 103. 297–322.Google Scholar
Jespersen, Otto. 1912. Growth and structure of the English language. 2nd edn. Leipzig: B. G. Teubner.Google Scholar
Kastovsky, Dieter. 1992. Semantics and vocabulary. The Cambridge history of the English language, vol. 1: The beginnings to 1066, ed. by Richard, Hogg, 290–407. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kemenade, Ans van. 2002. Word order in Old English prose and poetry: The position of finite verb and adverbs. Studies in the history of the English language: A millennial perspective, ed. by Donka, Minkova & Robert, P. Stockwell, 355–373. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kuhn, Hans. 1939. Westgermanisches in der altnordischen Verskunst. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und Literatur 63. 178–236.Google Scholar
Lapidge, Michael. 2000. The archetype of Beowulf. Anglo-Saxon England 29. 5–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lass, Roger. 1994. Old English: A historical linguistic companion. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lehmann, Winfred P. 1972. Proto-Germanic syntax. Toward a grammar of Proto-Germanic, ed. by Frans, van Coetsem & Herbert, L. Kufner, 239–268. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Lichtenheld, Adolf. 1873. Das schwache Adjektiv im Altenglischen. Zeitschrift für Deutsches Altertum und Deutsche Literatur 16. 325–93.Google Scholar
Lindow, John. 1975. Riddles, kennings, and the complexity of skaldic poetry. Scandinavian Studies 47. 311–327.Google Scholar
Milliken, Margaret E. 1988. Phonological divergence and intelligibility: A case study of English and Scots. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University dissertation.Google Scholar
Mitchell, Bruce. 1994. The Englishness of Old English. From Anglo-Saxon to Early Middle English: Studies presented to E. G. Stanley, ed. by Malcolm, Godden, Douglas, Gray, & Terry, Hoad, 163–81. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Neckel, Gustav (ed.). 1983. Edda. Die Lieder des Codex Regius nebst verwandten Denkmälern, vol. 1: Text, revised by Hans, Kuhn, 5th improved edn. Heidelberg: Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard. 2013–2014. Lexical evidence for the relative chronology of Old English poetry. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM) 20. 7–48.Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard. 2014a. Germanic legend, scribal errors, and cultural change. Neidorf 2014c, 37–57.Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard. 2014b. Introduction. Neidorf 2014c, 1–18.Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard (ed.). 2014c. The dating of Beowulf: A reassessment. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard. 2017. The transmission of Beowulf. Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard. 2018. The archetype of Beowulf. English Studies 99. 229–242.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neidorf, Leonard, & Rafael, J. Pascual. 2014. The language of Beowulf and the conditioning of Kaluza’s law. Neophilologus 98. 657–673.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Niles, John D. 2011. On the Danish origins of the Beowulf story. Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent, ed. by Joanna, Story & Hans, Sauer, 41–62. Tempe, AZ: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.Google Scholar
Orton, Peter. 1999. Anglo-Saxon attitudes to Kuhn’s laws. The Review of English Studies 50. 287–303.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pascual, Rafael J. 2014. Material monsters and semantic shifts. Neidorf 2014c, 202–218.Google Scholar
Pintzuk, Susan, & Ann, Taylor. 2006. The loss of OV order in the history of English. The handbook of the history of English, ed. by Ans, van Kemenade & Bettelou, Los, 249–278. Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pons-Sanz, Sara M. 2013. The lexical effects of Anglo-Scandinavian linguistic contact on Old English. Turnhout: Brepols.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Poole, Russell. 2012. Crossing the language divide: Anglo-Scandinavian language and literature. The Cambridge history of early medieval English literature, ed. by Clare, A. Lees, 579–606. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pope, John C. 1966. The rhythm of Beowulf: An interpretation of the normal and hypermetric verse-forms in Old English poetry. Revised edn. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Pope, John C. 2001. Eight Old English poems, rev. by Robert, D. Fulk. New York, NY: Norton.Google Scholar
Robinson, Fred C. 1985. Beowulf and the appositive style. Knoxville, TN: University of Tennessee Press.Google Scholar
Russom, Geoffrey. 1998. Beowulf and Old Germanic metre. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russom, Geoffrey. 2002. Dating criteria for Old English poems. Studies in the history of the English language: A millennial perspective, ed. by Donka, Minkova & Robert, P. Stockwell, 245–266. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Russom, Geoffrey. 2017. The evolution of verse structure in Old and Middle English poetry: From the earliest alliterative poems to iambic pentameter. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schützeichel, Rudolf. 1969. Althochdeutsches Wörterbuch. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer.Google Scholar
Shippey, Tom. 1993. Old English poetry: The prospects for literary history. Proceedings of the Second International Conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (SELIM), ed. by Antonio, León Sendra, 164–179. Córdoba: SELIM.Google Scholar
Sievers, Eduard. 1885. Zur Rhythmik des germanischen Alliterationsverses. Beiträge zur Geschichte der Deutschen Sprache und Literatur 9. 197–300.Google Scholar
Stanley, E. G. 1981. The date of Beowulf: Some doubts and no conclusions. Chase 1981, 197–211.Google Scholar
Suzuki, Seiichi. 1996. Preference conditions for resolution in the meter of Beowulf: Kaluza’s law reconsidered. Modern Philology 93. 281–306.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Suzuki, Seiichi. 2004. The metre of Old Saxon poetry: The remaking of the alliterative tradition. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer.Google Scholar
Townend, Matthew. 2000. Pre-Cnut praise-poetry in Viking Age England. The Review of English Studies 51. 349–370.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townend, Matthew. 2002. Language and history in Viking Age England: Linguistic relations between speakers of Old Norse and Old English. Turnhout: Brepols.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Townend, Matthew. 2015. Antiquity of diction in Old English and Old Norse poetry. E. C. Quiggin Memorial Lectures, vol. 17. Cambridge: Department of Anglo-Saxon, Norse and Celtic.Google Scholar
Turville-Petre, Edward Oswald Gabriel. 1976. Scaldic poetry. Oxford: Clarendon.Google Scholar
Weiskott, Eric. 2012. A semantic replacement for Kaluza’s law in Beowulf. English Studies 93. 891–896.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whaley, Diana. 2007. Skaldic poetry. A companion to Old Norse-Icelandic literature and culture, ed. by Rory, McTurk, 479–502. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Yoon, Hee-Cheol. 2014. Weak adjectives and definiteness in Old English. Studies in Modern Grammar 80. 69–95.CrossRefGoogle Scholar