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The Relationship of the Old English Andreas to Beowulf

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 December 2020

Leonard J. Peters
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Extract

Ever since 1879, when Arthur Fritzsche in his discussion of the authorship of Andreas suggested that the Old English religious poem was heavily indebted to Beowulf for its military and seafaring elements, scholars have generally assumed that the Andreas poet not only used Beowulf as a model for his life of St. Andrew but also consciously borrowed therefrom numerous phrases in order to adorn his work with the military spirit of the heroic poem. George Philip Krapp, in his edition of Andreas, discusses at some length the general similarities between Andreas and Beowulf, and then gives as evidence of literary indebtedness the impressive number of approximately 145 verbal parallels to Beowulf distributed throughout Andreas. Klaeber, without reservation, agrees with the conclusions of Krapp; he remarks in his edition of Beowulf that “the legend of Andreas exhibits abundant and unmistakable signs of having been written with Beowulf as a model. Wholesale borrowing of phrases, which more than once are forced into a strange context, and various parallelisms in situations and the general heroic conception of the story leave no shadow of a doubt that the author of the religious poem was following in the footsteps of the great secular epic.”

Type
Research Article
Information
PMLA , Volume 66 , Issue 5 , September 1951 , pp. 844 - 863
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 1951

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References

Note 1 in page 844 “Das angelsächsische Gedicht Andreas und Cynewulf,” Anglia, ii (1879), 493.

Note 2 in page 844 Andreas and The Fates of the Apostles, Two Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poems (1906), pp. li-lviii. Krapp makes no comment about the genesis of Andreas or its literary relationship to other works in his later edition of the poem in The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records (1932), II.

Note 3 in page 844 Fr. Klaeber, ed. Beowulf, 3rd ed. (1936), p. cxi.

Note 4 in page 844 The Earliest English Poetry (1943), p. 279.

Note 5 in page 844 The Literature of the Anglo-Saxons (1949), p. 135.

Note 6 in page 845 “The Old English Period” in A Literary History of England, ed. Albert C. Baugh (1948), p. 76.

Note 7 in page 845 Krapp, ed. Andreas, p. xxi; the p???a? appears in Constantius Tischendorf, Apocalypses Apocryphae Mosis, Esdrae, Pauli, Iohannis, item Mariae Dormitio, odditis evangeliorum et actuum apocryphorum supplementis (1886), pp. 131–166.

Note 8 in page 845 About 300 words in length. Reprinted along with the corresponding Greek passage in Krapp, ed. Andreas, pp. xxiii-xxiv.

Note 9 in page 846 For a full discussion of the differences, see Krapp, ed. Andreas, p. xxvii.

Note 10 in page 847 Krapp, p. li; Kennedy, p. 279.

Note 11 in page 847 Teschendorf, p???a?, p. 135. “And it came to pass when the twenty-seven days were fulfilled since Matthias was seized, the Lord appeared in the country where Andrew was teaching, and said to him: ‘Rise up, and set out with thy disciples to the country of the man-eaters, and bring forth Matthias out of that place; for yet three days, and the men of the city will bring him forth and slay him for their food’.”—Alexander Walker, trans. The Ante-Nicene Christian Library, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (1870), xvi, 349.

Note 12 in page 848 Teschendorf, p???a?, p. 137.

Note 13 in page 848 Ibid., p. 165. “And the Lord Jesus came down, being like a comely little child, and met Andrew, and said: ‘Andrew, why hast thou come out and left them without fruit, and hast not had compassion upon the children that followed after thee, and the men entreating thee, Stay with us a few days? for the cry of them and the weeping has come up to heaven’.”—Walker, Ante-Nicene Christian Library, xvi, 367–368.

Note 14 in page 849 Teschendorf, p???a?, p. 166. “And the seven days having been fulfilled, it came to pass while the blessed Andrew was going out, all came together to him, from the child even to the elder, and sent him on his way saying: There is one God, (the God) of Andrew, and one Lord Jesus Christ, who alone doeth wonders; to whom be glory and strength for ever. Amen.”—Walker, Ante-Nicene Christian Library, XVI, 368.

Note 15 in page 850 Krapp, ed. Andreas, pp. lii-liii.

Note 16 in page 851 See J. Kail, “Über die Parallelstellen in der angelsächsischen Poésie,” Anglia, xii (1889), 21–40.

Note 17 in page 852 See “feorran-cumen” in An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, Supplement by T. Northcote Toller (1921), p. 213.

Note 18 in page 855 See Bright s Anglo-Saxon Reader, rev. James R. Hulbert (1947), p. 123, ll. 5–6.

Note 19 in page 855 “Altenglisch geap, horngeap, sosgeap,” Englische Sludien, LXIV (1929), 207.

Note 20 in page 857 Further examples of military parallels not mentioned in the text of this paper are the following: “duguoe ond geogooe,” Andreas 152, Beowulf, 160, 621, 1674; “haele hildedeor,” Andreas 1002, Beowulf 1646, 1816, 3111, Elene 935; “banhus abrocen,” Andreas 1240, Beowulf 3147; “modige magupegnas, Andreas 1140, Beowulf 2757, Wanderer 62, Menelogium 82; ”feorh gesealdon,“ Andreas 1616, ”feorh seleo,“ Beowulf 1370, Fates of the Apostles 58, Genesis, 1739, Menelogium 81, 133; ”swat youm weoll,“Andreas 1275, Beowulf 2693; ”aeoelum cempan,“ Andreas 230, Beowulf 1312; ”guoraes fornam,“ Andreas 1531, ”heaporaes fomam,“ Beowulf 557, ”sweordraes fornam,“ Fates of the Apostles 59; ”wigend weccean,“ Andreas 850, Beowulf 3024; ”swa se Seodsceaoa / reow ricsode,“ Andreas 1115b-16b, ”Swa se oeodsceaoa . . . / heold on hrusan . . .,“ Beowulf 2278–79a; ”fasges flaeschoman,“ Andreas 154, Beowulf 1568; ”duguo unlytel,“ Andreas 1270, Beowulf 498; ”getrume mycle,“ A ndreas 707, Beowulf 922; ”generede fram nioe,“ Andreas 1037, Beowulf 827, Chronicles 1258.

Note 21 in page 857 See Krapp, ed. Andreas, p. 87.

Note 22 in page 857 See Codex Vercellensis die Angelsaechsische Handschrift zu Vercelli in getreuer Nachbildung, herausgegeben von Richard WÜlker (1894), Plate 2, line 14; Bibliothek der Angelsächsischen Poesie, herausgegeben von Richard Paul WÜlker (1888), n, 4–5, n. 64.

Note 23 in page 858 “Concerning the Relation between Exodus and Beowulf,” MLN, xxxiii (1918), 224.

Note 24 in page 859 Sprachschatz der angelsächsischen Dichter (1861), p. 586.

Note 26 in page 862 Further examples of miscellaneous parallels not discussed in the text are the following: “ondlange niht,” Andreas 1254, Beowulf 2938, Guthlac 1261; “ofost is selost,” Andreas 1565, Beowulf 256, Exodus 293; “on uhtan mid aerdaege,” Andreas 235, Beowulf 126, Elene 105; “nightlange fyrst,” Andreas 834, Beowulf 528, Elene 67, Exodus 208; “leoda duguoe,” Andreas 1227, Beowulf 2238, Guthlac 209, Christ and Satan 366, Exodus 183, 228; “murnende mod,” Andreas 1667, Beowulf 50, Riddles i, 15; “Daer wses yofynde,” Andreas 1547, Beowulf 138, Genesis 1993, Exodus 579; “gehoo maendan,” Andreas 1548, Beowulf 2267, Chronicles 90; “weras wansŒlige,” Andreas 963, Elene 478, 977, “wonsaeli wer,” Beowulf 105; “him seo wen gelah,” Andreas 1074, Beowulf 2323, Genesis 49, 1446; “wonn under wolcnum,” Andreas 837, Beowulf 651, Guthlac 1254, Dream of the Rood 55; “syb waes gemaene,” Andreas 1013, Beowulf 1857, Chronicles 581; “saecce gesohte,” Andreas 1132, Beowulf 1989; “frode fymweotan,” Andreas 784, Beowulf 2123, Elene 343; “swa ge benan sint,” Andreas 348, “swa he bena waes,” Beowulf 3140, “swa ic bena waes,” Genesis 2250, “swa bu bena eart,” Genesis 2357; “paes be ic soo talige,” Andreas 1563, Beowulf 532, Chronicles 794; “wordhord onleac,” Andreas 316, Beowulf 259, Widsith 1, Metrical Passages of Boethius, vi, 1.

Note 28 in page 863 “The Contexts of Old English ‘Ealuscerwen’ and Meoduscerwen',” JEGP, XLVIII (1949), 116–126. I wish to acknowledge my special debt to this article and to Professor Lumiansky for helpful suggestions in preparing this paper.