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Beowulf and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2017

Morton W Bloomfield
Morton W Bloomfield*
Affiliation:
The Ohio State University
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Extract

In the discussion of the Christian elements in Beowulf, it seems to have escaped the notice of scholars that the character of Unferth may provide an example of Christian allegory consciously employed by the poet. If the name Unferth means mar-peace or strife, an important clue to his significance in the poem is being ignored. I wish to suggest that the author of Beowulf is employing, or at least thinking of, Unferth as an abstract personification in the manner of Prudentius, Martianus Capella or Sedulius, and that the poem has even closer connections with the Christian tradition than has hitherto been perceived. If we can accept Unferth as, say, Discordia, we shall find how well this interpretation fits in with the suggestion Schücking made some years ago that the character of Beowulf has been molded, to some extent at least, by the Christian ideal of the perfect ruler, the rex justus, as set forth by St. Augustine, Gregory the Great and others, and that the ethical ideal set up by the epic is that of ordinata concordia or mensura.

Type
Miscellany
Information
Traditio , Volume 7 , 1951 , pp. 410 - 415
Copyright
Copyright © 1951 by Fordham University Press 

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References

1 “Das Königsideal im Beowulf,’ Englische Studien 67 (1932–33) 1–14. See also Otto, E., Typische Schilderungen von Lebewesen, Gegenständlichem u. Vorgängen im weltlichen Epos der Angelsachsen (Inaugural-Dissertation, Berlin 1901) and Pirkhofer, A., Figurengestaltung im Beowulf-Epos (Anglistische Forschungen 87; Heidelberg 1940) for somewhat similar approaches to the poem.Google Scholar

2 See Zeitschrift für deutsche Philologie 3 (1871) 414. It should also be noted that the use of h before i and u is especially common among late Latin and Celtic scribes merely to indicate the vowel quality of these letters, for i and u could also be consonants (j and v). Anglo-Saxon palaeography is much indebted to Celtic scribal habits.Google Scholar

3 Hunfrid, and variants, was a fairly common Anglo-Saxon and early Middle English name. See Forssner, T., Continental-Germanic Personal Names in England, in Old and Middle English Times (Uppsala 1916) 158–9.Google Scholar

4 See Forssner, , op. cit. 236 and Bruckner, W, Die Sprache der Langobarden (Quellen und Forschungen 25; Strassburg 1895) 84.Google Scholar

5 See Forssner, , op. cit. 158–9 and Bruckner, , op. cit. 314.Google Scholar

6 See Woolf, H. B., The Old Germanic Principles of Name-Giving (Dissertation submitted to The Johns Hopkins University Baltimore 1939) 263–4.Google Scholar

7 Its ON. form would be See Björkmann, E., Studien über die Eigennamen im Beowulf (Studien zur Englischen Philologie, ed. Morsbach, L. 58; Halle a. S. 1920) 112–3.Google Scholar

8 See Bruckner, , op. cit. 269. The ending -us here is, of course, from the Latin documentary source.Google Scholar

9 See Förstemann, E., Altdeutsches Namenbuch , Vol. I, Personennamen (Nordhausen etc. 1856) 1214. The later edition of Förstemann is not available to me, but we find sufficient examples here to show that the name was known. Förstemann suggests another possible etymology for un: from OHG. unnan, to give (see ibid. I, 1212). Hunfrid is very common in German records. Unfrid occurs, however, only eight times in those which Förstemann examined.Google Scholar

10 PMLA 42 (1927) 300ff. Google Scholar

11 See Olrik, A., The Heroic Legends of Denmark, trans. Hollander, Lee M. (Scandinavian Monographs 4; New York 1919) 58. Olrik seems to be somewhat confused in his discussion of Unferth. He appears to be saying that he was and was not invented by the Beowulf-poet. It is possible that he is making a distinction between Unferth's name and role. It is clear, however, that Olrik believes that he belongs originally to the Scylding rather than the Beowulf episodes. ‘Therefore the figure of Unferth cannot have been created for the purposes of a Beowulf epic but is a necessity in the economy of the Scylding story’; ibid. 58.Google Scholar

12 Ibid. 60.Google Scholar

13 See Panzer, F., Studien zur Germanischen Sagengeschichte , I: Beowulf (Munich 1910) 279ff.Google Scholar

14 As Olrik, , op. cit. suggests. See also Munro Chadwick, H., The Heroic Age (Cambridge 1912) 159–60.Google Scholar

15 See Deutschbein, M., “Die sagenhistorischen und literarischen Grundlagen des Beowulfepos,’ Germanisch-Romanische Monatsschrift 1 (1909) 114–5. Deutschbein has been effectively answered by Olson, O. L., ‘Beowulf and The Feast of Bricriu,’ Modern Philology 11 (1913–14) 418ff.Google Scholar

16 See Ogilvy, J. D. A., Books Known to Anglo-Latin Writers from Aldhelm to Alcuin (670-804) (The Mediaeval Academy of America, Studies and Documents 2; Cambridge, Mass. 1936) 76–7Google Scholar

17 Ibid. 79–80 and 70.Google Scholar

18 Beowulf and the Seventh Century, Language and Content (London 1935) 67–8.Google Scholar

19 Girvan's examples of ‘Germanic’ allegory are simply not to the point.Google Scholar

20 Line 2971.Google Scholar

21 See “König Ongentheows Fall,’ Englische Studien 39 (1908) 36.Google Scholar

22 Line 114. See Malone, K., Widsith (London 1936) 193.Google Scholar

23 Recently it has been suggested that Unferth is the ‘Urbild des Hofnarren’; see Stumpfl, R., Kultspiele der Germanen als Ursprung des mittelalterlichen Dramas (Berlin 1936) 397.Google Scholar

24 See Phillpotts, B. S., The Elder Edda and Ancient Scandinavian Drama (Cambridge 1920) 181ff. and Munro, H. & Kershaw Chadwick, N., The Growth of Literature, I: The Ancient Literatures of Europe (Cambridge 1932) 618ff. The murder of Unferth's brother may have had a ritual significance. See also Professor Kemp Malone's review of W H. Vogt's Stilgeschichte der eddischen Wissensdichtung in Modern Language Notes 44 (1929) 129-30.Google Scholar

25 The word ‘heresy’ was used in a loose sense in the early Middle Ages. Any enemy of the Holy Catholic faith could be termed heretical.Google Scholar

26 Bede, , Historia ecclesiastica gentis Anglorum 2, 13.Google Scholar

27 ‘For the essential Christianity of Beowulf impresses me more and more with each re-reading of the poem’ (from a private letter to me from Professor Henry Bosley Woolf dated 7 January 1948). See Professor Woolf's recent article, “Unferth,’ Modern Language Quarterly 10 (1949) 45–52, published since this paper was written, for an acute analysis of the role of Unferth in the structure of Beowulf, which supplements and reinforces my arguments.Google Scholar