Beowulf: An Introduction to the Study of the Poem with a Discussion of the Stories of Offa and Finn

by R. W. Chambers

Surely the explanation is that to a devout, but not

theologically-minded poet, writing battle poetry, references to God as the Lord of Hosts or the Giver of Victory came naturally—references to the Trinity or the Atonement did not. This seems quite a sufficient explanation; though it may be that in Beowulf the poet has consciously avoided dogmatic references, because he realized that the characters in his story were not Christians[^[294]]. That, at the same time, he allows those characters with whom he sympathizes to speak in a Christian spirit is only what we should expect. Just so Chaucer allows his pagans—Theseus for instance—to use Christian expressions about God or the soul, whilst avoiding anything strikingly doctrinal.

Finally I cannot admit that the Christian passages are "poetically of no value[^[295]]." The description of Grendel nearing Heorot is good:

Ðā cōm of mōre under mist-hleoþum

Grendel gongan—

but it is heightened when the poet adds:

Godes yrre bær.

Yet here again it is impossible to argue: it is a matter of individual feeling.

When, however, we come to the further statement of Dr Bradley, that the Christian passages are not only interpolations poetically worthless, but "may be of any date down to that of the extant MS" (i.e. about the year 1000 A.D.), we have reached ground where argument is possible, and where definite results can be attained. For Dr Bradley, at the same time that he makes this statement about the character of the Christian passages, also quotes the archaic syntax of Beowulf as proving an early date[^[296]]. But this archaic syntax is just as prominent a feature of the Christian passages as of any other parts of the poem. If these Christian passages are really the work of a "monkish copyist, whose piety exceeded his poetic powers[^[297]]," how do they come to show an antique syntax and a strict technique surpassing those of Cynewulf or the Dream

of the Rood? Why do they not betray their origin by metrical inaccuracies such as we find in poems undoubtedly interpolated, like Widsith or the Seafarer?