40
Thorkelin, suggested the poet must have been an eyewitness to the events in the
poem, and this is one of the theories Oldham seems to support, along with the
theory by other critics (including Muellenhoff, Krueger) that the poem had
multiple composers. For a timeline of dates and theories, see A B eo w u lf
H andbook pp. 13-17.
6 “Translation is . . . a kind of metaphorical displacement of a text from one
language to another . . . to translate a text from one language to another is to
transform its material identity...No act of translation takes place in an entirely
neutral space of absolute equality [since]...languages, like classes and nations,
exist in a hierarchy.” Robert J.C.Young, Postcolonialism: A Very Short
Introduction. New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003: (139-140).
7 “We are ignorant of the reception the poem had among the Anglo-Saxons,
how widely it was known or how highly it was regarded. Those modem readers
who see in Beowulf the personification of the Anglo-Saxon heroic ideal may be
surprised that, as far as our evidence goes, only a couple of Anglo-Saxons bore
his name.” E.G. Stanley, "‘"'Beowulf* in Beowulf: Basic Readings. Edited by Peter
S. Baker. New York and London: Garland Publishing, 1995: (3).
8 Marijane Osborn, “Annotated List of Beowulf Translations.”
https://acmrs.org/academic-programs/online-resources/beowulf-list.
9 A scop was an Old English poet, specializing in Epic poetry, which would be
sung recited to entertain groups of listeners, usually during times of feasting or
celebration. More than just a storyteller, a scop defined the values of the society
by praising worthy deeds and condemning unworthy ones (Dr. Kelly S. Taylor,
http://www.comm.unt.edu/~ktaylor/scop/).
10 Joyce is well known for basing several works around the life and
development of the autobiographical character Stephen Dedalus, whose very
name signifies “artist,” by its reference to the Greek Legend of the artisan
Dedalus who manufactures artificial wings and the notorious Labyrinth of Crete.
11 Keven Kieman in B eo w u lf and the B eo w ulf Manuscript argues that there
were no “earlier” versions, but instead the manuscript is an ll**' century
transcription of an 11^*' century work (5).
12 See Bonjour, Adrien. “Beowulf and the Beasts of Battle” PMLA Vol. 72
(1957), 563-73: “the text [is] one version (which happened to be fixed by
writing) of an unfixed or broadly outlined narrative, improvised by one or a
succession of singers” (564).
13 Interestingly, this contrasts with Mikhail Bahktin’s notion that the modem
novel and not the Epic Poem is the site for heteroglossia, or an expression of
conflict through different voices.
14 Daniel O’Hara, review of Derrida, O f Grammatology, in Journal o f
Aesthetics and A rt Criticism 36 (1977): 362, quoted by Alan Wilde, Horizon o f
Assent: Modernism, Postmodernism and the Ironic Imagination (Philadelphia:
University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987), 6-7, quoted by Scott DeGregorio,
“Theorizing Irony in B e o w u lf in Critical Interpretations: B eow ulf (ed. Harold
Bloom).