Old English Heroic Poetry (937-1000) Susanne Kries, Universität Potsdam Places: England, Britain, Europe. Charlemagne’s biographer Einhard tells us in his Vita Karoli that the king ordered a compilation of Frankish heroic poetry before he died. That the heroic world was equally important to Anglo-Saxon England is demonstrated by Old English poetry and other works of art, such as the famous eighth-century whalebone box known as Franks Casket. The term “heroic poetry” is attributed to narrative poetic texts of different ancient, medieval and modern cultures, which celebrate the valorous deeds, brave fights or physical tests of exceptional figures both legendary and historic. The ultimate goal of the poems’ heroic protagonists is to achieve lifelong glory and a commensurate place in legend or history. Lofgeornost “most eager for glory” is the last word of the Old English heroic epic Beowulf and it describes its protagonist’s ethos in a nutshell. Similar praise is accorded to King Æthelstan and his brother Edmund for their victory in The Battle of Brunanburh, which is said to yield ealdorlangne tir, “eternal fame”. When we look at the personae presented in heroic poetry, it is clear that we do not find the smallest effort at painting a representative picture of contemporary Anglo-Saxon society. Rather, Old English heroic poetry is preoccupied with giving an idealized view of the king and his noblemen or retainers. Women feature as well, queens in the main, and they generally appear just as stereotyped as their male counterparts and are very often limited to their roles of either peace-weavers or the exact opposite. The hero thus appears as a literary construct, who despite adhering to an idealized code of behaviour, dies before his day, often leaving behind sorrow or devastation. Old English heroic poetry falls into two categories: those poems presenting figures and events of the so-called “heroic age” and those describing contemporary events. The heroic age is a temporal construct that features people and tribes of the early European migration age. It roughly extends from the death of Ermanaric in 375 to the conquest of Italy under Alboin in 568. Although the heroic age does not place its protagonists with any chronological precision, it functions as a thematic backdrop, which Roberta Frank has neatly called a “many-storied long-ago”. The earliest surviving heroic poem in any Germanic language is the Old High German Hildebrandslied, which has been dated to the early ninth century. Broadly contemporary with Anglo-Saxon heroic poetry is the Latin Waltharius, a ninth- or tenth-century Latin poem that deals with Walter of Aquitaine. From Scandinavia, a collection of heroic poetry is preserved in the thirteenth century Icelandic Poetic Edda. A little earlier is the Middle High German Nibelungenlied, written around 1200. In Old English literature five heroic poems deal with Germanic legen This article may have been truncated: our major articles range from 1500-4000 words but only the first 600 words or so can be read by non-members. All our articles have been written recently by experts in their field, more than 95% of them university professors. To read about membership, please click here. Published 30 April 2003 Citation: Susanne Kries, Universität Potsdam. "Old English Heroic Poetry." The Literary Encyclopedia. 30 Apr. 2003. The Literary Dictionary Company. 13 March 2008. This article is copyright to ©The Literary Encyclopedia. For information on making internet links to this page and electronic or print reproduction, please click here.

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