The Finnsburg Fragment and the Lay of Hrothgar's scop in Beowulf

Abstract

The article offers a new reconstruction of the plot of the lost lay of the Battle of Finnsburg, based on a comparative analysis of the poetic language of the surviving fragment of 48 lines and an episode in Beowulf (lines 1068–1158). Regarding the epic word as simultaneously combining a whole spectrum of meanings simultaneously perceived by the audience enables the author to suggest a new interpretation of the poetic vocabulary and phraseology, traditionally causing dispute among scholars. The fragment of the poem called by the editors the ‘Battle of Finnsburg' presents the only extant sample of the most archaic narrativeform — the short heroic lay, going back to a Common Germanic past and composed for oral performance. It is an oral performance which is described in Beowulf in the episode of a scope singing the lay of the Battle of Finnsburg at a feast celebrating the hero's victory over Grendel. Apart from the main theme and a few shared characters the two texts have less in common than is usually admitted. In contrast to that episode, the action in the Fragment is developed through speeches, comprising almost half of the extant text. Whereas the fragment is centred on the description of the battle, the episode contains an allusive summary of its consequences. The spectrum of characters is reduced in the episode to two main fgures (Hildeburh and Hengest). The episode is related in the 3rd person as if by an ‘objective' narrator; speeches are absent; summarising, descriptive, explanatory lines are introduced. In the context of literary epic an oral heroic lay becomes detached, retrospective and literary