Beowulf and Its Formulas
The making of Beowulf involved the choosing of formulas mostly, from a common body of narrative, rather than individual words, and largely on the basis of alliterative needs.
In his esay, “The Pessimism of Many Germanic Stories,” A. Kent Hieatt says:
The Germanic peoples seem to have inherited a common body of narrative, which is a key to understanding the often incomplete and puzzling allusions and interpolated stories forming a large part of Beowulf” (45).
In his essay “The Point of View and Design for Terror,” Alan Renoir states: “The theory that Old English poetry was formulaic and composed orally at the time of recitation is all but generally accepted today” (154). About 20% of the half-lines are repeated at least elsewhere in the poem. An essential part of 50% of the half-lines are likewise repeated. A large percentage of these essential parts, or formulas, have a resemblance to others in the poem, suggesting that the poet was guided by the sense of the poem, and perhaps by other factors like its sound or rhythm. “The diction of Beowulf is schematized to an extraordinary degree” (Creed 141).
The concept of “formula” needs defining perhaps. A formula can be a half-line, a whole line, a line-and-a-half sometimes, or as small as a single-syllable word as long as it is a significant part of the scop’s rhythm. If not a phrase or a clause, a formula should be an article and its noun, a noun/pronoun and its verb, a verb and its object, a preposition and its noun, etc. For example the verb-adverb pair hwearf pa is proven to be a formula because it is repeated at the beginning of lines 1188 (hwearf pa bi bence), 1210 (gehwearf pa in Francna faepm), and 1573 (hw...
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...er to Egbert. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969.
Creed, Robert P.. “The Making of an Anglo-Saxon Poem.” In TheBeowulf Poet, edited by Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Hieatt, A. Kent. “The Pessimism of Many Germanic Stories.” In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1998.
Magoun, Frances P. “Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry.” In TheBeowulf Poet, edited by Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Renoir, Alan. “The Point of View and Design for Terror.” In TheBeowulf Poet, edited by Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Ward & Trent, et al. The Cambridge History of English and American Literature. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 1907–21; New York: Bartleby.com, 2000
Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.
Magoun, Frances P. “Oral-Formulaic Character of Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry.” In TheBeowulf Poet, edited by Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.
Beowulf. Sullivan, Alan, and Timothy Murphy, trans. Longman Anthology of British Literature. Gen. Ed. David Damrosch. 2nd compact ed. Vol. A. New York: Pearson, 2004. 32-91.
Wilbur, Richard. “Beowulf.” In TheBeowulf Poet, edited byDonald K. fry. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1968.
Throughout history, civilizations have organized their members and incentives in citizenship systems. Athens and Rome, both portray the traits of semi-perfect systems of their time. While Rome may have been the greater civilization, Athens had the better citizenship system, for having protective, unbiased, and open minded tradeoffs.
Methods and approaches to teaching have been greatly influenced by the research of Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky. Both have contributed to the field of education by offering explanations for children's cognitive learning styles and abilities. While Piaget and Vygotsky may differ on how they view cognitive development in children, both offer educators good suggestions on how to teach certain material in a developmentally appropriate manner.
Unknown. "Beowulf."The Norton Anthology of English Literture. 8th Eddition. Volume 1.Eds. Stephen Greenblatt, Etal. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2006
Frank, Roberta. “The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Both Piaget and Vygotsky agreed that children's cognitive development took place in stages. (Jarvis, Chandler 2001 P.149). However they were distinguished by different styles of thinking. Piaget was the first t reveal that children reason and think differently at different periods in their lives. He believed that all children progress through four different and very distinct stages of cognitive development. This theory is known as Piaget’s Stage Theory because it deals with four stages of development, which are sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational and formal operational. (Ginsburg, Opper 1979 P. 26).
Author unknown “Beowulf.” The Norton Anthology Of Poetry. shorter fifth edition. Ferguson, Margaret W. , Mary Jo Salter, and Jon Stallworthy. New York, New York: W W Norton , 2005. 2-9. Print.
Piaget believed in four stages of cognitive development in which new schema, the framework for organizing information, are acquired. They include the sensorimotor stage which last until a child is roughly two years old. In this stage a child learns about the world around them by using their fives senses for exploration. This stage leads to an understanding of object permanence.
Wright, David. “The Digressions in Beowulf.” In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1998.
The 8th century epic poem Beowulf illustrates a loss of community, cultural values and tradition. On the other hand, an elegiac passing of an extraordinary hero and the relationship between the themes of mortality and heroism are well discussed in Beowulf. Beowulf’s character exemplifies the Germanic and the Anglo-Saxon ideals of the hero: strong, fearless, bold, loyal, and stoic in the acceptance of fate. Despite his lack of humility, Beowulf was the definition of a hero in his own time by his demonstration of chivalry and his important roles in society.
Swiss psychologist Jean Piaget’s theory of cognitive development describes his belief that children try to actively make sense of the world rather than simply absorbing knowledge as previously thought. Piaget’s theory claims that as children grow and develop they experience four different cognitive stages of life. As a child grows through each stage they not only learn new information but the way he or she thinks also changes. “In other words, each new stage represents a fundamental shift in how the child thinks and understands the world” (Hockenbury, page 368).The first stage of Piaget’s theory, known as the sensorimotor stage, begins at birth and continues on until about age 2. As the name suggest, this stage is when children begin to discover