Norbert
Elias's notion of civility is based on the assumption that the
nation as a social structure was not yet established in the Middle
Ages, and that the historical development of civility led to
the reigning in and subduing, indeed, sublimation, of emotions.
For Elias, members of medieval cultures took social pleasure
in the performance of violent battle. He claims that life in
medieval societies was openly violent and lent itself to the
satiation of instincts and drives fulfilling both pain and pleasure.
"Rapine, battle, hunting of men and animals--all these were
vital necessities which, in accordance with the structure of
society, were visible to all. And thus, for the mighty and strong,
they formed part of the pleasures of life" (Elias
1994, 1:158). Although much of his evidence for the blood-lust
and pleasure taken in killing ostensibly rampant in the Middle
Ages is taken from Troubadour songs, he does note that epics
also are integral parts of social formations. "They express
the feelings of the listeners for whom they are intended far
more directly than most of our literature" [1].
Enfolded within Elias' The Civilizing Process is a mode
of thinking about instincts and drives as partially constituted
constructs, in a manner that Foucault would depend on for his
own history of various institutions, taxonomies, and disciplines.[2] . Elias describes the results
of the historical transformation by which relatively uninhibited
warlike instincts are "confined and tamed by innumerable
rules and prohibitions that have become self-constraints,"
so that "cruelty and joy in the destruction and torment
of others, like the proof of physical superiority, are placed
under an increasingly strong social control anchored in the state
organization (Elias
1994 1:157-8).
Many factors and forces entered into the strengthening of social
control by state organizations, but a fundamental problem at
the root of that transformation was basic weaknesses in the kind
and degree of social control typical within warrior cultures.
These weaknesses are especially evident in Beowulf, in
its elegiac portrayal of a social order on the edge of dissolution
and in its ambiguous portrayal of a uniquely heroic figure. The
elegiac tone is directly linked to the uniqueness of Beowulf's
heroism in Anglo-Saxon literary heritage. The poem consistently
remarks that there was none like him before and will never be
another like him again. What is especially interesting about
his heroism is his unique ability to handle that fundamental
problem of warrior cultures, the use and control of rage.
The problem of rage begins with the fact that in the right context,
in battle, rage is almost always presented as a positive force.
When warriors are fighting successfully in the Iliad,
for instance, they are typically described as being in some sort
of rage, in a killing frenzy that seems to render them--for the
time at least--unstoppable. More than an emotional state, rage
can lead the warrior to achieve a state of spiritual ecstasy
that obliterates any possibility of cowardice or concern for
one's own safety and focuses the warrior totally on the business
of killing; such a transfer of the ostensibly destructive force
of rage to the constructive force of spirituality is dependent
upon a belief in a power larger and higher than the subject at
stake in battle. This power can take the form of a god, God,
the nation, or a philosophical belief that one is fighting for
a larger good. Battle rage then can be a transcendent experience,
generating in the warrior himself as well as in his companions,
and especially in his enemies, the belief that he is possessed
by a god of war. Epic literature has consistently presented battle
rage as conducive to winning; from the Iliad to Beowulf,
and in later Norman texts such as Raoul de Cambrai, it
is prized and cultivated by warriors. If literature is any indication
of what was at stake in historical social contexts, then we can
assume, with Elias, that it reflects and constructs a form of
paradoxical pleasure in violent conflict. Rage is either highly
ritualized, such as in controlled battles and therefore "in
control," or it is out of control, such as in cases of inter-kin
conflict.
Rage, therefore, serves the community for whom the warrior fights--as
long as that rage is directed solely against the community's
enemies or the "other" against whom the group is battling.
Unfortunately, such restraint is not always evident in contexts
outside of battle. In the Iliad the plot turns on the
fact that battle rage emerges in inappropriate contexts, from
which emerges a central paradox on which Homer's plot rests:
battle rage sustains and profits the community by assuring its
victory against outside forces, while it threatens to destroy
the community when the warrior hero cannot control himself among
his own friends and allies. It is also a major source of the
epic's tragic impact, the ironic fact that the hero's greatest
strength is likewise the source of his greatest weakness. It
is a paradox that all warrior cultures struggle with, limited
today to certain subcultures and manifesting its effects in the
problems of veterans returning from foreign wars, neighborhood
gangs that despoil their own communities, and violent athletes
who abuse their spouses.
This theme involves a fairly fundamental feature of warrior cultures.
It is not surprising, therefore, that it is developed extensively
as well in Beowulf, but it is surprising that so fundamental
a notion does not seem to have been noticed anywhere in the Beowulf
criticism. The need to control anger or wrath or rage is,
of course, commonly noted, but there is a special edge given
to that idea in recognizing the importance in these cultures
of encouraging and cultivating rage. Recognizing the positive
value of rage also illuminates the special nature of Beowulf's
heroism. And placing the poem in its historical context in the
light of Elias' notions of the civilizing process helps account
for why the concept of rage as portrayed in the hero is imbued
with elegaic nostalgia.
Martin Puhvel, in his comparison between the pre-battle fury
traditional in Celtic lore and Beowulf's pre-battle fury, lends
some insight into why rage has not been explored more thoroughly
in the literature. He notes the fact that Beowulf's rage never
gets out of hand: "Beowulf is no volatile Achilles buffeted
by fits of fierce emotion, prominently wrath." This leads
him to minimize the importance of rage in his speculation that
"one may well suspect the presence in the Anglo-Saxon epic
of a somewhat superficially superimposed influence of the Celtic
motif in question," and he can only conclude that "[Beowulf's]
pre-battle fury seems altogether anomalous" (Puhvel
1979, 53-54). Puhvel sees Beowulf's rage as a superficial
motif, in other words, because, in being so under control, it
is so unlike the more common exemplar of Celtic battle rage,
the berserker. Beowulf's pre-battle fury is certainly
anomalous, but it is far from superficial. In fact, it is precisely
that unique handling of rage, which signals its importance to
understanding the actions and reactions of the primary characters
in the epic, and to understanding how Beowulf functions as a
unique and exemplary hero.
If we see Beowulf as A. Kent Hieatt describes it, "commentary
through and through," "a tissue of oblique allusions
and highly stylized elegiac passages intended to build a particular
atmosphere and a particular feeling about life, more than it
is a straight narration of a series of events in the life of
a hero,"[3]
then we are better prepared to perceive that the commentary being
asserted about battle rage reveals its connection with the social
order. This view is also consistent with Katheryn Hume's argument
that Beowulf is about "threats to social order" (Hume 1975, 5) and
John D. Niles' claim that the poem is about community (Niles
1993, 860, 862). This theme is pursued even further, in separate
contexts, by Hugh Magennis (1996)
and John M. Hill. As Hill argues, "The crucial [social]
imperative is the settling of feuds and the continuation of fruitful
exchange, the latter creating or else intensifying further kinship
between individuals and peoples" (Hill
1997, 265). But none of these commentators explores the way
in which rage is presented as possessing the greatest potential
not only to destroy, but to preserve the sense of community within
the warrior cultures of Beowulf.
A more useful approach might be to follow the lead of Norbert
Elias, who in his ground-breaking study, The Civilizing Process,
examines the growth of civilization in Medieval society in terms
of the rise of emotional self-control:
how restraints through others from a variety of angles are converted
into self-restraints, how the more animalic activities are progressively
thrust behind the scenes of men's communal social life and invested
with feelings of shame, how the regulation of the whole instinctual
and affective life by steady self-control becomes more and more
stable, more even and more all-embracing (Elias
1982, 2: 230).
In his examination of this process, however, Elias focuses on
the age of feudalism at its height, in the context of courtly
society, neglecting its precursors in both the classical world
and the earlier Middle Ages.[4]
He focuses little attention on that prior period before the shift
from physical battle to rhetorical debate and juridical inquisition,
when the more "animalic" drives such as physical rage
are thrust into the background. What Elias does point out that
is significant to an application of his argument about the later
Middle Ages to Beowulf (and this is an argument that Foucault
will later rely on for his repressive hypothesis) is that in
the above shifts which "civilize" culture by eliminating
open and rampant physical battle, rage is in fact foregrounded
in conjunction with an ideal of control. Therefore, although
he makes no mention of Beowulf, partly due to political
decisions, and partly due to the time period he is studying,
Elias' theory of the process of civilization does what Freud's
Civilization and its Discontents would be hard pressed
to do--it shows the possibility for a controlled rage within
violent battle, as it is the inverse of violent rage in controlled
courtly discourse. This is the crucial aspect of a reading of
the epic elegy that focuses on the problematic of rage.
Beowulf can be seen as a work which chronicles the earliest
stage in the process of controlling rage. This is a stage in
which a model of self-restraints, operating within a context
Elias describes as one "where the strongest functional dependence
between people is still that of war and violence" (Elias
1982, 2:87), is built around a special and precarious kind
of control exerted on perhaps the most primal feature of warrior
societies, the experience and cultivation of rage. With its emphasis
on community the poem explores the struggle to maintain civilization
against the forces of unrestrained passion, and it offers a model,
which in important ways both anticipates and falls short of the
courtly ideal which Elias sees as developing within and transforming
feudalism into a more organized civilization. We shall demonstrate
this by examining the contexts in which rage occurs, most commonly
expressed by the various forms of belgan, and by considering
how the Beowulf poet relates the incidents involving rage
to the concept of social order developed in the poem.
First, rage needs to be seen clearly as differing from all other
kinds of anger expressed in Beowulf and as having specific
applications. Niles provides us some excellent insight into the
special qualities of rage in Beowulf when, in discussing
the difficulty of translating the Old English word gebolgen,
and referring to Puhvel, he maintains that "ordinary human
beings may be angry, but only the monsters and the hero are swollen
in a way that may call to mind the violent battle-fury of the
Scandinavian beserkr or, as Martin Puhvel has remarked,
the still more violent war-spasm of Celtic heroes like Cuchulain"
(Niles 1993,
865). Yet Niles is no more able than Puhvel to make anything
out of Beowulf's uniqueness among humans in this regard.
An examination of the way the word belgan has been traditionally
defined also lends insight into both the curious nature of the
word and the surprisingly curious way the significance of rage
has been overlooked in Beowulf scholarship. The verb belgan,
according to both A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary (Clark
Hall 1975) and the new Dictionary of Old English[5]
means "to be or become angry," or "to offend,
provoke." The various occurrences of forms of belgan
are traditionally translated in accordance with this dictionary
definition--Raffel, Kennedy, Crossley-Holand, Chickering, and
most recently Seamus Heaney are typical.[6]
However, there are some notable exceptions, including, for example,
Klaeber (1950),
who defines these forms in some contexts as "rage,"
and Donaldson, who, following Klaeber, translates them almost
always as some form of rage, usually "swollen with rage."
If belgan means "rage," "enraged,"
or "swollen with rage" then a reading of the relationship
between warrior energy and the formation of social communities
is much more pervasive in a thorough reading of Beowulf
than has been previously argued. Each time that belgan
is employed in the text of Beowulf, the poetic context
involves a situation in which the social order is at stake; further,
in every case in which rage is appropriate, it appears to be
cultivated consciously as an essential part of preparation for
battle.[7]
From the use of "rage"
in Beowulf we can draw the following conclusions:
1. Rage is a tool used
by the Good to maintain the social order.
2. Rage is cultivated,
reached through a process that is controlled and subordinated
to a rational end when it is used for good.
3. Rage out of control
is a serious threat to the social order.
4. Rage out of control
can most effectively be met by rage in control.
It may appear paradoxical, or even contradictory, to assert a
difference between controlled rage and rage that is out of control;
however, a clarification of modes of violence within Anglo-Saxon
culture, as opposed to the chaos and the unpredictability of
violence known as "terrorism" as seen from the point
of view of our contemporary global culture of order and unity,
reveals that the distinction underlies a history of western approaches
to community formation, societal regulation, and order.
The subtle but crucial distinction between controlled rage and
rage that is "out of control" depends of course on
perspective and the determination of "good" from "evil."
Rage that is consciously mustered and "controlled"
will appear to the enemy as if it is "out of control"
since the two opposing sides in a battle will often lack the
communication to perceive the rationale of the other. This is
not always historically the case, however. Significant moments
in Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman literature reveal that battle
can often occur in a manner that is completely ordered. The difference
between these ordered battles and those that appear more chaotic
and uncontrolled is marked by the distinction of the degree to
which the warriors are championing personal, or intimate political
causes, as they stand in opposition to those who are championing
the causes of a larger community, culture, or nation.
The first occurrence of a form of belgan, one of the two
instances of bolgenmod, is in the lines which describe
Beowulf's temperament as he awaits the visit by Grendel:
Þæt
wæs yldum cuþ,
þæt hie ne moste, þa Metod nolde,
se s[c]ynscaþa under sceadu bregdan,
ac he wæccende wraþum on andan
bad bolgenmod beadwa geþinges.
It was known to the
elders
that the hostile foe must not,
the Lord did not will it, drag them under shadow.
But [Beowulf], watchful, with indignant wrath,
awaited, swollen with rage, the results of battle. (ll.705-709)
[8]
Translators like Chickering, Crossley-Holland, Kennedy, and Raffel
define bolgenmod here as "angrily," "with
increasing anger," "in anger," or "angry";
Heaney renders it "spoiling for action"; Donaldson
is better, offering "swollen in anger." We prefer translations
such as "with enraged spirit" or "swollen with
rage." The difference between "anger" and "rage"
signals respectively the difference between an emotion felt in
response to injury or offense, and one felt during or immediately
prior to battle. Indeed, forms of anger, it could be argued,
are not even logical translations for a passage that situates
events within a battle scene. Hrothgar has suffered injury, while
Beowulf has taken upon himself the task of redressing that injury.
As Beowulf the warrior waits for Grendel to arrive, his tension
rises since on his shoulders rests perhaps the last chance for
Heorot, a symbol of civilized and just order, to survive, and
his rage "swells" in anticipation as he invokes the
pre-battle fury that is part of a warrior's preparation for battle.
As rage, a state of emotional readiness for battle, bolgenmod
makes perfectly good sense, especially in this context where
it is focused for justifiable battle. The translation as "anger,"
however, offsets and undermines the communication of the significance
that Beowulf's role as champion of Heorot plays in the struggle
of a kingdom. Instead, "rage" in the process of being
summoned and strengthened--bolgenmod--symbolizes and transmits
the relevance of the battle in the development and maintenance
of a society mutually opposing a malevolent Other.
Rage appears here as the culmination of a process of preparation
for battle that would normally include the warrior arming himself
for battle, but in this case, the process includes some degree
of disarming. Beowulf must meet his opponent on balanced and
equal footing in order to maintain his honor. This part of the
process of preparation should not be overlooked, because all
three of the major fights in the poem focus on the balance of
weapons between Beowulf and his opponents and how well those
weapons stand up to battle. Knowing that Grendel bears no arms,
Beowulf disarms himself, choosing to meet his enemy on equal
terms, a decision that he expresses as part of his pre-battle
boast: "No
ic me an herewæsmum / hnagran talige // guðgeweorca,
/ þonne Grendel hine," "I count myself
no less in battle strength, in war deeds, than Grendel does"
(ll. 677-678). He goes on to say that "nat he þara goda, / þæt
he me ongean slea, // rand geheawe, þeah ðe he rof
sie // niþgeweorca," "He [Grendel] knows
not those good things [e.g., swords] that he might strike me
with, hew my shield with, strong though he is in evil deeds"
(ll. 681-683). But Beowulf needs to invoke his rage as well,
since Grendel is himself enraged. Lest we fail to note the power
of that rage from reports of his previous attacks, it is called
unmistakably to our attention when Grendel enters Heorot on the
night he encounters Beowulf. Though the door of the meadhall
is bound fast with iron, "fyrbendum fæst,"
it springs open at the mere touch of his hands, "syþðan he hire folmum
(æthr)an."
How even a monster of Grendel's power can accomplish such an
act is indicated by the formulaic phrase, "ða he [ge]bolgen wæs," "for he was enraged"
(ll. 722-723). His extraordinary strength is generated by his
rage. Beowulf therefore must be enraged, swollen with battle
spirit, if he has any chance of defeating the evil and enraged
Grendel.
John M. Hill's essay "Revenge and Superego Mastery in Beowulf"
provides an analysis of orality and aggression that is helpful
in understanding the relationship between Beowulf's boasting
speeches and the "swelling rage" that is produced in
reaction to the anticipation of battle fury (Hill
1989). Through a discussion of orality as it explicitly relates
to aggression Hill demonstrates the ambiguity of "good"
and "evil" in Beowulf's characters and various
monsters. Beowulf's boasting becomes more than merely the anti-heroic
self-congratulatory speech; rather, it is that weapon with which
Beowulf begins to meet Grendel's aggression. We have seen Grendel's
oral aggression in the context of his cannibalistic habits; and,
as Jaeger points out, powerful speech acts as well as
describes (Jager
1990, 845-859). Hill takes this argument a step further when
he claims that by boasting, Beowulf may have been enacting one
of the shape-changing and shaman-assisted rituals performed by
warriors prior to battle and in order to foreground the possibility
for perceiving monstrosity among the warring feuds [9].
In Beowulf's encounter with Grendel's dam, the emphasis is less
on the pattern of developing rage as preparation for battle and
more on the hero's ability to call upon rage at need. The issue
of fairness is also less directly addressed, but Beowulf's sword
and mail coat turn out to be appropriate means of dealing with
the monster's claws and extraordinarily tough hide; indeed, his
sword turns out to be less than a fair match. Perhaps an initial
state of rage is unimportant since Beowulf must swim into the
depths of the mere "hwil dæges," "for
a great part of a day," a context in which rage would be
both unnecessary and difficult to maintain for so long a time.
But the sea witch finally accosts him and drags him into her
cave. There, able to free his sword, he strikes and discovers
her invulnerability to any ordinary sword. His response to this
situation first emphasizes his self-possession: he is "anræd, / nalas elnes
læt, // mærða gemyndig,"
"resolute, not slow in courage, mindful of fame" (ll.
1529-1530). He then grabs her by the shoulder and hurls her to
the floor, and, as we might expect, his ability to perform so
great a feat is indicated by the formulaic phrase we have seen
before, "þa
he gebolgen wæs,"
"because he was enraged" (ll. 1539). Beowulf, in other
words, has been able to call upon the necessary rage when the
situation demanded it, and that it emerges as a product of his
self-control is reinforced by its being described not as an emotional
reaction but as following from his resoluteness, courage, and
mindfulness.
This encounter further reveals what might be described as an
even higher level of rage, indicated by forms of the word hreoh,
which Klaeber glosses as "rough, fierce, savage, troubled."
The witch immediately jumps up and Beowulf has to call on deeper
resources. He spies a sword hanging on the wall, and now, "hreoh
ond heorogrim," "fierce and sword-grim" as
Klaeber glosses it (l.1564), he seizes the sword and strikes
her dead. But hreoh seems to suggest a feeling stronger
than fierceness. The sword Beowulf found was "eotenisc,"
"made by giants, giant," as Klaeber glosses it, though
perhaps more accurately "gigantic"; it is so massive
that no other man could use it in battle, but it is not magic.
It strikes through the otherwise invulnerable monster in part
because of its weight, but also because being hreoh, in
a state of desperate rage, gives Beowulf the strength to wield
effectively so massive a sword. Like Grendel bursting open the
door of Heorot with a touch, it is not only unusual muscle or
sinew that accounts for the warrior's superhuman strength, but
rage.
In other contexts as well, the forms of hreoh seem to
suggest a more elemental, savage, and desperate kind of rage
than those of belgan. As "hreohmod" the
word describes the rage Hrothgar feels (l. 2132) as he begs Beowulf
to take vengeance on Grendel's dam after she killed his favorite
retainer. This is undoubtedly the context for which Klaeber came
up with the alternative "troubled in mind," but such
a reading neglects the fact that Hrothgar is a warrior in the
situation of having been mortally offended while being helpless
to accomplish a warrior's moral obligation to exact revenge.
Such a man would not be merely troubled; rather his frustration
would account for the more desperate, even frenetic, rage he
feels, as indicated by "hreohmod."
Another form of this word seems to imply a rage that is mindless
when it is applied to the waves, "hreo wæron yþa" (l. 548), that beset
Beowulf in his swim with Breca. And this sense of desperate,
frenzied rage is also attributed to the dragon when Beowulf first
wounds it (l. 2581)--the dragon, already enraged, responds to
the wound with this higher level. The application of this word
to Beowulf, the force of a violent sea, and the dragon, therefore,
reveals that this form of rage, like that denoted by the forms
of belgan, implies a natural force that can be employed
as a weapon in the service of both good and evil, either to restore
and maintain or to destroy order. Indeed, it is this extreme
rage that enables the dragon to fatally wound Beowulf.
But Beowulf knows rage well, both its uses for good and its uses
for evil, and it is an indication of the significance of this
word that catastrophic destruction can be seen as the result
of divine rage. Thus in the last third of the poem, when there
is no explanation for the disastrous destruction of his own hall,
he fears it may be God's work.
Þa wæs
Biowulfe broga gecyðed
snude to soðe, þæt his sylfes ham,
bolda selest, brynewylmum mealt,
gifstol Geata. Þæt ðam godan waes
hreow on hreðre, hygesorge maest;
wende se wisa þæt he Wealdende
ofer ealde riht, ecean Dryhtne
bitre gebulge; breost innan weoll
þeostrum geþoncum, swa him geþywe ne waes.
Then to Beowulf the
terror was announced,
quickly, in truth, that his own home,
the best of houses, the throne of the Geats,
was melted in fire. Then felt that good man
great agony in his breast, the deepest sorrow.
The wise man thought he had bitterly enraged
the Lord, the Eternal Ruler,
broken the ancient law; his breast surged
with dark thoughts not customary to him. (ll. 2324-2332)
Beowulf believes he must have somehow broken the "ancient
law," done something that "bitterly enraged" God,
not simply angered or offended him, as most translators have
rendered it. Nothing less than divine rage, it seems at this
point, could account for the terrible destruction of his home,
his very throne, more literally his "gift-chair." In
addition to revealing one of the many moments in the text where
it is evident that the transition from paganism to Christianity
is indeed a struggle and a battle for cultural significance and
conformity, Beowulf's sense that he has "enraged" God
in this passage reveals a human God who, like the Old Testament
Judeo-Christian God, is capable of wrath. The assumption of God's
goodness and status as "above" anger, rage, or revenge
on humans has not yet entered into the rhetoric of the Anglo-Saxon
cosmology. Rather, God as an early representation of a monotheistic
deity, remains one who has the properties and characteristics
of pagan gods. In this sense, Beowulf's fear of divine rage mimics
the general approach to battle found in classical epics and pursued
throughout the 16th and 17th centuries in epics such as Paradise
Lost. In fact, it may be posited that the epic genre depends
on a notion of a God capable of anger.
This possibility inspires dark thoughts, uncustomary feelings
to such a hero, but what is especially significant is that Beowulf
cannot at first respond to this very personal injury with his
accustomed rage precisely because he does not know the source
of that injury. Moreover, since such near apocalyptic devastation
might be an act of God, and, as we have argued, since appropriate
rage is directed against rage that is evil and out of control,
rage against God is certainly inappropriate--in fact, it is just
the sort of response that had characterized Grendel. Beowulf,
however, is able to reflect upon his many good deeds, his fairness
to his lords and kinsmen, his valor in battle, and he finds no
basis for guilt [10].
Still, he seems paralyzed until he learns why the dragon burned
his lands. Only then can he act: "Gewat þa twelfa sum, / torne gebolgen,
// dryhten Geata / dracan sceawian," "Then went the king of the
Geats, deeply enraged, one among twelve, to find the dragon"
(ll. 2401-2402). Beowulf, in other words, is able to act decisively
in this crisis only when he is able rationally and appropriately
to invoke, direct, and release his rage.
The appropriateness of Beowulf's rage is clear because his actions
are a response not only to the dragon's destructive act, but
to its rage. When the theft from the dragon's hoard was first
described, we were told "þæt
sie ðiod (onfand), // b(ig)folc beorna, / þæt
he gebolge(n) wæs,"
"that the people, the neighboring folk, discovered that
[the dragon] was enraged" (ll. 2219-2220). In the subsequent,
more detailed narration of that theft and its consequences, the
dragon, as it seeks the thief, is described as "hat and
hreohmod" (l. 2296), indicating its frustrated rage
and desire for revenge, much like Hrothgar's at the death of
his most loyal retainer. The poet goes on,
Hordweard onbad
earfoðlice, oð ðæt æfen cwom;
wæs ða gebolgen beorges hyrde
wolde se laða lige forgyldan
drincfæt dyre.
The treasure-keeper
waited
impatiently until evening came.
The barrow-guardian was swollen with rage,
the hated one wanted vengeance by fire
for that precious vessel. (ll. 2302-2306)
Acting in a manner consistent with evil (the dragon is variously
described as "ðeodsceaða" (l. 2278), "guðsceaða" (l. 2318), "mansceaða" (l. 2514)--the last
of these epithets is twice applied to Grendel (ll.712, 737),
once to his dam (l.1339)--meaning "scourge or enemy of humanity")
the dragon expresses its frustration by venting its rage indiscriminately.
Beowulf, therefore, sets out to meet the dragon in a state of
rage equal in power to the dragon's, but produced through control.
Signifying the difference between good and evil, human and animal,
Beowulf's control is evidenced in his speech. Whereas the dragon's
breath emits only noxious poison and fire, Beowulf's breath must
produce proper language in the form of a battle speech. Before
the actual encounter, therefore, as he stands on the seashore
before the dragon's barrow, a more elaborate spiritual and emotional
preparation remains necessary to achieve a controlled, consciously
ordered, and full state of rage. Speaking to his men, he remembers
the many trials, sorrows, and battles of the past which he has
led and survived. Beowulf's boasting, his "beotwordum"
(l. 2510), reaches a kind of culmination in his declaration that
he will still "fæhðe
secan, // mærðu fremman," "seek battle, win
fame" (ll. 2513-2514). Nevertheless, a continuing part of
his boast is his explanation of why he is fully armed.
Nolde ic sweord
beran,
wæpen to wyrme, gif ic wyste hu
wið ðam aglæcean elles meahte
gylpe wiðgripan, swa ic gio wið Grendle dyde;
ac ic ðær headu-fyres hates wene,
[o]reðes ond attres; forðon ic me on hafu
bord ond byrnan.
I would not bear a
sword,
a weapon against the worm, if I knew how
I might otherwise grapple honorably
with that dragon, as I did once with Grendel;
but I think of [the dragon's] hot battle fire,
of [his] breath and venom; therefore I have on me
shield and coat of mail. (ll. 2518-2524)
He can still boast, in other words, that he is meeting this foe,
as he did Grendel, on equal terms. Having completed his boast,
Beowulf is almost prepared for battle, but not quite. His spirit
is not at full battle readiness. He is not yet in a state of
full battle rage, that intense emotional state which will indicate
his readiness to meet the dragon, for we know the dragon is enraged--indeed,
once aroused, in a continuing state of rage much like Grendel.
Beowulf's rage, however, emerges in a more disciplined manner.
He leaves the beach, moving toward the dragon's barrow as his
rage swells to its apex of battle readiness, and the passage
describing this transformation is among the most stirring in
the poem. It begins,
Aras ða
bi ronde rof oretta,
heard under healm, hiorosercean bær
under stancleofu, strengo getruwode
anes mannes; ne bið swylc earges sið!
Arose then with his
shield the famed warrior,
brave under his helmet, bearing his battlemail
under the stone cliffs, the lone man,
tested in his strength; this was no cowardly trip! (ll. 2538-2541)
As we noted earlier, Donaldson most frequently translates the
forms of belgan as some form of "swelling,"
swelling with rage or swelling with anger. He does so apparently
in part in deference to Klaeber, whose gloss includes the note,
"Orig. 'swell'; cp. b(i)elg 'bag'"[11].
This translation not only reflects the word's root, it captures
something of the way in which rage properly fills the warrior.
The poet likewise suggests this by beginning this consummate
description of the fully ready warrior with the word, "Aras,"
which functions as an elaborate pun: as he strides forth toward
battle, he rises in the sense of moving up from the beach to
the cliff face and the entrance to the dragon's cave; he not
only raises his shield, as the Anglo-Saxon warrior customarily
does before battle, he rises with it; and finally and most important,
Beowulf rises up inwardly, swells in courage and strength as
he completes that final step of soaring into full battle rage.
This becomes an ascent into a spiritual and emotional state that
explodes in a burst of energy:
Let ða of
breostrum, ða he gebolgen wæs,
Weder-Geata leod word ut faran,
stearcheort styrmde; stefn in becom
heoðotorht hlynnan under harne stan.
Then from his breast,
for he was swollen with rage,
the king of the Geats let a word go forth,
shouted strong-hearted; his voice rose,
the ringing battlecry under gray stone. (ll. 2550-2553)
To translate the familiar phrase, "ða he gebolgen wæs," as "for he was
angry," as so many have done, almost travesties an emotional
state that is significant and fundamental to the text and its
analysis, indeed, to the Beowulf poet and his audience we believe,
so magnificent. As there is preparation of arms for battle, there
is preparation also of the mind, the spirit, thus reinforcing
a hierarchy of mind and body. Having thoroughly constructed his
rage, Beowulf's readiness bursts forth in a verbal challenge
to the Dragon (an act that also declares the value of proper
rage): "stearcheort styrmde" reinforces the
fact that this cry surges up "of breostum,"
from the warrior's breast or heart, which this culture believed
to be the center of emotions.
In his essay cited earlier, Eric Jager (1990)
explores the poetic analogy between Beowulf's breast and the
dragon's barrow, showing how Beowulf's cry "is reified into
a weaponlike object traveling independently away from its source
in the warrior's chest," a cry analogous to "the dragon's
utterance [which], of course, is a weapon" (Jager's
emphasis). This analogy, he argues, is further "complemented
by a psychological [analogy]: the fact that Beowulf speaks in
anger (ða
he gebolgen wæs),
as though his pectoral word expresses this anger, is figuratively
represented as the hate that his utterance stirs up in the barrow"
(Jager 1990,
850-851). Jager's analysis is further supported and extended
by our reading of Beowulf's cry as carrying with it a force that
matches the dragon's fiery roar; Beowulf's response from his
heart or chest is, however, a force not of anger but of battle
rage. Moreover, Beowulf's "anger" does not "stir
up" the dragon's hate--the dragon is already enraged; rather
Beowulf's cry represents psychological and spiritual weapons
meeting just prior to the physical encounter, rage meeting rage.
The pattern we have seen of distinguishing between appropriate
and inappropriate displays of rage in Beowulf and the monsters
respectively is further developed in incidents that contrast
Beowulf's behavior with that of other human beings. Such incidents
more clearly reveal the impact of appropriate and inappropriate
rage on the social order. As we suggested earlier, the most inappropriate
contexts in which the warrior might fly into rage, those most
threatening to the social order, are in company with his own
kin or hearth companions, especially in his own meadhall. It
is in just such contexts that the negative side of this kind
of rage is repeatedly revealed in the poem. Interkin conflict,
especially kinslaying, is in fact a constant topic. Unferth is
known to have killed two brothers, the commonness of which is
suggested by its being little more than a mild embarrassment
to him. Wealhtheow is worried about her nephew Hrothulf opposing
her son Hrethric's succession, which in fact will be the source
of internal division that finally destroys the Scylding dynasty
of the Danes. Among the Swedes, Onela's nephews rebel against
their uncle, a conflict only one of the nephews will survive.
Another manifestation of interkin conflict emerges as a result
of marriages arranged to settle feuds. This tactic is, of course,
based on the expectation that people will be less likely to fight
with their own kin, an expectation which is treated more with
irony than anything else in the poem. Beowulf asserts (ll. 2028-2032)
that marriages to settle feuds are rarely successful, and the
examples that emerge bear out his judgment. In the past the marriage
between Hnaf's sister and Finn failed to make peace between Danes
and Frisians, although that between Onela and Hrothgar's sister
seems to help maintain peace between Swedes and Danes. Nonetheless,
Hrothgar's Heathobard son-in-law Ingeld will attack and burn
Heorot.
An example of destructive internal conflict not involving kin
occurs in Hrothgar's use of the ancient Danish king Heremod as
an example of what he hopes Beowulf will never become. Heremod
"breat
bolgenmod / beodgeneatas,"
"killed in rage his table companions" (l.1713), and
thereby brought down on his people slaughter and destruction.
The sole reason given for his rage is "him on ferhþe greow / breost-hord
blodreow,"
that "in his spirit his heart grew bloodthirsty" (ll.1717-1718).
Indeed, his name, which translates as "battle-spirited,"
suggests in this context that a state of mind appropriate in
battle came to pervade his being. His rage, in short, was uncontrolled
and therefore as little motivated and as mindlessly destructive
as Grendel's.
In fact, viewed in terms of this problem of uncontrolled rage,
Grendel is much less a monster than simply an extreme example
of the very human problems of the poem's warrior culture. Grendel
lives in a kind of exile, sharing in Cain's punishment: "feor forwræc . . . mancynne
fram,"
"driven far . . . from mankind" (ll.109-110), for what
the poet calls a "fæhðe," "feud" (l.109).
This word can apply to conflicts between peoples, but at least
as often and more tragically it is applied to those between companions
and kin, a situation not at all uncommon among northern European
warriors. Indeed the exile is a character type who appears frequently
in northern European epic and saga, long recognized in the critical
literature as well (Brown
1989). Sometimes he is a survivor of a people whose lord
has died, like Deor, or one all of whose people have died, like
the warrior in Beowulf who hid the treasure that the dragon
will find. More often the exile is a man who has fallen out with
his own people because of some kind of feud. That feud may be
politically based, like the rebellion described in Beowulf
against the Swedish king Onela by his nephews, or it is occasioned
by the exile having killed one or more of his fellow warriors.
Textual examples of the latter type of inter-kin or civil feud
consistently reveal that the exiled character is so because he
could not control his rage. Grettir the Strong, the subject of
the Norse saga by the same name, is an especially good example
of the latter kind of exile; he typically ends up killing several
of the hearth companions of anyone who hosts him.
Sometimes, most tragically, exile is occasioned by the warrior's
having killed his own kin. The Beowulf poet reminds us
of this kind of situation briefly when Hrothgar's herald first
greets Beowulf and his men, noticing respectfully that by the
look of them they have come, "neallas for wræcsiðum, / ac
for higeþrymmum,"
"not as exiles but as greathearted men" (ll. 338-39).
Grendel, however, is such an exile, and one whose separation
from the human community, the social order, is rooted not simply
in his behavior, but in his ancestry: his kinship with Cain links
him with the first murder, the archetypal act of kinslaying and
a clear intersection between the moral systems of Christianity
and northern paganism.
Moreover, it is because Grendel is the embodiment of uncontrolled
rage that his rage is so extreme and seems so little motivated:
it is directed against Hrothgar's people, we are told, in response
to the light and sounds of joyful feasting and poetic song coming
from Heorot. However, Grendel's rage existed long before he noticed
those lights and sounds; they become a special magnet for his
rage because they and Heorot embody the joys of comradeship and
social order from which his rage and God's consequent anger,
"Godes
yrre"
(l. 711), have made him forever exiled. Directed against Heorot,
Grendel's uncontrolled rage will continue unabated for years
until it succumbs to the heroic form of rage displayed by Beowulf.
It should be no surprise, therefore, that Grendel is "(ge)bolgen," "enraged"
(l. 723), as he enters Heorot for what will be the last time.
It is also in keeping with his function as the type of uncontrolled
rage that he, an exile, commits his depredations within a meadhall,
and in so doing violates order enough to make all the inhabitants
of that hall themselves, at least for a time, exiles.
The thematic pattern of contrasting appropriate rage in battle
and inappropriate rage in social contexts is especially important
in that it anticipates the later transformation, as Elias describes
it, of the feudal nobility "from a class of knights into
a class of courtiers" (Elias
1982, 2:20). This transformation is first adumbrated in Beowulf
in the hero's exchange in Hrothgar's court with Unferth. There
rage is conspicuous by its absence. A less self-controlled, less
intellectually adept, less socially aware and courteous warrior
would have responded to Unferth's challenge, which borders on
outright insult, with violence, but not Beowulf. He maintains
his dignity and his temper and defeats Unferth verbally, a performance
that wins Hrothgar's approval and Unferth's grudging respect.
Indeed, Hrothgar's praise of Beowulf after his conquest of Grendel
could apply as well to his handling of Unferth: Beowulf's achievement
is not only in his "blæd," his "power, glory,
or renown" (l. 1703), but because he "geþyldum healdest, /
mægen mid modes snyttrum,"
"holds [that power] steadily, with wisdom of spirit"
(ll.1705-1706). This is praise that Hrothgar directly relates
to Beowulf's restraining from inappropriate rage when, a few
lines later, he uses the contrasting example we noted earlier
of Heremod, who did not control his power, but killed his table
companions in rage, defiled, in effect, his own court. The true
warrior seeks, in contrast, to maintain the meadhall, this early
version of a court, as a center for civilized discourse. In other
words, Hrothgar is lecturing on the rudiments of courtly behavior.
Courtliness is, of course, presented in a limited sense meaning
here avoiding drunkenness and suppressing one's rage in social
contexts along with cultivating one's capacity for rage in order
to employ it appropriately in battle. As such it embodies the
special sense of social responsibility imposed on the warrior
gifted with great strength and skill, a responsibility that Beowulf
has clearly accepted and internalized.
The importance of Beowulf's courtly behavior, as well as the
problem of its lack in most warriors in these Germanic and Scandinavian
warrior cultures, is suggested again in one of Beowulf's dying
boasts about what is evidently a rare virtue, that he can die
happy, "forðam
me witan ne ðearf / Walend fira // morðorbealo maga,
/ þonne min sceaceð // lif of lice," "For the Creator
of men cannot lay to my charge the heinous murder of kinsmen,
when life departs from my body" (ll. 2740-2742). By then
Beowulf's physical vigor has gradually diminished with age, but
his awareness of social order and his resolve to maintain that
order have never diminished, have indeed been practiced resolutely
and continuously throughout his life. His courtly virtues had
also been demonstrated earlier when Beowulf, the ideally loyal
warrior, supported his kinsman by refusing the throne after Hygelac's
death, even when it was offered by the queen herself, committing
himself to backing the succession of his cousin Heardred, Hygelac's
son. Beowulf serves also as the example for avoiding internal
violence on a broader scale than among kin. Earlier in this second
half of the poem, in language that recalls Hrothgar's comments
about Heremod, the poet praises Beowulf for "nealles inwitnet / oðrum
bregdon // dyrnum cræfte, / deað ren(ian) // hondgesteallan," "not weaving nets
of malice for others in secret plots, preparing the death of
companions" (ll. 2167-2169). The point is made again a few
lines later, applied to unpremeditated crimes:
Swa bealdode
bearn Ecgðeowes,
guma guðum cuð godum dædum,
dreah æfter dome; nealles druncne slog
heorðgeneatas; næs him hreoh sefa,
ac he mancynnes mæsta cræfte
ginfæstan gife, þe him God sealde,
heold hildedeor.
So Ecgtheow's son showed
himself,
a man famous in battle for good deeds,
acted with [good] judgement; never, drunken, did he slay
his hearthcompanions; not his was the savage spirit,
but, fierce in battle, he guarded that greatest strength,
the ample gift that God gave him. (ll. 2177-2183)
Beowulf has clearly followed Hrothgar's advice, maintaining the
wellsprings of his rage for use in battle while restraining it
among his kin, his friends, and his allies. Here too the language
of the text reveals contrasting forms of rage: (1) the savage
spirit, "hreoh
sefa,"
which can lead to the slaying of one's hearth companions and
which Beowulf did not display except in the fitting context of
that desperate moment with Grendle's dam, and (2) the battle-fierceness,
"hildedeor," which is appropriate
in battle and which Beowulf amply displayed. Moreover, the language
of these three passages, describing what Beowulf is not, so aptly
describes what both Heremod and Grendel are that the monster
is again revealed as the archetypal exemplar of uncontrolled
rage. This view of rage also helps us understand the poet's view
of the order of Anglo-Saxon society:
Metod eallum
weold
gumena cynnes, swa he nu git deð.
Forþan bið andgit æghwær selest,
ferhðes foreþanc. Fela sceal gibidan
leofes ond laþes se þe longe her
on ðyssum windagum worolde bruceð!
The Creator rules all
human kind now as he ever did.
Therefore this understanding, mind's forethought,
is everywhere best: much shall he experience
of love and hate who long here
in these days of strife endures the world. (ll. 1057-1062)
The world of this poem's warrior culture is one of love and hate,
one in which strife is endemic, war is as much a part of life
as peace, and conflicts all too often can be settled only with
violence. It is a world therefore in which the cultivation of
the capacity for rage is both a necessity and a danger, a subject
for glorification and for admonition, as well as an example of
what Elias describes as:
the earlier sphere, where violence is an unavoidable and everyday
event, and where the individual's chains of dependence are relatively
short . . . .The life of the warriors themselves, but also that
of all others living in a society with a warrior upper class,
is threatened continually and directly by acts of physical violence;
thus measured against life in more pacified zones, it oscillates
between extremes. (Elias
1982, 2:236)
This is a world in which the wise warrior and leader is obliged
not only to restrain his rage, but also to call upon it at need.
It is this capacity, so clearly exhibited in Beowulf,
that makes him anomalous, or better, uniquely heroic.
The poem however is tragic, depicting a world dependent on a
heroic ideal that could not be maintained beyond the life of
that hero. And here again Elias helps us understand why. The
process of civilization, as he describes it, is a complex one
in which economic and political forces move toward strong and
stable central monopolies of power. These enjoin stricter forms
of control that limit the savage joys of that earlier sphere,
controls that are subsequently rationalized, moralized, and finally
internalized through processes of socialization into self-control,
which in turn feed back into the civilizing process. But that
is a process that paradoxically requires leaders less scrupulous
and more ruthless than Beowulf, more concerned with exerting
and expanding power over others rather than the kind of self-mastery
exhibited by Beowulf. Thus Beowulf fails to effect any lasting
change on his society. Indeed, Beowulf's self-control is amply
demonstrated throughout the poem, while his lesser control over
others, which we might call a political more than a personal
weakness (though the text does not seem to present it as a weakness
in Beowulf), is demonstrated in his reluctance to assume the
throne after Higelac's death and in the lack of support he receives
from all his retainers except Wiglaf in his final battle.
Finally, the central significance of the forms of belgan
in the poem is further demonstrated by the extent to which the
translation of this word bears on some of the major debates that
have occupied scholars for the last century. Translating it as
we have, Beowulf emerges as an unmitigated hero, not the decadent
king marred by hubris imagined by many readers. His death can
only be conceived as a failure if one superimposes Christainized
versions of classic Greek vices onto the pagan warrior culture
that Beowulf exemplifies. All warriors must die sooner or later,
and dying in battle or as the direct result of battle is in warrior
cultures the best way to go; the fact that it happens so late
in the life of a warrior as active as Beowulf is only more grounds
for seeing this king as exemplary. What he lacks for us is perhaps
the kind of lasting impact on his culture that we have come to
expect of epic heroes since Aeneas. This is not so much a matter
of weakness in the hero, however, as a condition of the moral
and historical vision of the poet and his culture. His is a world
characterized by change without any ultimate direction, either
historical or escatalogical, except the change embodied in seeing
in the past an epic grandeur forever lost.
The idea of cultivating a spirit of violent destructiveness,
even temporarily, indeed of glorifying those who achieve that
spirit, seems to run more deeply counter to Christian morality
than simply killing. It managed to survive in this transitional
piece--indeed its survival in a transitional piece is precisely
what makes its treatment anomalous--but it became an idea ignored
or suppressed in most subsequent literature as Christian values
displaced pagan ones--Bertran De Born's twelfth century song
"In Praise of War" is a rare and unsettling example
of an ecstatic response to battle that bears some kinship with
battle rage. The Beowulf poet, however, achieves an even
rarer balance between the epic's admonitory theme about the control
of rage and its glorification of appropriate rage, a balance
which subsequent European culture abandoned as it suppressed
the vision of rage as a positive attribute.
