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Beowulf's
Longest Day: the Amphibious Hero in His Element (Beowulf, ll.
1495b96)
by OREN FALK,
Cornell University
This seven long years and more
He me affected;
We parted on the shore
With hearts contracted:
He promised to turn again,
If God life lent him,
Which makes me sigh and mourn,
Death doth prevent him.
Few heroes of OE literature have had to fight as hard as the renowned
champion of the Geats to earn, and retain, their distinguished service decorations.
Beowulf's amphibious exploits, in particular, have stirred up considerable
scholarly controversy. In the first generations of modern editing, Beowulf
could swim from Skåne to Lapland, hand-ferry a formidable wardrobe
from Frisia to Scandinavia, and grapple for an entire day with Grendel's
mother at the bottom of her mere. But serious doubts about his
Navy SEAL qualifications have been raised in more recent scholarship, chiefly
by Fred Robinson, who, in a carefully argued essay, debunked Beowulf's marine
prowess and trimmed it down to more credible proportions. Others, notably
Stanley Greenfield, have preferred to allow Beowulf to keep his
wetsuit on. Any attempt to settle the argument conclusively may seem as
hopeful as an initiative to collect seawater in a sieve. The critics appear
irrevocably divided both on where to draw the line separating verisimilar
from fantastical in medieval literature, in general, and on where to locate
the specific poem and character relative to that line: while some would
take their Beowulf with a stiff shot of realism, others would have it laced
with the fabulous. Little could probably be argued to bring about changes
of allegiance in such matters, unless perhaps some intrepid Anglo-Saxonist
were to take up frogman training or cross the Channel in full battle gear
and decisively prove that the marvelous may indeed be mundane—or die
trying.
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