Get 20M+ Full-Text Papers For Less Than $1.50/day. Start a 14-Day Trial for You or Your Team.

Learn More →

The Sword Hrunting in Beowulf: Unlocking the Word hord

The Sword Hrunting in Beowulf: Unlocking the Word hord The <i>Beowulf</i>-poet depicts Beowulf as striking Grendel&apos;s dam with a sword. At line 1520b the manuscript reads, "hord swenge ne ofteah." The only editor to interpret the half-line as it stands is the first editor, Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin (1815), who, however, misconstrues the sense and syntax. So in one way or another do all later editors. The standard treatment of the crux for the last century entails both emending two of the four words in the half-line and abandoning one of the poet&apos;s favorite syntactic patterns. But there is no need to rewrite the half-line according to modern specifications. The <i>Beowulf</i>-poet is poetic. Overall, he employs seventeen different terms found nowhere else in Old English poetry in reference to swords: <i>hord</i> at line 1520b—perhaps the most daring of them all—need not mean a collection of valuables but can mean a single thing singularly valuable. The word befits Hrunting, the most famous sword in the heroic world of <i>Beowulf</i>. The fact that the weapon fails is but one strand in the web of irony that the poet weaves in the episode. http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Studies in Philology University of North Carolina Press

The Sword Hrunting in Beowulf: Unlocking the Word hord

Studies in Philology , Volume 109 (1) – Jan 21, 2012

Loading next page...
 
/lp/university-of-north-carolina-press/the-sword-hrunting-in-beowulf-unlocking-the-word-hord-xvrhc0KoYV

References

References for this paper are not available at this time. We will be adding them shortly, thank you for your patience.

Publisher
University of North Carolina Press
Copyright
Copyright © 2008 The University of North Carolina Press.
ISSN
1543-0383

Abstract

The <i>Beowulf</i>-poet depicts Beowulf as striking Grendel&apos;s dam with a sword. At line 1520b the manuscript reads, "hord swenge ne ofteah." The only editor to interpret the half-line as it stands is the first editor, Grímur Jónsson Thorkelin (1815), who, however, misconstrues the sense and syntax. So in one way or another do all later editors. The standard treatment of the crux for the last century entails both emending two of the four words in the half-line and abandoning one of the poet&apos;s favorite syntactic patterns. But there is no need to rewrite the half-line according to modern specifications. The <i>Beowulf</i>-poet is poetic. Overall, he employs seventeen different terms found nowhere else in Old English poetry in reference to swords: <i>hord</i> at line 1520b—perhaps the most daring of them all—need not mean a collection of valuables but can mean a single thing singularly valuable. The word befits Hrunting, the most famous sword in the heroic world of <i>Beowulf</i>. The fact that the weapon fails is but one strand in the web of irony that the poet weaves in the episode.

Journal

Studies in PhilologyUniversity of North Carolina Press

Published: Jan 21, 2012

There are no references for this article.