Week 3: The Heroic Poet

For Monday, please read:

Widsith and Deor (both in the Anthology).


If you fancy some interweb wormhole fun, take a look at the Ƿikipædia entry for Widsith.

For Wednesday and Friday, please read:

Lay of Wayland, Eulogy on Ragnar (pp. 128-33) and Atlakvitha (The Lay of Atli, 150-62)



Class discussion:

Over the week we talked about the following things:

- The Poet as Hero.

- The Role (and utility) of Poetry within the Heroic Economy

- The importance of the circulation (movement) of treasure in the Heroic System. The way that poetry and reputation also circulate.

- We also talked about the oral vs written nature of the poems. They survive in written form, but have many aspects that we consider to be oral in nature, and - in terms of their social use - must have been public and orally performed at some point in their existence.

If you would like the listen to a number of recreations of OE poetry, here are a few links:

An interpretation of Deor (thanks to Austen Erhardt for the link). This interpreter makes the poem into song lyrics, which is a choice.  In contrast, Benjamin Bagby, one of the world's best historical musicians (when it comes to Western Europe, at least) takes more of a music - speech - music approach in his work: here we see his introduction to Beowulf.

Historical musical interpreters use a mix of archaeology, poetics, experimentation, and speculation.  Here is a short clip on the Sutton Hoo Lyre (an instrument found in the famous ship burial at Sutton Hoo).





And, as a special tribute, there is this, from my friend Carolyne Larrington.