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Author:   Bo Graslund ,  Martin Naylor
Publisher:   Arc Humanities Press
Imprint:   Arc Humanities Press
Edition:   New edition
ISBN:  

9781802700084

ISBN 10:   1802700080
Pages:   286
Publication Date:   30 April 2022
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print  
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Table of Contents

Prefaces Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. The Origins of the Poem Chapter 3. Some Unproven Premises Chapter 4. Dating of the Poem Chapter 5. Archaeological Delimination Chapter 6. Results of Primary Analysis, Step 1 Chapter 7. The Name Geatas Chapter 8. Other Links to Eastern Sweden Chapter 9. Elements of Non-Christian Thinking Chapter 10. Poetry in Scandinavia Chapter 11. The Oral Structure of the Poem Chapter 12. Results of Primary Analysis, Step 2 Chapter 13. Gotland Chapter 14. Heorot Chapter 15. Swedes and Gutes Chapter 16. The Horsemen around Beowulf’s Grave Chapter 17. Some Linguistic Details Chapter 18. From Scandinavia to England Chapter 19. Transmission and Writing Down in England Chapter 20. Allegorical Representation Chapter 21. Beowulf and Guta saga Chapter 22. Chronology Chapter 23. Retrospective Summary Bibliography

Reviews

Gräslund has offered a substantial body of archaeological evidence and argumentation for his judgment that the Geats of Beowulf are ancient Gotlanders and that the poem’s origin as an “oral history” of this people can be traced to this “large, well-populated island,” which in the Middle Iron Age “enjoyed considerable material wealth, reflecting extensive and independent relations with the Roman Empire and its provinces and with the Gothic and Hunnic regions” (231). The author’s findings are to be taken seriously, though he regrettably skirts or downplays the question of how this oral history might have been transmitted to migrants living closer to Britain in Jutland and northern Germany and why they would have been keen to preserve this poetic account of another people’s past when they took so little interest in their own pre-Christian heritage. Tom Shippey addresses this question in his recent book published in the same year, also by Arc Humanities Press: “Beowulf” and the North before the Vikings (2022). Shippey’s thesis is that the poem preserves many authentic memories of life and times in southern Scandinavia from the later fifth to the mid-sixth centuries. [...] Together, these two new studies make an interesting case for the possible historical roots of the fantastic tale of monster-fights that came to be imagined in Beowulf. -- Craig R. Davis * Speculum 99, no. 1 (January 2024): 222-24 *

Author Information

Bo Gräslund is professor emeritus in archaeology at Uppsala University.

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