Signs of Stability and Instability in Beowulf
STABILITY: “ties that bind”: social structures INSTABILITY: forces and signs of
/ poetic structures
disruption
Family lines—lineage
Feuding, wars, vengeance (some
Loyalty through oaths/boasts
bonds and oaths, too)
Loyalty through treasure—gift giving
Fate, reversals of fortune, larger
Treasure designed as woven and
forces at work
interlinked symbols
Greed and fear can disrupt loyalty
Peace-weaving through “man payDrinking, envy, and insults are a
offs”—wergilds
recipe for disruption
Peace-weaving through
Litotes as a popular poetic device
women/marriages
(undercutting expectations for effect,
Drinking can bring people together in the
like irony)
mead-hall
Stories recalling those that have died
Hospitality and diplomacy reduce
and those that were part of a prior
tension
order can create nostalgia and open
Stories can be tied to past traditions
old wounds
Stories are “interwoven” (spin a yarn)
with digressions
“Peace-Weaving: The Ties that Bind, or Things Fall Apart at the Seams?”
Wealhtheow (name = foreign servant?) “Helming woman,” “observing courtesies” (46)
Hildeburh in “The Finnsburg Episode,” a tragic example of “peace-weaving” (55)
Wealhtheow (again as hostess) and her gift of treasure to Beowulf (60-61)
Great Queen Modthryth, not so great? “A queen should weave peace, not punish…” (75)
Beowulf tells Hygelac: Wealhtheow “a peace-pledge between nations” (76)
Beowulf also mentions Wealhtheow’s daughter, Freawaru; perhaps this woman “will heal old
wounds and grievous feuds” (76), but Beowulf sounds skeptical that passing around
“possessions” (treasures and treasured women) will work, as “oath-bound lords will break
the peace” (77).
Do oaths help or hurt stability? It depends.