Conclusion: “A Truly Splendid Ruin”
Nationalism, aesthetics, spirituality – these have been the chief motivations for Old English (OE) studies in Scandinavia, initially embodied in the work of one man, N. F. S. Grundtvig, but eventually embracing the whole history of the field. Grundtvig’s interests definitely exerted great influence on his contemporaries and successors. Without him, for example, Hammerich would not have written about the Old Germanic Christian epic, Kragballe would not have translated Bede’s
Ecclesiastical History, Joakim Skovgaard would not have painted his picture of Christ’s descent into hell,
1 Noack, “Den oldengelske digtning og Grundtvig,” p. 155. Denmark would not be the only country on earth where laypersons are in frequent touch with OE poetry because of Grundtvig’s hymns and songs, and OE studies in Scandinavia would not have been so abundant. There is a great deal of it published in English and German – the other part of the picture that is not painted in this book – but its manifestation in the languages of the region is remarkable for its vigor and breadth as well as its relative obscurity. Should readers stumble on Scandinavian contributions to OE scholarship now, a comment by R. W. Chambers in 1921 could well typify their response. Looking back on Frederik Rönning’s 1883
Beovulfs-kvadet: En literær-historisk undersøgelse (The Heroic Poem of Beowulf: A Literary-Historical Study), Chambers pointed out that it contained a view of
Beowulf that was fifty years old but only then had come to be generally accepted.
2 Beowulf: An Introduction, p. 400.The relative neglect of Scandinavian scholarship is, of course, understandable because of the language barrier for many readers and because the nationalistic bias in OE studies has shifted decidedly away from Scandinavia (and Germany) to England and North America. To be sure, the Danes were present at the birth of OE studies – they even induced labor – but they were immediately driven from the room. Today we pay some homage to the prominent names (Thorkelin, Grundtvig, Rask), due in large part to several scholars who have recognized the importance of the Scandinavian involvement in OE studies. We would have less of
Beowulf without Thorkelin’s transcriptions, as Kevin Kiernan has shown,
3 The Thorkelin Transcriptions of Beowulf (Copenhagen, 1986). and we would have seen the poem only much later had it not been for Thorkelin and Grundtvig. And our knowledge of OE grammar and that of antiquarians such as Thorpe and Kemble would have progressed much more slowly had it not been for Rask, as Hans Aarsleff has demonstrated.
4 The Study of Language in England, pp. 182–85. But we have been unaware of, much less paid homage to, many other Scandinavian names. Once ejected from the delivery room of OE studies, however, the Scandinavians developed their own brand of the discipline in a different direction and at a different pace from that of the ungrateful English. In particular, they achieved an early aesthetic appreciation for OE poetry that scholars still have not discovered, despite occasional inroads into the field of the Scandinavian engagement in OE studies by a handful of them (see Appendix A.II). This book, I hope, has helped to rectify the situation. As we become increasingly aware of the political and ideological dimensions of scholarship in any age, we also come to see that the birth of a discipline in one culture is not synonymous with its birth in another. Studying that phenomenon is vital. It serves as a corrective to mistaken notions about progress – or stasis – in a field, and it helps us better understand why we find ourselves where we do. Lars Lönnroth describes the present scene in OE studies very well:
Slutligen har modernismens genombrott medfört att diktens funktion in samhället har förändrats. Den nationalistiska retoriken och hyllandet av förfädernas ära har fått träda tillbaka för mer individualistiska, existentiella och formmässiga egenskaper. I dag är det inte längre mandom, mod och morske män eller förkristna asagudar som i första hand förtjänar att lyftas fram i den germanska dikten utan andra kvaliteter: dramatiken, de djärva metaforerna, de gåtfulla visionära myterna, de lakoniska formuleringarna om livets hårda villkor i dödens skugga.
5 Lönnroth, Det germanska spåret, p. 6.Finally, the breakthrough of modernism has led to poetry’s function in society changing. The nationalist rhetoric and tribute to the honor of our forefathers has given way to more individualistic, existential, and formal characteristics. Today, it is no longer manhood, bravery, and dark men or pre-Christian Æsir gods that primarily deserve highlighting in Germanic poetry, but other qualities: the drama, the bold metaphors, the enigmatic visionary myths, the laconic formulations about life’s harsh conditions in the shadow of death.
The qualities Scandinavians seek now in OE literature – that we all seek in that truly splendid ruin – are transnational, existential, spiritual, and human.