Beowulf Mini Essay

Kenning

            In the course of my life I have read a number of big story books, The Lord of the Rings being probably the most known, and in reading Beowulf I noticed a number of distinct similarities and differences. For example, both are big stories and both are epic in scale and scope. However, the major difference between the two is that while The Lord of the Rings is an epic series written as novels, Beowulf is an epic poem written in the tradition of Old English. There are a number of attributes associated with the Old English literary tradition, however the one that stood out to me the most was the use of kennings. Kenning, or that practice of using two words in place of one, is found throughout the epic. It had the effect of being thought provoking, at times distracting, and it presented an overall positive reading experience.

            Kennings in Beowulf were thought provoking in that when coming across an example in the poem I felt forced to ponder its hidden meaning. For example, the first instance use of kennings I encountered in the story comes in the prologue’s description of Shield Sheafson. He was described as being a, “terror of hall-troops” (5). The use of “hall-troops” in describing guards or soldiers forced me want to solve this “poetic riddle” (Simpson 9). Coming across Beowulf’s kennings was entertaining in that they presented a kind of game, but they were also at times a bit distracting.

            Kennings forced me to think a bit more about what the author was trying to convey, but in doing so some of the less intuitive combinations compelled me to stop for a moment to try and decipher its meaning. An example of a distracting kenning came when Beowulf landed on the Dane’s shores. The narrator described him as, “This is no mere / hanger-on in a hero’s armor” (250-251). I was forced to stop and reread the passage a number of times to try and get a clearer view of the meaning of the kenning used. In this case I had to eventually turn to my trusty dictionary for a formal definition of what a hanger-on was. While there were a few tougher kennings in the story, the use of them presented a better reading experience.

            The the combination of both thought provoking and distracting kennings gave the epic a bit of balance, and an overall positive feel when reading. To expand on this, it is hard to imagine what Beowulf would be like without the addition of kennings. For example, God is used many times throughout the poem, and he is expressed in a number of different combinations: “Lord of Life”, “Glorious Almighty”, “Almighty Father” etc. If they were removed, there would a constant, and perhaps, mundane repetition of just the word “God” that would have been a bit fatiguing going through the epic.

            Beowulf was a challenging read; it is long, it is removed from contemporary literary traditions, and with the addition of kennings, it is at times cryptic. However, the use of kennings made the story more interesting because they alleviated repetition, and they added a sense of entertaining challenge when trying to decipher some of the combinations. While some of the less intuitive kennings were a bit distracting, the story simply would not have been the same without them.