1887
Volume 18, Issue 2
  • ISSN 1566-5852
  • E-ISSN: 1569-9854
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

This paper argues for a reconsideration of the pragmatics of , specifically in relation to speech in what is known as the “Unferð Episode”, and more generally in terms of the poem’s placement in the ethnopragmatic history of English. Previous critics have almost unanimously read sarcasm into Beowulf’s treatment of the initially hostile Unferð (e.g., in his address to the latter as , ‘my friend’), and in turn historical pragmaticists have discussed the poem in relation to Germanic insult-boasts, or flyting. By discussing the relevant contextual and co-textual frames, I show that previous interpretations along these lines have failed to recognize the import of Beowulf’s courtly speech.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.00001.wil
2018-02-09
2024-10-07
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. Arnovick, Leslie K.
    1995 “Sounding and Flyting the English Agnostic Insult: Writing Pragmatic History in a Cross-Cultural Context”. In Mava Jo Powell (ed.), The Twenty-First LACUS Forum 1994, 600–19. Chapell Hill: The Linguistic Association of Canada and the United States.
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Baker, Peter S.
    1988 “Beowulf the Orator”. Journal of English Linguistics21 (3): 3–23. doi: 10.1177/007542428802100101
    https://doi.org/10.1177/007542428802100101 [Google Scholar]
  3. 2013Honour, Exchange and Violence in Beowulf. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
    [Google Scholar]
  4. Bjork, Robert E.
    (ed.) 2013The Old English Poems of Cynewulf. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  5. Bjork, Robert E. and Anita Obermeier
    1996 “Date, Provenance, Author, Audiences”. In Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles (eds), A Beowulf Handbook, 13–34. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Bloomfield, Morton W.
    1949–51 “‘Beowulf’ and Christian Allegory: An Interpretation of Unferth”. Traditio7: 410–15. doi: 10.1017/S036215290001521X
    https://doi.org/10.1017/S036215290001521X [Google Scholar]
  7. Bonnard, Émile
    (ed.) 1979Saint Jérôme, Commentaire sur S. Matthieu, Tome II. Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf.
    [Google Scholar]
  8. Bosworth, Joseph
    2010An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary Online, edited by Thomas Northcote Toller et al. Compiled by Sean Christ and Ondřej Tichý (Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague, 21Mar. 2010) Accessed5 November 2013at: www.bosworthtoller.com/.
    [Google Scholar]
  9. Brodeur, Arthur Gilchrist
    1959The Art of Beowulf. Berkeley: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  10. Burnley, David
    1998Courtliness and Literature in Medieval England. London and New York: Longman.
    [Google Scholar]
  11. Campbell, James
    1986Essays in Anglo-Saxon History. London: Hambledon Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Cheang, Henry S. and Marc D. Pell
    2011 “Recognizing Sarcasm without Language: A Cross-Linguistic Study of English and Cantonese”. Pragmatics and Cognition19 (2): 203–23. doi: 10.1075/pc.19.2.02che
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pc.19.2.02che [Google Scholar]
  13. Clark, George
    (trans.) 1997The Tale of Sarcastic Halli. In Örnólfur Thorsson (ed.), The Sagas of Icelanders, 694–712. New York: Penguin.
    [Google Scholar]
  14. Clark, Tom
    2003A Case for Irony in Beowulf, with Particular Reference to its Epithets. Bern: Peter Lang.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Clark Hall, J. R.
    1960A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary. (Fourth edition.) Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  16. Clover, Carol
    1980 “The Germanic Context of the Unferþ Episode”. Speculum55 (3): 444–68. doi: 10.2307/2847235
    https://doi.org/10.2307/2847235 [Google Scholar]
  17. Culpeper, Jonathan
    2011Impoliteness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9780511975752
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511975752 [Google Scholar]
  18. Davies, W. D. and Dale C. Allison Jr.
    1997A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Gospel According to Saint Matthew. Edinburgh: T&T Clark.
    [Google Scholar]
  19. Dictionary of Old English Web Corpus (DOEC) 2009 Compiled by Antonette diPaolo Healey with John Price Wilkin and Xin Xiang . Toronto: Dictionary of Old English Project.
    [Google Scholar]
  20. Friedman, Hershey H.
    2000 “Humor in the Hebrew Bible”. Humor13 (3): 257–85. doi: 10.1515/humr.2000.13.3.257
    https://doi.org/10.1515/humr.2000.13.3.257 [Google Scholar]
  21. Fulk, R. D.
    (ed.) 2010The Beowulf Manuscript. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  22. Goddard, Cliff
    2006 “‘Lift Your Game, Martina! Deadpan Jocular Irony and the Ethnopragmatics of ‘Aussie’ English”. In Cliff Goddard (ed.), Ethnopragmatics: Understanding Discourse in Cultural Context, 1–30. Berlin: de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Gwara, Scott
    2008Heroic Identity in the World of Beowulf. Leiden and Boston: Brill. doi: 10.1163/ej.9789004171701.i‑420
    https://doi.org/10.1163/ej.9789004171701.i-420 [Google Scholar]
  24. Hill, John M.
    1996 “Social Milieu”. In Robert E. Bjork and John D. Niles (eds), A Beowulf Handbook, 255–69. Exeter: University of Exeter Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  25. Hill, Thomas D.
    2014 “ Beowulf and Conversion History”. In Leonard Neidorf (ed.), The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment, 191–201. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Hughes, Geoffrey
    1977 “Beowulf, Unferth and Hrunting: An Interpretation”. English Studies58 (5): 385–95. doi: 10.1080/00138387708597845
    https://doi.org/10.1080/00138387708597845 [Google Scholar]
  27. Irving, Edward B.
    1968A Reading of Beowulf. New Haven: Yale University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  28. Jacobs, Lesley
    2011Kinship, Violence and Inheritance in Early Germanic and Celtic Heroic Narratives. Unpublished PhD thesis. Indiana University.
    [Google Scholar]
  29. Jaeger, C. Stephen
    1985The Origins of Courtliness. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. doi: 10.9783/9780812200898
    https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812200898 [Google Scholar]
  30. Jones, Christopher A.
    (ed.) 2012Old English Shorter Poems: Religious and Didactic. Cambridge, Massachusetts, and London: Harvard University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  31. Jucker, Andreas
    2012 “Changes in Politeness Cultures”. In Terttu Nevalainen and Elizabeth Closs Traugott (eds), The Oxford Handbook of the History of English, 422–33. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  32. Jucker, Andreas and Irma Taavitsainen
    2000 “Diachronic Speech Act Analysis: Insults from Flyting to Flaming”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics1 (1): 67–95. doi: 10.1075/jhp.1.1.07juc
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.1.1.07juc [Google Scholar]
  33. Kádár, Dániel and Michael Haugh
    2013Understanding Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi: 10.1017/CBO9781139382717
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139382717 [Google Scholar]
  34. King, Judy
    2010 “Transforming the Hero: Beowulf and the Conversion of Hunferth”. In Robin Waugh and James Weldon (eds), The Hero Recovered: Essays on Medieval Heroism in Honor of George Clark, 47–64. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Publications.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Kohnen, Thomas
    2008 “Linguistic Politeness in Anglo-Saxon England? A Study of Old English Address Terms”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics9 (1): 140–58. doi: 10.1075/jhp.9.1.11koh
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.9.1.11koh [Google Scholar]
  36. 2011 “Understanding Anglo-Saxon ‘Politeness’: Directive Constructions with ic wille/ic wolde ”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics12 (1–2): 230–54. doi: 10.1075/jhp.12.1‑2.10koh
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.12.1-2.10koh [Google Scholar]
  37. Knox, Dilwyn
    1989Ironia. Leiden: Brill.
    [Google Scholar]
  38. Liuzza, Roy
    2011 “Iron and Irony in Beowulf”. In Jana K. Schulman and Paul E. Szarmach (eds), Beowulf at Kalamazoo: Essays in Translation and Performance, 50–68. Kalamazoo: Medieval Institute Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Orchard, Andy
    2004A Critical Companion to Beowulf. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.
    [Google Scholar]
  40. Parks, Ward
    1990Verbal Dueling in Heroic Narrative. Princeton: Princeton University Press. doi: 10.1515/9781400860883
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400860883 [Google Scholar]
  41. Pigg, Daniel F.
    2010 “Laughter in Beowulf: Ambiguity, Ambivalence, and Group Identity Formation”. In Albrecht Classen (ed.), Laughter in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Times, 201–13. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter. doi: 10.1515/9783110245486.201
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110245486.201 [Google Scholar]
  42. Romano, Manuela
    1996 “Revising Old English Definitions of friend: A Cognitive Account”. Proceedings of the Twenty-Second Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 340–51. Linguistic Society of America.
    [Google Scholar]
  43. Scaglione, Aldo
    1991Knights at Court. Berkeley: University of California Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  44. Shippey, T. A.
    1993 “Principles of Conversation in Beowulfian Speech”. In John M. Sinclair , Michael Hoey and Gwyneth Fox (eds), Techniques of Description: Spoken and Written Discourse, 109–26. London and New York: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  45. Silber, Patricia
    1981 “Rhetoric as Prowess in the Unferð Episode”. Texas Studies in Literature and Language23 (4): 471–83.
    [Google Scholar]
  46. Simpkins, Linda M.
    1994From Secular to Sacred Flyting: The Anglo-Saxon Re-analysis of the Christian War of Words in Old English Religious Prose and Verse. Unpublished PhD thesis. University of British Columbia.
    [Google Scholar]
  47. Stanley, Eric G.
    1998 “Courtliness and Courtesy in Beowulf and Elsewhere in English Medieval Literature”. In Peter Baker and Nicholas Howe (eds), Words and Works, 67–103. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. doi: 10.3138/9781442683631‑008
    https://doi.org/10.3138/9781442683631-008 [Google Scholar]
  48. Taavitsainen, Irma and Andreas H. Jucker
    2010 “Trends and Developments in Historical Pragmatics”. In Andreas H. Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen (eds), Historical Pragmatics, 3–30. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter.
    [Google Scholar]
  49. Tannenhaus, Gussie H.
    1962 “Bede’s De Schematibus et Tropis – A Translation”. The Quarterly Journal of Speech48 (3): 237–53. doi: 10.1080/00335636209382544
    https://doi.org/10.1080/00335636209382544 [Google Scholar]
  50. Wierzbicka, Anna
    2004 “Jewish Cultural Scripts and the Interpretation of the Bible”. Journal of Pragmatics36 (3): 575–99. doi: 10.1016/j.pragma.2003.09.002
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2003.09.002 [Google Scholar]
  51. Williams, Graham
    2012 “Searching for Verbal Irony in Historical Corpora: A Pilot Study of mock and scorn in the Corpus of Middle English Prose and Verse ”. In Carla Suhr and Irma Taavitsainen (eds), Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English, Volume 11: Developing Corpus Methodology for Historical Pragmatics. Available online at: www.helsinki.fi/varieng/series/volumes/11/williams/.
    [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.00001.wil
Loading
  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): Beowulf; Christianity; courtliness; sarcasm; Unferð
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error