Orality and Literacy in the Epic of Beowulf

beowulfmansc2.gif (31495 bytes)

Imagine for the moment that you lived in the time of the Anglo-Saxons. Only a few individuals are trained to write in script. Most people are illiterate, and literature is composed not by someone with a pen in hand and plenty of paper, but by people trained in ancient oral traditions, which they learn and adapt to each new performance. Many scholars believe that the original was composed orally by a bard trained in the heroic tradition. But others doubt this assertion.  After all, the only text we have of Beowulf is in written manuscript.  They claim that the author of Beowulf composed the work with ink and paper in hand.  Some take a middle position -- the author wrote Beowulf but relied on oral techniques, perhaps even traditions.
Walter Ong in Orality and Literacy: the Technologizing of the Word lists nine characteristics that distinguish literature created in primarily oral cultures (ones often without any written language) and that created in cultures with widespread literacy.  In your view, which elements better describe Beowulf?
Additive – Oral literature tends to build in structure by adding new events. This is often called parataxis, where the author builds up idea after idea with and between them. Subordinative – Written literature tends to subsume subpoints under main points. It has a large number of subplots.
Aggregative – Oral literature relies on epithets and clustering. Heroes tend to have praise names attached to them. Analytic – Written literature relies on more detailed distinction of parts.
Copious/Redundant – Oral literature stresses a fullness of expression that builds; one cannot loop back to previous text. Continuity – Written literature, because it makes visual retrieval possible, can go back and resume previous developments.
Conservative/Traditionalist – Oral texts tend to build on what has existed so far. Potentially Subversive – Written texts can more easily break from previous patterns.
Close to the human lifeworld – Oral literature tends to be concerned with human deeds, even the gods act like humans. Texts conceived in oral cultures do not focus on abstractions. More able to distance or denature the world – Written texts tend to allow one to talk about philosophical ideals, principles, and scientific laws.
Agonistically toned – Oral literature tends to be performed in a more combative style. Oral performers are contestants, so they must compete for their audiences. Calmer in tone – Written literature tends to be more objective because it is more abstract.
Empathetic, Participatory – Oral literature tends to be more communal in reaction. Objectively Distanced
Homeostatic – Oral literature tends to treat the past and the present as essentially the same. Historical – Written literature is less able to conflate the past with the present.
Situational Self – In oral societies, personhood is discovered in the communal; it is hard to think of the self as existing outside community structures. Isolationist Self – Written societies tend to make it possible for one to be more seperate and private. Texts become owned property.

"All manner of thing shall be well/ When the tongues of flame are in-folded/ Into the crowned knot of fire/ And the fire and the rose are one." -- T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding