The date of Beowulf, debated for almost a century, is a small question with large consequences. Does the poem provide us with an accurate if idealized view of early Germanic culture? Or is it rather a creature of nostalgia and imagination, born of the desire of a later age to create for itself a glorious past? If we cannot decide when, between the 5th and 11th centuries, the poem was composed, we cannot distinguish what elements in Beowulf belong properly to the history of material culture, to the history of myth and legend, to political history, or to the development of...

As one of the most prolific and influential scholars in the field, Thomas D. Hill has made an indelible mark on the study of Old English literature. In celebration of his distinguished career, the editors of Source of Wisdom have assembled a wide-ranging collection of nineteen original essays on Old English poetry and prose as well as early medieval Latin, touching upon many of Hill's specific research interests.

Among the topics examined in this volume are the Christian-Latin sources of Old English texts, including religious and 'sapiential' poetry, and prose translations of...

One of the most consistent critiques levelled against Beowulf is that it lacks a steady narrative advance and that its numerous digressions tend to complicate if not halt the poem's movement. As those passages often look backward or far ahead in narrative time, they seem to transform the poem into a meditative pastiche. The Narrative Pulse of Beowulf counters this assertion, examining Beowulf as a social drama with a strong, forward-moving narrative momentum.

John M. Hill discerns a distinctive 'narrative pulse' arising out of the poem's many scenes of arrival and...