Both of these are important in regards to the uncertainty surrounding the Beowulf manuscript, as the works which it draws from or influences suggest time-frames of composition, geographic boundaries from which it could be composed, or range ( both spatial and temporal ) of influence ( i. e. when it was " popular " and where its " popularity " took it ).

Beowulf survives in a single manuscript dated on paleographical grounds to the late tenth or early eleventh century.

The earliest known owner of the Beowulf manuscript is the 16th-century scholar Laurence Nowell, after whom the manuscript is named, though its official designation is British Library, Cotton Vitellius A. XV because it was one of Robert Bruce Cotton's holdings in the Cotton Library in the middle of the 17th century.

Kevin Kiernan, professor of English at the University of Kentucky, is foremost in the computer digitalisation and preservation of the manuscript ( the Electronic Beowulf Project ), using fibre-optic backlighting to further reveal lost letters of the poem.

The poem appears in what is today called the Beowulf manuscript or Nowell Codex ( British Library MS Cotton Vitellius A. xv ), along with other works.

" It has been theorised that Smith failed to mention the Beowulf manuscript because of his reliance on previous catalogues or because either he had no idea how to describe it or because it was temporarily out of the codex.

The Beowulf manuscript was transcribed from an original by two scribes, one of whom wrote the first 1939 lines and a second who wrote the remainder, so the poem up to line 1939 is in one handwriting, whilst the rest of the poem is in another.

Since that time, the manuscript has crumbled further, and the Thorkelin transcripts remain a prized secondary source for Beowulf scholars.

Their accuracy has been called into question, however ( e. g., by Chauncey Brewster Tinker in The Translations of Beowulf, a comprehensive survey of 19th-century translations and editions of Beowulf ), and the extent to which the manuscript was actually more readable in Thorkelin's time is unclear.

The question of whether Beowulf was passed down through oral tradition prior to its present manuscript form has been the subject of much debate, and involves more than the mere matter of how it was composed.

There is a wide array of linguistic forms in the Beowulf manuscript.

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript

* Michael Crichton's Eaters of the Dead is a fabricated recreation of the Old English epic Beowulf in the form of a scholastic translation of Ahmad ibn Fadlan's tenth century manuscript.

This is the manuscript that contains Beowulf.

The " discovery " of Beowulf in a single manuscript, first transcribed in 1818, came under the impetus of Romantic nationalism, after the manuscript had lain as an ignored curiosity in scholars ' collections for two centuries.

The most important manuscripts are the four great poetical codices of the late 10th and early 11th centuries, known as the Cædmon manuscript, the Vercelli Book, the Exeter Book, and the Beowulf manuscript.

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript

Manuscripts are now designated by library, bookpress, and number: for example, the manuscript of Beowulf is designated Cotton Vitellius A. xv, and the manuscript of Pearl is Cotton Nero A. x.

The first page of the Beowulf manuscript

This exhaustive analysis is in itself sufficient to prove that Beowulf was composed orally .”

In any case, the necklace given to Beowulf in the story is not the Brísingamen itself ; it is only being compared to it.

Beowulf notes, however, that the speed at which the Fleet of Worlds is moving ( 0. 8c ) would cause nearly as much damage as the Core explosion itself.

The same impulse manifested itself in the translation of medieval national epics into modern vernacular languages, including Nibelungenlied ( 1782 ) in Germany, The Lay of the Cid ( 1799 ) in Spain, Beowulf ( 1833 ) in England, The Song of Roland ( 1837 ) in France, which were widely read and highly influential on subsequent literary and artistic work.

Nothing in all this is autobiographical: unlike the poets of Deor and Widsith, the poet of Beowulf is not concerned with his own identity ; ;

Since none of these glimpses of poetizing without writing is intended to incorporate a signature into the epic matter, there is prima-facie evidence that Beowulf and the Homeric poems each derive from an oral tradition.

Proceeding from Parry's conclusions and adopting one of his schemata, Francis P. Magoun, Jr., argues that Beowulf likewise was created from a legacy of oral formulas inherited and extended by bards of successive generations, and the thesis is striking and compelling.

W. F. Bryan suggests that certain kennings in Beowulf were selected sometimes for appropriateness and sometimes for ironic inappropriateness, but such a view would appear untenable unless it is denied that the language of Beowulf is formulaic.

It is false to be certain of having discovered in the language of Beowulf such effects as intentional irony.

The ratio is thoroughly remarkable, because the lines are so long -- half again as long as those of Beowulf.

Beowulf (; in Old English or ) is the conventional title of an Old English heroic epic poem consisting of 3182 alliterative long lines, set in Scandinavia, commonly cited as one of the most important works of Anglo-Saxon literature.

After Beowulf slays him, Grendel's mother attacks the hall and is then also defeated.

After a period of fifty years has passed, Beowulf defeats a dragon, but is fatally wounded in the battle.

The main protagonist, Beowulf, a hero of the Geats, comes to the aid of Hroðgar, the king of the Danes, whose great hall, Heorot, is plagued by the monster Grendel.

Later in his life, Beowulf is himself king of the Geats, and finds his realm terrorised by a dragon whose treasure had been stolen from his hoard in a burial mound.

Beowulf finally slays the dragon, but is mortally wounded.

Beowulf is considered an epic poem in that the main character is a hero who travels great distances to prove his strength at impossible odds against supernatural demons and beasts.

Jane Chance ( Professor of English, Rice University ) in her 1980 article " The Structural Unity of Beowulf: The Problem of Grendel's Mother " argued that there are two standard interpretations of the poem: one view which suggests a two-part structure ( i. e., the poem is divided between Beowulf's battles with Grendel and with the dragon ) and the other, a three-part structure ( this interpretation argues that Beowulf's battle with Grendel's mother is structurally separate from his battle with Grendel ).

Beowulf is challenged by a Danish coast guard, Evelyn Paul ( 1911 ). Beowulf begins with the story of King Hroðgar, who constructed the great hall Heorot for his people.

Beowulf prepares himself for battle ; he is presented with a sword, Hrunting, by Unferth, a warrior who had doubted him and wishes to make amends.

However, she is unable to harm Beowulf through his armour and drags him to the bottom of the lake.

Approximate central regions of tribes mentioned in Beowulf with the location of the Angeln | Angles.

It is probable that the Offa whose marriage with Modþryð, a lady of murderous disposition, is mentioned in Beowulf ( lines 1949 and 1957 ), is the same person.

Völsung is also mentioned as Wæls in the Old English epic Beowulf: a Danish bard at Hrothgar's court sings about him and his son Sigemund.

In Beowulf Heremod is first mentioned by a bard immediately after the bard tells an episode from the life of the hero Sigmund and his nephew Fitela.

He is called ' Rex Getarum ' ( King of The Geats ) in most accounts and is thought to be Hygelac, mentioned in Beowulf as the King of Geatland.

In the epic poem Beowulf, Hrothgar is mentioned as the builder of the great hall Heorot, and ruler of Denmark when the Geatish hero Beowulf arrives to defeat the monster Grendel.

He is mentioned in Widsith and in Beowulf ; a passage from Beowulf as translated by Seamus Heaney ( lines 1089 — 1090 ) reads:

He is mentioned in Widsith, in Beowulf, and in the Finnsburg Fragment.

Hnæf son of Hoc is a prince mentioned in the Old English poems Beowulf and the Finnsburg Fragment.

These kings belonged to an ancient dynasty mentioned in both the Norse sagas and in Beowulf.

This Dan married Olof the daughter of Wermund and so became brother-in-law to the Offa of Angel mentioned in the Old English poem Beowulf.

Lotherus might have some relation to the Norse god Lóðurr or to the exiled king Heremod mentioned in Beowulf or to both.

In the Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf, Halga is hardly mentioned.

Unlike his relatives, Eanmund is only mentioned in Beowulf.

Halga, legendary Danish king mentioned in Beowulf and in medieval Scandinavian sources.

He may be identical with the Swerting ( Proto-Norse * Swartingaz ) briefly mentioned in Beowulf, where he had the son or son-in-law Hrethel, who was the maternal grandfather of the hero Beowulf.

He is not mentioned outside the Beowulf manuscript, and it is not known whether he was based on a real person.

He is first mentioned in Beowulf at lines 262-266, when Beowulf tells the coast-guardian that " My father was known to everyone ," calls him a " noble battle-leader ", and says that he died after living through " many winters " and that he is remembered well by wise men everywhere.

Weohstan is first mentioned in Beowulf at line 2602.

In Beowulf and Widsith, the tribe is mentioned as the warlike Heaðo-Reamas ( i. e. battling Reamas, for the correspondence between Reamas and Raumar compare Geatas and Gautar ).