Kingsley Amis Poem on Beowulf

BEOWULF

Kingsley Amis

'There is not much poetry in the world like this'--

                          Professor J.R.R. Tolkien

So, bored with dragons, he lay down to sleep,

Locking for the last time his hoard of words

(Thorkelin's transcript B), forgetting now

The hope of heathens, muddled thoughts on fate.

Councils would have to get along without him;

The peerless prince had taken his last bribe

(Zupitza's reading); useless now the byrnie

Hard and hand-locked, fit for a baseball catcher.

Consider now what this king had not done:

Never was human, never lay with women

(Weak conjugation), never saw quite straight

Children of men or the bright bowl of heaven.

Someone has told us this man was a hero.

But what have we to learn in following

His tedious journey to his ancestors

(An instance of Old English harking-back)?

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The "he" in the poem could be Thorkelin (an early transcriber of the Beowulf manuscript) or another Beowulf scholar, since he has locked for the last time "Transcript B"; or the original Beowulf poet who, dying, forgot "the hope of heathens, muddled thoughts on fate," or Beowulf himself, since "Councils would have to get along without him/The peerless prince...." Most likely, it is Kingsley Amis himself, tired with academic study of the poem (represented by Thorkelin Transcript B and interpretations by Zupitza) and not seeing why he should continue.

He criticizes Beowulf and Beowulf as having no connection with normal human life: "Consider now what this king had not done:/Never was human, never lay with women/(weak conjugation)..." Thus the prince had led a loveless, sexless life (no "conjugation" with women), and the same criticism can be leveled at the scholars of Old English (concerned with the forms of "conjugation" of OE verbs).

He also criticizes both Beowulf and Beowulf as having no connection to modern life. Beowulf's byrnie, his pride and joy, made by Weland himself, now has no use except to a "baseball catcher."

Just as the first stanza begins with the word "bored," the last refers to Beowulf's journey to death as "tedious." So, why read it? Do we do it because we are "harking back" to previous events in our history, just as the Beowulf story "harks back" to previous events in his history? Is that the only reason?

Amis is a wry, ironic writer, and this poem of his has a wry, ironic tone. Take it as a humorous writing explaining the point of view of anyone who had to read or study Beowulf without getting much from it.

P.S. The reference to Zupitza led me to this, which has images of the original manuscript pages beside a transcription. There are more modern equivalents to this, but this has the virtue of being on-line in its entirety.