Click2Flicks - BEOWULF - Chapter 8 - SOURCE of the STORY

<body link="0000ff" alink="ff0000" vlink="000000" bgcolor=000033> <table width="100%" bgcolor=000033> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <table width=90% bgcolor=ffffff> <tr> <td align=center valign=top> <tr> <td> <div align=center><p><b><font face="arial, helvetica" size=5 color=000000><b><i>BEOWULF</i></p> <p><font size="4">CHAPTER 8 - SOURCE of the STORY</font></b></p> <p align="center"><OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=5,0,0,0" WIDTH=210 HEIGHT=30> <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/stories/beowulf_grendel/audio/ch8.swf"> <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high> <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#FFFFFF> <EMBED src="http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/stories/beowulf_grendel/audio/ch8.swf" quality=high bgcolor=#FFFFFF WIDTH=210 HEIGHT=30 TYPE="application/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></EMBED> </OBJECT></p> </div> <center> <table width="90%"> <tr> <td align="left" valign="top"> <div align="justify"> <p><font face="arial, helvetica" color="000000" size="3">People love stories about heroes and monsters. Maybe that is why the tale of Beowulf and Grendel has survived for at least a thousand years.</p> <p>Although the epic itself is shrouded in mystery, let’s examine what we know:</p> <ul> • Sometime in the late-tenth (or early-eleventh) century, two scribes wrote a story about a warrior named Beowulf and a monster named Grendel. They used pen and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.thefreedictionary.com/vellum"><b>vellum</b></a> to record their work.<br><br> • They did not sign <a target="_blank" href="images/their_manuscript_first.page_Beowulf.manuscript.jpg"><b>their manuscript</b></a>,  which measures about five-by-eight inches.<br><br> • Unlike many contemporary <a target="_blank" href="http://www.awesomestories.com/history/illuminated_manuscripts/illuminated_manuscripts_ch1.htm"><b>illuminated manuscripts</b></a>,  this story was not illustrated.<br><br> • The scribes <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/lang_gallery_01.shtml"><b>wrote in West Saxon</b></a>,  a dialect oft-used for literary works written in England <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wvup.edu/Academics/humanities/Oldaker/questions_about_anglo.htm"><b>at that time</b></a>. <br><br> • They told <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3hjjaUQiVA"><b>the tale</b></a> as an <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QhKBY5WgECY"><b>unrhymed poem</b></a>,  using a four-beat <a target="_blank" href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3aHMj4X08Y"><b>alliterative style</b></a> (be sure to check out these links) which distinguishes <a target="_blank" href="http://www.wordinfo.info/words/index/info/view_unit/4191"><b>Old-English</b></a> poetry.<br><br> • No one knows what happened to <a target="_blank" href="http://www.uky.edu/~kiernan/eBeowulf/guide.htm"><b>the manuscript</b></a> for at least five hundred years after it was written.<br><br> • In 1563, when <a target="_blank" href="http://www.awesomestories.com/movies/elizabeth_I/elizabeth_I_ch1.htm"><b>Elizabeth I</b></a> was Queen of Britain, <a target="_blank" href="images/lawrence_nowell_self-portrait_1564.pocket.atlas.jpg"><b>Lawrence Nowell</b></a> (then Dean of <a target="_blank" href="http://lichfield-cathedral.org/photo-gallery.html"><b>Litchfield Cathedral</b></a>) owned the manuscript and wrote his name (and date) on its first page.<br><br> • We do not know how the manuscript came into Nowell’s possession. Scholars speculate he may have saved it when <a target="_blank" href="http://www.royal.gov.uk/output/Page19.asp"><b>Henry VIII</b></a> dissolved all of Britain’s monasteries and <a target="_blank" href="http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/TUDmonasteries.htm"><b>broke-apart their libraries</b></a>. <br><br> • Somehow, Beowulf ended up in the famous library of <a target="_blank" href="images/sir_robert_cotton_courtesy_Trinity.College_Cambridge.University.gif"><b>Sir Robert Cotton</b></a> (1571-1631) who had privately assembled the most important collection of manuscripts in Britain’s history.<br><br> • Cotton’s collection was recognized as a <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bl.uk/collections/foundation.html"><b>British national treasure</b></a>, and it ultimately came under the Crown’s protection.<br><br> • While housed at <i>Ashburnham</i> Place, the <i>Beowulf</i> manuscript was nearly lost in a terrible <a target="_blank" href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/anglo-saxon/beowulf/vitellius.html"><b>fire</b></a>  on the 23rd of October, 1731. It was <a target="_blank" href="images/singed_by_flames_Beowulf.manuscript_courtesy_British.Library.jpg"><b>singed by flames</b></a> and, since then, has had a tendency to crumble.<br><br> • Today it is cared for by <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/TourCollFound.asp"><b>the British Library</b></a>.  It remains the only known manuscript of the Beowulf poem. </ul> <p>English sounds differently today than it did <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/launch_tl_ages_english.shtml"><b>through the years</b></a>. Translating Beowulf into <a target="_blank" href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/routesofenglish/world/index_noflash.shtml"><b>modern English</b></a>, let’s investigate the story. </p> </div> <p align="center"><font face="arial, helvetica" size="2"><a href="beowulf_grendel_ch7.htm">GO TO LAST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="beowulf_grendel_ch1.htm">BACK TO FIRST CHAPTER</a>   <a href="beowulf_grendel_ch9.htm">GO TO NEXT CHAPTER</a></p> <blockquote> <ul> <ul> <ul> <ul> <ul> <ul> <ul> <ul> <br>          </td> </tr> </table>  </td>  <td align="center" valign="top"> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.awesomestories.com/includes/ad_format.js"> </script> <script type="text/javascript" src="http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/show_ads.js"> </script> </td>  </tr> </table>  </td> </tr> </table> </body>