『베오울프』에 내포된 구전문학의 요소와 한계

Components of Oral Literature and Its Limit in Beowulf

The poet of Beowulf is keenly aware of the importance of the heroic spirit running beneath the poem. His art of composition shows that he endeavors to deliver such spirit by means of diverse literary devices such as formulaic expression, alliteration, epithet and variation, etc. Concerning the art of composition in Beowulf, scholarly view is divided into two, one is that the art of improvisation is firmly grounded upon the poet's control of traditional components, and the other is the poet is faithfully following the tradition of oral literature suggested by Milman Parry and his followers. I believe that the composition of Old English Poetry was much influenced by the techniques of oral poets, but I contest the supposition that Old English Poetry was purely based on oral tradition. Instead, I believe that Old English Poetry from outset bears specific features of written literature as has been proven in Beowulf and other Old English poems. The complicated combination of words contained in Old English poems is indicative of the written rather than oral tradition. Furthermore scholars have tended to overlook the correlation between the outward (rhythm, arrangements of words, etc.) and inward (theme, motif, plots) features in the study of the nature of composition. Creed asserts that Beowulf was composed orally. But the close examination on formulaic expression in Beowulf leads us to assume that the composition of Beowulf and other Old English poems far exceed the scope of oral tradition. One of the common features in oral composition is the use of pleonasm, which is called variation or apposition in Old English scholarship. The singer repeats the idea in the second half of the line: 'He spoke, he uttered a word.' This example illustrates that the object of a verb forms an integral part of the verb formula, and shows as well how and why pleonasm is so common in oral style. In general, Old English poetry follows this pattern of pleonasm, but contains more complicated and various patterns than oral style. Most of all I believe those outward features such as alliteration and epithet are closely related to the meaning of poems. I suggest that relationship can't be conceived in oral literature and hence such an organic structure can only be conceived in written literature.