Abstract
In Old English homilies, declarations of unknowing—assertions that no human being exists who can know something—usually refer to God, heaven, hell, or the afterlife. In contrast to this traditional usage, Beowulf contains four formulaic declarations of unknowing, all proclaiming mysteries inaccessible to humankind. But three of these declarations are not about the divine or demonic; they are about monsters. This paper investigates the Beowulf-poet’s reworking of a widespread topos, the declarations of unknowing, against the background of the homiletic tradition. By tracing the poem’s insistent presentation of monstrous spaces as mysteries, the paper reframes the longstanding scholarly conversation about the monsters’ and the monster mere’s sources and analogues within Beowulf’s wider spatial poetics.
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