Oral Poetry in the Seafarer

Abstract

Two articles by F. P. Magoun, Jr. have confirmed and given shape to some long current ideas about the formulaic nature of Old English poetry.' Drawing on the researches of Parry and Lord, which were based primarily on empirical study of a living tradition of oral poetry, Magoun has very usefully applied their principles to the Old English alliterative poetry. These principles, of course, apply best to the unlettered Germanic tradition of poetry which came down from prehistoric times, but since all the Old English poems we now know were probably composed anywhere from one to five centuries after a lettered, Christian tradition had been introduced into England, some of Magoun's statements perhaps need modification. Characteristic of the Germanic oral poetry were not only a specialized exalted diction but also a stock of conventional formulaic phrases which conformed to the intricate rhythmic requirements of the verse and linked easily with other formulas to fulfill the alliterative demands. Once a scop has learned his trade, he could undoubtedly call up hundreds, and perhaps thousands, of these conventional formulas from memory in order to shape the particular story he was telling. The exigencies of oral performance made such a system virtually necessary, yet it allowed for extensive variation and provided considerable latitude for originality and shaping control on the part of an excellent poet. The history of the Old English poetic conventions after the introduction of the tradition of written literature must have been very complex, however, for lettered men at some period began writing and singing in the native form, introducing ideas and narrative material from Latin literature without at first weakening the formal characteristics of the verse. Some of the pagan formulaic phrases underwent a shift in meaning and reference when they were used by Christian authors, starting very soon after the conversion. As Magoun brilliantly shows,2 Caedmon's Hymn, far from being the first Christian poem, was written in a well-established tradition of diction in which many Christian adaptations of pagan formulas had already taken place. These modifications and adaptations, begun by authors of the seventh century, were undoubtedly developed continuously throughout the Old English period. Nearly fifty years ago J. W. Rankin convincingly demonstrated that many of the commonest formulaic phrases were virtually translated from Latin poets and prose writers.3 The implications of Rankin's study are that many early Christian poets, rather than being simple, devout, and unlettered like Caedmon, or even professional pagan scops who continued to exercise their gift