The Ambiguity of Fate and Narrative Form in Some Germanic Poetry

Abstract

there was always the possiblity of intervention by invisible powers outside human control. All human experience was to some extent ambiguous; human action and purpose could not be free from the immanence of good and ill fortune. The hero of Germanic poetry, in a moment of crisis, has to resolve the ambiguous tensions in such variable fortune. His task is to transform the uncertainties of fate and fortune (which are never clearly distinguished from each other in the Germanic tradition) into good fortune, fame, and enduring glory for himself. For a time, at least, he is able to achieve this, but eventually he succumbs to the ill fortune that threatens in all tests of his courage. He is at last unable to impose his will on events, and becomes the prisoner of a malignant fate which allows him only a choice between two evils. He can conquer even this choice between evils by dying an honourable death, and inflicting dishonour upon his enemies; but before that final catastrophe, other options are open to him. How, then, are these various moments of crisis in the heroic life presented by Germanic poets? Is there anything in the handling of episodes as narrative art that allows us to see this notion of an ambiguous fate: which threatens disaster but may yield to courage and determination? In the examples of Beowulf in Old English poetry, Atlakvida in Old Norse, and the late tenth-century Old English poem The Battle of Maldon we have ample evidence that this idea was familiar to both writer and audience. Without