ABSTRACT
It can hardly have escaped notice that the Scandinavian bard, in the general style and complexion of his poetry, approaches much more nearly to the father of the Grecian epic, than to the romancers of the middle ages. If I mistake not, this similarity will readily be traced in the simplicity of his plan, in the air of probability given to all its details, even where the subject may be termed supernatural; in the length and tone of the speeches introduced, and in their frequent digression to matters of contemporary or previous history. [Suggests in support of Warton that the supernatural elements bear ‘an oriental rather than a northern aspect’, noting that Gothic and Sanskrit are ‘cognate dialects’.]
It may perhaps be thought scarcely worth while to offer any opinion on the poetical merits of our author. In some it may even excite a smile to hear a production so little resembling the purer models of classical antiquity dignified by the name of poetry, or considered as an object. of criticism. We are all, I am fully conscious, liable not unfrequently to be misled by a natural prepossession in favour of’ that upon which we have employed any considerable portion of our time and labour. From this prepossession I do not pretend to be exempt; but I still apprehend that he who makes due allowance for the barbarisms and obscurity of the language (an obscurity much increased by our still imperfect knowledge of its poetical construction and vocabulary) and for the shackles of a metrical system at once of extreme difficulty, and, to our ears at least, totally destitute of harmony and expression, will find that Beowulf presents many of those which have in all ages been admitted as the genuine elements of poetic composition.
