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II. Usage and Non-Usage
The Good Composition
In the two Anglo-Saxon poems, Beowulf (Part I) and Maldon, there is a tendency at
times for the word good to occur two or three times within a couple of dozen lines,
as if the word had a particular claim to be used. It is also characteristic of the texts
that they begin and end by frequently using the word, namely two times in the first 25
lines and two times in the last 22 lines of Beowulf (Part I) together with two concluding
selra, i.e. ‘better’, in the last 7 lines. In Maldon good is used twice the first 16
lines and once in the last 11 ones. That frequency, c. one good each eleventh line, is
about ten times higher than the average for both poems. Between the end points
good is used now and then in groups which are often related to episodes. In these
episodes the usage parallels the usage in the poems as a whole, since here too the
word signals the beginning and the end of the scenes. The speech made by the
Queen Wealhtheow (vv. 1162–1192) in Beowulf is an example of this usage (Fig.
22).
The episode consists of Wealhtheow’s speech as she carries round a drinking
bowl in order to administer a toast. It is set in frames to guide the listener from the
beginning to the end and her words, formally directed to her husband, constitute a
narrative about the importance of being good, leading up to a specific conclusion.
The intention and the structure of the episode is, as we shall see later on, a parallel to
the whole first part of the poem (Fig. 23).
This structuring principle is most obvious in the first part of Beowulf, and it structures
the part as well as several episodes within it. In Maldon, however, the missing
beginning and end makes it more reasonable only to point out that the central part of
this poem, lines 166–189, is an episode structured by this usage of the word (Fig.
24).
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