Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Issue 7
Spring 2004
-----------------------------------------------------------------------/Civilized Rage in 'Beowulf'/
*Abstract*
"Civilized Rage in /Beowulf/" argues that there is a difference
between controlled rage and uncontrolled rage in /Beowulf/.
Controlled rage is useful to the development of social relations and
the nation; uncontrolled rage is damaging to civil interaction and
the formation of society. We work with Norbert Elias' work on
Civilization to determine that evidence of the socialization present
in 13th century court society is also incipient in /Beowulf/.
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defined also lends insight into both the curious nature of the word
and the surprisingly curious way the significance of rage has been
overlooked in Beowulf scholarship. The verb /belgan/, according to
both /A Concise Anglo-Saxon Dictionary/ (Clark Hall 1975) and the
new /Dictionary of Old English/[5]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor309090> means "to be or become angry,"
or "to offend, provoke." The various occurrences of forms of
/belgan/ are traditionally translated in accordance with this
dictionary definition--Raffel, Kennedy, Crossley-Holand, Chickering,
and most recently Seamus Heaney are typical.[6]
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor309565> However, there are some notable
exceptions, including, for example, Klaeber (1950
<labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor347959>), who defines these forms in
some contexts as "rage," and Donaldson, who, following Klaeber,
translates them almost always as some form of rage, usually "swollen
with rage." If /belgan/ means "rage," "enraged," or "swollen with
rage" then a reading of the relationship between warrior energy and
the formation of social communities is much more pervasive in a
thorough reading of /Beowulf/ than has been previously argued. Each
time that /belgan/ is employed in the text of /Beowulf/, the poetic
context involves a situation in which the social order is at stake;
further, in every case in which rage is appropriate, it appears to
be cultivated consciously as an essential part of preparation for
battle.[7] <labbie%26wymer2.html#anchor309805>
From the use of "rage" in Beowulf we can draw the following conclusions:
1. Rage is a tool used by the Good to maintain the social order.
2. Rage is cultivated, reached through a process that is
controlled and subordinated to a rational end when it is used
for good.
3. Rage out of control is a serious threat to the social order.
4. Rage out of control can most effectively be met by rage in
control.
It may appear paradoxical, or even contradictory, to assert a
difference between controlled rage and rage that is out of control;
however, a clarification of modes of violence within Anglo-Saxon
culture, as opposed to the chaos and the unpredictability of
violence known as "terrorism" as seen from the point of view of our
contemporary global culture of order and unity, reveals that the
distinction underlies a history of western approaches to community
formation, societal regulation, and order.
The subtle but crucial distinction between controlled rage and rage
that is "out of control" depends of course on perspective and the
determination of "good" from "evil." Rage that is consciously
mustered and "controlled" will appear to the enemy as if it is "out
of control" since the two opposing sides in a battle will often lack
the communication to perceive the rationale of the other. This is
not always historically the case, however. Significant moments in
Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman literature reveal that battle can often
occur in a manner that is completely ordered. The difference between
these ordered battles and those that appear more chaotic and
uncontrolled is marked by the distinction of the degree to which the
political more than a personal weakness (though the text does not
seem to present it as a weakness in Beowulf), is demonstrated in his
reluctance to assume the throne after Higelac's death and in the
lack of support he receives from all his retainers except Wiglaf in
his final battle.
Finally, the central significance of the forms of /belgan/ in the
poem is further demonstrated by the extent to which the translation
of this word bears on some of the major debates that have occupied
scholars for the last century. Translating it as we have, Beowulf
emerges as an unmitigated hero, not the decadent king marred by
hubris imagined by many readers. His death can only be conceived as
a failure if one superimposes Christainized versions of classic
Greek vices onto the pagan warrior culture that Beowulf exemplifies.
All warriors must die sooner or later, and dying in battle or as the
direct result of battle is in warrior cultures the best way to go;
the fact that it happens so late in the life of a warrior as active
as Beowulf is only more grounds for seeing this king as exemplary.
What he lacks for us is perhaps the kind of lasting impact on his
culture that we have come to expect of epic heroes since Aeneas.
This is not so much a matter of weakness in the hero, however, as a
condition of the moral and historical vision of the poet and his
culture. His is a world characterized by change without any ultimate
direction, either historical or escatalogical, except the change
embodied in seeing in the past an epic grandeur forever lost.
The idea of cultivating a spirit of violent destructiveness, even
temporarily, indeed of glorifying those who achieve that spirit,
seems to run more deeply counter to Christian morality than simply
killing. It managed to survive in this transitional piece--indeed
its survival in a transitional piece is precisely what makes its
treatment anomalous--but it became an idea ignored or suppressed in
most subsequent literature as Christian values displaced pagan
ones--Bertran De Born's twelfth century song "In Praise of War" is a
rare and unsettling example of an ecstatic response to battle that
bears some kinship with battle rage. The /Beowulf /poet, however,
achieves an even rarer balance between the epic's admonitory theme
about the control of rage and its glorification of appropriate rage,
a balance which subsequent European culture abandoned as it
suppressed the vision of rage as a positive attribute.