‘Beowulf’ and the Celtic World: The Uses of Evidence

Sporadic attempts have been made in the past to demonstrate direct connexions between the various Celtic literatures andBeowulf; I think it fair to say that the proposed links have always seemed tenuous or imaginary and have not been taken seriously by most students of the Old English poem. A century of desultory comparisons, leading to a negative result, by persons qualified in either Old English or Celtic or neither, does not, however, exhaust the subject or indicate its irrelevance. It seems to me that a determined attack on the subject may indicate desirable approaches and cautions which students ofBeowulfcould consider as they contemplate further work on the poem. I shall organise my remarks under five headings: the possibility of Irish (or other Celtic) influence onBeowulfin particular and on Old English literature in general; archaism in the language and metrics of ‘traditional’ verse; problems of archaism and anachronism in ‘traditional’ literature; the search for a text-history ofBeowulfwith its consequent issues of transmission and problems of dating; and general historical questions.