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Document : 1532
Title    : Synonym Clustering in Beowulf
Author(s): Prof Christian Kay

Copyright holder(s): Prof Christian Kay

Text

Summary
The paper describes an analysis of the repetition of words from twelve
synonym sets in the poem Beowulf. The poet is found to have a tendency to
repeat individual words or clusters involving compounds with a common
element, or simplex-compound clusters. It is concluded that this clustering
tendency may be accounted for by the fact that the poet composed orally or
was influenced by an oral formulaic tradition. It is finally suggested that
such clustering may be a feature of oral style in general.

The starting point for this study was the casual observation that the
Beowulf poet tends to repeat words within the space of relatively few
lines. This seemed worthy of investigation because many of the repeated
words belong to sets of synonyms which offered him a wide choice of
expressions, and because the vocabulary of Old English verse is more noted
for variety than for repetitiveness.

Twelve sets of synonyms were therefore selected for analysis:

“corselet” (40 words); “sword” (26); “shield” (11); “spear”
(10); “boat” (18); “sea” (24); “hall” (27); “God” (19);
“king, chieftain” (59); “warrior” (42); “comrade” (12);
“troop” (17). (1) Using Klaeber's edition of the poem, (2) all
occurrences of these words were recorded. In this way, 304 of the poem’s
content words (excluding prepositions, auxiliaries, etc.), approximately
eleven per cent, were considered. In addition, note was taken of a
selection of compounds in which one of the elements was one of the
simplices under consideration. Searohæbbend, for instance, was listed with
searo in the “corselet” group as well as with the group of words
meaning “warrior”.

Occurrences of two or more of these words in significant positions are
referred to as “clustering”. The first type of clustering investigated
was “large-scale clustering”, that is the distribution of synonyms in
relation to the three major sections of the poem (ll. l-1250, the
introduction and the fight with Grendel; ll.1251-2199, the fight with
Grendel’s mother and the return to Gautland; and ll. 2200-3182, the
dragon fight and the death of Beowulf). The second type, “intensive
clustering”, shows how individual words within the synonym groups occur
in relation to one another. It should be emphasised from the beginning that
the study is in no way intended to be statistical: its purpose is simply to
illustrate a feature of the poet’s style.

Results
Large-scale Clustering. This part of the survey showed that there were
quite considerable differences in the vocabulary of the three major
sections. In the first place, 163 of the 304 words occurred only once in
the poem (84 in section 1; 47 in section 2; and 32 in section 3). Of the
remaining 141 words, 50 occurred in all three sections, 59 in two out of
the three, and 32 in only one..

Intensive Clustering. The study of repeated words, or of groups of words
with a common element, yielded far more interesting results. Altogether,
281 instances of such phenomena were recorded. These will be discussed
according to the type of repetition involved. 

1. There were 99 examples of repeated simplices (for example, cempa in
ll.1948, 2044, 2078 or Wealdend, ll.1661, 1693, 1752), and 26 examples of
repeated compounds (e.g., sΣgenga, ll.1882, 1908). Many more examples of
this kind were discarded because the words involved occurred too frequently
in the poem to make their recurrence significant. In the case of less
common words, and particularly of words like sΣgenga, which occur only at
one point in the poem, recurrence was felt to be significant. Another
example of this kind is flota, which occurs in 210, 218, 294 and 301, and
nowhere else. Even allowing for the few passages in which “ship”
synonyms are needed, such recurrence is interesting. 

A more extended analysis of the four commonest synonyms in the “hall”
group – heal, sele, reced, flet – gives evidence of clustering. The
occurrences felt to be significant are underlined:

sele 81/ heal 89/ reced 310/ sele 323/ reced 326/ sele 411/ reced 412/ heal
487/ heal 614/ heal 642/ heal 663/ sele 713/ reced 720/ reced 724/ reced
728/ reced 770/ se1e 826/ sele 919/ heal 925/ heal 1009/ sele 1016/ flet
1025/ flet 1036/ flet 1086/ heal 1087/ heal 1151/ heal 1214/ reced 1237/
heal 1288/ reced 1572/ sele 1640/ flet I647/ reced 1799/ heal 1926/ flet
1949/ flet 1976/ sele 1984/ flet 2017/ flet 2034/ flet 2054/ sele 2352/
reced 3088/ sele 3128. (3)

Thus there are at least five instances of synonym clustering in this group.
The alternating use of sele and reced in ll.310-412 is interesting, as is
the fact that heal, the commonest word in the group, does not occur after
l.1926. Similar tendencies were discovered in other groups.

2. There were 22 examples of the repetition of two or more compounds with
the same first element, and 45 examples of the repetition of compounds with
the same second element. An instance of the first kind is herebyrne,
l.1443, heresyrce, l.1511, and herenet, l.1553. The second kind is
exemplified by hringmΣl, ll.1521, 1564, and brogdenmΣl, ll,1616, 1667. A
cluster combining both kinds is g)ðsearo, ll. 215, 328, fyrdsearo, l. 232,
and g)ðgewΣde, l.227. In all these examples, the words happen to be
unique or to occur only at the point recorded. In fact, almost all the
instances of this kind of clustering included at least one unique compound.
The fact that these unique words should make their appearance in the
company of related words makes the clusters doubly interesting.

3. The 89 occurrences of simplex-compound clusters, that is of compounds
grouped round the simplex which is one of their elements, showed by far the
most interesting results. In such cases it seems reasonable to deduce that
the compounds were, consciously or unconsciously, associated with the
simplex in the poet’s mind. If the compounds in turn are, as in so many
cases, unique or rare, this association becomes the more noteworthy. An
example of this kind is the group of 5 words containing bil as one element.
The distribution of this group is; bil 40/ hildebil 557/ bil 583/ g)ðbil
803/ bil 1144/ hildebil 1520/ bil 1557/ bil 1567/ w{gbiI 1607/ hildebil
1666/ bi1 2060, 2359, 2485, 2508/ g)ðbil 2584/ bil 2621/ hildebil 2697/
bil 2777/ 

Apart from the repetition of bil, itself one of the less common “sword”
synonyms, it will be seen that only g)ðbil in l.803 is entirely
dissociated from the simplex. None of these words occurs elsewhere in the
poem, nor are there any other synonymous compounds with bil as an element.
A similar cluster involving wudu, ll.216, 298, 1919, sΣwudu l.226, and
sundwudu, ll.208 and 1906, is strengthened by the appearance of the
comparatively unusual “sea” synonym, sund, in ll.213 and 223.

A more extended analysis involved the four simplex “shield” synonyms,
bord, lind, rond and scyld. Without going into all the details, it is worth
noting that bord, and six of the eight occurrences of its compounds, appear
only in the third section of the poem. Three of the compounds appear in
close association with the simplex, and three thereafter. Similarly, only
one of the six rond compounds is isolated from its simplex. Moreover, five
of the seven occurrences of these compounds come in the first 1300 lines of
the poem, where rond is the most common simplex. Comparing these with the
bord compounds, it almost seems as if the latter took over once their
simplex had been introduced.

Of course, not all the compound-simplex groups yielded such positive
results. The compounds of lind and scyld, for instance, showed few
clustering tendencies. Nevertheless, taking the study as a whole, it was`
felt that sufficient examples of the various kinds of clustering existed to
suggest that they were a definite feature of the poet’s style, and not
merely the results of coincidence, or the demands of alliteration, to name
two possible explanations.

Conclusions
Having established that clustering was a feature of the poet’s style, the
next step was to determine whether it was a significant feature, that is
whether it could be explained in literary terms or used to elucidate
problems of the poem’s composition or style. Beowulf criticism has
undergone something of an upheaval in recent years, largely because of
research on the formulaic composition of ancient oral poetry, and the
application of oral formulaic theory to Old English verse. (4) While there
is no real agreement on whether Beowulf was composed orally, or, if not,
how much the oral tradition influenced its style, the weight of the
evidence suggests that we should “...explain structural and stylistic
features of Beowulf in terms of oral composition or at least as originating
in an oral tradition...” (5) That is to say, if one has the temerity to
summarise these theories in a few bald words, that rather than composing
slowly in writing with the word as his unit, the poet composed a different
oral poem for each occasion, working swiftly and spontaneously in formulaic
units.


An acceptance of the theory that oral tradition at least influenced the
Beowulf poet goes some way towards explaining the existence of clustering,
as does the less controversial fact that the poem was presented orally to
an audience. The very fact that the poem, because of its length, must have
been presented at several sittings, may help to explain the overall
differences in vocabulary.

The method of presentation may also explain intensive clustering. Unlike
the lettered poet, the oral poet cannot review his previous work before
beginning a new section, and thereby re-establish its vocabulary in his
memory. Nor, at a more conscious level, can he look through his work and
decide that a particular word has been overused or used with particular
appropriateness and so on. Because of the demands of composing orally and
at speed, the poet would concentrate his attention on short sections of the
poem rather than on the work as a whole. It is conceivable that within
these short sections he might repeat a word simply because it was
conveniently in the forefront of his mind. Thus, under the stress of
composition, he might well tend to use several formulas in which the key
word was, say, byrne, rather than search for totally different formulas
with searo or syrce. Similarly, if, having used byrne, he had to find a
formula containing “warrior”, it seems natural that one with byrnwiga
should spring to mind rather than one based on an entirely different word.
Byrnwiga might lead him to scyldwiga or wiga itself, or he might vary his
reference to armour by using {renbyrne or {sernbvrne. His choice of words
would be influenced by both semantic and phonetic association.

Such speculation perhaps assumes too much knowledge of the poet’s mental
processes, especially when the poet was composing according to conventions
so different from our own. Comparison with written literature is unlikely
to reveal much; if we must make comparisons, it is perhaps better to
compare oral poetry with -the speech or impromptu written material of our
own period. While a modern writer is unlikely to repeat a word except on
rare occasions where he is aiming at a deliberate literary effect, such
repetition is, I think, quite common in conversation, or a letter, or a
rough draft of a piece of writing. This is, in fact, the familiar
experience of having a word “stick in our minds”, and is something we
try to eliminate from carefully written work as it is not stylistically
attractive to a modern reader. Words may well have stuck in the mind of the
oral poet, who would not have the opportunity, nor, since his stylistic
assumptions were different, the desire to vary his vocabulary. Thus,
clustering may have arisen naturally from the conditions under which the
oral poet worked.

There is no reason to suppose that the oral poet’s audience would be
conscious of the clustering under discussion. Like the poet himself, they
would be more concerned with getting the story told than with stylistic
minutiae. Nevertheless, repetition may have aided them in their
comprehension of the poem by establishing a train of verbal continuity in
their minds. A repeated word, or a group of related words, would help them
to grasp an essential idea. On the other hand, for all we know to the
contrary, they may have enjoyed the effect of a repeated word, or the
interweaving of a “family” of words.

It is, then, possible, that clustering in the various ways outlined above
is a feature of oral style, helpful to both the poet and his audience. As
the phenomenon is preserved in our version of Beowulf, it may represent
either an oral poet at work or the stylistic legacy left by generations of
such poets to a lettered man.

In any event, the limits of the present paper by no means indicate the
limits of the study of clustering as a whole, If the results are felt to be
significant, it would obviously be desirable to extend the analysis to the
entire vocabulary of the poem, and to see how the clusters are related to
the known formulas in it. One could also study the clusters in terms of the
fitts as this might be one means of determining whether the fitts were one
of the units of composition used by the poet. It might also be profitable
to make a similar study of other Old English poems where oral composition
is a strong possibility, or even to study clustering in known oral style of
different genres and periods. If it could be shown that clustering was a
constant feature of oral style, the existence of this phenomenon in works
of dubious origin might prove to be one method of determining how such
works were composed. Such possibilities suggest that the clustering of
individual words, or of words similar in sound or meaning, is a significant
feature of style, and one which would repay further investigation.


1 A problem here was how to define a synonym in Old English. After
consulting many authorities, whose own estimates of the number of synonyms
in each group varied considerably, it was decided to include within a
synonym group all words which are interchangeable to the extent that they
convey the same essential meaning. Thus helmberend was considered
synonymous with scyldfreca, holm with sund, etc. Although this ignores
etymological and connotational meaning, it was felt to be consistent with
the character of the OE poetic vocabulary. 

2 Frederick Klæber, ed., “Beowulf and the Fight at Finnsburg” (3rd
ed., Boston, 1950). All references are to this edition, and Klaeber’s
emendations are accepted throughout.

3 Note also that the only two occurrences of flet in the sense of
“floor” come in 11.1540 and 1586.

4 Most notably, Francis P. Magoun, Jr., “Oral Formulaic Character of
Anglo-Saxon Narrative Poetry”, Speculum, XXVIII (1953).

5 J.C. Van Meurs, “Beowulf and Literary Criticism”, Neophilologus,
XXXIX (1955), 127.


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Text details
Method of composition: Handwritten
Year of composition: 1966
Word count: 2531

Text type
Article: 

Author
Author details
Author id: 606
Title: Prof
Forenames: Christian
Surname: Kay
Gender: Female
Decade of birth: 1940
Educational attainment: University
Age left school: 18
Upbringing/religious beliefs: Protestantism
Occupation: Academic
Place of birth: Edinburgh
Region of birth: Midlothian
Birthplace CSD dialect area: midLoth
Country of birth: Scotland
Place of residence: Glasgow
Region of residence: Glasgow
Residence CSD dialect area: Gsw
Country of residence: Scotland
Father's place of birth: Leith
Father's region of birth: Midlothian
Father's birthplace CSD dialect area: midLoth
Father's country of birth: Scotland
Mother's place of birth: Edinburgh
Mother's region of birth: Midlothian
Mother's birthplace CSD dialect area: midLoth
Mother's country of birth: Scotland

Languages:
Language: English
Speak: Yes
Read: Yes
Write: Yes
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: All
Language: Scots
Speak: No
Read: Yes
Write: No
Understand: Yes
Circumstances: Work