Biography Essay

The knotty problem of the date of Beowulf tells us a great deal about how we think of the past and the kinds of assumptions that are made in confronting history. In the first edition of the poem (1815), Grimur Thorkelin identified the historical events as occurring in the third and fourth centuries and the poem, because of the detail in such allusions, as having been written not more than a century later. This date is the earliest that has been assigned to the poem. The last composition date for the poem, the terminus ad quem, is the date of the unique manuscript for the poem. Based on the two copyists' hands, this manuscript date has been established, with some certainty, as around 975-1025. The last date would put the poem within half a century of the Norman invasions and the consequent end of the Old English...