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Christian elements in the poem. Irving notes that Klaeber “made the
indisputable claim that the so-called Christian coloring was not laid late
and lightly on the surface, but was worked deeply into the very tissue of
the poem at every point” (Irving 180).
The scop, however he may be compelled to tell his story
truthfully from his own religious perspective, nonetheless seems
burdened that its effect on a fellow man is so severe. Following the
scop’s recitation, Unferth turns on him angrily and is about to strike,
when the shocked cries of the warriors arrest him and blood rises to the
surface of the stagnant pool. Unferth’s attack and the seeming finality the
blood represents prompts Hrothgar to action: he banishes Unferth. Those
loyal to Unferth are apparently so moved by the narrative that they do
not offer him support, and he leaves alone. Hrethric thanks the scop for
ridding the Danes of Unferth: “Your story reminded Unferth’s men of
what he is. It showed them their own conduct.”
Still troubled, the scop replies, “Do you not understand? I told a
story and because of that a man is exiled . . . I was the cause . . . I have
abused my craft.” Hrethric, displaying some newly acquired intellectual
maturity asks, “Have you not said that a poet reveals men to themselves?
That he offers them knowledge?” (Oldham 166), and in so asking, he
reinforces Barthes’ theory that it is the “writing” or “producing” of a text
which creates meaning. The scop has “played” with multiple narratives
— both the tale which Beowulf tells of Unferth’s crimes and that of Cain
and Abel — grafting together a new one, with its own meaning which
responds to the “social space” in which it is created (Barthes 905).
As I theorized earlier, within this imagined Textual world,
Oldham’s scop would represent merely the first generation of tellers of
the Beowulf poem, but nonetheless in Oldham’s imagined scheme he
seems to have had a lasting impact. The subsequent poet might be a Geat
or at least someone who reveres Beowulf the hero, since the scop of The
Raven Waits gives us quite an unflattering depiction of him, unless we
can assume that the scop will suppress his personal feelings to give
Beowulf his due for deeds performed.
Oldham’s “pre-writing” of Beowulf deconstructs the story by
giving us a “backstage view” of how it came to contain many of the
ingredients found in its Old English version. Unlike Hrethric, who is
both immature and ungenerous; or Wealtheow, whose thoughts are taken
up by her children^* and by her caution to neither spurn nor fully
encourage the sexual advances of the ambitious Hrothulf; or Hrothgar,
who seems to live in a fog of depression about the state of his kingdom
and his people, the scop, Oldham seems to suggest, is the only one who
has the critical distance necessary to render the details of events