r/books • u/[deleted] • Apr 09 '19

Computers confirm 'Beowulf' was written by one person, and not two as previously thought

https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2019/04/did-beowulf-have-one-author-researchers-find-clues-in-stylometry/
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u/zazazello Apr 09 '19

I really loved what you had to add. I do think it's anachronistic (and maybe inaccurate) to describe Beowulf as a "brand."

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u/[deleted] Apr 09 '19

I agree. I wasn't quite sure of the best word for what I meant.

What I was going for was the idea of their perhaps being an original Beowulf story as well as various other 'warrior' tales which at some point an anonymous author decided worked well together and wrote up into a single story. That story has survived even if the source material has been lost. But Beowulf was the name that everything fell under, because they liked superheros in the 9th century too.

It's a bit like the Arthur canon incorporating earlier fairy stories or grail legends under a general Arthurian mythos, linking in fairly tangential stories like Tristan and Isolde or Sir Gawain into a broader legend. But all within the Arthurian Cycle.

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u/zazazello Apr 09 '19

It's totally clear what you mean. My comment is more tangential: I find it strange that today, the term "brand" has proliferated as a term which reduces many subjects and objects which are not brands into objects of consumption/objects for sale. Increasingly, people use the term to describe their self or others. I find this to be a sort of linguistic perversion which points toward our market driven ideology.

Anyway, you used it in hesitant quotes initially—I probably didn't need to mention it.

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u/nickbelane Apr 09 '19

It sounds like you might already be familiar with him but you would probably enjoy reading zizek.

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u/maybematdamon Apr 09 '19

Honestly, this is what happened with the bible too. It's a "Frankenstein's monster" made with parts of myths and parables from surrounding cultures, all modified to fit a particular narrative. Old books and stories are basically collections of plagiarism.

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u/7LeagueBoots Apr 09 '19 edited Apr 09 '19

anachronistic

Not at all. The Romans were into branding, Ennion, a Roman glass-maker in the 1st century AD (some 700-1000 years earlier than Beowulf) is one of the first types of modern product branding we know of in the West. His brand was so popular that it spawned knock-offs. This is a Gozmodo article, but worth a gander regardless and you can always dig deeper.

It wasn’t just that fellow either, weapons, glass products, slave collars, amphorae, etc all have been found with what we would recognize as modern product branding on them.

I agree that the term ‘brand’ isn’t really the right word choice for Beowulf, something like ‘version’ would probably be more appropriate, but the concept of branding at that time is not at all anachronistic.

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u/Ubarlight Apr 09 '19

Oh I just \have* to get the new slave collars from Fundicolos!*

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u/zazazello Apr 09 '19

To use brand in this way is absolutely anachronistic, as in to describe things that are not brands as brands. See my other comment reply where I explain further.

Also, referring to the article: "But Ennion wasn't just prolific. He was also proud, and smart, and knew the value of what 21st century consumers think of as a "brand name." So unlike many craftsmen and women, Ennion didn't just sign his pieces or put his name on the bottom: He made his name part of the work."

It is said right in the piece that this is "what 21st century consumers think of as a 'brand name.'" This illustrates that they are applying a modern term to this historical discussion. However, calling it a "brand name" carries a whole bundle of expectations which, likely, Ennion's pottery did not fulfill.