Asadova chexrangiz salim qizi maxmudova dildora olimbekovna 35 – O‘zbek theme: characteristic role of “beowulf” plan: introduction main party

Sources and analogues

Neither identified sources nor analogues for Beowulf can be definitively proven, but many conjectures have been made. These are important in helping historians understand the Beowulf manuscript, as possible source-texts or influences would suggest time-frames of composition, geographic boundaries within which it could be composed, or range (both spatial and temporal) of influence (i.e. when it was "popular" and where its "popularity" took it).
There are Scandinavian sources, international folkloric sources, and Celtic sources.
Scandinavian parallels and sources
19th century studies proposed that Beowulf was translated from a lost original Scandinavian work, but this idea was quickly abandoned. But Scandinavian works have continued to be studied as a possible source. Proponents included Gregor Sarrazin writing in 1886 that an Old Norse original version of Beowulf must have existed, but that view was later debunked by Carl Wilhelm von Sydow (1914) who pointed out that Beowulf is fundamentally Christian and written at a time when any Norse tale would have most likely been pagan.
Grettis saga
The epic's possible connection to Grettis saga, an Icelandic family saga, was made early on by Guðbrandur Vigfússon (1878).
Grettis saga is a story about Grettir Ásmundarson, a great-grandson of an Icelandic settler, and so cannot be as old as Beowulf. Axel Olrik (1903) claimed that on the contrary, this saga was a reworking of Beowulf, and others followed suit.
However, Friedrich Panzer (1910) wrote a thesis in which both Beowulf and Grettis saga drew from a common folkloric source, and this encouraged even a detractor such as W. W. Lawrence to reposition his view, and entertain the possibility that certain elements in the saga (such as the waterfall in place of the mere) retained an older form.
The viability of this connection has enjoyed enduring support, and was characterized as one of the few Scandinavian analogues to receive a general consensus of potential connection by Theodore M. Andersson (1998). But that same year, Magnús Fjalldal published a volume challenging the perception that there is a close parallel, and arguing that tangential similarities were being overemphasized as analogies.