The Weak Man in Old English Poetry

To denote 'man, human being,' there are a great number of synonyms available in Beowulf, such as beorn, guma, hæle(ð), man(n), rinc, secg, and wer.¹ Whereas other alternatives for 'man' would carry such connotations as 'hero, prince, warrior, lord,' man(n) is a relatively colorless word with lower alliterative frequency—thus, it has received little scholarly attention except with reference to its indefinite use.² There are, however, some interesting peculiarities concerning the use of man(n) and its related form in Beowulf: besides the commonly used man(n), which is a masculine noun of a minor declension, the weak by-form manna appears six times exclusively in accusative singular (hereafter abbreviated as acc.sg.).³ Along with the weak mannan (acc.sg.), the Beowulf poet used the 'strong' man (acc.sg.) once as well.⁴ Was the choice between man (acc.sg.) and mannan (acc. sg.) systematically made in Beowulf? Why does the weak manna always appear in the acc.sg. rather than in other cases and number? Does the weak manna appear in other verse texts and, if so, mainly in the form of the acc.sg.? The aim of this paper is to demonstrate that the choice between the strong man(n) and the weak manna was made on metrical grounds in Beowulf and other Old English poetry, and that the preponderance of the weak acc.sg. form in verse is due to grammatical as well as metrical reasons. At the conclusion of the study, I will also examine the use of the weak manna in prose texts.

I

To begin with, observe the following verses that contain the weak manna in Beowulf:⁵

1. 1. lēofne mannan (297b, 1943b, 2127a, 3108a)

   (beloved man)

2. 2. earmran mannon (577b)

   (more wretched man)

3. 3. ānne mannan (2774b)

   (one man)

Since each of the Type A verses consists of four syllables,⁶ the use of the strong monosyllabic man (acc.sg.) would result in too short a verse of only three syllables, or to put it more precisely, of only three metrical positions: *lēofne man, *earmran man, and *ānne man.⁷ (An asterisk indicates that the verses are unattested and metrically defective.)

On the other hand, the only instance of man (acc.sg.) in Beowulf occurs in a verse of Type E:⁸

(4) wīdcūðne man (1489b)

(widely known man)

In this metrical context, the strong man cannot be replaced by the weak mannan, which would give a verse of unknown type such as *wīdcūðne mannan; no verse of Type E is allowed to end with an unstressed syllable; the hypothetical verse is not an attested variety of Type A2, either. These observations lead me to assume that the Beowulf poet made a systematic choice between man (acc.sg.) and mannan (acc.sg.) according to metrical contexts.

II

The next problem to be pursued is whether the weak by-form for 'man' occurs in other Old English poetry and, if it is the case, whether metrical factors are also relevant to the choice between the strong and weak forms. In the rest of the Old English poetic corpus, as in Beowulf, the weak manna is almost exclusively attested in the acc.sg. except for a few instances to be discussed later. In the Type A verses of four syllables below, the use of the strong monosyllabic man(n)/mon(n) would yield unmetrical verses short of one metrical position:

(5) lēofne mannan (Gen A 2589a)

(beloved man)

(6) fǣgne monnan (Fort 44b)

(doomed man)

(7) fremdne monnan (OrW 1b)

(strange man)

(8) monnan funde (Wife 18b)

([I] found the man [ill-fortuned])

(9) monnan findest (Husb 28b)

([you may] find the man)

(10) lāðne mannan (Jud 101b)

(hateful man)

Consider now the following examples, both of which are hypermetric verses. In off-verses of this type, a sequence of unstressed syllables or (less frequently) an extra trochaic foot as in (11) is most often followed by a normal Type A verse:⁹

(11) Lǣran sceal mon geongne monnan (Max I 45b)¹⁰

(One...