The Primary Exhibit: The Chosen Page of the Manuscript Containing "Beowulf"

This is the back of a folio belonging to Beowulf manuscript, with the smaller, darker original page mounted onto a background page. It showcases the precedents of paper (parchment) and printing technology (scribing) appearing in the 7th – 10th century, with the parchment’s texture, the Old English usage, and handwriting’s style of a medieval manuscript. The manuscript was then the primary vehicle for nobility to explore the world of the epic poem Beowulf. Expensive and long-lasting, it has continuous lines running across the original page, as well as its alliteration, also indicate the purpose of reading it outloud. It was very time-consuming to get the skin of some animal prepared (such as scraping and stretching it) and then write aesthetically on straight lines. There is an initial at the beginning of a section to separate visually two parts of the description on the selected page. Wide margins centralize the story (the edge of the page’s right side was largely burned and broken). This implies the challenge to survive for centuries.

In fact, this manuscript is the only survival record that includes Beowulf in the 7^th-10^th century (some scholars assume that it might have been made in the early 11^th century.[1] Its exact date and purpose of being made, as well as the author, remain unknown. Such mysteries also associate with the distant ancient style of storytelling which brings obstacles to the literature analysis. It used to be criticized for putting “the irrelevancies in the centre and the serious things on the outer edges”, which means the battles with the three monsters including Grendel are mainly depicted.[2] However, Victoria Symons argues that the monsters are the keys to understand this poem. They oppose the main figure Beowulf in the severe battles. Overall, the narrative of Grendel on the chosen page offers a glance of the early cross-continental European Christian culture with paganism embedded, which led to an Anglo-Saxon way of story-telling, with a perfect hero and monsters as his “twisted version”.[3]