Scop

For other uses, see Scop (disambiguation).
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[1]A scop (/ʃɒp/ or /skɒp/[2]) was a poet as represented in Old English poetry. The scop is the Anglo-Saxon counterpart of the Old Norse skald, with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons while "scop" is used, for the most part, to designate oral poets within Old English literature. There is very little information known about the mythical scop and its existence is still under debate.

Functions of the Scop

The scop, like the similar gleeman, was a reciter of poetry. The scop, however, was typically attached to a court on a relatively permanent basis. There, he most likely received rich gifts for his performances. These performances often featured the recitation of recognizable texts, such as the "old pagan legends of the Germanic tribes."[1] Yet the scop's duties also included composing his own poetry in different situations, (i.e. the eulogizing of his master). While it is true some scops moved from court to court, they were (generally speaking) less nomadic than the gleemen, equating to positions of greater security.[1]

Etymology

Old English scop and its cognate Old High German scoph, scopf, scof (glossing poeta and vates; also poema) may be related to the verb scapan "to create, form" (Old Norse skapa, Old High German scaffan; Modern English shape), from Proto-Germanic *skapiz "form, order" (from a PIE *(s)kep- "cut, hack"), perfectly parallel to the notion of craftsmanship expressed Greek poetēs itself;[3] Köbler (1993, p. 220) suggests that the West Germanic word may indeed be a calque of Latin poeta.

Scop, scopf, and scold: The art of verbal insulting

Not coincidentally, while skop became English scoff, the Old Norse skald lives on in a Modern English word of similarly deprecating meaning, scold. There is a homonymous Old High German scopf meaning "abuse, derision" (Old Norse skop, meaning "mocking, scolding", whence scoff), a third meaning "tuft of hair", and yet another meaning "barn" (cognate to English shop). They may all derive from a Proto-Germanic *skupa.

The association with jesting or mocking is, however, strong in Old High German. There is a skopfari glossing both poeta and comicus and a skopfliod glossing canticum rusticum et ineptum and psalmus plebeius. Skopfsang on the other hand is of a higher register, glossing poema, poesis, tragoedia. The words involving jesting are derived from another root, PIE *skeub- "push, thrust", related to English shove, shuffle, and the Oxford English Dictionary favours association of scop with that root. The question cannot be decided formally, since the Proto-Germanic forms coincided in zero grade, and by the time of our surviving sources (from the late 8th century), association with both roots may have influenced the word for several centuries.

It is characteristic of the Germanic tradition of poetry that the sacred or heroic cannot be separated from the ecstatic or drunken state, and correspondingly crude jesting (compare the Lokasenna, where the poet humorously depicts the gods themselves as quarrelsome and malicious), qualities summed up in the concept of *wōþuz, the name-giving attribute of the god of poetry, *Wōdanaz.

The Mystery of the Anglo-Saxon Scop

Professor of Literature at University of California San Diego, Seth Lerer suggests that "What we have come to think of as the inherently "oral" quality of Old English Poetry ....[may] be a literary fiction of its own."[4] Early English scholars have different opinions on whether or not the Anglo-Saxon oral poet ever really existed. Much of the poetry that survives to this day does have an oral quality to it but some scholars argue that this is a trait carried over from an earlier Germanic period. If, as some critics believe, the figure of the Anglo-Saxon oral poet is based on the Old Norse Skald then it could be seen as a link to the heroic past of the Germanic people. While there is no proof either way that the scop definitely existed, it is a popular myth applied to the Early Anglo-Saxon poetry, allowing poetry to give the impression, at least of orality and performance. This poet figure reoccurs over and over again in the literature of the period, whether real or not. Great examples of this are the poems Widsith and Deor which appear in the Exeter Book. These poems really draw from the idea of the mead-hall poet of the heroic age and are some of the strongest poetic connections to oral culture in the literature of the period, along with anonymous, heroic poem Beowulf.

Further reading

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Bahn, Eugene; Bahn, Margaret (1970). A History of Oral Interpretation. Minneapolis: Burgess Publishing Co. p. 56.
  2. ↑ http://oed.com/view/Entry/172966?redirectedFrom=scop# "Pronunciation: /ʃɒp/ /skɒp/" Retrieved 06FEB2011.
  3. ↑ suggested e.g. by Alexander 1966
  4. ↑ Lerer, Seth (1991). Literacy and Power in Anglo-Saxon Literature. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
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