Ascop (/ʃɒp/[1] or/skɒp/[2]) was a poet as represented inOld English poetry. The scop is the Old English counterpart of theOld Norseskald, with the important difference that "skald" was applied to historical persons, and scop is used, for the most part, to designate oral poetswithin Old English literature. Very little is known about scops, and their historical existence is questioned by some scholars.
The scop, like the similargleeman, 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. The performances often featured the recitation of recognisable texts such as the "old pagan legends of the Germanic tribes."[1] However, the scop's duties also includedcomposing his own poetry in different situations, the eulogizing of his master. While some scops moved from court to court, they were (generally speaking) less nomadic than the gleemen and had positions of greater security.[1]
Old Englishscop and its cognateOld High Germanscoph, scopf, scof (glossingpoeta andvates; alsopoema) may be related to the verbscapan "to create, form" (Old Norseskapa, Old High Germanscaffan;Modern Englishshape), from Proto-Germanic*skapiz "form, order" (from a Proto-Indo-European*(s)kep- "cut, hack"), perfectly parallel to the notion of craftsmanship expressed by theGreekpoetēs itself;[3] Gerhard Köbler suggests that the West Germanic word may indeed be acalque of Latinpoeta.[4]
Whileskop became Englishscoff, the Old Norseskald lives on in aModern English word of a similarly deprecating meaning,scold.[5] There is a homonymous Old High Germanscopf meaning "abuse, derision" (Old Norseskop, meaning "mocking, scolding", whencescoff), a third meaning "tuft of hair", and yet another meaning "barn" (cognate to Englishshop). They may all derive from a Proto-Germanic*skupa.
The association with jesting or mocking was, however, strong in Old High German. There was askopfari glossing bothpoeta andcomicus and askopfliod glossingcanticum rusticum et ineptum andpsalmus plebeius.Skopfsang, on the other hand, is of a higher register, glossingpoema, poesis, tragoedia. The words involving jesting are derived from another root, Proto-Indo-European*skeub- "push, thrust", related to Englishshove, shuffle, and theOxford English Dictionary favours association ofscop with that root. The question cannot be decided formally since the Proto-Germanic forms coincided inzero grade, and by the time of the surviving sources (from the late 8th century), the association with both roots may have influenced the word for several centuries.
The scholar of literatureSeth 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."[6] Scholars of Early English have different opinions on whether the Anglo-Saxon oral poet ever really existed. Much of the poetry that survives does have an oral quality to it, but some scholars argue that it is a trait carried over from an earlier Germanic period. If, as some critics believe, the idea of the Anglo-Saxon oral poet is based on the Old NorseSkald, it can be seen as a link to the heroic past of the Germanic peoples. There is no proof that the "scop" existed, and it could be a literary device allowing poetry to give an impression of orality and performance. This poet figure recurs throughout the literature of the period, whether real or not. Examples are the poemsWidsith andDeor, in theExeter Book, which draw on the idea of the mead-hall poet of the heroic age and, along with the anonymous heroic poemBeowulf express some of the strongest poetic connections to oral culture in the literature of the period.[citation needed]
The scholar and translator of Old English poetryMichael Alexander, introducing his 1966 book ofThe Earliest English Poems, treats the scop as a reality within an oral tradition. He writes that since all the material is traditional, the oral poet achieves mastery ofalliterative verse when the use of descriptive half-line formulae has become "instinctive"; at that point he can compose "with and through the form rather than simplyin it". At that point, in Alexander's view, the scop "becomes invisible, and metre becomes rhythm".[7]
The nature of the scop inBeowulf is addressed by another scholar-translator,Hugh Magennis, in his bookTranslating Beowulf. He discusses the poem's lines 867–874, which describe, in his prose gloss, "a man ... mindful of songs, who remembered a multitude of stories from the whole range of ancient traditions, found new words, properly bound together".[8] He notes that this offers "an image of the poetic tradition in whichBeowulf participates", an oral culture: but that "in fact this narrator and this audience are [in this instance] a fiction", because when theBeowulf text is read out, the narrator is absent. So, while the poem feels like a scop's "oral utterance .. using the traditional medium of heroic poetry", it is actually "a literate work, which offers a meditation on its [centuries old] heroic world rather than itself coming directly from such a world".[8]
