Alison,
In response to your question about *B*'s organization into fitts, my understanding is that it had to do with the length of an oral performance, which depended entirely on the occasion (a one-night party, a 3-day feast, an all-day wedding, etc). What we have in the extant text is at least three performances of Beowulf stories (Grendel, Grendel's Mom, and the dragon, plus a reference to the swimming contest with Brecca). God knows how many other heroic tales of B were in circulation then (i.e., in the 8th c.). But no singer could perform the whole epic in a single sitting, so the organization is both long-performance oriented in terms of the three adventures related and brief-performance oriented in terms of the fitts. (Does this help?)
Yes, please do keep the fitts coming--I'm enjoying them very much, and so, apparently, are others. Bless you for bringing the list alive again after its post-anthology slump!
Candice
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