Borges 'Battle Of Brunanburh And Raffel'

Heads turn as the screams are heard. The war was painful for both sides as they clashed. The Battle of Brunanburh was a historical battle that happened in the 8th century that united Britain and defined the British, Scottish, and Welsh borders. In 937 AD, Vikings from Scandinavia invaded Anglo-Saxon territory fearing that if they didn't, the Anglo-Saxons, ruled by Athelstan, would invade and conquer the Vikings. The Vikings lost but countless lives were lost. The Battle of Brunanburh is one of the bloodiest battles in Anglo-Saxon history and it is the topic of both the Anglo-Saxon epic translated by Burton Raffel, “The Battle of Brunanburh,” and the modern lyric by Jorge Luis Borges, “Brunanburh A.D., 937.” Both poems describe the bloody battle scene but despite being about the same event, the two poems have differences. Though both poems are describing the same historical event, they have differing points of …show more content…
In Raffel’s epic, the point of view is third person as demonstrated through the multiple uses of “they.” Borges’ lyric, on the other hand, is written in first person(shown by the use of “I”), giving the reader the opportunity to comprehend the battle differently. The reader can see in the epic that the battle was a victory for the Anglo-Saxons due to the Vikings and Scottish retreat after being slaughtered when Raffel writes “The enemy ran, all the Scotch and the ship-borne Vikings ran of drowned in blood”(10-12). In the lyric, Borges writes “Last night I did a man to death”(2). The reader is given a personal point of view and can see that the speaker feels remorse and does not care who is winning the battle. The epic’s third person point of view gives the reader a distant and formal understanding of the battle. On the contrary, the lyric’s first person point of view gives the reader a personal and intimate understanding of the