Feast in Heorot: Presentations of Power in Germanic Society of the Early Middle Ages (based on the poem "Beowulf")

Palashevskaya I., Gogenko V.

The article is written from the position of semiotic and axiological approaches of modern linguistics to the study of social phenomena and is devoted to lingua-semiotic (sign) clusters of power that form its images in culture of German society in the early Middle Ages. The research is based on the epic poem "Beowulf". Considering the descriptions of the feast at king’s court as a collective symbolic action, the authors focus on the signs-locatives – designations of places of public self-presentation of power and its socio-cultural communication, the collective actions performed and potestas insignia used in this practice.

Keywords:semiotics, power, status, sign, presentem, performance, speech act, communicative event, ritual.