One of the finest EPIC poems of Anglo-Saxon literature,
Beowulf is a stirring adventure story and a
deeply serious commentary on human life. It tells
the story of the life and death of the legendary hero
Beowulf in his great battles with supernatural
monsters and in his reign as a cultured and popular
monarch. Beowulf is a model of heroic spirit at
its finest, the ideal Anglo-Saxon image of warrioraristocrat.
Cyclical in movement and unified by striking
contrasts of youth and old age, success and failure,
bravery and cowardice, Beowulf is a sophisticated
poem following CAEDMON’s style of poetry, with a
Germanic hero-warrior code of honor coupled
with Christian religious underpinnings. The poem
is written in the unrhymed four-beat alliterative
meter of OLD ENGLISH POETRY. The author is unknown.
There is much debate about when the
poem was written, but it was most likely composed
sometime between the middle of the seventh and
the end of the 10th centuries. As such, it is the
longest surviving poem in Old English, containing
more than 3,100 lines.While the poem was written
in Anglo-Saxon England in the Old English language,
the events it describes are set in Denmark,
Sweden, and Geatland (now southern Sweden).
Critical Analysis
The epic opens, as it ends, with a funeral, the sea
burial of the founder of the Danish royal line. Then
the scene changes to King Hrothgar’s court in Heorot,
Denmark, where the huge demon Grendel kills
and eats warriors every night. Beowulf, prince of
the Geats and strongest man of his time, hears of
the troubles and journeys there with his troop of
men to win his fame by challenging the giant monster.
He conquers Grendel barehanded, ripping off
the monster’s arm at the shoulder:
. . . No Dane doubted
The victory, for the proof, hanging high
From the rafters where Beowulf had hung
it, was the monster’s
Arm, claw and shoulder and all.
(ll. 833–836)
There is much rejoicing at the royal banquet the
next day. Many heroic tales are told in Beowulf ’s
honor, and a bard sings the lay of the Finnsburg
episode, a tragic feud from the Danish past.
Later that night, Grendel’s mother attacks the
royal hall to avenge her son. Beowulf dives down to
the bottom of the haunted lake where she dwells.
At first she nearly kills him, but he manages to slay
her with the help of a strange, magical sword.
When he resurfaces, the onlookers, who had given
him up for dead, rejoice in his victory.
Beowulf has thus succeeded in cleansing Denmark
of the evil monsters. In a moving sermon of
exceptional poetic force, the king,who is very fond
of young Beowulf, warns him of the dangers of
pride and weeps as Beowulf returns to Geatland.
Part I of the epic ends with Beowulf’s recounting
of his adventures in Denmark and of the political
state of affairs there to his uncle, King Hygelac
of the Geats. Beowulf bestows Hrothgar’s gifts on
Hygelac, who in turn rewards Beowulf with treasure
and lands.
Part II takes up the last thousand lines of the
poem and deals with a Beowulf of mature years,
when he comes to the Geatish throne upon the
death of Hygelac and his son. Beowulf rules wisely
and peacefully for 50 years, a remarkable feat in
those troubled times. Then one day, a robber accidentally
disturbs a sleeping dragon that guards a
treasure hidden in a grave mound. The dragon
awakens and starts wreaking havoc in the surrounding
villages by burning down houses.
Beowulf decides to meet the fire-breathing
dragon in combat. Upon seeing the dragon, his
troops flee in terror, but his kinsman Wiglaf refuses
to leave his side. Together they kill the
dragon, but Beowulf receives a fatal wound in his
neck. Knowing his end is near, he rejoices over the
life he has led and is at peace with his conscience.
His only regret is that he leaves behind no heirs.
Wiglaf grieves as Beowulf breathes his last.When
the cowardly troops return, Wiglaf heaps scorn
upon their heads.
Wiglaf then sends a messenger to the king’s
household informing them of the tragedy. The
messenger’s speech is a prophecy of the doom for
the Geats at the hands of their enemies, the
Swedes, now that their hero-protector is dead.
Beowulf is cremated on a great funeral pyre.All
the Geats, warriors and common folk alike, gather
around in despair, and the poem ends as the treasure
from the grave mound that the dragon was
guarding and Beowulf ’s ashes are buried together
in a monumental barrow on a headland by the sea.
Beowulf’s importance and value lie in its details,
which give us a glimpse of the warrior-hero’s spirit
and code of honor and of the attitudes and beliefs of
the monk who transcribed the oral story, thus giving
the poem a Christian influence and reflecting
pagan England during its transition to Christianity.
English Versions of Beowulf
Beowulf. Translated by Howell D. Chickering, Jr. New
York: Doubleday, 1977.
Beowulf. Translated by Seamus Heaney. New York:
W.W. Norton, 2000.
Works about Beowulf
Bjork, Robert E. and John D. Niles, eds. A Beowulf
Handbook. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1998.
Cook, Albert Stanburrough. The Possible Begetter of
the Old English Beowulf and Widsith. New York:
M.S.G. Haskell House, 1970.
Tolkien, J. R. R. Beowulf and the Critics. Edited by
Michael Drout. Phoenix: Arizona State University,
2002.