Yesterday I was reading an article about Beowulf on Cinematical regarding the adaptation of the story to a blockbuster movie, and it got me thinking about an essay I had posted on the original version of my site. This essay was written for my British Writers to 1800 course. There may still be a few things that need to be polished up, but I am very proud of this essay. Beowulf is one of my favorite stories. To me Beowulf is the predecessor to the Lord of the Rings trilogy. If you have not read Beowulf I recommend taking the time to do so. It is an excellent story for those young and old. The full text of my essay can be ready after the break.
In the epic poem Beowulf, the main character of the same name faces three major battles. Each battle has its own monster starting with Grendel, then Grendel's mother, and the last featuring a dragon. These three battles are unique not only in who Beowulf faces off against, but also in his difficulty of doing so. During the course of the story Beowulf also faces a struggle with his faith. He goes back and forth between participating in old pagan traditions and accepting the relatively new Christian religion. All of these struggles are directly tied to Beowulfs heroic stature. However, each attempt of Beowulfs to maintain his heroic status only serves to turn him into something less than a hero. During the course of Beowulfs three major battles, the author shows the reader this deterioration of Beowulfs heroic status by depicting Beowulf with increasing amounts of armor, exposing the character as being more and more challenged by each ensuing fight, and reveals how Beowulf reverts to his pagan heritage.
At the point of the story when Beowulf fights with Grendel, Beowulf is at his highest heroic status. The author shows the reader this in several ways. First, Beowulf has come to Heorot specifically to rid it of the demon Grendel who has ravaged the mead hall for the last twelve years. Second, as Beowulf recounts his story of his swimming match against Breca, the reader learns that Beowulf has great endurance that is matched by no other. Even though Beowulf technically lost the match to Breca, Beowulf points out to Unferth, who has been questioning his heroic status, that, "Such night dangers / and hard ordeals I have never heard of / nor of a man more desolate in surging waves. / But worn out as I was, I survived, / came through with my life" (44, lines 575-579).
Additionally, Beowulf's heroic status is further elevated when the reader learns that the character plans to fight Grendel unarmed. "No weapons, therefore, / for either this night: unarmed he shall face me / if face me he dares. And may the Divine Lord / in his wisdom grant the glory of victory to whichever side He sees fit" (46 lines 683-687). This passage is important for two reasons. First, in traditional heroic epics, when the hero is about to be faced with a great battle the author takes great care to describe the arming of the hero. Not only does the author go against tradition in disarming Beowulf, but the author makes such a brief mention of it the reader is left with the idea the hero's lack of armor is a normal occurrence. It is almost as if the character frequently fights without any sort of protection. Consequently, this does diminish the importance of this battle slightly. The second noteworthy portion of this passage is Beowulf's reference to his own faith in God. Medieval heroes were usually portrayed as strong Christian men. The author furthers this by describing Beowulf as that prince of goodness (46 line 676). This description elevates Beowulf so high as to make him a Christ figure.
However, once the physical fight with Grendel has ceased, Beowulf's fall from grace begins. The mortal wound Beowulf gives Grendel sends the monster fleeing back to the swamp. The people of Heorot are able to rejoice for a small time now that Beowulf has rid them of Grendel. But, in only ripping off Grendel's arm, Beowulf has failed the people of Heorot in a few ways. Instead of having a corpse to show off, Beowulf only has one of Grendel's appendages. It is not until later that Beowulf is able to bring the people Grendel's head so that he can once and for all put to rest the fear of the monster. Beowulf's biggest failing in this fight is letting Grendel get away. For this reason, Grendel's mother is able to come and take revenge against Heorot for what the people have done to her son. Not only does Grendel's mother's vengeance cause "both parties having to pay / with the lives of friends" (61 lines 1305-1306), but it also causes Beowulf to begin questioning his faith. Beowulf was brought to the chamber "still wondering whether Almighty God / would ever turn the tide of his misfortunes" (61 lines 1310-1315). At this point in the story Beowulf still believes in God, but he is beginning to question His Divine Plan.
Grendel’s mother’s attack on Heorot leads Beowulf to seek action after the mother. This time the author’s description of Beowulf’s preparation is much different than the previous battle he had engaged in. A full 22 lines of the poem are dedicated to describing Beowulf’s armor and weapons. This contrasts significantly with Beowulf’s preparations against Grendel where he was completely unarmed and unprotected. The 22 line description begins with “Beowulf got ready, / donned his war-gear, indifferent to death;” (64 lines 1442-1445). That description is contradictory to the hero the reader saw before. Beowulf’s indifference to death was shown before by not wearing any armor at all. Furthermore, Beowulf accepts the gift of Hrunting, from Unferth, who had previously ridiculed Beowulf. The acceptance of this gift gives the reader the impression that Beowulf has become a desperate man willing to try anything to defeat the monster.
The battle itself against Grendel’s mother, was just as un-heroic as the preparation. Beowulf struggles fiercely against the mother even though the author describes her earlier in the text as being somewhat less of a foe than Grendel. “Her onslaught was less / only by as much as an amazon warrior’s / strength is less than an armed man’s” (61 lines 1282-1287). As the reader saw earlier, Beowulf was able to easily dispatch Grendel with no armor or weapons. However, Beowulf’s heroism is beginning to fail him against a lesser creature. Initially Beowulf tries to pierce her with Hrunting but fails. “But he soon found / his battle-torch extinguished; the shining blade / refused to bite” (65 lines 1522-1524). Most critics attribute this failure to the toughness of the mother’s natural armor. Yet Beowulf is credited with having the strength of 30 men earlier in the story. It is more likely that it is Beowulf’s strength that has failed him and not Hrunting. With that much strength either Beowulf should have been able to damage Grendel’s mother, or the sword itself should have been rendered useless to the point of shattering.
When Beowulf is finally able to destroy Grendel’s mother, it is with a weapon that is other-worldly and from decidedly non-Christian origins. The blade that Beowulf uses to slay the mother is one of her heirlooms. The author has already explained that both Grendel and the mother are demonic descendants from Cain, thus any heirloom weapon from said lineage was most likely forged for evil means. It is only with this sword that Beowulf is able to escape death. If the author had not wanted the reader to think Beowulf’s faith and heroism were slipping, it would have been more relevant to have Beowulf slay the mother with Hrunting. Even though Hrunting was a gift from a jealous adversary, the sword was still forged by faithful men and not from the line of faithless demons.
When Beowulf returns to Heorot with the hilt of the demon sword and the head of Grendel, Hrothgar issues a lengthy warning to Beowulf on how to rule his kingdom. Hrothgar starts by giving an example of a warrior from noble birth similar to Beowulf. He then proceeds to tell how he rose to the throne and becomes concerned about his possessions: “He covets and resents; dishonors custom / and bestows no gold; and because of good things / that the Heavenly Powers gave him in the past / he ignores the shape of things to come” (70 lines 1749-1752). Finally, Hrothgar offers a final warning to Beowulf:
Choose, dear Beowulf, the better part,
eternal rewards. Do not give way to pride.
For a brief while your strength is in bloom
But it fades quickly; and soon there will follow
Illness or the sword to lay you low,
or a sudden fire or surge of water
or jabbing blade or javelin from the air
or repellent age. Your piercing eye
will dim and darken; and death will arrive,
dear warrior, to sweep you away. (70 lines 1758-1768)
The purpose of this warning is two-fold. First, it serves to remind Beowulf that gold and treasure are only useful so long as someone is around to use or appreciate it. The second part is much more severe and foreboding. Hrothgar sees that Beowulf is not the strong Christian that he is and warns him that eternal life is more important than anything in this mortal existence. But as the reader sees in the ensuing fight with the dragon, this warning seems to fall on deaf ears.
Beowulf’s final fight with the dragon secures his status as a non-hero. In this episode Beowulf prepares for it more than ever before. He commissions an iron-shield to protect himself against the dragon because he knows that the standard wood shields will not do the job (82 lines 2337-2339). While this is not the first time Beowulf has worn armor, it is the first time that he has requested armor for a specific battle. In Beowulf’s old age he is trying to cling to the heroic status he once possessed in his youth, but this time Beowulf is obviously afraid. In order to hide this fear, Beowulf boasts that, “This fight is not yours, / nor is it up to any man except me / to measure his strength against the monster / or to prove his worth. I shall win the gold / by my courage, or else mortal combat, / doom of battle, will bear your lord away” (86 lines 2532-2537). Not only is Beowulf boasting, but he is showing his greed for the treasure which is a decidedly un-heroic trait in terms of his supposed Christian faith. This greed also goes against everything that Hrothgar warned Beowulf about. Beowulf has forgotten the eternal, has completely lost his faith, and is only concerned with material possessions.
Beowulf’s deterioration furthers once the fight begins. Beowulf hand selects 11 men to accompany him to fight the beast. But when he arrives he instructs all of them to stay behind. This order serves to solidify Beowulf’s doom. This battle is the most difficult Beowulf ever faces in the course of the story. Beowulf tries to deliver a fatal blow but fails. He is merely able to scratch the dragon. In this battle the tone of the story is different. It is more serious than in previous battles, and the reader begins to feel that Beowulf will fail this task. The author furthers this feeling by intimating, “Beowulf was foiled / of a glorious victory. The glittering sword, / infallible before that day, / failed when he unsheathed it, as it never should have” (87 lines 2583-2586). Unlike before where it was possible that Beowulf’s struggles were possibly due to faulty equipment, the reader knows that this time Beowulf’s failings are his own.
In the end, Beowulf is able to defeat the dragon, but not without help or needlessly sacrificing himself. If Wiglaf had not come to Beowulf’s aid the dragon would have lived and Beowulf would have still died. All Wiglaf was able to do was to assist in the defeat of the dragon. It is quite possible that had Wiglaf assisted from the beginning that Beowulf would have survived this encounter. However, Beowulf’s pride prevents the reader from seeing this outcome. In a final irony, the author tells us that, “the old dawn-scorching serpent’s den / [was] packed with goblets and vessels from the past, / tarnished and corroding. Rusty helmets / all eaten away” (91 lines 2760-2763). Not only does Beowulf die in combat, but the thing for which he was fighting turns out to be worthless. The author seems to be drawing a parallel between the decaying treasure and Beowulf’s tarnished soul.
As Beowulf lies dying he tries to expunge himself of his erroneous acts. Most notably is his lack of an heir and leaving his kingdom vulnerable. “’Now is the time when I would have wanted / to bestow this armor on my own son, / had it been my fortune to have fathered an heir/ and live on in his flesh’” (90 lines 2729-2732). While he ends up bequeathing his armor and throne to Wiglaf, it is likely that the kingdom will be in turmoil for some time and unable to fend off invaders. No longer will Beowulf’s kingdom be seen as an impenetrable fortress. With his heirless death the glory of his kingdom is gone.
One of the opposing critics to Beowulf’s non-heroic status comes from J.R.R. Tolkien. Tolkien asserts that Beowulf’s last encounter solidifies his heroic status. “Nowhere does a dragon come in so precisely where he should. But if the hero falls before a dragon, then certainly he should achieve his early glory by vanquishing a foe of similar order” (38). Tolkien sees the story as being separated in two halves. The first being Beowulf’s rise to fame with his defeat of Grendel and Grendel’s mother, and the second being his fulfilled glory by defeating the dragon.
What Tolkien fails to cover is Beowulf’s increasing struggle with each foe, or Beowulf’s failing faith. Both of which are central to the character. Tolkien sees the battles as simply ridding the world of evil since the monsters are the enemies of the gods (27). Moreover, he does not seem to have a problem with Beowulf’s pagan nature even though the author frequently mentions the importance of Christianity. The lack of attention to these issues poses problems with Tolkien’s overall argument.
By most accounts, Beowulf is considered a heroic epic poem. Unfortunately, the hero fails to maintain the status of a true hero throughout the entire poem. Beginning with the end of combat with Grendel, and progressing through the story to Beowulf’s death, the main character loses the qualities that made him a hero in the first place. By the end, Beowulf has lost his faith in God, he has lost sight of what matters in this life, he fails to provide an heir for his throne, and ultimately his pride kills him. While Beowulf is a great and marvelous poem, it fails to deliver to its audience the one thing they are seeking: a true hero.
“Beowulf.” The Norton Anthology of English Literature. 7th ed. Vol. 1. Ed. M. H. Abrams.
New York: W. W. Norton & Company Ltd. 2000. 32-99.
Tolkien, J.R.R. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” The Beowulf Poet. Comp. and
ed. Donald K. Fry. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, Inc. 1968. 38.