Beowulf

Historical Context
In a time of great cultural shifts, an Anglo-Saxon Christian scholar/monk wanted to write down his people's
greatest legend before it vanished.

Old English is the language of Beowulf. While it only represents 5% of our modern vernacular, Old English
composes our top 100 most commonly used words.

Poetic Devices
Heavy Alliterations
Kennings
Ship = Wave-Rider
Sea = Whale-Path
King = Ring-Giver
Sword = Man-Cleaver or Light-of-Battle
"Grendel" = Son-of-Cain
Shoehorned Christianity
Epic Digression
Epic = Big bad dudes, doing big bad things
Genealogies
Everyone must know how big and bad, my family is.
Four-Fold-Germanic Ethic
Duty to one's Lord
The only thing worse than being a murderer is being an oathbreaker
Duty to one's kin.
The second greatest insult in the Germanic times was kinslayer
Duty to avenge both.
If someone kills your king, you must go kill them.
If someone kills your brother, you must go kill them
Submission to Fate (Wyrd)
Fate as Fate. Destiny as Destiny.
Free will is an illusion.
Fatalism

The Wrath of Grendel and The Coming of Beowulf

The two major tribes of Beowulf are the Danes and the Geats
Danes
Hrothgar is the king of the Danes.
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In celebration of his success, he built a mead hall called Herot.
Here the great warriors hear the sagas sung by the Scop.
The king also holds court with his warriors here.
Grendel terrorizes Herot.
Beowulf hears about it and sets out to slay the beast.