Beowulf

1. The comitatus.

a. group - Germanic culture - Tacitus, Germania:

Infamy and lifelong scandal await the man who outlives his leader by
retreating from the battle-line: to defend their chief and guard him, to ascribe
to his glory their own brave deeds, is their foremost oath. The leader fights
for victory, the retainers for their leader. (quoted in Amodio 278)

b. How are the practices of the comitatus represented in Beowulf? What

rituals do the Danes and the Geats engage in? What is the nature of the
relationship between the lord and his retainers?

But whereas the other heroic poems in which the comitatus figures offer
uniform and consistently positive depictions of it, Beowulf problematizes it,
revealing it to be an unobtainable and perhaps outdated ideal rather than
the viable, functioning paradigm for heroic conduct it is elsewhere presented
to be. (Amodio, 278)

c. How important is the comitatus? Consider Beowulf and the role his men
play in the three confrontations.

The failure of the comitatus bond is thus bi-directional: Beowulf fails his
warriors (in ordering his men not to join in the fight he rejects/ignores the
very principle of mutual need/obligation upon which the comitatus is
founded) just as surely as they fail him by retreating to the woods in his hour
of need. (Amodio, 279)

d. What are the traits of a successful king? What are his obligations and the
conditions of a successful rule?

2. The three trials

a. Grendel. Where does he come from? What is his lineage? How is he

described? What kind of alien/exile/other is he? What is the common
attitude exhibited towards exiles in Beowulf?
b. Grendels mother. Where does she live? How is she described? What does
the scribe say about her origins and Grendels lineage? What is the
significance of her killing one of the noblemen? In what way is the
 confrontation with her different? How are her actions justified? How does
she transgress nature? How does Beowulf transgress nature?
c. The dragon. How is the dragon different from Grendel and his mother? Why
is the dragon outside the human realm?

What is the Anglo-Saxon attitude towards the monstrous? What is monstrous?

What is the space assigned to monstrosity?

Consider the weapons and the battle gear Beowulf wears in each confrontation.
What is different? Why?

3. Christian themes.

4. The structure of the poem:

a. the Germanic layer (heroism) and the Christian layer (fate):
literal vs. interpretative
physical vs. spiritual
doom vs. redemption
b. the trials
the rise/fall pattern of victory and defeat triumph and failure, bloom and
decay light and darkness in cyclical alternation
fear and glory
man cannot transcend time by conquering his fears
all glory is transient

5. Crisis: military spiritual (Grendel vs old age, the dragon vs old age)
(myth)
a. Scyld Scefing
b. Hrothgar
c. Beowulf

Anglo-Saxon Literature

Themes

1. Heroism
2. The end of the world
3. The transitory nature of life
4. Fate
5. Wisdom
6. Otherness

1. Heroism
Poems dominated by the theme of secular heroism tend to be judged
artistically and narratively as superior to the poems that celebrate
Christian heroism although the ratio argues in favour of the latter.
Common points among poems celebrating secular and Christian heroism:
o bravery in the face of dire physical danger,
o the public articulation of ones heroic intents via the beot,
o loyalty to ones lord.
Secular heroism in Beowulf:
o in his beot before meeting the dragon he announces that he will
not flee the space of a foot from the monstrous foe;
o during the dragon fight, he gets close enough to his foes head to
drive his sword, Nagling, into its skull, shattering the weapon in
the process;
o following the destruction of Nagling, he faces the fifty-foot-long
monster armed only with a battle-knife, a weapon with a blade
about twelve inches long.
o Examples of loyalty: mistakenly convinced that the blood and gore
that boils to the surface of the mere Beowulf has entered in search
of Grendels mother signals the Geatish heros demise, the Danes
who accompanied him to the meres edge return sadly home. In
contrast, even though the band of Geats who journeyed with
Beowulf to Denmark read the signs in the mere in a similar
fashion, they nonetheless loyally remain at the waters edge,
staring, perhaps despondently, into the roiling, gore-filled water.
(366)
Christian heroism in Beowulf:
o A divine, not earthly, leader is the focus of the Christian heroes
loyalty,
o the manner in which loyalty most often manifests itself differs - a
characters obedience to divine will replaces publically articulated
vows of fealty to an earthly leader and passive martyrdom replaces
death on the battlefield in a lords or kings service. (366-7)
2. The end of the world
Many Anglo-Saxon authors chose to meditate over the themes associated
with Christian eschatology, such as the transitory nature of human life
(often expressed via the ubi sunt topos), the decayed state of the world,
the separation of the soul from the body, the release of souls from hell,
the return of the lord, the eternal punishments of the wicked, and the
joyous judgement of the righteous.
Eschatology in Beowulf: hell seizes Grendels soul, and Beowulfs soul
departs his body to seek the judgement of the righteous. Whether these
moments are conscious evocations of eschatological themes or analogues
to them remains impossible to determine, especially as Christianity is not
the sole belief system in which the end of days figures prominently.

3. The transitory nature of life

The Anglo-Saxons were keenly aware of the transitory nature of human
existence.
The Wanderer-poet ruminates on this theme: wealth, a friend, a man, a
kinsman are all transitory; all this earths frame shall become destitute.
following Beowulfs defeat of Grendels mother, the aged King Hrothgar
offers some practical advice to the young, ascendant Geatish hero in a
speech that that is similar to a sermon and that ends with the king
enumerating some of the many means by which death overpowers us,
such as the attack of a sword, or the flight of an arrow, or terrible old age.

4. Fate
The degree to which the course of human events is determined by a
powerful and controlling force is another recurrent theme in Anglo-
Saxon literature.
Central to the expression of this theme is the concept of wyrd, a
term that can be used in both Christian (divine will, providence,
etc.) and secular (fate, fortune, chance) contexts. In Christian texts,
characters obediently follow the path their faith, and sometimes God
or Christ themselves, sets for them.
Wyrd is an important component of the world depicted in Beowulf.
However, it would be a mistake to view this (or any) OE text as
holding a mirror up to the beliefs and practices of Anglo-Saxon
culture and society. The prominent place accorded fate in the poem
may reflect something of its importance in the cultures secular
thought. That wyrd appears in the poem several times in statements
 that are frequently proverbial in character: Goes ever fate as it must
and Fate often saves the undoomed man, when his courage is strong.
In Christian texts, where wyrd occurs most frequently, it generally
means divine providence, but even in a text with strong Christian
inflections such as The Wanderer, it retains its more secular
connotation e.g. when the speaker of that poems first few lines
concludes that fate is entirely inexorable.
In Beowulf, the word retains its non- Christian meaning. However, it
is used on several occasions in close proximity to references to the
Christian God (or to his power), which suggests that the Beowulf poet,
at least and perhaps his audience viewed them as being
complementary, or parallel, and not competing references to the
unknowable power(s) that determine the course of human existence.

5. Wisdom
In Beowulf, wisdom holds an important place in several narrative
moments, including the Danish king Hrothgars so-called sermon,
and, perhaps most famously, in the Danish coast-guards statement that
A sharp shield-warrior must know the distinction between each of
two things, words and works, he who thinks rightly.
In Beowulf, the theme of mankinds limited knowledge is pervasive. It
may be identified as either explicit or implicit in the text. It organizes
the entire narrative, which begins with the arrival from parts unknown
of Scyld Scefing the progenitor of the Danish royal line that
includes Hrothgar , and concludes with the Geats, Beowulfs tribe,
facing a grim, unsettled, and unknown future. This theme is also
explicitly articulated in the poets comments on such things as the
final destination of the ship bearing Scylds corpse and Grendels
movements following his nightly attacks on Heorot, the Danish royal
hall. The theme also runs implicitly through many sections of the
narrative, if we consider how little is known about Grendel. Grendels
physical appearance is not detailed by the poet (until, that is, Beowulf
wrenches off Grendels arm and shoulder and later decapitates his
corpse), his motives for attacking Heorot are never explained, where
he lives is both inaccessible to men and shrouded in mystery, and even
how he travels remains largely unknown.

6. Otherness
 Distrust or even fear of otherness is another frequently occurring
theme in Anglo-Saxon texts. The threat of invasion was very real
throughout much of the period, and as a consequence the Danes are
often designated as the other.
It is not difficult to trace the fear of outsiders and/or the associated
fear of invasion (e.g. Grendel is a far greater threat because of his
desire to destroy social order by replacing human society with one he
creates than because of the cruelty of his attacks).
Others are typically dangerous in Anglo-Saxon literature. They are far
more likely to be depicted as real, present menaces than as exotic,
distant, and non-threatening curiosities.