Epics have seven main characteristics: The hero is outstanding. The setting is large. The action is made of deeds of great valour or requiring superhuman courage. Supernatural forces—gods, angels, demons—insert themselves in the action. It is written in a very special style verse as opposed to prose. What characteristics does Grendel have?
Character Analysis Grendel Grendel is envious, resentful, and angry toward mankind, possibly because he feels that God blesses them but that the ogre himself never can be blessed. Grendel especially resents the light, joy, and music that he observes in Hrothgar's beautiful mead-hall, Heorot.
What is the characteristic of Beowulf? Quick Answer. Beowulf's personal characteristics include the heroic traits of loyalty, honor, bravery, faith, and superhuman strength.
He demonstrates his sense of honor and his loyalty to Hrothgar by volunteering to kill Grendel and then Grendel's mother. What is Grendel description?
Grendel is feared by all in Heorot but Beowulf. A descendant of Cain, Grendel is described as "a creature of darkness, exiled from happiness and accursed of God, the destroyer and devourer of our human kind". Why is Grendel angry? Grendel is primarily upset with Beowulf because he feels left out. Because Grendel is a murderer and a descendant of Cain, he has transgressed the bounds of society and is demarcated as "other," banned from the mead hall, the site of laughter and social engagement. What type of character is Grendel?
A great, bearlike monster, Grendel is the first of three monsters defeated by the Geatish hero Beowulf in the sixth-century poem Beowulf. In Grendel, he is a lonely creature who seeks an understanding of the seemingly meaningless world around him. What is Grendel's greatest strength? He also perfectly embodies the manners and values dictated by the Germanic heroic code, including loyalty, courtesy, and pride.
In first part of the poem, Beowulf matures little, as he possesses heroic qualities in abundance from the start. Having purged Denmark of its plagues and established himself as a hero, however, he is ready to enter into a new phase of his life.
Hrothgar, who becomes a mentor and father figure to the young warrior, begins to deliver advice about how to act as a wise ruler. Though Beowulf does not become king for many years, his exemplary career as a warrior has served in part to prepare him for his ascension to the throne. Through a series of retrospectives, however, we recover much of what happens during this gap and therefore are able to see how Beowulf comports himself as both a warrior and a king.
With this gesture of loyalty and respect for the throne, he proves himself worthy of kingship. In the final episode—the encounter with the dragon—the poet reflects further on how the responsibilities of a king, who must act for the good of the people and not just for his own glory, differ from those of the heroic warrior. Grendel, for example, is explained by the poet-narrator as a diabolical descendant of Cain, the first murderer, from whose off-spring, according to the Old Testament and to Judeo-Christian Apocrypha, arose the various races of giants.
This contextualizing knowledge is not shared, however, by the characters who inhabit the heroic world of the poem. Looking back to the heroic age, the poet is looking back into the pre-Christian Germanic past of the Anglo-Saxon people. The assumed Christian perspective and beliefs of the poet and audience stand in uneasy juxtaposition to the ill-defined but definitely pre-Christian and fatalistic beliefs of the characters themselves.
Beowulf, Hrothgar, and other actors in the poem often frame their behaviour in terms of a moral imperative that in many ways approximates the basic tenets of Christianity, but, ignorant of the teachings of Christ, their perspective is limited by the reach of human life on earth. According to Beowulf himself, fame amongst men is the best that can be hoped for a dead warrior:. Beowulf , 'Each of us must await the end of life in the world.
Let he who may achieve glory before death - that will afterwards be best for the dead warrior. The poignant irony of such a statement could not have been lost upon an audience for whom life in the world was merely a precursor to the eternal reward or punishment to be experienced in the world to come.
As an Old English poem, Beowulf is a unique and incomparable literary artefact - the only known surviving example of the efforts of a supreme master working within a mature and remarkably long-lived poetic tradition.
Its superlative poetic qualities have been recognized by generations of modern readers, and there is increasing evidence to suggest that Beowulf was both widely known amongst and frequently imitated by other Anglo-Saxon poets whose work also survives.
There are, to be sure, difficulties associated with the appreciation of the poem today. Most notably, modern readers must overcome the barrier caused by the language of the poem, recognizably English but a form of English in use a thousand years before our own time. But such barriers are far from insuperable, especially given the availability of many excellent and sympathetic modern translations. The effort is well-rewarded.
We need not seek an excuse to read and study Beowulf today; the poem is its own best justification.
0コメント