Beowulf is the longest and the most famous anglo-saxon poem. It was composed
in Sweeden and Denmark. From there the invading vikings brought it over Britain.
The eipc of Beowulf was written down in old english in the 10-th century. c8u16uc
The story is the following:
Beowulf with some valiant Goth comes to the help of Hrotgar, king of the danes
who’s place at Heorot is wasted by the nightly attacks of Geandel, a giant
ogre. Every night Grendel emerges from his lair in the marshes beneath the diffs
in order to seize and devour one of the king’s companions. In a terible
hand to hand struggle Beawulf tears off an arm of the monster, who is mortally
wounded and flees to his den, where upon all is joy in victory and deliverance.
But Grendel’s mother, avanges his son. She renews the attacks on Heorot,
and Beowulf resolves to go forth to fight her in her home. Diving after her
into the waters of a sinister lake, he meets her in combat in the cave in which
he duells beneath the water. When he is all but worster he seizes a magic sword
which hangs on the wall and plunges it in the body of the fearful beast, and
then, when the danes believe that he has already fallen a victim to his daring
he returns to Heorot in triumph, bearing Grendel’s gigantic head.
He becomes king of the Goth and reigns over them gloriously for 50 yaers. But
some jewls are stolen from an ancient treasure guarded by a dragon, who sets
out in fury, devastate the king’s realm, burning with his flaming and
pentilential breath all that lies in his path. Beowulf slays the dragon and
saves his people but he is himself mortally wounded during the incounter by
the monster venomous teeth and he dies nobly consoled by the thought that he
has sacrificed himself for his subject and that he is giving back to them the
incomparable treasure which has been in dragon’s keeping. He has however
been forsaken during the fight by all his worriors but one and great evils are
prophesied for the Goth bereft of their king.
? Beowulf embodiess men’s desire to fight evil, dragons, to overcome
monsters. He survives his struggle with Grendel, the monster who hates mankind
and kills people for pleasure, the symbol of physical evil. He also overcomes
moral evil, embodied by dragon’s mother. Beowulf victory over her, the
source of physical evil, is more difficult.
The dragon is the most teriffing evil, the last one -; death. He is the
ultimate evil man must face. Beowolf defeats the dragon but dies himself, to
show that metaphysical evil can be opposed but very rarely overcome.
The poem is written in vers (about 3200 lines) but the sound patterns are also
very important. Alliteration, repeating and playing on the same letter, is a
very old device in english vers. In old english poetry, alliteration was a continual
and essential part of the metrical scheme until the late Middle Ages.
Assonance, sometimes called “vocalic rhyme” is the repeatition of
similar vowel sounds, usually close together.
The poem has a theme that is often found in Northern Sagas: fighting evil. Beowulf
is in every point a hero, a symbol of man’s eternal fight to overcome
evil forces.
CONTENS:
1. Beowulf the Dragon Fighter 1
2. How King Arthur Came to the Trone 5
3. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 9
4. Sir Lancelot and the Knights of the Holy Grail 13
5. The Death of King Arthur 19
6. The Battle at the Palace of Mountain Ash Trees 23
7. The Beautiful Deirdre 29
8. Siegfried and the Beautiful Kriemhild 33
9. Kriemhild’s Revenge 41
10. Old Man Tanzagan 45