BEOWULF
Author: Unknown, allegedly a Christian
Biography: Unknown
Background: The poem shapes and interprets materials connected with the tribes from northem Europe, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded England after the Romans left in the fifth century.
Theme: Battle, monster, honor, kingdom.
Mood: It is a history of festering pride, loud talk, and drunken violence, of spies, bloody borders, and raids.
Style: Epic poem.
Setting: Geats and Danes of third or fourth century; stories being told from generation to generation.
Characters: The Danish king Hrothgar, Danes, Beowulf, Grendel (demon), the murders.
Figurative Language: We can find some metaphors and similes.
Imagery:
- A powerful monster, living down/ in the darkness, growled in pain, impatient/ as day after day the music rang (lines 23-25).
Biography: Unknown
Background: The poem shapes and interprets materials connected with the tribes from northem Europe, the Angles, Saxons, and Jutes who invaded England after the Romans left in the fifth century.
Theme: Battle, monster, honor, kingdom.
Mood: It is a history of festering pride, loud talk, and drunken violence, of spies, bloody borders, and raids.
Style: Epic poem.
Setting: Geats and Danes of third or fourth century; stories being told from generation to generation.
Characters: The Danish king Hrothgar, Danes, Beowulf, Grendel (demon), the murders.
Figurative Language: We can find some metaphors and similes.
Imagery:
- A powerful monster, living down/ in the darkness, growled in pain, impatient/ as day after day the music rang (lines 23-25).
-…The monster’s/ thoughts were as quick as his greed or his claws:/ He slipped through the door and there in the silence/ snatched up thirty men, smashed them (lines 56-58).
-…Standing on that prince’s own hearth,/ helmeted, the silvery metal on his mail shirt/ gleaming with a smith’s high art, he greeted/ the Dane’s great lord (lines 160-163).
-The frozen sea surged around me,/ it grew dark, the wind turned bitter, blowing (lines 265-266).
-He murders as he likes, with no mercy, gorges/ and feasts on your flesh, and expects no trouble/ no quarrel from the quiet Danes (lines 319-321).
Plot: In which eating and drinking and speaking, and gift-giving are natural ceremonies uniting young and old, in which heroic strength is wise and generous.
-A stranger comes to help some people of another country to kill the beast. It is a poem that tells the story of a brave man willing to support his fellows to kill a strange creature.
Point of view: Beowulf is a vivid story of humankind. The author (or authors) created a whole scenario where they developed characters to represent real persons looking for honor and fighting against evil, unknown forces. Beowulf is, then, a leader, an example of a honorable man who helps others and defeats.
Rhythm: The story moves slowly; the author offers a wide explanation of each event, giving complete details, and he moves to the following topic once he has covered as much as possible the event in consideration.
Symbolism:
Symbolism:
-Herot (place Hrothgar built to commemorate victories)
-Helmet
-Stone "Beowulf"
-Celtic hanging bowl
-Helmet
-Stone "Beowulf"
-Celtic hanging bowl
-Grendel as a symbol for the Demon
