Honor, Fame, and Courage in Beowulf

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The Story Beowulf is an Epic poem written in the Anglo-Saxon period. The author of the poem is unknown. Beowulf is the hero of the story and the Thane to Hygelac the king of the Geats in Sweden. When Beowulf finds out the Grendel (the big guy) is causing problems in Denmark he decides to go over there and help them out. He fights Grendel and everyone is happy. Then Grendels mother comes to avenge her son so Beowulf has to go fight her also. After winning that battle Beowulf goes back to the Geats and becomes king and rules for fifty winters. Everything is good until he has to go fight this dragon. The dragon ends up killing Beowulf. In the story you can see how things like Honor, fame, and Courage are associated with Beowulf. The reason that he take the dangerous journey is to gain all there of those characteristics in his journey. Out lines below is how he gets each one of those traits in the story.

Honor: Before Beowulf’s journey a man named Unfert taunts Beowulf and brings up how when they were little kid they had a competition to see who could swim the farthest and Beowulf kept swimming even though he was being attacked by monsters. In lines 397-400 “ with plowing shoulders parted the waves, the sea-flood boiled with its winter surges seven nights was the greater, his swimming the stronger!…” Basically this guy Unfert was trying to make fun of Beowulf, and Beowulf defended his honor by bringing up how he beat him in the swimming competition. Honor is important to Beowulf because he works hard for what he has accomplished and doesn’t want some guys just making fun of him.

Fame: This whole story is about how famous Beowulf is. The on thing that sticks out in my mind though would be fighting Grendel with out any weapons or armor. Grendel couldn’t be effected by the weapons but armor would of helped Beowulf. Armor would of protected him if Grendel would of stuck him with a blow or something. This is found in lines 501-504 “He stripped from his shoulders the bryny of steel, doffed his helmet from head; into hand of thane gave iron, the best of blades; bade him keep well the weapons of war. Basically they just said Beowulf just took off all his armor and weapons that have kept him safe in war.

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