Is Beowulf an Heroic Elegy or an Epic Narrative?
There is considerable debate as to whether the poem Beowulf is an epic narrative poem or an heroic elegy. Which is it. This essay intends to present both sides of the story.
Some great literary scholars think that the poem is an heroic elegy, celebrating the fantastic achievements of its great hero, and also expressing sorrow or lamentation for the hero’s unfortunate death. In “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics” Tolkien states:
We must dismiss, of course, from mind the notion that Beowulf is a “narrative poem,” that it tells a tale or intends to tell a tale sequentially. The poem “lacks steady advance”: so Klaeber heads a critical section in his edition. But the poem was not meant to advance, steadily or unsteadily. It is essentially a balance, an opposition of ends and beginnings. In its simplest terms it is a contrasted description of two moments in a great life, rising and setting; an elaboration of the ancient and intensely moving contrast between youth and age, first achievement and final death (Tolkien 34).
Another literary scholar attacks the proposition that the poem is a narrative epic as many critics say: “For the structure of the poem is not sequential, but complemental; at the outset certain parts of a situation are displayed, and these are given coherence and significance by progressive addition of its other parts’ (Blomfield 60). These attacks on the epic-narrative theory regarding the poem Beowulf leave one with the only choice left – that the poem is an heroic elegy, a poem celebrating the achievements of its hero Beowulf, and at the same time a poem of lamentation and sorrow and mourning over the death of that great he...
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Greenfield, Stanley B.. “The Finn Episode and its Parallet.” In Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation, edited by Joseph F. Tuso. New York, W.W.Norton and Co.: 1975.
Rebsamen, Frederick R.. in “Beowulf – A Personal Elegy.” Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation, edited by Joseph F. Tuso. New York, W.W.Norton and Co.: 1975
Robinson, Fred C. “Apposed Word Meanings and Religious Perspectives.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Tolkien, J.R.R.. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Wright, David. “The Digressions in Beowulf.” In Readings on Beowulf, edited by Stephen P. Thompson. San Diego: Greenhaven Press,1998.
Frank, Roberta. “The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
...The Great Gatsby both shape Dunny Ramsay and Nick Carraway into the same person. In the novel Fifth Business, the development of
Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.
In Tolkien’s lecture, “Beowulf: The monsters and the Critics,” he argues that Beowulf has been over analyzed for its historical content, and it is not being studied as a piece of art as it should be. He discusses what he perceives the poet of Beowulf intended to do, and why he wrote the poem the way he did. Tolkien’s main proposition, “it was plainly only in the consideration of Beowulf as a poem, with an inherent poetic significance, that any view or conviction can be reached or steadily held” (Tolkien). He evaluates why the author centers the monsters throughout the entire poem, why the poem has a non-harmonic structure, why and how the author fusses together Christianity and Paganism, and how the author uses time to make his fictional poem seem real. He also discusses the overall theme of Beowulf and other assumptions of the text. To support his viewpoints, Tolkien uses quotations and examples from the poem, quotations from other critics, and compares Beowulf to other works of art. Tolkien discusses several statements in interpreting Beowulf as a poem.
Clark, Gorge. “The Hero and the Theme.” In A Beowulf Handbook, edited by Robert Bjork and John D. Niles. Lincoln, Nebraska: Uiversity of Nebraska Press, 1997.
Francis, Erik Max. Beowulf. From The Harvard Classics. Volume 49. P.F. Collier & Son, 1910. Etext version by Robin Katsuya-Corbet. Online. Internet. November 26, 1998. Available HTTP: http://www.alcyone.com/max/lit/beowulf/
This is the first scene in where we see Beowulf as an old man. The poem skips fifty years between the first and second parts, and this scene picks up after the fifty-year gap. This scene also sets up Beowulf’s last great battle, which happens with the dragon. This scene also describes Anglo-Saxon beliefs. The scene shows how the people, and the dragon, love to fight. It is their way of life. It also shows a little bit of the law.
The Guest, a pen and paper advert for Paul Sartre’s Existentialism, carries traces of this thought throughout, while, The Lottery, being a symbolic society questioner, with its many symbols undermines the American society. But both short stories carry within them even more, they talk of breaking the norms, they speak of minorities, giving up, and waste of life.
Anonymous. “Beowulf.” Beowulf: A New Verse Translation. Seamus Heaney, trans. New York: W.W. Norton &Company Ltd. 2001. 2-213. Print.
Beowulf. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Expanded Edition Volume 1. ED. Maynard Mack et al. New York: Norton, 1995. 1546-1613.
In “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell, the protagonist (Rainsford) struggled with the actions of the antagonist (General Zaroff) throughout his adventure. The images used to describe the island, deadly swamp, and castle show that it is inhabited and a dangerous place with the use of setting, imagery, and the tone Connell shows Rainsford’s difficulties, persistence, and triumph to the audience. By using these key aspects, Connell makes important connections to the theme while alluding to hunting as the main concept of this whole adventure.
Beowulf. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 34-100.
Rebsamen, Frederick R.. in “Beowulf – A Personal Elegy.” Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation, edited by Joseph F. Tuso. New York, W.W.Norton and Co.: 1975
Beowulf. Holt elements of literature. Ed G Kylene Beers and Lee Odeel. 6th ed. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2008. 21-48. Print.
Beowulf, first and foremost, is a long narrative poem. It contains 3,182 lines and has been divided into forty-three sections. It has been written in a way that formulates a concentrated imaginative awareness of experience and arranged so that the language stimulates an emotional response, the basis of why a piece of writing would be considered a poem.