Vengeance and Revenge in Beowulf
The oldest of the great lengthy poems written in English and perhaps the lone survivor of a genre of Anglo-Saxon epics, Beowulf, was written by an unknown Christian author at a date that is only estimated. Even so, it is a remarkable narrative story in which the poet reinvigorates the heroic language, style, and values of Germanic oral poetry. He intertwines a number of themes including good and evil, youth and old age, paganism and Christianity and the heroic ideal code, into his principal narrative and numerous digressions and episodes; all of which were extremely important to his audience at the time. Vengeance, part of the heroic code, was regarded differently by the two distinct religions. Christianity teaches to forgive those who trespass against us, whereas in the pagan world, revenge is typical and not considered an evil act. In Beowulf, the ancient German proverb "revenge does not long remain unrevenged" is strictly adhered to and verifies that revenge is part of pagan tradition.
Two human relationships were deeply significant to the Germanic society. The most important, the relationship between the warrior and his lord was based on a common trust and respect. The warrior vows loyalty to his lord and serves and defends him and in turn the lord takes care of the warrior and rewards him lavishly for his valour. The second human relationship was between kinsmen. As Baker and Ogilvy suggest, a special form of loyalty was involved in the blood feud. (P.107) If one of his kinsmen had been slain, a man had an ethical obligation either to kill the slayer or to exact the payment of wergild in compensation. The price was determined upon the rank or social status of the victim...
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... view was "an eye for an eye," if a man kills your kinsmen you exact revenge. On the contrary, the Christian view was more like as Mohandas Gandhi said "An eye for eye only ends up making the whole world blind." Christians believed God would inevitability do what is right and would rather turn the other cheek then have it result in more blood and murder. Throughout the poem, the poet strives to accommodate these two sets of values. Though he is Christian, he cannot negate the fundamental pagan values of the narrative story.
Works Cited and Consulted:
Abrams, M.H., ed. Beowulf: The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 2001.
Baker, Donald C. and J.D.A. Ogilvy. Reading Beowulf. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1983.
Earl, James W. Thinking About Beowulf. Stanford: Stanford University Press: 1994.
Bloom, Harold. “Introduction.” In Modern Critical Interpretations: Beowulf, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
The vengeance sought in this poem actually predates the story. It goes back to Biblical times
Have you ever wanted to avenge a wrong doing done unto you? Well, the characters in Beowulf will stop at nothing to achieve vengeance. Revenge is so immensely practiced that it is a common act to pay of a deed done by an offender. However, a payment or truce does not satisfy the desire for revenge in the Poem. Every time a Character precedes to make peace, it eventually falls apart by a desire to avenge loved ones. This desire is usually upheld until someone is no longer left to be avenged or no one is left to avenge those whom they loved. This, although it may not seem so, happens commonly in this epic.
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010, 1998.
Scholars have argued about the religious stance of the epic poem Beowulf for centuries. Although the man who put the poem down on paper, known as the Beowulf poet, was a devout Christian, the actual poem itself is pagan. There are many clues in the epic that lead us to this conclusion such as the numerous references to pagan symbols, namely the symbol of fate. Also, the central idea of revenge in the poem opposes the ideas of Christianity. The poem also contains many breaches of the Ten Commandments, which prove that the story is not Christian. However, the biggest clue to the paganism of Beowulf is the scene that contains the burial of Beowulf and the building and idolization of the tower, all of which go directly against the Christian religion.
...r. "Ancient Greece." Gardner's art through the ages the western perspective. 13th ed., Backpack ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 101, 123,129. Print.
In order to identify serial killers before they kill repeatedly, a person needs to study the characteristics that makes up this type of criminals. Most serial killers have been abandoned, by one or both parents, they are emotionally, physically, and even sexually abused by a family member, or relatives from unstable families who have criminal, psychiatric and alcoholic histories, or tend to have hate for their parents and people in general which makes them have antisocial personality disorder. They have conflicted pain or tortured animals at a young age and most are highly interested in gaining control over things. Even though not every serial killers posses these characteristics, but most share these characteristics the same way they share the psychological need to have complete control and power over people.
Crossley-Holland, Kevin, trans. Beowulf The Fight at Finnsburh, edited by Heather O’Donoghue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Crossley-Holland, Kevin, trans. Beowulf The Fight at Finnsburh, edited by Heather O’Donoghue. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999.
Beowulf. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 34-100.
Grant, M. (1962). Myths of the Greeks and Romans (1st ed.). Cleveland: World Pub. Co.
The ethical life of the poem, then, depends upon the propositions that evil. . . that is part of this life is too much for the preeminent man. . . . that after all our efforts doom is there for all of us” (48).
The Spanish Inquisition was used for both political and religious reasons and founded by the Catholic Kings in 1478 . Spain at the time was a nation-state that was born out of religious struggle between numerous different belief systems including Catholicism, Islam, Protestant and Judaism. Following the Crusades and the Reconquest of Spain by the Christian Spaniards the leaders of Spain needed a way to unify the country into a strong nation.
The inquisition was a religious institution that policed the new Christians in the Iberian Peninsula. The inquisition was a by-product of hundreds of years of negative relations towards non-catholic people in Europe. It began around 1478 and in ended in 1834; during the three hundred and fifty-six years responses to the inquisition change immensely. This was partly due to many laypeople being indoctrinated by anti-Semitic and pro- Catholic propaganda. The pre-existing anti-Semitic feeling in Europe along with previous medieval inquisitions, helped to allow the Iberian inquisition to become a part of the Spanish and Portuguese way of life. This acceptance changed later in Iberian history because of the many factors lead to the abolishment of the Inquisition.
courage as a virtue. Before long the Spartan way of life was more show then