Beowulf: Book Analysis

Characters:

Beowulf - The hero and main character of this epic poem a brave and powerful warrior who
jumped to the rescue of the Danes and eventually become their king. He continued to protect his
people until his fatal encounter with the dragon that attacked his kingdom.

Wiglaf - The trusty sidekick to Beowulf, Wiglaf was Beowulf's Swedish relative and they fought
side-by-side until Beowulf died at the hands of the dragon. Wiglaf then became king of the
Danes.

Danish King Hrothgar - King of the Danes before Beowulf. His kingdom suffered at the hands
of Grendel after he built his great hall Heorot. He and his people are saved by Beowulf when he
defeats Grendel in Heorot.

Grendel - Also known as the monster or Beowulf monster. Grendel is the monster that
plagues Danish King Hrothgar and his people. Believed to be some kind of ogre, Grendel began
attacking Heorot after it was built and only stopped after his battle with Beowulf because he lost
his arm. Beowulf and Grendel's battle is very important because it seems like Beowulf has saved
Heorot, but it actually causes more problems.

Grendel's Mother - Mother of Grendel and a far more powerful monster. Grendel's Mother lives
in a lair underneath a lake and is so powerful that normal weapons have no effect on her.
Beowulf has to use a sword made for giants that he found inside her lair to kill her.

Setting:

Beowulf is set in Scandinavia, sometime around the year 500 A.D, in the territories of
two tribal groups, the Geats and the Scyldings, who really existed and really lived in those areas
during the period of the poem. Many of the poem’s figures, including Hrothgar, Hygelac and
Wiglaf, may have been real people, and all the poem’s marginal events—such as the death of
Hygelac and the feud between Geats and Swedes— may have really happened. However, the
landscape of the poem is fictional and symbolic. There’s no evidence in the poem that its poet
ever saw Scandinavia. The world of the poem is organized from the center outwards. At the
center of each kingdom is a mead-hall, a place of warmth, laughter, friendship, storytelling and
celebration. Beyond the mead-hall, the world is cold and dark, getting darker the further you go
from the hall. Terrible evils lurk in the outer darkness. Beowulf is obsessed with these spaces,
the borders between civilization and wilderness. Grendel is a “mearc-stapa” (l.103), a “border-
stepper,” and all three of the poem’s monsters lurk in the edge-wildernesses. Beowulf, too, is
associated with wild border spaces: we first meet him on a beach, and he’s also on the shore
when we leave him, in his burial mound.
Theme:

The Importance of Establishing Identity

As Beowulf is essentially a record of heroic deeds, the concept of identity—of which the
two principal components are ancestral heritage and individual reputation—is clearly central to
the poem. The opening passages introduce the reader to a world in which every male figure is
known as his father’s son. Characters in the poem are unable to talk about their identity or even
introduce themselves without referring to family lineage. This concern with family history is so
prominent because of the poem’s emphasis on kinship bonds. Characters take pride in ancestors
who have acted valiantly, and they attempt to live up to the same standards as those ancestors.
While heritage may provide models for behavior and help to establish identity—as with
the line of Danish kings discussed early on—a good reputation is the key to solidifying and
augmenting one’s identity. For example, Shield Sheafson, the legendary originator of the Danish
royal line, was orphaned; because he was in a sense fatherless, valiant deeds were the only means
by which he could construct an identity for himself. While Beowulf’s pagan warrior culture
seems not to have a concept of the afterlife, it sees fame as a way of ensuring that an individual’s
memory will continue on after death—an understandable preoccupation in a world where death
seems always to be knocking at the door.

Tensions between the Heroic Code and Other Value Systems

Much of Beowulf is devoted to articulating and illustrating the Germanic heroic code,
which values strength, courage, and loyalty in warriors; hospitality, generosity, and political skill
in kings; ceremoniousness in women; and good reputation in all people. Traditional and much
respected, this code is vital to warrior societies as a means of understanding their relationships to
the world and the menaces lurking beyond their boundaries. All of the characters’ moral
judgments stem from the code’s mandates. Thus individual actions can be seen only as either
conforming to or violating the code.
The poem highlights the code’s points of tension by recounting situations that expose its
internal contradictions in values. The poem contains several stories that concern divided
loyalties, situations for which the code offers no practical guidance about how to act. For
example, the poet relates that the Danish Hildeburh marries the Frisian king. When, in the war
between the Danes and the Frisians, both her Danish brother and her Frisian son are killed,
Hildeburh is left doubly grieved. The code is also often in tension with the values of medieval
Christianity. While the code maintains that honor is gained during life through deeds,
Christianity asserts that glory lies in the afterlife. Similarly, while the warrior culture dictates that
it is always better to retaliate than to mourn, Christian doctrine advocates a peaceful, forgiving
attitude toward one’s enemies. Throughout the poem, the poet strains to accommodate these two
sets of values. Though he is Christian, he cannot (and does not seem to want to) deny the
fundamental pagan values of the story.

Summary:

King Hrothgar of Denmark, a descendant of the great king Shield Sheafson, enjoys a
prosperous and successful reign. He builds a great mead-hall, called Heorot, where his warriors
can gather to drink, receive gifts from their lord, and listen to stories sung by the scops, or bards.
But the jubilant noise from Heorot angers Grendel, a horrible demon who lives in the
swamplands of Hrothgar’s kingdom. Grendel terrorizes the Danes every night, killing them and
defeating their efforts to fight back. The Danes suffer many years of fear, danger, and death at
the hands of Grendel. Eventually, however, a young Geatish warrior named Beowulf hears of
Hrothgar’s plight. Inspired by the challenge, Beowulf sailed to Denmark with a small company
of men, determined to defeat Grendel.
Hrothgar, who had once done a great favor for Beowulf’s father Ecgtheow, accepts
Beowulf’s offer to fight Grendel and holds a feast in the hero’s honor. During the feast, an
envious Dane named Unferth taunts Beowulf and accuses him of being unworthy of his
reputation. Beowulf responds with a boastful description of some of his past accomplishments.
His confidence cheers the Danish warriors, and the feast lasts merrily into the night. At last,
however, Grendel arrives. Beowulf fights him unarmed, proving himself stronger than the
demon, who is terrified. As Grendel struggles to escape, Beowulf tears the monster’s arm off.
Mortally wounded, Grendel slinks back into the swamp to die. The severed arm is hung high in
the mead-hall as a trophy of victory.
Overjoyed, Hrothgar showers Beowulf with gifts and treasure at a feast in his honor.
Songs are sung in praise of Beowulf, and the celebration lasts late into the night. But another
threat is approaching. Grendel’s mother, a swamp-hag who lives in a desolate lake, comes to
Heorot seeking revenge for her son’s death. She murders Aeschere, one of Hrothgar’s most
trusted advisers, before slinking away. To avenge Aeschere’s death, the company travels to the
murky swamp, where Beowulf dives into the water and fights Grendel’s mother in her
underwater lair. He kills her with a sword forged for a giant, then, finding Grendel’s corpse,
decapitates it and brings the head as a prize to Hrothgar. The Danish countryside is now purged
of its treacherous monsters.
The Danes are again overjoyed, and Beowulf’s fame spreads across the kingdom.
Beowulf departs after a sorrowful goodbye to Hrothgar, who has treated him like a son. He
returns to Geatland, where he and his men are reunited with their king and queen, Hygelac and
Hygd, to whom Beowulf recounts his adventures in Denmark. Beowulf then hands over most of
his treasure to Hygelac, who, in turn, rewards him.
In time, Hygelac is killed in a war against the Shyflings, and, after Hygelac’s son dies,
Beowulf ascends to the throne of the Geats. He rules wisely for fifty years, bringing prosperity to
Geatland. When Beowulf is an old man, however, a thief disturbs a barrow, or mound, where a
great dragon lies guarding a horde of treasure. Enraged, the dragon emerges from the barrow and
begins unleashing fiery destruction upon the Geats. Sensing his own death approaching, Beowulf
goes to fight the dragon. With the aid of Wiglaf, he succeeds in killing the beast, but at a heavy
cost. The dragon bites Beowulf in the neck and its fiery venom kills him moments after their
encounter. The Geats fear that their enemies will attack them now that Beowulf is dead.
According to Beowulf’s wishes, they burn their departed king’s body on a huge funeral
pyre and then bury him with a massive treasure in a barrow overlooking the sea.

Analysis:

Beowulf belongs metrically, stylistically, and thematically to a heroic tradition grounded

in Germanic religion and mythology. It is also part of the broader tradition of heroic poetry.
Many incidents, such as the tearing-off of the monster’s arm and the hero’s descent into the
mere, are familiar motifs from folklore. The ethical values are manifestly the Germanic code of
loyalty to chief and tribe and vengeance to enemies. Yet the poem is so infused with
a Christian spirit that it lacks the grim fatality of many of the Eddaic lays or
the sagas of Icelandic literature. Beowulf himself seems more altruistic than other Germanic
heroes or the ancient Greek heroes of the Iliad. It is significant that his three battles are not
against men, which would entail the retaliation of the blood feud, but against evil monsters,
enemies of the whole community and of civilization itself. Many critics have seen the poem as a
Christian allegory in which Beowulf, the champion of goodness and light, fights the forces of
evil and darkness. His sacrificial death is seen not as tragic but as befitting the end of a good
(some would say “too good”) hero’s life.
That is not to say that Beowulf is an optimistic poem. English writer and Old English
scholar J.R.R. Tolkien suggested that its total effect is more like a long lyrical elegy than an epic.
Even the earlier, happier section in Denmark is filled with ominous references that would have
been well understood by contemporary audiences. Thus, after Grendel’s death, King Hrothgar
speaks sanguinely of the future, which the audience would know will end with the destruction of
his line and the burning of Heorot. In the second part the movement is slow and funereal: scenes
from Beowulf’s youth are replayed in a minor key as a counterpoint to his last battle, and the
mood becomes increasingly somber the wyrd (fate) that comes to all men closes in on him.