Monthly Connections November, Beowulf! (Once Again)

So I feel kind of bad because all of my blogs are dealing with Beowulf in some way which is completely unoriginal of me, but oh well. Hopefully next month will be something other than Beowulf (I'd much rather be writing about Wuthering Heights but that's what I get). I cannot believe that some people spend their entire lives trying to "tear up" Beowulf and find all of the hidden meanings, symbolism, and historical influences. I don't really know what kind of satisfaction someone gets trying to figure out if Beowulf is a Christian work or not because there's always going to be the other side telling him he's wrong, plus he's never going to find out whether he's right or not. Well, I could understand the sense of wonder, but reading the article, I just don't understand why one man would be so curious as to know about every single aspect of Beowulf.

So, I thought that the article accurately told about Beowulf. It pointed out several things that I didn't notice like how Beowulf only addressed crowds with exception of Wiglaf at the end. This sort of deals with him being an Epic Hero, a "larger than life" person. But this type of person wouldn't even be dealing with life if he never made personal connnections to other humans on personal levels. Isn't the purpose of life to create relationships? Beowulf would fail at making relationships because of his lack of dealing with the individual. Or is he so "larger than life" that he doesn't need to make relationships with individuals in a "normal" way.

A related point that was made is how some say that the true theme lies within the meaning of the story rather than the character of Beowulf. This would make sense as to why Beowulf lacks qualities that most all humans possess. This could also be why Beowulf isn't immediately introduced into the story. Rather than begin with Beowulf hearing the news of Grendel's massacre and then showing the massacre in a flash back, Grendel's massacre occurs followed by Beowulf coming over by a boat to "save the day". This is the opposite of how most of the issues were presented. For example, a character would be introduced followed by something about his past.

I enjoyed the comparison between Grendel's mother and the humans of the novel. It's a bit ironic that trying to avenge her son can be considered an honorable thing but it isn't because she and her son are monsters. But that was another point that I didn't notice until I read the article.