On Friday, Laz made a mention (actually, correcting me) about how values and acceptable actions have changed over the course of the human era. Since we're just beginning to dicuss Beowulf, I thought this might be a good place to start the dicussion. What values were more or less important to the charactors in Beowulf? Were they any different from the author's values? I think that in order to really evaluate Beowulf as a charactor, and the "morals" of the story, we have to be able to see things from the intended audience's point of view- see what their culture values, etc.
Obviously, strengh and the abilty to fight is extremely well valued. Loyalty, too, is important to Beowulf, Hrothanger, and the other charactors. My question really lies in isolationism. Is the ability to fight by yourself a good thing, or a bad thing? Beowulf becomes the protector of his people, but when he dies, he leaves them with (almost) no one to help them. They became dependent on him because he was powerful by himself. I guess it could be said that Wiglaf will take over after Beowulf's death, but the lamenting, mourning, and foreshadowing seem to prove that bad things will happen soon.
Something interesting to me is the value of death. Death seems to be a less emotional thing in this culture than many others. The idea of mourning is not as important as action and revenge. Early on in the story, Hrothanger dicusses how he paid a death-price for Beowulf's father to let him be accepted back to the Geats. It seems like killing someone is valued as bad in the monetary sense- like stealing something is in our culture. Once you pay back what's owed (monetarily), you're free of charge. Death seems to be less personal.
Similarly, Grendal's mother's attack seems to be justified in the eyes of the author- because she is avenging her son. The idea of revenge seems to be less emotional and more about simple, blood payback. Death is valued differently.
Of course there's a lot of other ideas and value's I'm not mentioning right now. Comments or more/better ideas?
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2 comments:
Well, a big issue about this time period was pride. If you didn't have pride, you didn't have anything. Bloodlines, honor, and deeds are all important to the characters in the poem. In Beowulf, and other Medieval stories such as LOTR place significance on bloodlines by having people introduce themselves as "Beowulf, son of Ecdgtheow" or "Aragorn, son of Arathorn." People either know you through what your father did or what you did personally, which encompasses the value of deeds.
I don't really see how loyalty was important to Beowulf. I mean, he had a band of 12 or so men but they didn't really do anything. It was basically him running the show. In a sense they were loyal to him, but in the most minor way.
The ability to fight by yourself is a very good trait to have. As you pointed out, strength and the ability to fight are important. If you can single handedly take down the most feared monster in the Danish country with your bare hands, there's a lot of glory coming your way. The bad side, as you said though, is who will be there to take his place? The answer is no one. No one can reach the greatness that Beowulf reached so therefore his death marks the end of an era; the Geats will fall and there's no way around it.
I think that death in Beowulf was valued less because the people who died simply didn't matter. The story was about Beowulf. The only time that the poem dwells on the fact that someone died is when Beowulf died. I'm pretty sure though that death was treated the same way in the Beowulf era as we treat death today. People mourn the loss and hold a ceremony to honor/remember the one who died.
I agree with your point about how avenging a death is an important task that must be done by a close friend or relative.
Question: Could a parallel be drawn between knights in this time period and samurai in feudal Japan? Is death more honorable than survival by retreat? This idea was pushed by Wiglaf when he chastised the other knights about not protecting their king. They chose to ran away because of fear instead of honoring their oath to defend their "ring-giver."
I think the Scandinavian culture's view of death was very interesting. Though the whole death payment/avenging a loved one's death caught me off guard at first, it later made sense. In a warrior culture like that of Beowulf's, it makes a lot of sense that such a barbaric custom would be popular. Since lineage is so important, what better way to uphold family honor than to kill the person who murdered your loved one? By taking revenge, one also proves his fighting prowess.
Also, I do think that death is a very emotional thing in this culture and the people do mourn the deaths of loved ones. I just don't think the poet focuses on this aspect of death in the poem because it is not that important until Beowulf's own death. It is more important for the poet to explain the importance of taking revenge for death to show what motivated Grendel's mother (though as a monster/incarnation of the devil was she capable of love for her son?). However, the poet describes the mourning of Beowulf's death at length because Beowulf is the protagonist and the Geats' great leader.
I hope that made sense...
And now for something completely different...
I was applying the mythic heroic archetype to Beowulf, but I ran into a roadblock of sorts... I absolutely cannot think of who would be the guide in this tale. I know that stories do not always fit the archetype exactly, but the guide seems to be an integral part of the mythic heroic archetype. Who could it be? Hrothgar? Hygleac?
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