Like Grendel, Beowulf is a giant, superhuman swimmer who is capable of crushing a man with his hands. But what do we make of this resemblance? Does it merely confirm a fortuitous physical equivalence? Or does it hint at Beowulf’s monstrous, Hell-bound character?
The poet sets up this conundrum by introducing Beowulf as “a good thane of Hygelac” and as Hygelac’s kinsman. Yet Hygelac possessed a notorious reputation in chronicle and legend. For more on Hygelac, click here. Hygelac’s villainous reputation, if recast in the context of our own time, immediately invites suspicion, suggestively framing Beowulf as “the good thane of Mussolini.”
The fight scene also invites suspicion. The hero might have told his men to join his ruse and feign sleep as he himself does. Instead, he conceals his face from his countrymen, thus placing them in mortal peril. The word seized (OE onfeng), used as the cheek bolster hides Beowulf’s countenance, adds an ominous note. Throughout the poem, this verb signals dread, whether in the mysterious deity that seized Scyld’s funeral ship or in later scenes when Hell will seize Grendel and the hellish mere will seize Beowulf.
Yet, Beowulf is not the only deceiver on the scene. The narrator’s strategy of selective reportage is equally deceptive. So, again, the hero is the poet’s double! In a brilliant ploy of misdirection, the narrator reveals the intentions of everyone on the scene—the Danes, the Géats, Grendel, and God—everyone, that is, except Beowulf. We are thus left with a puzzle: Does Beowulf endanger his companions
unwittingly? Or is his ruse intentional?
Likewise, we may be disturbed by Beowulf’s passivity during Grendel’s assault on his companion. While the insatiable demon strikes instantly, Beowulf, despite his surpassing strength, watches the horror unfold.
How do we explain this lethal impassivity? Later, the narrator will reveal that Beowulf was reviled in his youth for being slow to respond (sleac, 2187) and lacking in valor (OE unfrom, 2188). Does this horrifying scene, therefore, hint at monstrous treachery, or should we interpret Beowulf’s passivity as a strategic maneuver—sacrificing the few to save the many?
As we ponder this conundrum, the narrator throws smoke. The trick of selective reportage, with its stream of condemnation against Grendel’s motives and actions (and silence concerning Beowulf), generates the impression of the hero’s perfect innocence. It’s a recipe for a quandary—perfectly balanced between heroic virtue and monstrous vice.
Because the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to thBecause the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to the celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript. Because the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to the celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript. Because the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to the celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript. Because the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to the celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript. Because the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to the celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript. Because the date of Beowulf’s composition remains uncertain, every translation implicitly advances a theory of origins. Current scholarship situates the poem before the Viking Age, thus locating an Anglo-Saxon audience receptive to the celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript. e celebration of Scandinavian heroes. This approach also finds corroboration in the historical figure of Hyġelac, whose raid on the Christian Franks c. 520 recalls the Angles and Saxons’ legendary assault on Christian Britain some seventy years earlier. On this basis, Beowulf is dated to the seventh or eighth century, an era before the Viking Age and within living memory of the poem’s sixth-century events. Yet more evidence of an early date is found in the poet’s extraordinary command of North European legend and a host of archaic linguistic features preserved in the eleventh-century manuscript.