Sunday, May 24, 2009

What are two Christian influences or references in the Old English epic poem Beowulf?

Christian
references and influences pervade the Old English epic poem , perhaps in
part because the poem was probably transcribed by an early English Christian monk.  In any case,
the poem is full of Christian ideas and , as in some of the following examples (taken from the
Seamus Heaney translation):

  • In lines 12-17, God is credited with
    assisting the Danish nation by giving them yet another good king. This very early reference to
    God makes the important point that everything good comes from God and that all people (and all
    peoples) depend on Gods favor and mercy.
  • Hrothgar, the latest in a long
    line of good Danish kings, is praised for dispensing his God-given gifts to young and old
    among his people (72).
  • After Hrothgar has built and occupied his glorious
    hall, he and his people sit and listen as a poet celebrates Gods creation of the earth; they
    listen to

. . . the clear song of a skilled
poet

telling with mastery of mans beginnings,

how the
Almighty had made the earth

a gleaming plain gilded with waters . . . .
(90-93)

  • Grendel, the evil and destructive
    monster who now begins to torment the Danes, is explicitly associated with

Cains clan, whom the Creator had outlawed


and condemned as outcasts. For the killing of Abel

the Eternal Lord
had exacted a price . . . . (106-08)


  • References to God recur repeatedly during the opening sections of the poem,
    as when the Almighty is said to have made Cain anathema (110); and when the poet mentions
    giants . . . who strove with God (113); and when Grendel is called God-cursed (121); and
    especially when some of the Danes are condemned for religious back-sliding when they worship
    Satan as a way of coping with the threat posed by Grendel (175-86). In response, the poet offers
    an emphatic declaration of Christian belief:

.
. . blessed is he

who after death can approach the Lord


and find friendship in the Fathers embrace. (186-88)


It would be easy to offer an extremely long list of such references to the Christian
god as they appear throughout Beowulf and as they profoundly color the tone
and meaning of the poem.

 

 


 

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