Of the many themes in the poem that have been identified and debated, one of the most important is the meaning of the monsters and their relation to the world of the humans. Tolkien argued in his seminal 1936 essay that the monsters were not just some fairy-tale element inappropriately brought to center stage in the poem, leaving the more important human and historical elements relegated to the margins. He read the monsters as part of the mythic meaning of the poem and, as such, representative of the darker human passions and threats in the worlds of Denmark and Geatland. In his reading, while Grendel is “primarily an ogre” and “approaches to a devil,” he is also “an image of man estranged from God” (1936, 279–80). He is related to Cain and at the same time is a representation of savage Death, which comes uninvited and “gibbering” to the feast of life (260). The dragon is “a personification of malice, greed, destruction (the evil side of heroic life) and of the undiscriminating cruelty of fortune that distinguishes not good or bad (the evil aspect of all life)” (259). For Tolkien, the monsters represent both human evil and the inevitable cruelty of time.
Subsequent critics have seen the relation between the monsters and humans in the poem in many different ways. Kaske, for example, draws upon both classical and Christian traditions to argue that the controlling theme in the poem is the heroic ideal of sapientia et fortitudo, “wisdom and courage” (423 ff.). In his view, Beowulf represents both wisdom and courage; Hrothgar represents wisdom without courage; and Hygelac represents courage without wisdom. Grendel represents a perversion of courage, “reckless savagery” or “violent brutality” (438). The dragon represents a perversion of wisdom, “the perversion of mind and will” (450). Hume argues that “the controlling theme of the poem … is threats to social order [including] troublemaking, revenge, and war—problems inescapably inherent in this kind of heroic society, yet profoundly inimical to its existence” (5). Each of these threats is represented by a monster, and Beowulf stands for humanity’s best response to these threats. Grendel embodies both murderous envy and a savagery unbound by social constraint. Grendel’s mother embodies the more understandable motive of revenge built into the human, heroic code that governs feuding. She demands an eye for an eye, a life for a life. The irony is that “what makes vengeance so uncontrollable and tragic is the fact that it is directed by the same laudable forces which help create and ensure social order in a violent world—the desire to conserve and protect kin or allies” (7). The dragon represents the need of king and country for gold in the treasury and the necessity for raiding parties and wars to obtain it. Such wars “upset the balance of social order” and in the end bring devastation upon the lordless Geats (9).
Niles also takes up the theme of social order but goes beyond Hume in including the positive ways in which a community can be built and maintained (1983, 224 ff.) He argues that “the poem’s controlling theme is community: its nature, its occasional breakdown, and the qualities that are necessary to maintain it,” including such elements as feasting, gift-giving, the exchange of speeches, and the sharing of song (226). Grendel represents the loner, the “creature apart from human community” who cannot enjoy the pleasures of people and play, song and celebration, language and love, storytelling and social bonding (229). Grendel’s mere is an anti-Heorot meant to “suggest what human beings could be like in the absence of the joys of the group, in the absence of all obligations except the ties of blood” (231). The elegiac passages toward the end of the poem show us “society breaking down in the face of physical disasters” (231). Ironically, Beowulf’s funeral provides an opportunity for his retainers and subjects to mourn together in an attempt to reaffirm their love for their lord and their sense of shared values (234).
Tolkien and early scholars tended to group Grendel and his mother together as an undifferentiated monstrous force and to ignore the place of women in the poem, but with the rise of feminist criticism, scholars have examined this issue. Chance, for example, argues that if Grendel is a mock-retainer and the dragon a mock-king, then Grendel’s mother must be a mock-mother and mock-queen, a woman who fights her own battles (1990, 248 ff.). In this respect, she is a perversion of the Anglo-Saxon ideal of the woman as friðowebbe or “peace-weaver.” She battles heroes, pursues vengeance like a warrior, and places no stock in peace. She’s not interested in wergild for the death of her son. What good is gold in a cavern of grief? She is both masculine and monstrous. Chance contrasts Grendel’s mother with the women in the poem like Wealhtheow, Freawaru, and Hildeburh, who are married off to patch a peace between warring tribes. They are expected to produce children, pass the cup in the meadhall, mollify feuding men, and keep quiet. Usually their efforts at peace-weaving are doomed from the beginning. They are gifts at their own weddings, pawns in an unwinnable endgame.
Another highly debated topic is the question of Beowulf’s possible pride and greed in wanting to battle the dragon alone and in desiring the dragon’s gold. In 1953, Tolkien raised this question in an article on The Battle of Maldon in which he accused the two heroes, Byrhtnoth and Beowulf, of being too rash or proud in their pursuit of glory, rushing into battle with Vikings or monsters when more pragmatic caution would have been in order (1953, 1 ff.). He argues that both heroes are guilty of ofermod, “excessive courage, overweening pride,” which ends up destroying not only themselves but the warriors and cultures they are meant to protect and sustain. He charges the aging Beowulf with rashly charging into battle with the dragon with insufficient troops and says that the “element of pride, in the form of the desire for honour and glory, in life and after death, tends to grow, to become a chief motive, driving a man beyond the bleak heroic necessity to excess” (14).
Many critics have taken up this thread. Goldsmith, for example, argues that Beowulf “possesses that arrogant self-confidence which is the special trait of the supremely noble and courageous fighter,” and that his “insistence on challenging the dragon alone destroys the Geats” (73). In the first half of the poem, she notes that Beowulf is given the opportunity to see the dark side of Heorot revealed—its hidden feuds and hostilities, its failure of kinship bonds and of peace-weaving marriages, its lack of courage. In his sermonic advice to Beowulf, Hrothgar warns him of these dangers. The second half of the poem shows Beowulf succumbing to the sins of pride and covetousness that Hrothgar warned him about earlier. Goldsmith says that “Hrothgar, whose own spiritual sloth had let envy and murder into Heorot, has seen his error, and so could beg Beowulf to guard himself against pride and covetousness, when the testing time should come” (83). Hrothgar’s early advice provides both a warning and a foreshadowing of Beowulf’s fate. Finally, Goldsmith argues that Beowulf is “a man fighting his personal devil … supremely brave, supremely heroic in suffering, and supremely wrongheaded” (83).
On the other hand, many critics have viewed Beowulf as an ideal hero in heroic or even religious terms. Malone (1948) argued early on, for example, that the Christian poet of Beowulf found much to admire in the Germanic heroic tradition of the poem and that “his hero in all he says and does shows himself high-minded, gentle, and virtuous, a man dedicated to the heroic life, and the poet presents this life in terms of service: Beowulf serves his lord, his people, and all mankind, and in so doing he does not shrink from hardship, danger, and death itself” (in Nicholson, 140). Alexander, in a similar vein, calls Beowulf “a peaceable man who is cast in the role of a slayer of monsters and dragons [who] is (by the standards of Germanic heroes) exceptionally modest, gracious, generous, and magnanimous … an ideal rather than an actual historical figure” (79).
The great critical debates about the poem are bound to continue. Ultimately we must recognize that Beowulf, like any great work of literature, both invites and resists interpretation. This accounts for the great variety of critical readings of the poem, of which I have sketched only a small portion above. The wisest of editors and critics must finally agree to disagree about the poem, sometimes even in the same space, and it seems fitting to close
this introduction with the voices of two great Beowulf scholars, Bruce Mitchell and Fred C. Robinson, who in their edition of the poem arrive at different conclusions. Mitchell says:
For me Beowulf is a poetic exploration of life in this world, of the blind forces of nature and the dark passions of humans against “our little systems [which] have their day and cease to be.” This contest is seen in terms of the system within which the poet lived but of whose inevitable weaknesses he makes us aware through both the story and his own comments. But I believe that the poet meant us to admire, not to condemn, Beowulf and that the poem ends on a note of hope not of despair. Today, in this nuclear age, with man’s inhumanity to man daily more apparent on all levels and the powers of darkness in seeming ascendancy throughout the world, we may see Beowulf as a triumphant affirmation of the value of a good life: as the poet himself says Brūc ealles well, “Make good use of everything.” (Mitchell and Robinson, 1998, 37; quote from Tennyson’s “In Memoriam”)
Robinson draws a somewhat different conclusion:
According to the strictest clerical spokesmen of the day, there was no room in the Anglo-Saxon Christian world for pagan ancestors, but a nation needs a past and pride of ancestry. This is what the Beowulf poet gives to his people. Through deep thought and high art he finds a place in his countrymen’s collective memory where their ancestors can reside with dignity even as the Anglo-Saxons acknowledge that those ancestors were pagan and lost. It is this accomplishment of the poet that gives to his narration of warrior courage, exultant triumph, and honour in defeat its tinge of sadness and conflicted nostalgia. It also gives the poem its unforgettable gravity and makes it more than an exuberant telling of mighty exploits in bygone days. (Mitchell and Robinson, 1998, 38)
Perhaps Beowulf is like a great literary riddle which each reader must solve for himself or herself. Perhaps the poem is an invitation from the hero to “Say who I am” and from the poet to “Say what I mean.”
Beowulf
Listen! We have heard of the Spear-Danes’ glory,
Their storied power, their primal strength—
The kings and princes whose craft was courage.
Often Scyld Sceafing denied dinner
To his arch-foes, wrecked meadhall benches, 5
Stealing joy so that all his enemies
Drank terror instead. Their cups were cold.
At first a foundling, he wrestled fate,
Made that misery his own slave
Till the whole world over the whale-road 10
Yielded power, lifting tribute,
Offering gold. That was a good king.
To him was born a boy of promise,
A young prince for court and country,
A gift from God, an heir and comfort, 15
For the Lord of life saw such suffering
So often inherited in a kingless hall,
Such great violence, such grim sin,
Such deep need, that he brought Beow,
Son of Scyld, to end the anguish 20
And establish honor—his name was known.
So should a young prince make a friend of power,
Learn the grace of giving in his father’s house,
Gather courage and hearth-companions
Who will stand by him in savage battle 25
In later years. A warrior thrives
Through glorious deeds and generous gifts.
Great Scyld left life in God’s keep.
His comrades bore his body down
To the sea’s curl as he’d commanded, 30
The land-leader for many years.
The ring-necked ship stood ready,
Icy and eager to embrace the king.
They laid their tall treasure down
Next to the mast, the gift and the giver, 35
With gold and gems, swords and mail-shirts:
No ship ever sailed in such grave beauty.
On his breast lay a clutch of arms—
What men crafted and the sea claimed,
A tribe’s treasure for the king’s crossing, 40
His last gifts not less than the foundling’s first,
When unknown parents put the baby boy
Into a plain boat like a poor beggar
And offered their gift, cold and friendless,
To the endless sea. Who came with nothing 45
Left with gold. Who sailed alone
Was mourned by many. His men set up
A bright banner to proclaim his coming,
Then let the long waves take their treasure—
No sound but the ship’s sliding into water 50
And the heart’s keening. No man knows,
Whether wise counselor or world-traveler,
Who received that gift of cargo and king.
Then the son of Scyld ruled wisely
After his father went from the world— 55
Beow grew up, a beloved king,
And also sired a warrior prince,
Healfdene the great, brave and battle-fierce,
Who ruled the Scyldings, siring sons,
Princes of power—Heorogar, Hrothgar, 60
And Halga the good—and a daughter Yrse,
Who stories say was Onela’s queen,
Bed-gem of that battle-Swede.
Then Hrothgar won great battle-glory,
Found worth at war, till his young troops 65
Swelled with power and pride, obeyed orders,
Supported their king. Hrothgar’s dream
Was a meadhall built for his mighty band,
The work of craftsmen, worth remembering,
Where a king could share with the sons of men 70
His gifts from God in his hall of glory—
Stories, treasures, everything except
The common land and the lives of men.
The word went out—the craftsmen came
From all over middle-earth to shape beams 75
And raise up the glorious people’s hall.
They quickly finished this finest of buildings,
This show of strength, and King Hrothgar,
Whose fame had spread, named it Heorot
After the ancient Hart. The king kept promise, 80
Giving gold from the treasure-table,
A feast of rings. The raftered hall,
High, horn-gabled, was doomed to wait
For battle-flames, the fierce sword-hate
Of family feud, when oaths of in-laws 85
Might mean less than murderous rage.
Then the monster who lived in shadows,
The dark’s demon, suffered pain
When he heard the harp’s sweet songs,
The poet’s music in the hall of joy. 90
The shaper sang the world’s creation,
The origin of men, God’s broad grandeur
In sun-bright fields and surrounding waters.
That greater Shaper set sun and moon
As land-lights and adorned all earth 95
With leaves and limbs, created each
Green gift, each living thing,
Each walking wonder of this bright world.
The listening warriors lived in the hall,
Surrounded by joy until a certain creature 100
Began to commit crimes. A hell-fiend,
A grim hall-guest called Grendel,
Moor-stalker, wasteland walker,
Demon of the fens, he dwelled in marshes,
In monstrous lairs, unhappy, unhoused, 105
After God the Creator had rightly condemned
The race of Cain, that murdering kin,
When the Lord of life took vengeance
On Abel’s bane, that slaughtering son.
No one found joy in that long feud, 110
That banishment for family-killing.
Out of Cain’s crime what woke was evil,
A brutal borning of orcs and elves,
Gibbering giants, the liv
ing dead,
Who fought God, finding a hard reward. 115
In black night came the hall-marauder
To see how the beer-drinkers soundly slept,
A feast of dreamers who’d forgotten sorrow—
They locked out misery, this mess of men.
Unwhole, unholy, the monster came, 120
Grim and greedy, ready, ravenous—
A stalking mouth, he quickly seized
Thirty thanes, hauled them home,
His precious plunder, his proud slaughter—
King of the lair, exulting in dinner. 125
A dark cry woke before dawn,
A wail of Danes long after dinner,
Grendel’s bloodbath their breakfast greeting,
His war-craft the morning’s misery.
The glorious king had cold joy, 130
Suffered for his thanes, drank sorrow,
When he saw the bloody tracks
Of the grim guest, the ravenous ghost.
That strife was too strong, that loathing too long—
He even invited himself back the next night 135
For more murders and no mourning!
He was bent on vengeance, savage in sin.
Then it was easy to find a hero who sought
A hall removed from the ravenous beast,
A separate bed, once the blood-feud was known, 140
The grim crime of the murderous hall-thane.
Only those who left the hall escaped the hate!
So Grendel ruled the greatest of halls,
Sabotaged the right, a monster unmatched
Against many men, till the meadhall 145
The Complete Old English Poems Page 70
