Monday, September 10, 2012

beowulf and friends

1Lecture 2¶

Beowulf

Themes of civilized ties between people, focused in Heorot, a culture centre
Grendel, springs from Cain, and symbolic of kinship and bonds

Beowulf has analogies with the life of Christ, and it uses an amount of religious symbolism
Common for renassance literature to have an analogy between the hero and Christ. Heroic paradigms are often aligned with Christ

Can Beowulf be comparable to Christ? He always falls short of being human, but he makes an effort trying to do so.

Role of Grendel's mother, kinship ties, lineage.
Emphasis on Cain and his actions, and an emphasis on kinship and the betrayal of kinship ties, epitomizes the violation of kinship ties in general.

Grendel and his mother are described as aliens to culture, symbolizes the forces that threaten culture.

Beowulf's success depends on the sword he picks up at the lair. Consider the symbolizzzzzzzzzzzzm

It's so huge and heavy_{that's what she said} that only Beowulf can hold it. He says that the Lord of men allowed him to wield this sword, which was originally made for giants. Implies divine involvement

The hilt of the sword is engraved with the motifs of the judgement of divined giants. Implies divine aid and divine judgement. Divine judgement of giants <> Beowulf's slaying of Grendel's mother

The initiative and decisiveness of the hero himself is needed in addition of the divine intervention

Symbolic purification of the danish land that happens through the slaying of grendel and grendel's mom

Hrothgar has a speech which reveals his views on kinship and human relationships. He's looking back on his life and extracts a philosophy out of it.
He says it's a kind of pattern for leader and kings, a paradigm for humanity. He tells beowulf that it will be his fate too.

What's the relationship between the speech and the story of grendel?

Grendel being greedy as fuck, killing people for brunch, then comes beowulf who subsequently owns him => analogous to hrothgar. Hrothgar advises beowulf that he might get too prideful

Being prideful is kinda bad, devious desires and impulses will make you do naughty things, like fuck over your constituents as king.

Grendel is an analogy to what could happen within one's self, as one becomes prideful.

Grendel and his mommy is a symbolic expression of psychological threats(psychomachia)

Hrothgar uses the sleep metaphor(Grendel attacks when people are sleeping), sleeping -> being insensitive to surroundings and what's going on. (DON'T SLEEP)
How credible is hrothgar? his speech foreshadows the fate of beowulf, gives credibility to his words. presented as a wise and old king, he also helps others, like beowulf's dad.

Final episode: Beowulf vs Dragon

what analogies are there between beowulf and hrothy?

They're both kings, loved by people, swimming in bitches. They're both faced with a dire threat.

back to the dragon:
beowulf is now aging, and facing the end of his days. even beowulf faces his final limits.

How does this combat proceed in which it relates to the advancement of humanity and kinship ties?

• Beowulf's followers run away, except for one
• beowulf and that dude now fight the dragon
• beowulf finds himself getting owned
• mainly because he was too prideful and wanted to fight alone, so now he needs to work together with that random dude
• dragon's treasure symbolizes wealth, and the thief symbolizes avaricious desire and appetite
• the dragon is obviously pissed, and wants his shit back
• now the thief is condemned because the dragon is being pissed. Symbolizes the condemnation of avaricious desire and greed
• they now recognize that the treasure is a curse, and stealing it might not have been the best idea
• what the fuck is going on with the fight with the dragon
• something about the people of Geats being greedy fucks