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BEOWULF - anonymous - written down in the 11th century - Coggle Diagram
BEOWULF
- anonymous -
written down in the 11th century
Old English
the oldest epic poem
probably an elegy for a king died in the 7th century
SETTINGS
Denmark
- Beowulf kills GRENDEL, the monster who has been terrorising the king Hrothgar and his men for 12 years, in the hall of the king (Heorot)
misty Lake
- Beowulf kills the monster's mother
Sweden, the land of the Geats
- an elderly Beowulf confronts a dragon terrorising his own land
PLOT
In a misty lake, Beowulf kills Grendel's mother, then comes back to Scandinavia and becomes King of the Geats for 50 years
A fire-breathing dragon threatens his country, so the old Beowulf fights and kills it, but is mortally wounded. During his funeral, his body is burnt in a pyre.
King Hrothgar has built Heorot, a hall where he can gather with his warriors, but Grendel, a terrible fire-breathing monster, has been terrorising the Danes for 12 years, until Beowulf sails from the land of the Geats to Denmark and kills him
THEMES
WARRIOR SOCIETY
loyalty of the thanes (warriors) to their king
FATE AND DESTINY
GOOD AGAINST EVIL
THE HERO
he puts his people's welfare before his own
he is not afraid of dying to save his country
physical strength
virtues and qualities of a warrior
a dynamic character evolving throughout the poem
HEROISM
how to be a good leader?
SUPERNATURAL
CHRISTIAN VALUES
THE LANGUAGE
elevated language
long lists
repetitions
reference to mythical and Christian elements
allitteration and stock formulae
Hrothgar lived happily in his hall
caesura (a rhytmical pause that separates a line into 2 halves)
kenning (a metaphor made of compound words: whale-road: sea / mankind's enemy. Grendel / the strongest of the Geats: Beowulf)
Out of a Germanic oral tradition, maybe composed by a man working in an Anglo-Saxon court