Beowulf And Christian Elements Essay, Research Paper

The praised epic poem, Beowulf, is the first great heroic poem in English

literature. The epic follows a courageous warrior named Beowulf throughout his

young, adult life and into his old age. As a young man, Beowulf becomes a

legendary hero when he saves the land of the Danes from the hellish creatures,

Grendel and his mother. Later, after fifty years pass, Beowulf is an old man and

a great king of the Geats. A monstrous dragon soon invades his peaceful kingdom

and he defends his people courageously, dying in the process. His body is burned

and his ashes are placed in a cave by the sea. By placing his ashes in the

seaside cave, people passing by will always remember the legendary hero and

king, Beowulf. In this recognized epic, Beowulf, is abound in supernatural

elements of pagan associations; however, the poem is the opposite of pagan

barbarism. The presentation of the story telling moves fluidly within Christian

surroundings as well as pagan ideals. Beowulf was a recited pagan folklore where

the people of that time period believed in gods, goddesses, and monsters. It?s

significance lies in an oral history where people memorized long, dense lines of

tedious verse. Later, when a written tradition was introduced they began to

write the story down on tablets. The old tale was not first told or invented by

the commonly known, Beowulf poet. This is clear from investigations of the folk

lore analogues. The manuscript was written by two scribes around AD 1000 in late

West Saxon, the literary dialect of that period. It is believed that the scribes

who put the old materials together into their present form were Christians and

that his poem reflects a Christian tradition. The first scribe copied three

prose pieces and the first 1,939 lines of Beowulf while the second scribe copied

the rest of Beowulf and Judith. In 1731, a fire swept through the Cottonian

Library, damaging many books and scorching the Beowulf codex. In 1786-87, after

the manuscript had been deposited in the British Museum the Icelander, Grinur

Jonsson Thorkelin, made two transcriptions of the poem for what was to be the

first edition, in 1815 (Clark, 112-15). Beowulf is a mixture of pagan and

Christian attitudes. Heathen practices are mentioned in several places, such as

vowing of sacrifices at idol fanes, the observing of omens, the burning of the

dead, which was frowned upon by the church. The frequent allusions to the power

of fate, the motive of blood revenge, and the praise of worldly glory bear

testimony to the ancient background of pagan conceptions and ideals. However,

the general tone of the epic and its ethical viewpoint are predominantly

Christian . There is no longer a genuine pagan atmosphere. The sentiment has

been softened and purified. The virtues of moderation, unselfishness,

consideration for others are practiced and appreciated. Beowulf is a Christian

reworking of a pagan poem with ?a string of pagan lays edited by monks; it is

the work of a learned but inaccurate Christian antiquarian? (Clark, 112). The

author has fairly exhaulted the fights with Grendel, his mother, and the dragon

into a conflict between powers of good and evil. The figure of Grendel, while

originally an ordinary Scandinavian troll is conceived as an impersonation of

evil and darkness, even an incarnation of the Christian devil. Grendel is a

member of the race of Cain, from whom all ?misshapen and unnatural things were

spawned? (Kermode, 42) such as ogres and elves. He is a creature dwelling in

the outer darkness, a giant and cannibal. When he crawls off to die, he is said

to join the route of devils in hell. The story of a race of demonic monsters and

giants descended from Cain. It came form a tradition established by the

apocryphal Book of Enoch and early Jewish and Christian interpretations of

Genesis 6:4, ?There were giants in the earth in those days, and also

afterward, when the sons of God had relations with the daughters of men, who

bore children to them? (Holland Crossley, 15). Many of Grendel?s

appellations are unquestionable epithets of Satan such as ?enemy of

mankind,? ?God?s adversary,? ?the devil in hell,? and ?the hell

slave.? His actions are represented in a manner suggesting the conduct of the

evil one, and he dwells with his mother in a mere which conjures visions of

hell. The depiction of the mere is the most remarkable because it is a

conceptual landscape made fearsomely realistic by the poetry. The closest

parallel with Grendel and his mother?s mere is from the vision of hell in

sermon 17 of the tenth century Blickling Homilies. This scene is based on the

apocryphal vision of St. Paul, where the saint visits hell under the protection

of St. Michael. The similarities to the mere are italicized: ?But now let us

ask the archangel St. Michael and the nine orders of holy angels that they be a

help to us against hell-fiends. They were the holy ones that receive men?s

souls. Thus St. Paul was looking toward the northern part of this middle-earth,

where all the waters go down under, and there he saw a hoary stone over that

water, and north of that stone the woods had grown very frosty, and there were

dark mists, and under that stone was the dwelling of nickers and outlawed

creatures. And he saw that on that cliff many black souls were hanging on the

icy trees with their hands bound, and the devils in the likeness of nickers were

seizing them as does the greedy wolf, and the water was black underneath the

cliff. And between the cliff and the water there was the distance of twelve

miles, and when the branches broke off then souls that were hanging on the

branches plunged downward, and the nickers seized them. These, then, were the

souls of those who here in this world had sinned unrighteously and would not

repent of it before their life?s end. But let us now earnestly ask St. Michael

that he lead our souls into bliss, where they may rejoice in eternity without

end. Amen? (Morris, 209-11). These remarkable verbal parallels show that the

landscape of the mere symbolizes hell. It is a garden of evil, in which one of

the race of Cain dwells in freezing sin. The soul that avoids these dark waters

is based on Psalm 42, ?As the hart pants after the running streams, so my soul

cries aloud to Thee, O God.? The soul would rather die than hide his head in

the mere, just as any rational soul would prefer death to eternal damnation.

Beowulf?s last monstrous foe is designated by the word ?wyrm? meaning a

serpent or worm, and the word ?draca? meaning dragon. In the Old English

poetry, the worm and dragon represent enmity to mankind. The worms who devour

man?s corpse after death, the dragons and serpents who receive his soul in

hell, and the dragon of sin and mortality who rules over earth until Christ

cancels for all time the work of the tempest. The Grendel kin and the dragon

share some of the descriptive words and epithets used for monsters in the poem

such as ?slayer,? ?enemy,? and ?evil destroyer.? They all live in

demonic halls. Some poets believe that the dragon was ?the devil himself,

guarding a hoard of gold that infects men with greed and pride and so leads to

death and damnation? (Clark, 257). The Beowulf dragon is sufficiently

snakelike, both in his appearance and behavior, to qualify as a Christian

symbol. In Genesis of the Bible, the serpent is never clearly called Satan. The

snake is an allegory for the devil much like the dragon is an allegory for the

archfiend. But if the dragon is of the same kind as Grendel, why was Beowulf

unable to defeat him? To this question the Christian interpretation is that

Beowulf has lost the favor of God. However, the dragon is the instrument of

Beowulf?s death. As J.R.R. Tolkien explains, ?the placing of the dragon is

inevitable: a man can but die upon his death day? (Holland-Crossley, 11). If

this view is accepted, the problem of why Beowulf had forfeited God?s favor

disappears. Beowulf in his youth overcomes his foes with God?s help. But even

with God at his side, Beowulf, like all men, must die. Beowulf is an allegory of

Christian salvation. There are many symbols that allude to Christian references

in Beowulf; the fight with Grendel represents the salvation of mankind, the

fight with Grendel?s mother represents Christ?s Resurrection, and the fight

with the dragon resembles Christ?s death. There is real conscious analogy

between Beowulf and Christ. There is, for example, the familiar parallel between

Hroogar?s praise of Beowulf, ?Yes, she may say, whatever, woman brought

forth this son among mankind-if she still lives-that the God of Old was kind to

her in childbearing? (Kermode, 45), and the remark of a woman to Christ in

Luke 11:27, ?Blessed is the womb that bore thee, and the breasts that thou

hast sucked.? Also, this speech occurs shortly after Christ has cast out a

demon (11:14-18), while that of Hroogar follows Beowulf?s cleansing Heorot of

the demonic Grendel. Again, Beowulf goes forth to fight the dragon accompanied

by a band of twelve, one of whom is a culprit; during the fight the eleven

retainers flee, and one returns. This parallels the picture of Christ shortly

before his death attended by the twelve Apostles: the treason of Judas, the

flight of the eleven remaining Apostles, and the return of John at the

crucifixion. Beowulf and Christ are icons of wisdom and power. Christ is

frequently represented by patristic writers as the wisdom and power of God. A

Vercelli Homily remarks of his early life that ?he was filled with might and

wisdom before God and before men (Tuso, 129), and the poetic Descent into Hell

describes him at the Resurrection as ?brave . . . victorious and wise? (Tuso,

22). In early medieval iconography, there commonly existed a portrayal of a

warlike and victorious Christ with his feet resting on a prostrate lion and

dragon which parallels Beowulf and Jesus as heroic figures. Fr. Klaeber wrote,

?We might feel inclined to recognize features of the Christian Savior in the

destroyer of hellish fiends, the warrior brave and gentle, blameless in thought

and deed, the king that dies for his people? (Chickering, 17). Both icons

represented power and wisdom of heroes. The scene where Beowulf dives into

Grendel?s dark mere and begins his descent into the watery depths swimming

until ?the ninth hour of the day? (Kermode, 57). This is almost an

unavoidable biblical echo. In Luke 23:44-46, it is the same hour that Christ,

abandoned by all but a faithful few, died on the cross. Furthermore, this is

where Beowulf dove into Grendel and his mother?s dark mere and swam until the

ninth hour, reaching the mere?s bottom, symbolizing the death of Christ and

his stay in hell. Beowulf, having lain down his life for the defense of his

people and having thanked God for winning the dragon?s treasure for their use,

suggests the figure of Christ. Charles Donahue eloquently wrote, ?Our poet

liked diptychs, and he left his audience with a pair of images, Beowulf at the

dragon?s barrow on one side of the diptych, Jesus on Calvary on the other? (Poupard,

18). Donahue suggests that both Christ and Beowulf are martyrs for their people.

They each gave up their lives to save the people. The champion Beowulf, in life

is reminiscent of the champion Christ in various aspects of his wisdom and

power. Beowulf in the end is not revealed to be a God-man but man. His death not

a supernatural atonement but a natural phenomenon. An analogy of any kind

between Beowulf and Christ in itself account for the notorious absence of

explicit references in the poem. The epic of Beowulf is wrapped in a history of

pagan ideal and Christian surroundings. The poem is woven in Christian

allegorical figures which give Beowulf a romantic mystery that many epics lack.

Beowulf is a timeless classic that has endured the centuries. All that is left

of the epic is the hero?s fame, a monument as enduring as earth.

Primary Source Kermode, Frank, and John Hollander, et al. Beowulf. The Oxford

Anthology of English Literature: Vol 1. New York: Oxford UP, 1973. 29-98.

Secondary Sources Chickering, Howell D, Jr. Beowulf: A Dual-Language Edition.

New York: Anchor, 1977. Clark, George. Beowulf. New York: Twayne, 1990. Holland-Crossley,

Kevin, and Bruce Mitchell. Beowulf. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.

Poupard, Dennis, and Jelena O. Krstonc, ed. Classical and Medieval Literature

Criticism: Volume 1. Michigan: Gale Research, 1988. Morris, Richard, ed.

Blickling Homilies: Sermon 17 of the Tenth Century, Old Series, no. 73. London:

EETS, 1880. 209-11. Tuso, Joseph F, ed. Beowulf: The Donaldson Translation

Backgrounds and Sources Criticism. New York: W.W. Norton, 1975.