Modern Day Hero VS. Anglo-Saxon Hero Essay, Research Paper

During the Anglo-Saxon period, people worshiped Hero’s. Here are a couple of ways how a modern day hero can be compared to one in the past.Nolan Ryan will be my choice of a classic modern day hero. One of the firsts of a hero’s characteristic is that he performs “Outstanding Deeds”. On page thirty-five in Beowulf “Higlac’s brave follower tearing out his hand of the monster, his hatred rose higher but his power has gone.” So to me that could be called an outstanding deed. Now Nolan Ryan is not a War hero but a baseball player. He was forty-five at the time and he had thrown 5,511 strikeouts, witch is a record that will not be broken anytime soon. Another way to be called a hero is to give great speeches. On page 31 of Beowulf “Hail Hrothagi????.” Beowulf is very good at this but on the other hand Nolan Ryan is a very humble man. So he never really gave speeches. The third characteristic of a hero is to boast about his feats. Beowulf does a good job of boasting in this next line in Beowulf on page 31, “And I am stronger than anyone in the world.” To me that is a very big boast on Beowulf’s part. Now for Nolan Ryan he is a very modest man and never had any reason to boast about anything, his numbers did the talking for him. Now the last of the of characteristics that is that he descended from Royalty. Now on page 31 in Beowulf, “Higlac is my cousin and my King.” Now on the other hand Nolan Ryan’s position in baseball had nothing to do with his family. He was noting more than a country boy from Alvin, Texas.Now all of those were characteristic of an Anglo-Saxon hero that are very different from those of a modern day hero. The first of them is if the Public eye likes the hero to be humble and have good sportsmanship. Nolan Ryan never went around taunting his opponents or talking about how good he is. But on the other hand Beowulf talked very highly of himself. I don’t think the public would have liked that very much about him. Another characteristic of a modern day hero is his appearance. Nolan was a good-looking guy. He did wrangler jeans ads. He also did TV commercials for Advil. From what the book told me Beowulf was not a very pretty site. So he probably wouldn’t of gotten any modeling ads. The third characteristic is to be a role model to the kids. During Nolan Ryan’s playing time every kid in America wanted to be a baseball player throwing a hundred-mile an hour fastballs. I know that I was one of them at the time. But if you were to bring Beowulf into being a role model for kids. He would be called a murder. The Final of my characteristics is for him to be an athlete. Nolan Ryan has seven no-hitters and 5,511 strikeouts. Now if that doesn’t qualify him to be an athlete I am not sure what else could make him one. Now I am sure that if Beowulf were alive today he would have been an exceptional athlete.The time period between these two are hundreds of years. They lived in two very different cultures but they were heroes in their own era.