grendelbeo Who is the Monster - Beowulf or Grendel? Essay -- Epic Beo

Who is the Monster - Beowulf or Grendel? My first impression of Beowulf was that of an enigmatic, somewhat occult work, a necessary evil on the way to reading the to a greater extent important works. After a closer reading of the much-celebrated epic, I had a revelation. And what a revelation Beowulf is wonderful Perhaps it was the translation, or it might establish been the basic substance of the work itself, but I found myself ruin the poem. I discovered two specific areas of appeal 1) The fundamental leader of the archetypical super-hero and 2) the more contemporary trend in modern finishing to attempt to recapture the experience of this particular era via popular manufacturing and film. The ideal of the hero is a concept so completely incorporate into the human psyche as to be virtually built-in. From Homers Ulysses to Nietzsches Ubermensch, we as a race of beings are fixated on the individual who makes things happen, who gets things done, preferably with a wholes ome dose of bravado. Perhaps this is attributable to an innate sense of vulnerability in each of us, that unsettling little voice which whispers to us that, despite all our efforts, we feature overlooked some crucial factor which will lead to our net demise. The hero has no such insecurities he is invincible It is raise to channel that not only has the hero figure continued to thrive in the collective human consciousness, but, in our own western culture, the Beowulf-prototype has come serious circle there is a whole genre of fantasy novels which middle on one form or another of the Anglo-Saxon warrior tradition, as well as a veritable plethora of movies. Fleet upon fall of ring-prowed ships sail ever-onward on the seas of our imagination, on qu... ...pand the characters, making them more whole, more three-dimensional. feel at the two works side by side, a inquiry arises Who is the true monster? Beowulf fans will, no doubt, assert that their hero is the undisputed un troubled guy, and that Grendel was a vicious bastard who got what he deserved. But the Gardner perspective offers an interesting twist Beowulf was insane An unbalanced, obsessive weirdo babbling bizarre gibber into Grendels ear as he rended the unfortunate creatures arm from his torso. This latter recital is not as far-fetched as one might think the jurisprudence departments of every major city in this country contain a certain number of these so-called "heroes," men so mired in violence that their perceptions become distorted, that they ultimately become the very thing theyve fought so hard to defeat.