Beowulf summary/analysis points:

1. Patriarchal history anchors the story in a linear time frame that

stretches forward and backward through the generations.
2. In light of the great importance of familial lineage in this culture, it is
interesting that Shield Sheafson, who inaugurates the Danish royal
line, is an orphan—he is both founder and “foundling.”
3. The delineation of a heroic code is one of the most important
preoccupations of the poem.
4. As the defeated have to pay him tribute, it is clear that strength leads
to the acquisition of treasure and gold.
5. A hero is therefore defined, in part, by his ability to help his
community by performing heroic deeds and by doling out heroic sums
of treasure.
6. Another major aspect of the heroic code in Beowulf is eloquence in
speech.
7. Throughout the epic, fame is presented as a bulwark against the
oblivion of death, which lurks everywhere in the poem and casts a
sobering pall over even the most shining acts of heroism.
8. The sea acts as another important and ever-present boundary
in Beowulf; the sea-burial with which the poem begins helps to
establish the inexorable margins of life in the story.
9. In Hrothgar’s story of his previous association with Beowulf’s father,
we learn that there is a history of obligation between these two
families. This anecdote explains the concept of the wergild, or “death-
price,” a set price that one pays, as Hrothgar did on Ecgtheow’s
behalf, to compensate the kin of anyone a warrior has killed. Paying
the price of a man’s life is the only way to keep the cycle of
vengeance that characterizes a feud from continuing indefinitely.
10. Throughout Beowulf, boasting is presented as a key component of
one’s reputation, a valid way to assert one’s position in a hierarchy
determined by deeds of valour.
11. Throughout the fight, Beowulf is treated as more than human.
12. He can also, however, be interpreted as an evil force lurking within
the Danish society itself. The theological implications of his descent
from Cain support such an interpretation.
13. The evil king Heremod, who fails to fulfill the responsibilities of a lord
to his people, represents Beowulf’s opposite. By comparing Beowulf
to a king, the scop anticipates Beowulf’s destiny for the throne in
Geatland.
14. Also prominent is the use of kennings—compound words that evoke,
poetically and often metaphorically, specific ideas, such as such as
“ring-giver” (1101) for king (a king being one who rewards his warriors
with rings) and “sea-lanes” (1156) for ocean.
15. Through marriage, Hildeburh helps to forge a connection between
tribes. Of course, the practice of using women as peace tools is
problematic for the men too.
16. The story also gives the reader a sense of the Anglo-Saxon idea
of wyrd, or fate, in which individuals conceive of themselves as
directed by necessity and a heroic code that compels them to act in
certain fixed ways.
17. The narrator’s tendency to project forward to future events manifests
itself as well in his hints that Hrothulf, Hrothgar’s nephew, will usurp
the throne from Hrothgar’s sons. Wealhtheow’s statement that she is
certain of Hrothulf’s goodness creates a moment of dramatic irony, as
the poet is well aware that Hrothulf has evil in mind.
18. Such continuity is symbolized in the golden torque that Wealhtheow
presents to Beowulf. The poet’s glance forward to Hygelac’s death
while wearing the torque (which Beowulf will have given him)
reinforces how symbols link the past, present, and future in this
culture.
19. Hrothgar entreats Beowulf to seek out and kill Grendel’s mother,
describing the horrible, swampy wood where she keeps her lair. The
place has a magical quality. The water burns and the bottom of the
mere, or lake, has never been reached. Even the animals seem to be
afraid of the water there.

20. The scene below is horrifying: in the murky water, serpents and sea-
dragons writhe and roil. Beowulf slays one beast with an arrow.
Beowulf, “indifferent to death,” prepares himself for combat by
donning his armor and girding himself with weapons (1442). Unferth
loans him the great and seasoned sword Hrunting, which has never
failed in any battle.

21. “It is always better / to avenge dear ones than to indulge in mourning
/ . . . / When a warrior is gone, [glory] will be his best and only
bulwark” (1384–1389). In this speech, Beowulf explicitly characterizes
revenge as a means to fame and glory, which make reputations
immortal. As this speech demonstrates, an awareness of death
pervades Beowulf.

22. One aspect of their difference from the humans portrayed in the
poem is that Grendel’s strong parent figure is his mother rather than
 his father—his family structure that is out of keeping with the
vigorously patriarchal society of the Danes and the Geats.

23. Hrothgar explains it, “They are fatherless creatures, / and their whole
ancestry is hidden” (1355–1356). The idea of a hidden ancestry is
obviously suspect and sinister in this society that places such a high
priority—a sacredness, even—on publicizing and committing to
memory one’s lineage.

24. The question of Grendel’s lineage is one of many examples of

the Beowulf poet’s struggle to resolve the tension between his own
Christian worldview and the obviously pagan origins of his narrative.
The narrative’s origins lie in a pagan past, but by the time the poem
was written down (sometime around 700 a.d.), almost all of the Anglo-
Saxons had been converted to Christianity.

25. The Scandinavian settings and characters thus would have been
distant ancestral memories for the inhabitants of England, as the
migrations from Scandinavia and Germany had taken place centuries
earlier. Throughout the epic, the poet makes references to this point
and tries to reconcile the behavior of his characters with a Christian
system of belief that often seems alien to the action of the poem.

26. Additionally, Beowulf’s heroic exploits are constantly framed in terms

of God’s role in them, as though Beowulf owes all of his abilities to
providence—an idea that hardly seems compatible with the earthly
boasting and reputation-building with which he occupies himself
throughout the poem. The conflict between the Anglo-Saxon idea of
fate (wyrd) and the Christian God was probably a widespread moral
tension in the poet’s time, and it animates Beowulf from beginning to
end.

27. Although an instance of evil has been eliminated with Grendel, the
evil must still be eradicated at its source—Grendel’s mother might be
 thought of as representing a more foundational or primordial evil than
Grendel himself and more unambiguously animalistic.

28. This time, Beowulf must struggle against a resistant natural

environment in addition to a ferocious monster. The reader already
has been prepared for Beowulf’s superhuman swimming abilities by
the earlier story of the contest with Breca. However, the mere, or lake,
in which Grendel’s mother lives is no ordinary body of water. It teems
with blood and gore, as well as with unsavory creatures of all
descriptions. It is an elemental world of water, fire, and blood, and one
with an extremely unholy feel to it.

29. Once he defeats Grendel’s mother, her lair is illuminated more

thoroughly. Because light bears the implication of Christian holiness
and salvation, with these words, the poet suggests that hell has been
purged of its evil and sanctity restored.

30. By the time Beowulf gets back onto land, he has undergone a sort of
rebirth, a transition from a brave but somewhat reckless warrior into a
wise and steadfast leader.

31. In time, Hygelac is killed in battle with the Shylfings, and the kingdom
falls to Beowulf. For fifty years he rules the Geats, becoming a great
and wise king.

32. Beowulf is set in a highly male-dominated world—perhaps one even

more male-dominated than that of Homer’s Iliad—governed by
violence, honor, and doom. In this culture, women are seen as
marriageable objects, links between warring tribes to achieve peace
(Wealhtheow is referred to as “peace-pledge between nations”.

33. Throughout Beowulf, a tension manifests itself between the pagan

regard for treasure as a symbol of personal valor and the Christian
conception of treasure as a symbol of sinful greed. As we have seen,
 treasure is directly related to success in war and an accumulation of
treasure signifies an accumulation of honor. Most important, the
treasure must continue to be redistributed.

34. In this sense, Hrothgar is a good king because he is such a generous

“ring-giver” and Beowulf a good retainer because he gives Hygelac
and Hygd more than half of his rewards. The poem’s Christian
undertones, however, focus on earthly possessions as unimportant.

35. This section also further develops the image of the mead-hall as an
important element in Anglo-Saxon warrior culture. Hygelac’s hall in
Geatland proves just as magnificent and just as important a place of
sanctuary and reward in a world where danger lurks on every horizon
as Heorot, the great hall of the Danes. In the mead-hall, boasts can
be made, jokes can be exchanged, and the idea of doom can be
postponed. It is in the mead-hall that warriors can revel in the glory
and the reputations that they risk such peril to win.

36. Soon it is Geatland’s turn to face terror. A great dragon lurks beneath
the earth, jealously guarding its treasure, until one day a thief
manages to infiltrate the barrow, or mound, where the treasure lies.
The thief steals a gem-covered goblet, arousing the wrath of the
dragon.

37. Soon, Beowulf’s own throne-hall becomes the target of the dragon’s
fiery breath, and it is burned to the ground. He commissions a mighty
shield from the iron-smith, one that he hopes will stand up against the
breath of flame.

38. The poet recounts the death of King Hygelac in combat in Friesland.
Hygelac fell while Beowulf survived thanks to his great strength and
swimming ability. Only when Hygelac’s son met his end in a skirmish
against the Swedes did Beowulf ascend the throne. Under Beowulf’s
 reign, the feuding with Sweden eventually ceased when Beowulf
avenged Hygelac’s death.

39. But the anecdote of the Last Survivor, which tells how the gold came
to be buried in the barrow, demonstrates a different ethos. The
survivor seems to realize that the treasure is meaningless without a
community in which to circulate. This realization isn’t exactly a
Christian lesson in the transience of earthly things, since no
alternative spiritual world is proposed; neither, however, does it reflect
a greedy, purely materialistic lust for gold. In this anecdote,
the Beowulf poet seems to have given the pagan ethos a fairly
sympathetic and even-handed treatment.

40. Beowulf strikes the dragon in the head with his great sword Naegling,
but the sword snaps and breaks. The dragon lands a bite on
Beowulf’s neck, and blood begins to flow. Wiglaf rushes to Beowulf’s
aid, stabbing the dragon in the belly, and the dragon scorches
Wiglaf’s hand. In desperation Beowulf pulls a knife from his belt and
stabs it deep into the dragon’s flank. The blow is fatal, and the
writhing serpent withers. But no sooner has Beowulf triumphed than
the wound on his neck begins to burn and swell. He realizes that the
dragon bite is venomous and that he is dying.

41. The poet emphasizes Beowulf’s reluctance to meet death, “to inhabit
another home / in a place beyond”. This poetic evocation of death as
constituting movement from one realm to another—from the earthly
realm to the spiritual one—reveals the influence of Christian ideology
on the generally pagan Beowulf. It is also poignant from the
perspective of the warrior ethos, in which leaving one’s homeland, the
anchor of one’s entire identity, is a very serious and significant
undertaking.

42. It is important to remember that treasure objects often function as

symbols of the transmission of values through generations or of
 bonds of kinship and loyalty. Beowulf recognizes this symbolic
function and shows his relief upon seeing the treasure which
demonstrates his desire to leave something to his people—a sort of
surrogate offspring—when he dies because he knows that his victory
will feel hollow if there is no subsequent enactment of the ritual of
reward and gift-giving

43. The treasure also stands for the growing bond between Beowulf and
Wiglaf, the old hero and the new. Of Beowulf’s men, Wiglaf is the only
one who conforms to the heroic standards of loyalty and valour.
Wiglaf, in this section, establishes himself as the legitimate successor
to Beowulf, who has no natural heir. In this way, he is similar to the
young Beowulf, who becomes Hrothgar’s adoptive son. Wiglaf fiercely
swears that he would rather die than return home without having
protected his leader. This vow, too, reminds us of the young Beowulf,
who is so eloquent in enunciating the code of honour and so perfectly
epitomizes its values. The continuity of honour from one generation to
the next is ratified when Beowulf takes the collar of gold from his own
neck and, as his final act, gives it to his young friend. In Old English,
a laf is an heirloom or remnant, and Wiglaf means “war survivor.” The
poet equates Wiglaf with the treasure and, of course, the poem—he
will survive Beowulf’s lifetime and carry on the great hero’s legacy.