Essay Comparing the Concept of God in Beowulf and Other Anglo-Saxon Poems

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The Concept of God in Beowulf and Other Anglo-Saxon Poems

Is the concept of God mentioned only in Beowulf or is it a common element in all Anglo-Saxon poetry? Is the concept of God described the same way as in Beowulf?

Beowulf presents a mixture of Christian and pagan elements Hrothgar is demonstrably a monotheist, bu this people were offering sacrifice to pagan gods when Grendel caused them to despair. Let’s try to clarify the concept of God in this poem. In the early lines of this classic we see what is meant by GOD and by GOODNESS, as embodied or exemplified by the king, in this case by King Scyld Scefing:

he grew under heaven, prospered in honors

until every last one of the bordering nations

beyond the whale-road had to heed him,

pay him tribute. He was a good king!

A son was born him, a glorious heir,

young in the courtyards, whom God had sent

to comfort his people, -well had He seen

the sinful distress they suffered earlier,

leaderless for long. Therefore the Life-lord,

the Ruler of glory, granted earthly honor:

Beow was famed (8ff)

So goodness in a king is the possession of such strength that other nations fear you. And God is the all-powerful One who grants this earthly honor that Scyld, Beow, Healfdene and Hrothgar shared in. So God the Author of strength is their concept of God as the poem opens. This idea continues:

Then Hrothgar was given victory in battle (64).

Who was the giver? God, of course. From Heorot Hrothgar would:

he would share out

among young and old all God had given him,

except common land and the lives of men (71ff)

Heorot gave joy to the people with its scop narrating “how the Almighty had made the earth,” the “life He created, in each of the species,” “until a certain one began to do evil, an enemy from Hell,” a descendant of Cain. So God’s antithesis is in Grendel and his mother and their “home in the darkness.” Ater killing more than 60 Dane warriors, Grendel “grieved not at all for his wicked deeds – was too deep in sin;” many awful sins against mankind, the solitary fiend often committed;” “he knew not His love.

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