Beowulf Lecture Analysis

Beowulf Lecture Summary

The lecture on Beowulf, by Carolyn Anderson, provided some helpful information about the text. She revealed some background about the manuscript and text, and she also discussed some important concepts in the book. Those concepts include the difference between masculine and feminine, heroes and monsters, hosts and guests, and the relationship between men and kin. There is only a single manuscript of Beowulf left, and it was nearly destroyed in a fire in 1731. The manuscript was being kept in a library, and the library caught on fire. So to save the books, the library owner began throwing books out of the window, and men outside attempted to catch them as they fell. Unfortunately Beowulf was burned, and some of the text was lost, but the majority of the manuscript survived. Beowulf was written in Anglo Saxon. This is a language that is still in use today, but the letters are changed and it is pronounced differently. The original text reveals that the epic was chanted instead of read or preformed which indicates that Beowulf is less sophisticated than Ovid, Virgil, or Plato. This is a story where the mythical coincides with history, preserving information about life during that time period. This epic explores the differences between masculine and feminine qualities.

The heroes take on the task of killing all of the monsters saving the people, and the monsters are supposed to be evil. In contrast, when Beowulf fights with Grendel, there is no way to tell the difference between who the text is referring to. This indicates that Beowulf is doubled by the monster. Another way to express their similarities is that Beowulf’s doppelganger is Grendel. A common superstition is that if you see your doppelganger, you are about to die, and this foreshadows the ending of the book. Grendel is similar to his mother as well, so that means that Beowulf is similar two Grendel and his mother, two