The Monsters of Beowulf: Heroic and Christian Values

• Thesis title in Czech: Monstra v díle Beowulf: světské a křesťanské hodnoty
• Thesis title in English: The Monsters of Beowulf: Heroic and Christian Values
• Key words: Beowulf|Stara anglicka poezie|heroicka poezie|konverze|heroicke hodnoty|monstra
• English key words: Beowulf|Old English poetry|heroic poetry|conversion|heroic values|monsters
• Academic year of topic announcement: 2020/2021
• Thesis type: Bachelor's thesis
• Thesis language: angličtina
• Department: Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK)
• Supervisor: Mgr. Helena Znojemská, Ph.D.
• Author: hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept.
• Date of registration: 08.03.2021
• Date of assignment: 08.03.2021
• Administrator's approval: not processed yet
• Confirmed by Study dept. on: 22.06.2021
• Date and time of defence: 31.01.2023 10:00
• Date of electronic submission: 10.01.2023
• Date of proceeded defence: 31.01.2023
• Submitted/finalized: committed by student and finalized
• Opponents: Mgr. Radvan Markus, Ph.D.

Guidelines

This thesis deals with the Old English poem Beowulf, exploring the dichotomy between the Christian poet and the pre-Christian material he tackles. Beowulf was written at least a few hundred years after Christianity was already established in England, yet still had to reckon with the remnants of a culture that had radically different values. The attitude Christianity had to these was ambivalent, at times choosing to conform and integrate some aspects of Anglo-Saxon culture, and at others taking a confrontational approach and condemning them. This is reflected in Beowulf, which has both praise and censure for the society it depicts. The poem’s overarching theme is community^[1], and the forces that would threaten to destroy it. These forces are personified by monsters, who are literal as well as metaphorical threats to social order. I argue that in Beowulf, by putting secular material in a Christian framework, the poet is able to explore which values are the most conducive to the fight against these threats.
The monsters of Beowulf have long been recognized as “crucial to the very structure of the poem”^[2]. They are the point where the secular and the Christian world meet, as they are both material creatures and evil spirits. The Grendel-kin and the dragon are material monsters, analogous to creatures commonly found in mythologies and folktales all around the world, and therefore they still carry the meaning associated with them. The Christian poet also gives them a scriptural pedigree, making them enemies of God. This puts the pagan Danish characters, albeit unbeknownst to them, on God’s side in the Great Feud against the forces of evil. Even though, from a Christian perspective, these people are tragically ignorant of the true faith, they still have virtues that even a Christian can appreciate. However, the kind of social order they have set up is faulty, as the poet makes clear by showcasing the constant feuding and warring that plagues their society. The three monsters of Beowulf represent troublemaking, vengeance, and war^[3] - threats that come both from without and within, and threats that the Germanic order struggled to mollify, on the contrary, that the heroic values even encouraged. The Christian poet commends the pagan hero’s valour in overcoming physical threats, clearly appreciating some aspects of the heroic code, while at the same time making clear that even those praiseworthy values alone cannot grant eternal victory.

^[1] John Niles. Beowulf: The Poem and Its Tradition (Harvard University Press, 1983) 226.
^[2] Andy Orchard, Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript, p.28
^[3] Kathryn Hume, “The Theme and Structure of ‘Beowulf.’” Studies in Philology 72.1 (1975): 5. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/4173860. Accessed 15 Jun. 2022.

References

Damico, Helen. Beowulf and the Grendel-Kin: Politics and Poetry in Eleventh-Century England (WV MEDIEVEAL EUROPEAN STUDIES). 1st ed., West Virginia University Press, 2014.
Desmond, Marilynn. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Tradition.” Oral Tradition, vol. 7, no. 2, 1992, pp. 258-283, https://mospace.umsystem.edu/xmlui/handle/10355/64599. Accessed 4 Mar. 2021.
Donaldson, E T. Beowulf: A New Prose Translation. New York: W.W. Norton, 1966. Print.
Hume, Kathryn. “The Theme and Structure of ‘Beowulf.’” Studies in Philology, vol. 72, no. 1, 1975, pp. 1–27. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/4173860. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021.
J. R. R. Tolkien. “Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics.” Modern Language Notes, vol. 54, no. 3, 1939, p. 217. Crossref, doi:10.2307/2911911.
Niles, John. Beowulf: The Poem and Its Tradition. Harvard University Press, 1983.
O'Keefe, Katherine O'Brien, 'Heroic values and Christian ethics', The Cambridge Companion to Old English Literature (Cambridge Companions to Literature), ed. by Malcolm Godden and Michael Lapidge. Cambridge University Press, 1991.
Olesiejko, Jacek. “The Grendelkin and the Politics of Succession at Heorot: The Significance of Monsters in Beowulf.” Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, vol. 53, no. 1, 2018, pp. 45–65. Crossref, doi:10.2478/stap-2018-0003.
Orchard, Andy. A Critical Companion to Beowulf. D.S. Brewer, 2003.
Orchard, Andy. Pride and Prodigies: Studies in the Monsters of the Beowulf Manuscript. University of Toronto Press, 1995.
Osborn, Marijane. “The Great Feud: Scriptural History and Strife in Beowulf.” PMLA, vol. 93, no. 5, 1978, pp. 973–981. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/461781. Accessed 4 Mar. 2021.
Parks, Ward. “Prey Tell: How Heroes Perceive Monsters in ‘Beowulf.’” The Journal of English and Germanic Philology, vol. 92, no. 1, 1993, pp. 1–16. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/27710761. Accessed 4 Mar. 2021.
Pascual, Rafael J. “Material Monsters and Semantic Shifts.” The Dating of Beowulf: A Reassessment, by Leonard Neidorf et al., Boydell & Brewer, 2014, pp. 202–218.
Reynolds, William. “HEROISM IN ‘BEOWULF’: A CHRISTIAN PERSPECTIVE.” Christianity and Literature, vol. 27, no. 4, 1978, pp. 27–42. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/26290046. Accessed 2 Mar. 2021.
Robinson, Fred. Beowulf and the Appositive Style (Hodges Lecture Series). First edition, Univ Tennessee Press, 2014