paper prep? or just musing.
Sep. 10th, 2006 07:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ricardienneI have been thinking about Beowulf (no coincidence this: I'm reading it again). It's really interesting: when Beowulf is going to face the dragon, and sort of resigning himself to this last fight, he doesn't talk about his 50 years of kingship, but only about his deeds as Hygelac's man. Although when he's dying, he does talk about ruling the Geats, so I'm not sure how much one can make of this. But then there's his thing about being the last of his line, with the possible exception of Wiglaf. It's almost as though Beowulf is a "last survivor" himself. All of his kin are dead; his lord is dead… Hrothgar is dead (almost surely) and the Shieldings, at any rate, are engulfed in their own civil war and kin-killing not to mention feud with the Heatho-Bards. (Really, being Germanic/Scandinavian royalty is bad news all the way around: does ANYONE ever come out well in these stories?) And he doesn't want to be king, you know. When Hygelac is killed and Hygd asks him if he will take the kingship, he refuses, ostensibly out of loyalty to Hygelac's son (in contrast to Hrothulf and Hrethil, I suppose), but I think he honestly doesn't want it. Beowulf is a hero, not a king. There's even a line to this effect that I noticed for the first time this reading: "He worked for the people, but as well as that/ he behaved like a hero." Heroes are supposed to risk their lives and go out young, in a blaze of glory. Or they become like Hrothgar, and are wise but passive kings in their old age. Even Wiglaf admits that Beowulf wasn't such a great king, in the end, to go off and get himself killed by the dragon and not leave a son to continue protecting the Geats.
Oh, how can you not love Beowulf like this? He's such a paragon of somber Anglo-Saxon heroics, and now I've got him all mixed in with The Wanderer, except that he doesn't quite have the philosophical eloquence of the Wanderer, or maybe he's just more practical. The more I think about, the more I think that all of this is so horribly sad: all people being left alone in a dark, cold world because all of their friends and family are gone. Or maybe it's because I'm listening to Mozart in a minor key?
Oh, how can you not love Beowulf like this? He's such a paragon of somber Anglo-Saxon heroics, and now I've got him all mixed in with The Wanderer, except that he doesn't quite have the philosophical eloquence of the Wanderer, or maybe he's just more practical. The more I think about, the more I think that all of this is so horribly sad: all people being left alone in a dark, cold world because all of their friends and family are gone. Or maybe it's because I'm listening to Mozart in a minor key?
