Status Updates From Beowulf: The Monsters and t...

Footnote 36. Tolkien quotes a bunch of Old English about a grim pagan and Tammy versteht nicht. The next note reminds me of The Screwtape Letters when the patient gets a glimpse of Wormtongue as he ascends to heaven. The little gods are the devil giving us what we want to see. I think he has done that throughout history.

I finished!!!

Beowulf’s victory was not a war to end all wars and it ended feeling like that battle would continue. We do not know what the original northern conception of Hell without Christian coloring was like. Christian poets used fate and luck (as in Boethius) because the mind of God is inscrutable. In Old English it had more of a feeling of doom or death because sometimes it feels hostile.

Some think that the poem’s faults are due to multiple authors. Tolkien does not. He uses faults in The Aeneid as an example. To solve this problem, some professors only teach the first half of the poem and Tolkien does not agree. The death of Beowulf does not take care of all dragons, only this one. That leaves a note of hopelessness. Great heroes deal with ordinary life but we don’t write about it.

Some note similarities between the Cyclops and Grendel as well as Prometheus and Loki. In the latter, the destruction of the world is caused by the enemy within (Loki). Loki is allowed to live in Asgard, even though he is evil. Tolkien believes that the Genesis part of Beowulf is older than the rest of it. Back to lines 175-188, Tolkien thinks it is more about Old Testament Jews and that makes total sense.

During this time of transition, there were individuals with deep understanding and individuals who were blank and ignorant. The only one who speaks about Christian ideas is the narrator. Grendel’s origin story would not have been known to Hrothgar and Beowulf. He gave the local stories a Biblical finish. Beowulf and The Aeneid are alike in their stern nobility. They have a more somber tone than Homer.

Tolkien’s ear picks up subtle differences and he explains why he is finding false notes.

Notes - Tolkien turns to a short history of literature just to see how the words of experts of Beowulf describe it. As stated in the essay, he trashes Ker’s opinion of Beowulf. When summarized, Beowulf comes across as thin. Beowulf reflects a Christian reimagining an earlier time.

Appendix C - Lines 175-188 were difficult. Tolkien states that they draw a distinction between Hrothgar who turns to the Almighty and certain Danes who turn to pagan idols. Is this the time before they knew God? Are they all condemned? Is it losing the knowledge of Creation and the Almighty that condemned them? He thinks that 181-188 were altered because it seems out of place to him. I, OTH, am clueless.

Inconsistencies such as a heathen speaking Christian ideas tell Tolkien that the poem was not completely repaganized. Not enough niggling was done! Tolkien sees these imperfections of execution and I bet he can relate to it as a writer. The valor of these heros (a bit like David in the Bible) are the special endowment given by God. The end of the dragon is bittersweet for justice demans that kind of death.

Tolkien cannot prove this and wants to leave that in other hands. Hrothgar is like the monotheistic patriarch and king who thanks him for his mercies. Beowulf does not talk much about God, other than being linked to fate. Sometimes he attritutes winning to luck but he does refer to hell and judgement. Tolkien believes that rather than adding Christianity as an afterthought, the poet repaganizes the story for effect.

He does not see himself as a just pagan. Tolkien believes that the poet is not confused about the distinction. The characters are pagan and it is the author that adds Christian thought to the poem. The distintions between his voice, Hrothgar’s voice, and Beowulf’s voice shows that he is not confused.

I think Tolkien is talking about a different poem because he says that Beowulf preserves the old pagan sense of the words. Okay, my ignorance is showing. LOL The praise is from living men and descendents, not heavenly choirs. The characters did not have a Christian understanding, but little asides show that the poet does understand. Beowulf receives his dom but it is not a Christian funeral.

So, there are two words for praise and judgement that basically meant the same thing lof and dom. The difference was subtle but not important until the Christian influence was felt. Then lof became associated with heavenly choirs and dom with judgement of the dead. He began to compare Hrothgar’s speech with the seafarer’s. The meaning is that though men die they can live through praise of great deeds.

There is a great deal of quoting of OE that goes right over my head. LOL

Since Grendel and his mother are physical beings, spiritual weapons are not enough. They must be killed physical and the warrior fighting them must know what they are doing.

Appendix B - Not much is known about the pagan beliefs. Their idea of immortality came through merited praise for heroic exploits. As pagan gods disappeared, heroes had no choice but to win through their own valor.

Appendix A - Medievals did not have a clear imaginative conception of evil spirits before 1066 AD. Grendal has the mark of Cain in his looks but also in his desire for evil. Even though Old English words have equivalents today, they do not take on the full meaning that we have. The words get watered down to enemy and stranger rather than devil and ghost. Grendel lurking in shadows is not multilayered in meaning.

The funeral of Beowulf is an echo of an echo and it is moving even though it is from another time. Those of us who inherited the northern tongue and live under northern should feel a kinship with the poem.

Yeah!!! I did it. Next up, appendices and footnotes.

Tolkien gives a more current example. If we took a straightforward history and only focused on the dramatic element of the rise and fall, it would be good but not great. If we then distorted a lot of the story for dramatic purposes, it would be good but not great. What makes Beowulf great is the monsters. It goes from being a petty fights between humans to something cosmic because of Grendel and the dragon.

It is not an epic poem nor a narrative poem. There’s not an exact word for it so he would call it a heroic elegy. He does not die at the hand of an enemy or a treacherous friend. He does at the hand of a dragon. Because he was victorious over a monster, it is better he die after a battle with a dragon. His men may have been surprised by his heroic efforts in the beginning, but not at the end. They knew his mettle.

For the battles of Beowulf’s youth, the reader is unsure if he will survive. In his last battle, we ought to be certain of his death. One criticism of the poem is that there is not enough backstory. However, the audience would have known these stories (a bit like watching a Shakespeare play). The point of the story is the heroic figure at its center.

Another way to divide it is at 1888. The first part contrasts old and young (Hrothgar and Beowulf). It depicts the glory and doom of a kingdom (bit like the Arthur stories). People don’t understand Old English poetry because its about balance between poetic elements more than anything. Some poetrtyis painting and sculpture, other poetry is tunes.

It tells of two key points at the beginning and end of Beowulf’s life--his rise to fame as a hero and his death as a hero. The retelling of what happened at Herot serves to show his character. Some criticize the part with the journey but it’s because the poet is not writing his own plot. He is pulling from ancient materials. Beowulf has to retell the story because he is telling what happened to his own people.

In some ways, the poet is like Lewis and Tolkien taking material from an older time to write a Medieval Romance with multi-layered meaning. He did not set out to chronicle what the Anglo-Saxons were like. He wanted to tell a story with the new and old fused. He was like an antiquarian of his day and what he did was artistry. Tolkien does not believe it is a narrative poem.

Some say that the author of Beowulf is a confused poet but Tolkien believes he was highly knowledgeable in the northern mythology as well as the book of Genesis. When the song about Creation is sing, Grendel is gnashing his teeth as Satan did at the time of Creation which is highly artistic. His conception of a heroic king is like that of King David in the Old Testament like David and Goliath.

The northern monsters and their ability to defeat humans is aligned with Christian thinking. Beowulf is about herorism and the wages of heroism is death. The monsters prowl around like a roaring lion, waiting for someone to devour. That imagery is what Satan and sin do to us. This is the reason why the imagery of new and old were fused so easily. It’s as if the seeds of truth in the myth paved the way.

It is not clear what early English mythology was like. Tolkien assumes that it’s close to what latter Icelandics believe. The northern gods are different from the southerns. The northern gods lived inside time and space and they were vulnerable to death as humans are. A good example is Baldur who was slain and went to Hel like any other mortal.

Beowulf and The Aeneid seem similar when read together. The reason why is that the timeing of both stories is on the threshhold of a Christian world. The cyclops and Grendel are begotten by gods and they eat men. Both live in a physical world (Sicily and Denmark).

The Christian poet looks back on a pagan world. Grendel is a flesh-and-blood monster. He dealt with a great tragedy. Grendel inhabits the visible world and eats the flesh and blood of men; originally, he was purely physical and not linked to Satan. The story occurs in the past when man was fallen and not yet saved. The northern past of grave Celts blend with southern learning and new faith.