Beowulf

Beowulf is one of the few remaining Anglo Saxon stories. It tells the tale of the great hero Beowulf who has to defeat three monsters in his lifetime. Our story begins with the monster Grendel who is terroizing the people of Hrothgar. Beowulf arrives from his homeland and manages to kill Grendel with his superior strength. Then Grendel’s Mother arrives. Grendel’s Mother seeks revenge for the death of her beloved baby boy. Beowulf manages to defeat her as well. The last monster Beowulf faces is a dragon, much later in life. He does manage to defeat the dragon, but the dragon defeats him as well and a great funeral pyre has to be built for the great hero. The story is fun and shows how man can overcome even the most deadliest of obstacles. What I think is interesting is that until J.R.R. Tolkien wrote his revolutionary article Beowulf: the Monsters and the Critics not many people studied Beowulf just for its own sake. Many people only used it as a way to study Old English. As one of the first truly English epics, it deserves to be studied in its entirety.