beowulf

A detailed Summary of beowulf


The key to writing an epic poem is to show that there is a predominant hero who paved the way for a nation. This hero should be someone who shows qualities such as loyalty to his followers, bravery and courage just to name a few. Strophe 8 in Burton Raffels' translation of Beowulf shows all of these qualities in Beowulf.

Strophe 8 is the tail of Beowulf's first of three battles with deadly beasts. It starts out by telling the reader that Grendel is coming "out from the marsh... bearing God's hatred"(394-395) revealing to all that Grendel comes from a hellish hole and is all that is evil. Little does Grendel know that this trip for prey shall not be as easy as the previous many. The monster who once took 30 men to his slimy hell of a home to eat would "gnaw the broken bones of his last human supper"(417-418). The great Beowulf and his 14 warriors have bee


n called upon to save Hrothgars people and destroy this beast. After devouring one man with ease, Grendel grasped Beowulf and found himself to be at the mercy Beowulf's deadly grip. The battle through the beautiful hall of Herot proved to be successful when "him who of all the men on earth was the strongest"(471-472) defeated the retched beast. Beowulf proved to all that he would back down to no one.

The whole time I was reading this part of the poem I was anxious to find the result of the battle. The translator did an excellent job of capturing the parts of the strophe, which made it so exciting. The way it was described that Grendel "snatched the first Geat... drank the blood from his veins and bolted him down"(421-425) shows how graphic the language is in this poem making it much more exciting. I really became interested in the plot after this strophe because of the vivi

Some common words found in the essay are:
Little Grendel, Beowulf Strophe, , Burton Raffels', strophe 8,

Approximate Word count = 597
Approximate Pages = 2 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English

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