It is the purpose of this paper to illustrate the dichotomy of the Enemy within the works of Beowulf and Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. The Enemies in these two pieces are nothing alike; it would be accurate to say that in the odyssey of Beowulf the Enemy is a tangible, malevolent force which exists in both physical form and in essence (that is to say, for example, a dragon that represents the essence of strength and terror is embodied in a physical, serpentine form), whilst Chaucer depicts the Enemy as human traits such as pride, beauty, and hypocrisy which exist within the human being. The Enemy exists in Beowulf as evil which has taken shape and in The Canterbury Tales as the evil within the character of the mortal soul.

In Beowulf the Enemy, first known to us as Grendel, is introduced as "a powerful demon, a prowler through the dark" (86). Immediately following this brief introduction the text calls the Enemy "A fiend out of hell, / [who] began to work his evil in the world. / Grendel was the name of this grim demon / haunting the marshes, marauding round the heath / and the desolate fens; he had dwelt for a time in misery among the banished monsters, / Cain's clan, whom

the creator had outlawed and condemned as outcasts" (101-107). This passage represents the first of the two evils in this paper: the Enemy in a physical, mortal coil who is terrible in its own right but can be confronted and defeated.

The Enemy in The Canterbury Tales is a far cry from fifty foot fire-breathing winged serpents or demons walking the earth from the time of Cain's transgressions. Chaucer writes of the enemies within us as human beings - the enemies of our soul. He writes of pride, lust, gluttony, avarice, sloth, envy, and wrath. One could also infer that the Enemy in this sense is the destruction of our souls and their damnation to hell (according to Dante's Divine Comedy in which he describes the seven deadly sins and their residence in the realm of Hades). Several of the tales recite the evil within man and the evils that can invade his soul.

Grendel rules in defiance of right, killing men by the scores, until Beowulf faces him in combat. Beowulf says, "Now I mean to be a match for Grendel, / settle the outcome in single combat" (425-426) and "I hereby renounce sword and the shelter of a broad shield, / the heavy war-board: hand-to-hand / is how it will be, a life-and-death / fight with the fiend. Whichever one death fells / must deem it a just judgment by God" (436-441). The Enemy is a demon ("before morning he would rip life from limb and devour them" 730-733) that has, according to the Cain's fallen clan reference, roamed the earth freely for many moons before Beowulf defeats him. Grendel also takes on supernatural qualities - "When they joined the struggle / there was something they could not have known at the time, / that no blade on earth, no blacksmith's / could ever damage their demon opponent" (799-803) - which suggests that the enemy is not only fearsome and deadly, but of another kind of immortality altogether. This is a stark contrast to the Enemy in Canterbury Tales which does not exist in any kind of physical form - pride does not take shape in any of the tales, walking the night, slaugh

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Approximate Word count = 1378
Approximate Pages = 6 (250 words per page double spaced)