Beowulf Part One

Characters:

• Grendel: The monster that terrorizes Heorot. He is marked by God as a descendent of Cain, and thus can't join in human activities. This breeds bitterness and hatred within him and causes him to be a menace in Denmark. He is also Beowulf's first fight, the first monster in the poem.
• Beowulf: The Epic Hero of the poem. He had a pretty average childhood but grew up to be the greatest warrior of all time. However, he wasn't a very good king. He fought three major battles in his lifetime: Grendel, Grendel's mother, and the dragon. He gained more notoriety with each of these battles, but he died while fighting the dragon.
  
• Hrothogar: King of the Danes. Grendel was terrorizing his kingdom, so he accepted help from Beowulf. He gives Beowulf treasure and things, as he's supposed to. Beowulf's father was indebted to Hrothgar, because Hrothgar paid Egctheow's reparations. Hrothgar was a good king as he did whatever it took to protect his people.
  
• Fitela: Sigmund's nephew.
  
• Sigmund:He is a character who slays a dragon in one of the digressions. He is a hero and a great warrior. His story is told to parallel and foreshadow the death of Beowulf during the dragon's fight.
  
• Wulfgar: a herald, renowned for his wisdom. He is the one who originally let Beowulf and the Geats into Heorot.
  
• Heremod: A legendary Danish king who was banished by his people. He fled to the Jutes where he was betrayed, leading to his death. This serves as a sort of warning to Beowulf that he should be a good king or else something like this would happen to him.
  
• Finn: a Frisian lord who married Hildeburh, a Danish princess, as a peace-bride. A scop tells of his war with the Danes, where he eventually dies in his own hall.
  
• Hnaef: He is a Danish warrior, brother of Hildeburh the peace-bride. He is the one who first observes the torches coming from Finn's hall. He fights well in battle but ultimately dies due to kin-killing.
  
• Hengest: He is a Danish lord, and he attacked Finn to avenge Hnaef.
  
• Wealtheow: Queen of the Danes, married to Hrothgar as a peace-bride. She plays a good hostess. She makes a speech about Beowulf's deeds and gives him much treasure. She also makes predictions and warnings about what will happen in the future.
  
• Unferth: thane of Hrothgar. He is a drunken kin-killer who tries to insult Beowulf but just makes himself look stupid instead. He loans Beowulf the sword, Hrunting.
  
• Shield: He is the warrior king who helped to found the Shieldings. He was abandoned as a child, and the poem opens with his funeral. He had a glorious reign and was also the great-grandfather of Hrothgar.
  
• Halfdane: He is Hrothgar's father. He wasn't a bad king, but he wasn't amazing either. He is the son of Beow.
  
• Beow: Beow was the son of Shield and the grandfather of Hrothgar.
  

Literary Terms and Examples of Literary Terms:

• Kenning (3 examples): compound metaphor. Lines 607, 277, 258.
  
• Litotes (2 examples): ironic understatement. Lines 826-827, 764-765.
  
• Flytes (1 example): type of epic insult. Lines 583-606.
  
• Apositive (1 example): building up of phrases. Lines 180-183.
  
• Alliteration (1 example): occurence of same letter or sound. Line 200.
  
• Caesura (definition): break between words, or a pause, within a metrical foot.
• Symbol (2 examples): something that represents something else. The Golden Torque that Wealtheow gives Beowulf is a symbol of the bond between the two peoples. She's doing her job by being a good peace-bride and trying to ensure good relations, so it also refers to the role of women. The banquet after Grendel's death symbolizes the rebirth of peace and harmony for the Danes.
  
• Allusion (3 examples): making references to the past. Lines 99-114, 1260-1268, 1062-1158.
  
• Epic Boast (1 example): to speak with exaggeration or excessive pride about oneself and one's deeds. Lines 408-455.
  
• Epic Hero (definition and how Beowulf fits it): a main character in an epic whose actions are are central to his culture or society. Beowulf is the ultimate epic hero. He is favored by God (or fate, depending on your beliefs about the poem), and is famous and revered. He is seemingly invincible. He uses his extraordinary strength, courage, and abilities to better his own reputation as well as that of his people. He encounters evidently insurmountable odds, yet overcomes them and never fears the imminent threat of death. He also has incredible leadership skills.

Motifs and Themes:

• Exile: Exile is very prevalent in Beowulf. Shield was exiled as a child, but he handled it well. He was adopted and ended up becoming one of the best kings of his time. He used his exile to create a positive future for himself. Grendel, on the other hand, has been exiled by God. He can't take part in human activities. Rather than trying to turn this into a positive thing he goes the opposite way and takes it out on the very people he's exiled from.
  
• Kin Killing: Kin killing was considered the worst sin you could commit in this society. It is impossible to pay reparation for it, because you'd be paying your own family. Therefore, it is impossible to rid yourself of the shame of this crime. The only way to deal with it is to exile the person who did it.
  
• Ambush: Ambush is the only way that Beowulf wins these battles. Grendel thinks he's ambushing Beowulf, but Beowulf knows he's coming. He's faking sleep. Because the element of surprise was removed, Beowulf was able to defeat Grendel. In the second battle, Beowulf defeats Grendel's mother because he ambushes her in her lair.
  
• Wergild and Wyrd: Fate is an ongoing theme in Beowulf. It is showed multiple times. It's more than just a fact, it's the idea that the warriors believe in it which makes it so prevalent in the society. The idea was that fate would take whatever warrior she wanted regardless of the particular fight, so they might as well fight as hard as they could. It was better to die with honor than live with shame. Along those lines is wergild, or blood money. If somebody killed your kin, you expected them to pay you a proper amount. If they didn't, you or any of your family members had the right to kill them without consequences. It helped to preserve the family's honor.
  
• The Role of Kings: The king has an obligation to behave with honor and generosity. He is supposed to seek protection for his people and make sure that they will be okay when he dies. He must provide them with the sanctuary of a mead-hall. He is supposed to do whatever it takes to keep his country and people safe and to promote good warriors.
  
• The Role of Women: Women in Beowulf's society are supposed to keep the peace. They are either brides (i.e. Wealtheow) or monsters (i.e. Grendel's mother). Peace-brides keep up relations between countries, play hostess in the mead hall, and bear sons for their kings. In Beowulf, we see examples of a good woman (Wealtheow) as well as bad ones such as Hildeburh. When a country falls, it can usually be related back to something the bride did wrong. Women who don't succeed in this are considered evil.
  
• The Role of Warriors: This is one of the major themes in Beowulf. A good warrior displayes more than physical strength (though he has that too). He's about courage and doing what's right, defending his king and country to the death and avenging those who transgress against him. He must always be loyal to his king. It is better to die with honor than to live with shame. In Beowulf, good warriors such as the protagonist are constantly contrasted with bad ones, such as Unferth.
  
• Paganism vs. Christianity: There are many mentions of both God and Fate in Beowulf. All of the characters mention them both. When Beowulf is preparing for the battle with Grendel, he says that God will decide who dies (lines 440-441), but also says that it's up to fate (455). They are both so intermingled, it's hard to tell apart the original story from what was added afterward. The author of Beowulf was a monk, so while he loved the society he was writing about, it's most probably that he added all the Christian references.